My Journey Between Continents: Cultural Insights and Personal Growth

 Title: My Journey Between Continents: Cultural Insights and Personal Growth

Hi, my name is Jibril, im currently going into my junior of highschool in a month and had some free time. I think now is the best time to write about this. Im starting a blog to open up about my experiences moving from Washington DC to West Africa. I am going to try to post fairly often, as this can help people who might be going through same experiences as me. I will be talking about experiences i had, my life there, and the main purpose of this blog: Mental health. 

It was 6th grade, march 2019. I had just joined the school baseball team, which was a huge achievement for me because that was my 3rd sport i played (basketball, soccer). We had our first game on friday. Coach released the line-ups, and i was starting at short stop. I was so happy, and my parents were so proud. We went to cheesecake factory that night and celebrated. I had my favorite, the grilled cheese sticks stacked on top of each other, which ketchup on the side. Of course i had to end the night off with their famous oreo cheesecake, which i finished all by myself. Little did i know, I was never going back to that school ever again. Me and my dad were walking in georgetown, when he got a notification, it said orange county, in California, has been hit with covid. My dad

told me it would get here in no time, but would not be too serious. 

We got an email. Covid-19 hit the city and we were going to start online school. Now little 6th grade me ignored this, I was focused on the baseball game we had. "Mom, what about the game? What did they say?". "Im sorry honey, but there is no more game". I still remember, to this day, how much i cried. Me and my dad went to the park for hours that night to play baseball, and that made me feel much better. Weeks passed by, it was like vacation for me at first. One morning i woke up and went to watch TV downstairs with my bowl of frosted flakes cereal, only to see my mom and dad looking at the TV in shock. It was serious, there was lockdown placed in my city and we were told not to go outside and if we did to wear masks. My parents were so scared, it made me feel uneasy. My dad ended up leaving the house to stock up on groceries, and when he was back, he told us the grocery store was full of people and almost emptied out. We stayed inside for 2 weeks, not even going to check the mail. My parents told me of something similar happening in the early 2000's i believe, but it was never this big. Everyday, the news had developments, covid was spreading very fast, and the death toll was increasing by the day. 

Days, weeks, months passed by, and i was doing online school on zoom. Now this required me to use my device, which was my ipad, from 8am all the way to 3pm. This affected me very negatively, as i developed some sort of migraines. I had intense headaches and would often cry so much to the point where my mom started to tear up as well. This was a very hard time for me as i could not focus on school. My migraines, combined with covid not letting us leave the house without a risk, made my condition worsen. It got so bad I stopped doing online courses. All my friends were asking how i was doing, and I did not even have the strength to respond. I went to the childrens hospital to get an MRI scan, which the first time, i squeezed the little object they gave me, because it was so tight and i was so scared. I had to come back another time to get anesthesia and redo theMRI scan, which went well. They had identified what the problem was, and I got prescribed the medicine. I started to feel better and better. 

Then, some of the biggest news of my life came to me. 

My dad told me we were moving to Abidjan, Ivory Coast.