By Jaya Wina Santiya, YES 2013-2014, Indonesia, hosted by IRIS in Bluegrass, IA

My friend Thesa asked me why I never wrote much about  my experience on the YES program in America. Well, the answer is pretty simple. I just feel like my writing couldn’t convey the feelings that I wanted to express. It is so hard to put so many things you’ve learned into just a couple of pages. But now, I want to tell a bit about my experience in America. I was hosted in Bluegrass, Iowa and lived with the Tisinger Family.

My relationship with that land is beyond things that I could say in words. America for me is another home, but not the America that many might imagine. The part of America that I hold so dearly in my heart is the corn field I saw when I waited for the school bus in the early morning, or the Mississippi River that I ran over on the weekends, or the bald eagle flying across the river during winter. The America that I know isn’t the America of skyscrapers or billboards everywhere. Instead the America I know is a sky full of stars in the night and grass full of sunshine in the day. The America that I know is this small town called Bluegrass, Iowa.

In this small town full of cornfields, I am the girl from another small town in Indonesia learning to live in another city, but nothing like what your friends at home imagine. Whenever we drove, there were cornfields as far as I could see. So America is not New York for me, nor LA, nor Miami. America is simply Iowa.

My relationship with this state is deep, as it was the land that witnessed my tears because I missed Indonesia so much. It was the land where every time I woke up, I snuggled back in my blanket wishing the winter wouldn’t be so cold for a tropical girl like me. It was the land where I learned how to conquer my doubt and prove that I could run for 5 miles in -22 Fahrenheit. It was the land where I spent countless family dinners with Mom and Dad. It was the land where I proved it is possible to respect others beliefs whenever I went to St. Peters Church. &It was the land where I spent nights talking with my best friend Nicole about life, the world and our dreams. It was the land where I witnessed how sincere and lovely my host parents were, nurturing me like their own child. It was the land where I finally learned that my dark skin is beautiful. It was the land where I experienced the beauty of volunteering and helping others. It was the land that made my dream of studying abroad, which I'd had since middle school, come true, proving that dreams have no limit. It was the land where I learned that love is not bordered by blood, nation, religion, race, or ethnicity. It was the land that granted me family, friends and values. The spirit of love, giving back, cultural understanding, the importance of education and community development is something that I took back and hold tight with me in Indonesia.

It's been two and a half years since I came back home from Iowa, but I still wish that someday, I will be able to go there again. That someday, I will see the Mississippi River, smell the grass, and talk to the stars. But even more importantly, I will see my family, the Tisingers. So if one day I have a chance to go to America again, it won’t be a vacation, it will be visiting my hometown. That is the land that I wish to return to, and now, while I am here in Indonesia, I will always pass their kindness forward so they know the kind of impact they had on me.