Home again, home again

It's been a week since our return to the US from Africa. From home to home and, now, back home again...

While I've yet to recover fully from the experience (it was high drama, even after getting back to JFK. The short version... I was taken by bus to my plane to DC after the door had closed, and my and Nijeul's luggage was in my recycle bin the next morning!) I have been able to reflect on the experiences Summer Study Abroad provides Howard students. The blog, to which I must admit I was a doubting Thomas!, helped in that regard. I read the posts all along, but I reread them one day last week while sitting in my office (I got 9 hours sleep, and off to work I went).

Since it was registration week, and I've yet to settle into my new position as Dept Chair, I used the blog one day as a refuge. While staring blankly at my computer screen, trying to figure out how to place 1600+ incoming Freshmen in 64 or so sections of Freshman English (capable of seating 1300 students at best), I saw pictures of the Kemet Krew flash across the screen. So, I clicked, and to the blog I came.

I remembered that I had started writing a long piece on our last night in Cairo, but for the life of me, I couldn't find it to finish and post it. (Someone in the A bldg used his/her powers to make me focus, I suppose). Then, I thought perhaps not finding it was for the best since the kids joked daily (especially Mariah) about how long-winded both Doc and I were on the blog and elsewhere. You should have seen some of the sentences we co-constructed to begin to unravel our thematic considerations! But by the last two class days, the students were all equally long-winded (well, almost), as they constructed their narratives for the day-by-day "virtual tour" video. They began to see that complex ideas often require complex-compound sentences! As soon as Brittani the video, we'll post it too.

Earlier today, I snuck a peak at some of the video interviews Toria and Shelley conducted (Shelley's final paper for her grad class at Drexel investigates ways to get more African Americans to study abroad), and I was reminded why I give up two crucial weeks of the summer (the 4 weeks of prep don't seem to count except when deadlines for my own writing & research are inevitably missed) to journey to the Continent with how ever many fellow Bison (and honorary Bison) are so inclined.

At the risk of being held to it, I say, here's to next year, & here's to home, in all its manifestations... here, and all over the world...