Wednesday, July 22, 2009

New Orleans, Louisiana

I arrived in New Orleans, La. on Aug. 14, 1998, after a 35-hour bus ride from New York.

Nicole and her husband picked me up from the Greyhound bus station in downtown New Orleans. It was about 2:00 a.m., two hours behind scheduled arrival time. I had travelled through ten U.S. states* and changed six buses en route. I had $20 to my name.

Nicole and I met in Harare three years earlier while she was in Zimbabwe as an exchange student. We stayed in touch and she wrote me an invitation letter which I needed as part of my visitors’ visa application process.

I lived with Nicole and her husband for about six weeks and then I moved in with her mom, whom I would also call mom to this day. Nicole’s family became my adoptive family.

They have been wonderful to me.

*New York-New Jersey-Delaware-District of Columbia-Virginia-North Carolina-Tennessee-Georgia-Alabama-Mississippi-Louisiana.

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