..it became her

You know how when something horrible happens, there's that person who is always like... think of the positive. I watched a movie, which I am sure most of my fellow Black Americans have seen, "Why Did I Get Married". No I did not go and get eloped, there was an activity that Diana did that has gotten me through some things. She was told to make a list of all the good and bad that her husband has done. If the good outweighed the bad, she needed to get it together and move on. If the bad outweighed the good... oooo chile. So as I come to a close for my grant year, I made a list of all the good and the bad that has happened to me while away from home. Now, I am not going to bore you with lines upon lines of everything, but I am going to pull out the main things. Because here's the thing, I never in my lil 24 years of life thought I would be in the middle of Macedonia typing a blog post. This country has for sure put a huge dent in a lot of things for me, but ima go to the autobody shop and get these dents taken care of.

La Dent: Racism

Now this opens up a lot for me that I would rather not go over again and again. (Please read previous blog posts). I have been hurt and broken down to a point I never thought I would have been. I have always felt I was pretty confident in everything that I did. But moving here and being harassed almost on a daily basis made me go into this shell that I never knew existed. But, although this crap happened to me in reality it solidified things for me. Like, now I understand that the media is no help at all when it comes to the representation of Black women. Why is it that when I let people know I already have my Master's they don't want to believe me, even though Black women are graduating from college at a higher rate than anyone else!? It's because the media doesn't want to show that. How dare they show how intelligent we are. I came here young, but quite degreed and people here could not conceptualize that. So now I know what I need to focus my PhD on. The revolution must be televised. We can no longer accept the way we are treated by the media. Living in this country has put me in a time machine back to the 50s and 60s where being black is just not accepted. Racism sucks and as I make my transition back to the United States I refuse to continue to live like that.

It all boils down to people wanting to be Black until it's time to be Black. You are not allowed to listen to music made by people that look like me and then turn around and talk down to me. You are not allowed to make fun of my lips and then turn around and get lip injections. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GET A TAN AND THEN TURN AROUND AND LAUGH AT ME BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF MY SKIN. Now everyone here has not been horrible to me.

La Good:

I have met people here that I plan to stay in touch with for years to come. From the women in our Black Girl group, to the Peace Corps Volunteers, to the ONE Fulbright grantee here who has been honestly the best since pre-departure orientation (Alex), to the people who are from here who are the most precious individuals I have ever met. I have been able to sorta kinda learn two new languages, which I honestly don't know where I will use them, but it's nice to know. Last year my house was robbed and my passport was taken, so I had to get a brand new one. My passport looks like I collect stamps for a living. I have been given severa names that all boil down to being a transcontinental auntie. I love to travel and I have been able to do that without a problem. I flew to London to go see my favorite artist for half the price it would take me to fly from Omaha to L.A. When I tell you the traveling has taken away the pain and suffering, I am so happy. I am in love with all of the adventures that I was able to take and the food, don't get me started on the food I have put in my stomach lol. My body is happy.

The most important good that outways the bad has been my students. I would not have stayed in this country if it wasn't for them. The reason I came to this country was to teach and no amount of crap from people was going to stop me. Their improvement in their English has been amazing to watch and their confidence has been monumental. When I tell you I was going to pack up and go home in January because I was TIRED of being treated like crap in public, y'all. But who was I to take away the learning from students who had no part in the crappiness?

I came to teach and that's what I planned to do.

This experience has really become me. No longer am I upset at the bad things, but grateful.