The moon was yellow. A huge light bulb that lit up the grey mist sky. Hot, humid, and still early, my two sisters and I piled into my dad’s old, white Toyota truck. Dust kicked up behind us as we drove out of the iron gates and onto the brown dirt road. Dad swerved a pot hole, and we continued, passing vendors, beggars, homeless thieves, and hungry orphans. The sight would make you cry, if you haven’t seen it every morning for five years. It was May. I was twelve. The next day, my parents, my sisters, and I would board a British Airways flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. The next day, I would never see my home again.

My parents had moved us to Malawi, Africa when I was seven. I had only been in America for a year. Before, we had been in Nigeria. Now, we were expecting to leave after three months of deputation. I was expecting to see my best friends, Esther and Inez, three months later. Instead, it has been three years. I am fifteen now, and I have not seen my friends, my school, my teachers. I have not seen our dogs, my sister cat, my bedroom, or the twenty-two Barbies I left lying on my bed. I have not seen the pit where we burned our trash, or the huge rock that jutted from the ground, the one I had played on every day for 1826 days. I have not seen, but I have missed, the guards at our gate, the students my parents taught to be pastors.

I have seen almost two thousand sunsets in Kentucky. I have seen 8,000 students at my new high school. I have seen one car accident, hundreds of church services, thirteen friends, many teachers, and two new homes.

I miss the dirt roads, but I didn’t then. I hated those roads. I hated the school. I hated that I never got to eat at a McDonalds. I was not in love with Africa like I am now. I have realized what I miss the most. I miss it all. I have realized that I didn’t know what I had. I know now.

My name is Emily. I am fifteen. I grew up in the southern hemisphere. I am an African child. And I will never see my home again.

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