Although most of my stories are about wild animals and my adventures with them, this story is not.

It's about cultural misunderstandings, a lot of mistakes I made, and ultimately some of the experiences I had with people that I think also helped turn me into who I am today.

Landing at the Nairobi Airport is super vivid in my mind because it was so, it was so different.

You know, I had never been in a black country at all, so it was

so interesting to me to, like, land in a place where, like, everyone was black.

I hadn't taken the time to think about how that would feel to, like, blend in. And yet at the same time, the staff was meeting us there with,

you know, a sign, you know, that said school for field studies and they were able to know exactly

who we were. And I walked over to the staff member and the person said, oh, excuse me,

this is for a American study abroad program.

And I said, yeah, yeah, I know.

And they said, no, no, no.

Like, this isn't for, this isn't for Kenyans.

This is for American students.

I was exactly the opposite of what they expected. Kind of the story of my life, like ever since then.

I feel like professionally like the opposite of what people expect. I remember explaining like,

no, no, like I'm Ray Wyn Grant and I am American and I'm part of the study abroad program. And of course, the staff member was super apologetic.

Not only did they not realize that, like, a black student was coming,

they really didn't have an understanding of the black American identity

and, like, how it could properly exist.

And that was kind of the beginning of so many interesting conversations

about race and identity on that trip.

And some of them were pretty uncomfortable.

...