Coming home… being back in the United States is truly like that, coming home. It is a place where every one understands where you come from, what you are used to, and in general how you live. I see everyone in big houses, even the small ones are big to me now. I see the majority of people living in luxury. TV’s, and stereos, and cars, and fast food, and spare money for whatever. I see the difference in what is the norm for my country, compared to the other places I have lived. Stores filled with 20 types and brands of the same things. More of everything than I can imagine. And then I look closer. I see that people are always busy and in a hurry. I see that no one ever looks me in the eye as they rush by. I see little human contact and fewer smiles. Huge tall buildings and polluted air. Billboards, and phone lines, and chains of the same stores and fast food places stare at me on every other corner. I guess I just don’t belong here anymore. I don’t feel it like someone who has been truly poor, or repressed, and then comes here as sees these very things as god-sent. I see it as someone who has had these things and lived this way and aches for a different life. I am not saying I’ve given up the luxuries, just that I have taken them somewhere else. And the difference is… now they are not the norm, they are luxuries.

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