The air smelled like something different. I had never smelled this back home. It smelt clean? I couldn't quite figure it out. My eyes traveled the busy place. There were people everywhere looking for other people. They all had big bags with them. I imagined, just like my bags, they were filled with clothes and other necessities. I walked and walked trying to find my last name on a piece of brown hard paper
Johnson
Miller
Smith
Williams
All different but I couldn't seem to find 'Balewa'. I could feel my feet itching from wearing this shoes for such a long time. Finally a nice man asked if I was lost and I just smiled and nodded. He was the first person to ask me for help in this new place. Soon enough I was in a big yellow wagon driven by a short chubby man with a dark black beard. He remained me of one of my friend's father back home. Oh how I missed home I could still smell the sweet daisies growing just outside our small home. I could feel the soft dirt beneath my feet or maybe it was just the socks I was wearing.
"So where you going?" the short man said looking back through the mirror.
"Umm well I have the address written here." I said looking down at the paper in my hand. The writing was sloppy but readable. I passed him the small sheet of paper. He grabbed it looking down quickly.
But quickly wasn't quick enough soon enough we fell out of the road and into a small ditch. The wagon was on its side and tears filled my eyes as the sharp pain spread through my small body.

*2 hours later in the hospital*

I opened my eyes but didn't there look at the place with the most pain. But I had to because how was I suppose to find out how much damage was done if I didn't even look. I counted to 3 and looked down. It was all clean and had small metal rectangles coming up my left thigh. I layed my head back trying to forget the pain and focus and something else. I watched the roof taking in every detail from the color stains and the little holes. My head swung up when I heard knocking. A lady came in with papers. She had a big smile plastered on her face like if the world was a big ray of sunshine and she was the reason.
"Hi," she said in the same cheerful voice I imagined.
"Hello," I said not knowing who she was.
"Well I'm your nurse for today. How are you feeling? Do you feel better?" she asked
"I'm feeling good but um what's a nurse?" I answered still kind of confused.
"Oh yes I forget you're new to all this. Well a nurse is a person that looks after you when you visit a hospital. And a hospital is a place you go to if you feel sick or are sick so we can help you." she explained.
I had heard of hospitals before but I had never been in one neither have i been looked after by a nurse.
"Are you gonna stay here with me?" I asked.
"I can if you need me to," she smiled.
"Will you please keep me company?" I said with a weak smile.
"Sure sweety." She took a seat next to me standing up only to get me some snacks. I felt like I wasn’t independent anymore. I felt like a child once again and even though I was I didn’t want to feel like it.
“So you wanna tell me more about yourself?” she said with enthusiasm.
“Sure well I’m from a small village in west Africa and I came to America this morning because I was hoping to learn more about medicine so I could back and help my people,” I explained.
“Oh well that sounds interesting. Why do you wanna learn about medicine? I mean why was it specifically medicine why didn’t you do something more simpler like just bring joy to them?” She furrowed her eyebrows a bit and stared right at me.
“Well I wanted to learn medicine because my mother and father died from a fever and since we didn’t have the medicine and none of us could really help them,” My eyes were watery and my lip bottom lip trembled a bit and I just wanted to hug them again.
The nurse just stayed quiet looking at me with such pity in her eyes and then looking down at her feet but I didn’t want that. In fact it made my blood boil and I balled up my fist. I didn't need or want her pity or anyone else's either. And I guess she noticed that because as soon as she looked back up she instantly changed the subject.
"So how have you liked America so far?" there was a bit more joy in her eyes.
"Well everyone seems friendly and all but I've real only met three people so I can't real judge yet. Also I barely got out of the airport and as soon as I did I ended up waking up to this place, which really wasn't what I was planning at all," I said truthfully.
"Oh," she said glancing down real fast.
"I'm sure you'll love it. Well when you get out of here and see the place and everything," she joked.
"Yeah," We both kinda just sat looking of into the distance since we didn't have much to say.
"So tell me a bit about your culture."
To be fair I thought it was not fun to talk about cultures since it isn’t all that interesting. But i guess it’s not interesting to me since I’ve lived there my whole life.
"Well we value lots of things family and crops and of course cattle but family matters the most to us. For example in my village we say if something happens to one of us then it happens to all of us. We stick up for each other more than anything." I took a breath to allow her to give some feedback.
"That's a lot of loyalty. It's rare to something like that here. Yeah we're loyal to family, at least some people are, but we don't stick up for everyone in the city or neighborhood."
"Oh well it's kinda second nature for us because the village is basically like family now. I mean we grew up together and we've seen each other grow up so we will always stand up for each other."
"Yeah I understand." She said blankly.
"Is it like really different over there?" Her focus was on me and my response.
"Yeah I guess. Over there we walk we don't have this big wagons y'all have over here. We also grow our own food. Before my father died, he was a farmer and my mom was a gatherer. She took me with her to gather berries and spices for food. But other people, mostly the young men and older boys go out and hunt. They hunt anything from a small rabbit to larger things like wild pigs." I said with a smile. I sat up in the bed and waited for her response.
“So do you guys cook it yourself or do y'all take it to a place where they cook it for you?", her hands were up to her chin and she was leaning wide eyed towards me.
"Well depends most of the time the women cook it and serve it but other times we will go to another nearby village and trade them for something we need more. I would help my mom to cook sometimes. She showed me how to skin the pig and how to cook it over a fire so now that I'm older I can cook for my grandpa." I felt like I was speaking to much now so I asked a few questions too.
"How about here does everyone cook for themselves? Does everyone's parents teach them how to cook?", I couldn't wait for her answer. I wanted to know how it was here.
"Well we are completely different. Not that how you guys live is wrong, in fact I kind of like how y'all live. You guys help each other in order to get through the day." She took a deep breath trying to recover from all that talking she did in such a short amount of time.
"I wish it was like that here. Anyways yeah we don't hunt as you can tell most of the people here are lazier than your village. We rather take a car, which is the wagon you spoke of, instead of walking. We don't hunt and cook our own food. We actually go to a supermarket and buy the meat already prepared we just need to cook it." She just sorta smiled not much action came from her other than sitting back a bit on the chair.
"Also we don't cook over fires, we cook on stoves. But in some restaurants, which is something I forgot to mention, they will cook it over fire but not an open fire. And a restaurant is a place you go when it's a special day and no one wants to cook. But if it's not a special day and you don't wanna cook you just buy at a fast food restaurant." She giggled a bit before saying the next line right afterwards.
"Sorry I love to talk." She giggled again.
"It's okay, I love learning new things and what were you saying about fast food restaurant?" I said curiously.
"Well they don't really qualify as a restaurant but basically you go and just order through a mic and someone inside will prepare your order so you don't have to get out and they'll pass it to you through a window. It's very lazy of us I know but sometimes we're in a rush to watch a new episode of pretty little liars." She laughed at her last sentence and I just kinda went with it and laughed too.
"Wow that's really is different.", I laughed a bit after that too. A knock came from the door and the nurse, whose name I didn't even ask, said come in. The door opened and another nurse came in dressed like the nurse in the room with me.
"Hey Jane they need you at the front desk." She said before leaving the room.
"Well kiddo I guess I'll see you later.", she stood up and started walking towards the door.
"Hey" I yelled before she closed the door to leave.
"Yeah?" She opened the door a bit more.
"You never told me your name." I said smiling.
"Oh yeah I'm Jane.", she giggled.
"How about you?" ,she asked me.
"Amara”
As she walked out the door I realized that I had just made my first friend in this new world