“On spring break in eighth grade, I went to Pakistan to visit my mom’s family and all of my second cousins– basically family that I have never met. So when you are there you can’t eat any fresh fruits or vegetables just because of the bugs that fly around and land on the food; they carry bacteria and viruses that we are not immune to. In America, they do the same thing but I am immune to the ones in [the States] but not immune to the ones in [Pakistan]. I wasn’t really thinking about it, and so I ate a cucumber. I got sick. Like really sick. This was the day before I left to come back, and it took 22 hours to get home. I was very sick and throwing up a ton, and it got to the point where my mom said if we were in America I would have been hospitalized. I was lacking so many fluids. This was when Ebola was a big thing, so if they knew I was sick and getting on a plane, they would have quarantined me for a month. It was very stressful. My mom had to do everything she could to cover up the fact that I was sick. My brother was being taken care of by my aunt. While my mom was taking care of me, she gave me a ton of meds that just like made me pass out; I don’t remember much of it. I got better, but I couldn’t walk because I was so drugged up. My mom had to steal a wheelchair that was reserved for an old lady. I couldn’t walk, and we had to get to our next flight. We made it home finally, and I was fine, but then all of my cousins got the sickness.”

(Junior)