by Isheka Agarwal, YES 17-18, Bangladesh, hosted with AFS in Alexandria, VA

On August 1st, I landed in an unknown country called America with lots of hopes and good wishes. America was a dream to me since I first heard about the country in third grade of my school. This dream looked absurd to me in the beginning because I lived more than 8000 miles away from the US. After six years, the Kennedy-Lugar YES Program brought me an opportunity to turn my 'absurd' dream into a reality and now I'm standing in my dream country with different goals to achieve throughout the year.  

My placement organization organizes different events and activities. One of the first events after arrival orientation was 'Walking tour of Capitol Hill' on 14th August. Taylor Johnson, a volunteer, led our team of 11 other exchange students from Norway, Spain, India, Bangladesh, Paraguay, Turkey, Germany, France and Austria. Local alumni Jeet from India and Guus from Netherlands were also there to help out. 

With this diverse group, we started walking from Union Station to Capitol Hill. While walking, Taylor explained the significance of the Senate and the House on Capitol Hill. We walked past the Supreme Court building and the Library of Congress. In Chinatown, I tried Chinese food for the first time which I found really delicious. We started walking again from Chinatown to the White House and Washington Monument. At the end of the day, I made friends from different parts of the world. I still cannot believe my eyes when I think about the difference between seeing the pictures of these places in books and pictures of me standing in front of these places now. Thank you Taylor for leading our team. Thank you YES for making it possible.