Many of my teammates have chronicled on what its been like to be home.  My mind still reels from this past year.  What happened to me?  What did I experience?   Coming home was not supposed to be as difficult for me, I've done this before.  This is not my first time returning from a mission trip.  I mean c'mon, with my history I should have been a pro by now.  But I'm not and this is hard. 

People keep asking me to tell them a good story.  Huh?  About what?  What kind do you want?  My brain scrambles to patch some sembelence of an interesting tale together.  Most often I just draw a blank.  And then there's the quintessential race question: What was your favorite country?  Huh?  All of them?  None of them?  Crap, that's not a hard question, I should be able to answer it.  Eventually 7:30pm rolls around and I can justify putting myself in bed for the next 12 hours to recover.  I miss my team; I miss my squad - reentry is hard.

For your enjoyment here are some:

America Faux Pas to Avoid (that have been committed in recent days):

1. When you see an African American woman wearing a coat with traditional Africa print, it is not acceptable to ask her if she is African.

2. The man on the shuttle bus does not care about your life - probably best to avoid unburdening youreslf to a perfect stranger.

3. Burping is no longer a compliment or polite.

4. Taking napkins from the restaurant for toilet paper - no longer needed and kind of weird.

5. Ditto on stranger's leftover food (Katie!).

6. Throwing toilet paper in the trash instead of the toilet - not needed and also kind of weird.

7. Not tipping the waiter informs them that they are incompetent; a 10 cent tip will not remedy the situation.

8. Beckoning with fingers in downward sweeping fashion just looks weird. 

9. Pointing with your whole hand instead of just one finger, added to the weird category.

10. The nearest empty piece of floor does not qualify as a bed (aka - sleeping on the floor of Target) - not the best option.