Back in America
By David Krueger
I haven’t gotten homesick yet, which is a little surprising. I like Seattle a lot. I love my friends and family. I love my baseball team. I love my television.
However, Sierra Leone has done a wonderful job of keeping me astonished, and busy. I haven’t gotten more than six hours of sleep during a night (minus the 15-hour nap while sick) and between work, visiting with friends and touring the city I haven’t really had time during my first week to get homesick.
While I remain very busy, I finally was hit with a little sliver of homesickness on Friday. In all honesty, it was self-inflicted.
I scheduled a meeting with the public affairs officer at the Embassy of the United States of America. I figured it would be a good idea to introduce myself, plus I was just really curious. I had never been to an American Embassy before.
I knew right away when I pulled up to it that it was going to be a fun trip. After seeing Sierra Leone flags waving all over the streets for the past week, it was nice to see the familiar red, white and blue. I’m not entirely sure how the rules work, but I believe that the embassy is considered United States soil.
That was a cool fact, considering I was thousands of miles away from mainland America.
Once my escort picked me up and I got through security (which is much like airports in the United States, and all over the world) we walked across to the actual embassy. Once in the door I was immediately greeted by some familiar faces. Pictures of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton graced the wall near the entrance to the embassy.
That wasn’t the last time President Obama would make an appearance.
I sat down and had a chat with Mark Carr, the main communications person for the U.S. Embassy in Freetown. I learned about his time in the Peace Corps and that he was from Pennsylvania. He told me about the process of getting a job at an American embassy and, I have to say, if this whole journalism thing doesn’t work out I think that’d be a very fun career path to take.
After the meeting, we walked around the desks near his office and Mr. Carr introduced me to several people that he works with. While meeting the head of the media department I looked over and saw a life-sized cardboard cutout of President Obama.
For the first time in eight days I became homesick.
I don’t actually know President Obama. We’ve never met. But he represents America. He symbolizes my home country. When you see the President of the United States of America, you think about the United States of America.
Back home, the President is everywhere. It’s impossible to escape President Obama’s face. He’s always on television and in the newspapers, just like President Ernest Bai Koroma is here.
On the 4th of July I felt very patriotic, but not really homesick. I had only been gone for about four days.
But now, in the second of 13 weeks, as I walked around the U.S. Embassy, and got a briefing about living in Africa from Mr. Carr, a little homesickness began to set in.
I think that embassies are supposed to have the opposite effect. It seems like they’re supposed to make you feel at home in a foreign land, rather than get homesick while abroad.
They also have really fast internet that you can use.
The homesickness has since subsided, and I am back to being too busy to have time to reminisce about home. I’m sure that it will again creep up on me when I least expect it sometime in the next 12 weeks. But I just say bring it on.
I can always just return to the U.S. Embassy, for a quick visit back to America. I can see my flag, my president and my e-mail inbox.
And they have REALLY fast internet.
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