From Home to Home

It all started with an email.

“Dear Nadine, congratulations! You have been accepted into the Applied Data Science program.”

Everything after that feels like a blur.

I remember the excitement. I remember trying to figure out what I needed to pack. And I remember the day it suddenly became real — the day I stood there saying goodbye to my whole family, knowing I was about to get on a plane and move across the world.

Somehow, I had to fit my life into two suitcases.

Two suitcases for a journey that would take more than 20 hours. Two suitcases filled with clothes, little pieces of home, and whatever I thought I might need for this completely unknown chapter ahead of me.

At the time, I wasn’t thinking about how much my life was about to change. I was thinking about getting through the airports, keeping track of my bags, surviving that ridiculously long flight, and eventually making it to graduate school in America.

I was leaving Zimbabwe — my family, my routines, everything familiar — and heading somewhere I had never lived before.

And somehow, all of it started with one email.