Back in America

After a journey that included having to jump through hoops to leave Senegal and America not greeting me warmly, I am happy to report that I made it home in one piece. My trip included spending the night at the airport in Minneapolis/St. Paul and being thankful for the worker who pointed me to the observation room. It was a quiet and a peaceful place to spend my night before heading home! Although I was first disappointed that I wouldn’t make it home right away, I was lucky to have some time to reflect on my time abroad and how this experience has impacted my life. I am sorry to report that there has been no reverse cultural shock yet except for wondering why the JFK airport doesn’t have WIFI and getting a cart to push your bags cost $5.  I did miss my family’s cooking and I am making up for the lost time. As I adjust to my old life and as I head back to Trinity, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I have been warned that after my year abroad, I will be bored in Boise and Hartford. Once again, I’ll figure all this out as time goes on. Between now and the start of the school year, I will continue to update this blog with more stories from my time abroad. I will finish up stories about my time in Senegal and then move on to draw connections between the cities I visited and some of the concepts I studied in my courses. I have also started a page that specifically looks at the research I was doing this summer. As always, there’ll be a mixture of serious issues as well as funny events since terrible things seem to happen without me even trying to do anything. I apologize for the long break without any blog posts and I appreciate everyone who keep ups with the adventures of this Congolese-American.