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"No le pongas demasiada sal!" My mom, anticipating a bitter taste from the soup, alarmed me. Yet curious like a five-year-old, I felt it was my mission to discover the secrets behind the little white container in front of me. Standing still, making noise at a shake, laid the salt. Deciding to empty half the recipient, my mom and I laughed the second I tasted our alphabet soup. Composed of primarily sodium chloride, salt is a staple for food and culture. At the same time, the element is an equal symbol for health, preservation, and connection. Seen time again in history, salt was a compensation for Roman Empire's soldiers, a source of currency for ancient China, and an exchange in the Gulf Coast from the Olmec people.

75,000 flipped pages. 11,520 packed boxes. 6 school maps. I began measuring my life in flipped pages, packed boxes, and school maps when I was 6. As my family and I flitted between states and coasts for my father's job over the last decade, I shielded myself with fantasy novels. With my head propped on the baseboard near my nightlight and a book held up in front of me by aching arms, I would dance in whimsical forests, fight daring battles, and rule dangerous courts long after dark.

"The difference between an anti-personnel and an anti-tank mine is not that complicated," I am told casually, in halting Russian, by a boy even younger than I am during a walk through the Chechen mountains. I am freshly 14 and visiting my father's homeland for the first time, unfamiliar with the harsh realities that kids half my age already know ironclad. My guide points out the areas where the grass is overgrown and the fruit trees abundant. People and animals alike know to avoid them; someone has learned of landmines the hard way. It shouldn't surprise me — the scars of war on this rugged country are omnipresent — but it is so jarringly different from my life in London that it is nevertheless hard to digest.

Standing in front of the kitchen counter, my small hands are placed on the cool granite top and my eyes rest on the empty bowl set out in front of me. On one side lies a pack of masa harina and on the other, a pitcher filled with water. Tortillas are considered to be somewhat of a staple food in Guatemala and in Central American cuisines. Whenever my mom asks me to make tortillas, I groan internally; not because I dislike tortillas, but because I simply cannot make them. What should come naturally as a Guatemalan native is foreign to my small hands. My hands are unable to form the perfectly sized circles because they...

- 3 tablespoons butter - 2 eggs, whisked - 2 medium carrots - 1 small white onion - 1/2 cup frozen peas - 3 cloves garlic - salt and pepper - 4 cups cooked and chilled rice - 3-4 green onions - soy sauce (to taste) - 2 teaspoons oyster sauce (optional) - 1/2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil I bet you didn’t read those numbers.

I cannot dance. This is not something I often admit willingly; in fact, it is quite baffling to me how horribly incapable I am at performing even the most basic movements on command. My grandmother often describes it as “a tragedy” as she is forced to watch her grandchild absolutely butcher our country’s cultural dances, beautiful expressions of our unique West African roots turned into poor facsimiles by my robotic movements.