Nowhere Boy

Ahmed’s Omega Seamaster watch is a motif that represents family and safety. Baba gives Ahmed the Seamaster watch before his apparent drowning. Ahmed knows that his great-grandfather gave the watch to Baba when he was young. However, after Ahmed’s father has apparently drowned, the watch is the only thing that he has left of Baba or of any of his family members. Every time Ahmed looks at the watch, he thinks of his father and his family. When Ahmed does not know what to do, he looks at the watch, even though “the Seamaster offer[s] no answers” (18). Ahmed protects the watch at all costs because it reminds him of his father and the safety that he felt while his father still wore the watch. When Ermir tries to take the Seamaster from Ahmed as added payment for smuggling him, Ahmed tries to “shield it from Ermir’s greedy eyes” (30), but when that does not work, he chooses to jump out of a moving vehicle and run from Ermir rather than part with the watch. When Ahmed and Baba reunite at the end of the novel, Ahmed tries to give his father his watch back, but “Baba refasten[s] it around his wrist” (330), telling him to keep it.