Return Home

I am home. I just finished reading the comments from the last post and how lucky I am to have such supportive wonderful friends. I will look forward to sharing pictures and stories in the near future. I think I will be feeling the effects of this trip for a long time to come. Thinking about the wonderful experiences and processing all the that I have done and seen will take time. The journey home was long...much longer that the trip took to get there. These first few days I have decided to focus on being with my girls-completely. I will worry about email, school and the rest of my life in due time, but my focus now is being in the moment with them. The jet lag and return culture shock, as they call it, is a bit more than I expected, so I plan to rest and recover slowly.One of my initial reactions to an expereince I had is interesting though. I was in the airport in Germany and there was an Indian family attempting to purchase tea at a kiosk stand. I watched them struggle through the language barrier and cope with the differences of getting chai in India at a stand vs this stand. The woman serving them was getting very impatient. I know this seems minor, but I felt such empathy, understanding and compassion for them.I wanted to help.It felt good to feel this understanding. One of the goals of the Fulbright program is to promote cross cultural understanding.I think that this was definitely accomplished for me.I have a much deeper appreciation and respect for the different ways in which we all live.
Love,
Mary