Homecoming

Today, I'm coming home. I will arrive tomorrow at JFK airport, the same place I began this journey, almost eight months later.

I caught a one way flight and moved to Kenya for six months. I slept in the bush next to elephants and rode on the back of a motorbike across the cradle of humankind. I feared for my life in a dodgy Mombasa hostel, and taught school children Math and Science. I worked and lived amidst the street kids of Kibera, and watched my orphan toddlers grow up. I traveled to Rwanda during the genocide anniversary, and saw the churches where thousands were murdered. I went white water rafting down the mighty Nile past Ghandi's ashes, and turned 25 in a cottage in the Ngong Hills. I moved in with a popular artist, then moved to Cape Town, South Africa. I swam with Great White sharks, I climbed mountains, I got a job as a waitress in a cafe bar. And then...it was time to come home.

"...I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength to know that you are there. I covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us...all the while I will know that you are there. How blessed are we to have each other?"

--Valentino Achak Deng, What is the What

Maybe I inspired you, maybe I entertained you, or maybe I taught you something not about me, but about yourselves. Either way, I thank you for being there with me. And I hope next time you're faced with a decision, you might just think again, and decide you're not afraid to jump.