Sitti and my mother ululated as the van pulled in front of the house. After a moment Hamdi and Fay unfolded their tall selves out, followed by kisses and tears and cousins and neighbors and shouts.

Hamdi came over and lifted me up for kisses. I didn’t know him except from pictures, but he was so familiar, maybe because he wears a little of my mother’s face on his. He was very tall, taller than my father, and his wife, Fay, was almost as tall as he is. I had never met an American before, and I felt shy in front of her smooth, white face. She had kind eyes, though, and when she came over and gave me kisses on both cheeks, followed by a big, squeezing hug, I could see that she was nervous too. My mother was greeting Fay and I held her hand as we walked up to the house.

This day was so nice, filled with food and stories and shyness and English. Fay sat next to me when she could, and Hamdi kept telling my mother that I looked just like her. It was strange having our house filled with a language I didn’t understand.

I had forgotten about the present I was waiting for, when Uncle Hamdi called to me from downstairs. “Mawal, come help me with something.”

I ran down the stairs, and there at the bottom was a beautiful red bicycle with white handlebars and a giant pink bow on the white seat.

“Is that for me!”

My uncle, my father, Fay, and Sitti were all smiling at me.

“Look at me,” my mother said from behind me. When I turned around a flash of light went off.

“A camera?” I asked.

“This is my present from Uncle Hamdi and Auntie Fay,” she said, smiling.

I kissed my uncle and Fay and thanked them. Then I went to the bike and sat on the seat. My feet reached the ground. It seemed as though it had been made for me. I couldn’t believe they had brought me this beautiful bicycle. I don’t think there was a single girl in the whole village who had a bicycle, a real, metal bicycle.

“You will probably learn how to ride it in a day or two because you’re such a smart girl,” Uncle Hamdi told me.

We stood at the head of the driveway that leads to Sitti’s house.

“You climb on and I will hold the back until you get your balance,” my uncle said.

I did as I was told. Pedaled, pedaled slowly with my uncle walking behind me, holding tight, and my mother click click clicking her lovely new Minolta instant focus camera.

I couldn’t believe this. I felt so happy. Everyone, even Sitti, took turns holding the back of the seat for me—and for the other kids—and running as we picked up speed.