Leaving a country isn't always the hardest part. Sometimes the biggest challenge is learning to live as though the place that raised you no longer matters. For years, I didn’t want to talk about Africa. I never actually said those words out loud. But that's exactly how I felt. At seventeen, I arrived in America—my parents' passport country—with two suitcases and a lifetime of memories that no one around me seemed to understand. I had left behind my family, my friends, my scho