: the act of making atonement. (Merriam-Webster)

I came across this word while reading “You In America” where the speaker says: ” The people who never broke a profit from the mangoes and akara they hawked, whose houses—zinc sheets precariously held by nails—fell apart in the rainy season.” This shows that compared to her own home country, the people in America lived a life of comfort and did not realize the value of the things available to them.