America the Beautiful

This is a very late post and will have to be a quick one, but I wanted to just thank everyone I got to see and everyone I talked to while I was home. I spent all of Ramadan (end of May to end of June) at home going to New York City, Boston, Sudbury, St Louis, Rochester NY, and Long Beach Island NJ. Some volunteers have a hard time going back to America. The transition can be jarring, the abundance or lifestyle of Americans can be overwhelming. Sometimes people in America can be insensitive to your experience or even rude about the people and places that have become so dear to you. I am so thankful to have kind, sensitive, supportive, intelligent friends and family who have truly taken the time to read what I write here, follow my experience on Facebook, do their own research on Senegal, and ask me great, kind questions. They also listened to my culture shock as I came home ("the streets of Brooklyn are so clean! Oh my goodness, your air conditioning is so fancy!"), went on all the excursions I was set on doing (special thank you to Sarah, my constant partner in crime), were patient through my rambling stories, and took time out of their busy lives to be with me. I truly appreciate the community I have at home, and the love and support I felt from everyone while I was there was overwhelming. It was incredibly hard to leave. This time next year I will be home though, so I needed to come back and make the most of the year (or less) that I have left.