As a child I watch my grandmother cook food smell of country, planting vegetable gardens and walks to market and sarcasm and tough love and flowers and tea. We have all dispersed into wild. Leaving a country behind that no longer feels like our own. My grandmother has become the only sense of country we know. A month ago, family gathered in the same living room, in half-light sharing memories and photographs and arguments and heartbeats. No one tells you this will be the last

I arrive to Nakuru. It is extremely cold here. I was not mentally or physically prepared for the cold temperature. No one tells you it is this cold in Africa. You think of Kenya, a land of the Masaai and wildlife and fruits and warmth, never cold nights and naked trees and sweaters and grey skies. The drive to Nakuru was magnificent with beautiful scenery and sunshine. At the orphanage, beyond the gates I witness children and smiles and welcoming and excitement. I gather my l

I wake up this morning to the sound of school children and the milk vendors on donkeys and sunshine peaking through the window. I have been in Khartoum for five days. It is all weddings and photographs and laughter and last minute shopping and cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Wanting to get away from the chaos, I grab my camera and silently leave through the backdoor. I go for a walk with no purpose. No destination. No place to be.  I walk through the neighborhood I grew up

I met Emmanuelle over a year ago at university. She was an international student from Paris. I had just returned from my study abroad in Tanzania. With a big heart, a genuine smile and a beautiful mind that resembles her eyes we become friends instantly. This summer, I coordinate my flight to briefly stop in Paris enroute to Africa. I never understood the charms of this place. The films, books, romantic novels and the cultural hype behind it. Never truly cared to ever visit.

Last night, over ginger tea and chapati bread a friend asks me why I am always packing and leaving. I could blame it on my father’s stillness, my mother’s disappointments, but I tell her that I am searching for a part of me that I haven’t found yet. Perhaps I never found a reason to stay.  I soak bread in tea and listen to my friend tell childhood stories about her favorite city in Virginia. About the time she ate french fries drenched in ketchup in the park with her father a

Wamasai Shule ya Msingi translates to Massai Primary School. Last summer (2012), Georgetown University granted me the opportunity to spend three months in Tanzania. It was an overwhelming experience. I learned to speak a language that almost tastes as sweet as my mother tongue. I fell in love with the food, the history, the weather, and found comfort in the hearts of people who became the only sense of family in a foreign country. Tanzania will always have a special place in

When I returned to the U.S back in August from my four months of travels, landing in JFK New York City, I stood there with my checked bag, dressed in my African attire, passport in one hand, while holding my grandmother’s prayer beads in the other, waiting for the bus to take me home. I took a deep inhale allowing the city’s air find its way back into my lungs just enough to remind me the feeling of being home. At that moment home felt like a foreign concept. I thought four m

My undergraduate career has finally come to an end. I searched the web on "how to survive in the real world" and learned that no one has really figured it out yet. Reflecting on the past four years I am suddenly overwhelmed by sadness, happiness, frustrations—it was not an easy journey. These four years in life shaped my character in ways I would have never considered. I've become aware of what makes me upset, what calms me up and what motivates me to keep going. I've learned