Miss you already

We've been home for two days now and even though our trip is over I still thought I would make one last blog. Since we have been home I have enjoyed seeing my friends and family but it has also been hard to be back. I was watching a movie with my little sister yesterday afternoon and one of the scenes a man dies, his flesh melts away, and all that is left of him were his bones. I found myself feeling very scared, sad, and having flash backs to some of the memorials we seen in Rwanda. I sat there in silence and didn't express to my family what I was mentally going through. Not because they wouldn't listen but because some of the things we seen at the various memorials are very hard to put into words. As a group we had multiple conversations regarding how do we begin to explain what we learned or experienced on our journey. We talked about how it is hard to explain everything we experienced due to these encounters being very emotional and hard to grasp.

Another experience I had yesterday included one of my friends telling me how my trip looked so exciting and fun because we got to see the gorillas, but what people forget to remember was yes those were fun and exciting things to do but that was not our main purpose we learned and experienced so much more. It is not her fault because those were the only images she had seen me post on social media. I encourage others to remember there were lots of things we experienced that we did not post images of for the respect of viewers and the families that lost friends and family members buried in the various memorials. I encourage our family and friends to understand it may take some time for us to process what we learned and experienced on this trip and it is hard to talk about but to remember that ever single experience we had enriched our learning every step of the way and I will never regret any of the experiences we had.

I am very thankful for each and every one of my peers that was on this trip. Every single person on our trip brought their own personality and added to an amazing experience. I enjoyed the fact that no matter what we were experiencing happy or sad times we always supported each other. I also want to say thank you to Professor Embser-Herbert and Caroline for being our fearless leaders and supporting us throughout this entire trip. I miss you all so much it has been weird waking up and not having breakfast together.