I used to not understand why people from the extreme parts of the world (Sudan, Syria, places like that) have escaped to the world have ANY worldly desire to return. When I was younger, I had a taxi driver from war torn African express a desire to take a flight home and see his family and I recall being floored at why he’d wanted to return anywhere close to that chaos.

But as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that humans, being the social animals we are, have some things like tribe, familiarity, the first people we are surrounded by engrained into our nervous system. I have a similar experience when I first moved to the USA from China at age 7 and we lived in a half cul de sac suburb in San Jose, California. Ever since then I have felt drawn to various suburban places anywhere I’ve been in the world, no matter how much people attack American suburbia (sometimes rightfully, sometimes just pure nonsense complaining) for being poorly designed and soulless.

So yes, Sudan may have malaria filled huts with no internal plumbing, while say highly developed Switzerland where the refugee escaped too has clean roads and safe drinking water anywhere u go, the child inside still feels the vibration of warmth from the backwoods malaria filled huts he grew up in. And especially they came to the new world as adults, they probably always felt like an outsider (humans take exclusion, even perceived exclusion, very hard).

Just something to think about. Humans are incredibly complex creatures. The older I get, I feel like I understand them much more but also much less.