Like Shoving 5 Months of Life through the Eye of a Needle

That’s how it feels when friends ask:
How was Africa?

I know that they’re curious, they care, and they remember where I was. And I have so much to say!

The thing is though, most of the time friends ask in the few minute before a class starts, or while we’re both walking home from a late night meeting, or at a party over loud music and flip cup cheering. So the best I can do, when asked to mentally jerk back three months and some 8,000 miles to my time in Ghana, is to spit out one of three soundbytes:

It was so much fun!
Amazing, challenging, different than I expected.
I felt really white for the first time, more aware of my skin than I ever have before.

‘How was Africa’ - is there better way to put that question? my friend Monisha asks. Maybe, but I understand why it comes out that way. I just wish I had a better answer.

All too often, all of Africa gets represented as either bloody, poor or starving. And all of that is true. But so much more is true, so much more emerges as true from just one 5-month stint in one city in one country in one region of Africa.

So even if I already answered your “How was Africa?” query once, give me a second chance. Let me try answering your question again.