Oh Jah! South Dakota

In Uganda, when a young college graduate loses her job and is broke, she goes back home. Home is where your extended family is, where there is always a second cousin or an uncle or a grandparent to stay with and help out. In Uganda, when an astoundingly successful person finishes her career, she buys land and a house at “home” and cares for nieces, nephews and elderly relatives. I don’t know if I succeeded or failed; if I am choosing this or have no other choices, but I have also gone home to my people. I stay with my grandparents who refuse to let me pay for anything and want me to focus on school. I will stay with my cousin this summer, whose husband is an internal medicine specialist supervising USD medical students. Yes I wonder if I should go to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Yes I wonder if, in this state of 800,000, I could ever meet people to connect to. Yes, I am very annoyed that The Economist is taking so long to be delivered. Yes, my yearly habit of crying has become weekly. Yes, sometimes I wonder what the heck I’m doing. It is especially hard that those in my age group have such vastly different lives and outlooks. My people, however, my family; get it. They have me whether they wanted to or not. And I’ve got them.