This is nala...one of the animals that i live with.

As I have less than a month to go here, I have been thinking a lot about leaving. I’m a little worried about the reverse culture shock. I know being here has changed me yet I don’t think I know just how, or how much, until I’ve been back. I’m currently reading a book by Alexandra Fuller titled “Scribbling the Cat”. She is a white Zimbabwean who moved the US in her twenties. I read a passage recently from her book and I think she articulated how I’m feeling, or what I’m worried about (words in italics have been changed to make relevant for me):

"It should not be physically possible to get from the rolling mountains of Malkerns to Halifax in less than two days, because mentally and emotionally it is impossible. The shock is too much, the contrast too raw. We should sail or swim or walk from Africa, letting bits of her drop out of us, and gradually, in this way, assimilate the excesses and liberties of Canada in tiny, incremental sips, maybe touring up through South America and Mexico before trying to stomach the land of the Free and the Brave."