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"Al watan is Arabic for the homeland, but it is also much more than that. The depth of the sentiment it carries is much stronger. Because the watan lies precisely in that place where pain and warmth meet. Longing is not separable from fleeing. Al watan is their burning house. It has no physical site.

I enter the homeland through the stories of my father, through the stories of my grandmother, through these moments in which they reconstruct it for me and themselves. I enter through these moments in which they temporarily rebuild the house. The stories of my grandma mend my fractured experience of home." My watan is not a burning house, it is my grandmother’s home.