By Choo Keng Gooi, YES 2016-2017, Malaysia, hosted with AFS in Bayfield, WI

Book Across The Bay (BATB) is the upper Midwest's most unique winter event, and is open to skiers and snowshoers of all ages. The 10km course starts in Ashland and ends in Washburn, which takes it over the frozen surface of Lake Superior, the world's largest lake. Since the event is held at night, 1,000 candles in ice luminaries line the entire route.

I volunteered for this event!! On 15th February, AFS students and their host families in the Chequamegon Chapter volunteered to stuff bags for the BATB event and we managed to stuff 2,000 bags in only 3 hours. There were a total of 10 exchange students volunteering at this event. I met another 2 YES students from Kosovo and Kenya, 4 students from Japan, and 1 student each from Chile, Germany, Thailand and Finland! Isn't that awesome? I'm so glad I met Godwin and Korap (YES students), and feel so lucky to be hosted in this chapter.

The day of the event was the most exciting time of my life in the U.S. so far, because I got to ski on a frozen lake. But before that, I needed to help set up the tents, tables and put up some signs. This was actually another fun volunteering activity, because until then, I had only seen haystacks in movies, but then I got the chance to touch them!

As it turned out, due to climate change, there was no snow that day, so there was lots of water on the frozen lake, and it was WARM! Because of this, the event planners recommended that we walk instead of ski. I walked with Tong, from Thailand and Anna, from Germany and that was pretty fun!