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Fast-forward three years after walking home that night with my sister. I decide to leave my job and my tiny apartment in New York to volunteer with Birthright Armenia and experience the country this time on my own. Three flights, two days, and one hotel later, I am in Zvartnots Airport at the customs window staring at a border control officer whose gaze jumps frantically from my passport photograph to my face. “You are Tamar?” she asks, in a condescending tone. What she meant was “I am finding it difficult to believe that the Tamar I see in this photograph and the Tamar in this airport have continuity of experience and are, in fact, the same person.” I don’t blame her for her skepticism. Sometimes, I look at old photos and have trouble recognizing my former feminine self. She stares some more, maybe to check my features against my photograph taken seven years ago, maybe to make me feel like I’ve shamed my entire nation, and then stamps the page slowly, deliberately, without breaking eye contact. “Welcome home,” say the walls of Zvartnots.
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