One week.

One week. One week until I depart Uganda and arrive in the US. One week until I leave the place I have called home for five months and return to the place I have called home for 22 years. One week. And though the majority of my life has been spent in the place that I'm returning to, the five months spent in this place where I am soon leaving will affect the rest of my life. I'm just not quite sure how.

The time of reconciliation is approaching, and I don't know how it will work out. No doubt what I see and experience here and what I see and experience at home are very different, in every aspect. And before coming here, it was easy to accept that. It was easy to look at what I had, see what people here didn't, and feel compassion for them. And it was easy to try to reconcile the two worlds--it was easy to believe that the children here should have every privilege I had growing up and to think that with the help that we give the people here, peace and prosperity was just around the corner. But it's not. And it's not easy. And being here has made me realize that we're far from the same, and it's not necessary to be the same.

I've been here for 22 weeks and in this last week, that's all I know. People might expect me to bring back a lot of answers to how to help these people--on how to salvage this devastated continent. The few answers that I might have are all ones that have been heard before, yet still Africa remains in this tattered state. The only thing I can bring back that might be something new and authentic is myself--what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've felt. And so I return attempting to reconcile these two worlds--these two lives and experiences--with the same questions all of you still have and less answers to them than I had when I arrived.