National Geographic

When I was young, I used to collect National Geographic magazines. When my mom and grandmother would go hunting for bargains at garage sales, I would aim straight for the boxes of old magazines, digging for National Geographics.

The best collection of National Geographics were at the Pflugerville Public Library… at the time, it was a nothing but a small old house. I think this might have been my first library card, too. I found it again last summer while we were packing and throwing stuff away before moving to Cairo. It’s yellow cardstock with my name typed in with a typewriter and a metal clasp with a three digit number. The National Geographics in the Pflugerville Public Library took up an entire wall in the small house and I used to dig through them for reference material for papers in my science and social studies classes.

As I collected my own National Geographics, I would sit for hours, reading about different animals, feeding my love of killer whales. The pictures would take me to different places in the world, as I would stare, fascinated at the photos of places and people I had never seen and never expected to see. I would carefully unfold the maps, wishing there was enough room on my walls for all of them, then carefully fold them back up and slide them into their respective magazines.

Recently, while trying to cultivate my refugee students own spirit of inquiry, I pulled out the stack of old National Geographics that the school had on a shelf and I told them to start hunting for interesting science articles. As I thumbed through the magazines myself, however, I came across a familiar sight: saguaro cacti adorning a hillside. The old article on the Sonoran Desert was full of familiar sites: Speedway Boulevard in Tuscon, the dance troupe of old women in Sun City, a saguaro cactus being delivered to a new home in Mesa.

I stood there, not dreaming of a far away land, but instead missing the place I call home.