Scared to go home.

It was a typical day. I was driving home.  Then, a protest erupted. Protesters were about to throw Molotov cocktails directly in front of my car. My car would have caught fire! My kids were in the car. It was frightening.

Yes, I could have been a casualty; so could have my kids. I knew, however, they did not intend or desire to hurt us. Often, the protesters used Molotovs to garner the attention of leaders. It was the Arab Spring. We lived in the Middle East.

I knew I could ask protesters to let us pass unharmed. Getting their attention was both the hard part and the scary part because what if I was not able to get their attention? Thankfully I had an operational car horn, which caught their attention. I signaled to them that I needed to get through and gestured to the backseat where my kids sat. The protesters nodded and gestured for us to wait a moment. They put down their explosives, removed some of the barriers they’d set up, and helped us navigate around others so we could leave the area safely. It was like they were playing baseball in the street and needed to move the bases so my car could pass. It was wild.  Given that their point wasn’t to hurt anyone, it was to garner attention, it wasn’t surprising.

It is surprising, however, that I feel scared right now. I have lived in regions rife with sociopolitical challenges but, for me, this is different. I guess it’s personal.

Just a few days from now the family and I are boarding a plane to visit home, the United States. In light of recent tragedies (e.g. Orlando, Dallas) and the divisiveness that fuels them, I’m scared. I’ve never been scared to go home not even when I lived in rough neighborhoods.

There have been protests where we will visit. More will occur while we are there. It seems possible that these protests could end in violence, perhaps in gunfire. This is not a preposterous concern. It has occurred and has the potential to occur again. The part that’s the most scary to me, is that the intent of these perpetrators is that someone, anyone gets hurt. It wasn’t like that where we were during the Arab Spring.

With heavy hearts, we had to give our children the same safety talk for a visit home as we gave them during the Arab Spring.  As a person who loves her country, it’s deeply shameful and heartbreaking. As a parent of TCKs, what does this mean for my kids who will one day repatriate?