I once received a letter from one of my former freshmen as she started a part time job at an international tutoring program. She had just come across a journal she had kept for my class years before.  

My anxiety surfaced during a family council meeting a few days before we boarded a 17-hour train for our move across China. I then faced my 15-year-old's rebuke: “But, Mom, didn’t you say that you were willing to leave without knowing where we wer...

We packed up twenty-two suitcases. We sold what we could. We said too many goodbyes and cried lots of tears. We bought a house in the new place. We longed for Egyptian street food. We began to learn a different way of living.  

I stepped off the plane four days ago. I am home. Coming back from the USA, my eyes see things differently here. The muddy roads littered with rubbish and overgrown grass. The oppressive heaviness of the humidity. The negative side of humanity, se...