There's No Place Like Home!!

Studying abroad is a great experience that I am glad to have the chance to go through. Despite all the positive things that come with it, studying abroad also has some negativity that us international students feel. One of these negativities is feeling homesickness. As a Kuwaiti Student in The United states of America, 7957 miles away from home, I mostly feel homesick during social, national, and religious events that take place back in Kuwait. With the use of Social media such as instagram, I am able to see what I am missing instantaneously.  Here is an example of a reason that I felt homesick not too long ago.

Less than a month ago Kuwait, my home country, celebrated two national events that are dear to every Kuwaiti citizen. It celebrated its Independence and liberation days on the 25^th and 26^th of February. These days are when Kuwait became independent from the British protectorate in 1961 and liberated from the Iraqi Invasion in 1991. The Independence Day is the day when Kuwait became a country of it’s own. During the same year Sheikh Abdullah Alsalem Alsabah may he rest in piece legislated Kuwait’s first constitution, joined Kuwait to the United Nations and the Arab League.

As for the Liberation Day, It is held in memory of the day that Kuwait was liberated in the Desert storm operation from the invasion of the Iraqi troops. The story of the invasion started on the Thursday 2^nd of August 1990, which is now called the black Thursday, when Iraqi troops invaded by surprise Kuwaiti Soil and began killing citizens and looking for Kuwait’s King and all the royal family to assassinate them and get rid of the whole royal bloods. This invasion went on for 7 months and resulted in killing 570 citizens, and 605 captives, who were officially announced dead by the U.N. a couple of months ago. Also it resulted in the burning of 600 Kuwaiti oil wells, which caused massive pollution in the region. This terrifying incident that Kuwait faced all came to an end after the United Nations allowed coalition forces to enter Kuwaiti grounds and free Kuwait. With the help of countries such as the United States of America, Britain, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and most of the Arab league countries, Kuwait was liberated and returned as a free country as it will always be.

Stephen King, an American author said in his novel The Body, “Homesickness is not always a vague, nostalgic, almost beautiful emotion, although that is somehow the way we always seem to picture it in our mind. It can be a terribly keen blade, not just a sickness in metaphor but in fact as well. It can change the way one looks at the world; the faces one sees in street look not just indifferent but ugly...perhaps even malignant. Homesickness is real sickness--the ache of the uprooted plant" the breathing method.”  I have lived and celebrated these two occasions for more than 20 years of my life and to miss them 2 years in a row is something depressing. Homesickness is a feeling that I will go through for all my years abroad, but having friends from all over the world here in the home of the free, I am able to overcome those feelings and difficulties and sense that I am in my second home.