by Sonali Medhekar, India 09-10
hosted in Silver Creek, NY
Around four hundred students were in D.C. on 9th July, 2009. Everyone was very excited and a little bit nervous and scared at the same time, but each told ourselves we were ready for this unique adventure of a year’s time in the USA. No one was talking much; we were consumed with observing our surroundings. We were rooming and attending all sessions with students from many different countries.
We had no idea what we were in for, and how fun it was going to know teenagers from all over the world. As we proceeded through the hours and days in DC orientation, we started to realize we kept running into the same students in our groups over and over again. It took us a while but we eventually figured out that we were all headed for Western New York and were going to be in the same group of sponsored students, called a cluster. We started developing friendships and relationships, that we had no idea were going to result in the closest relationships we might ever experience. These friendships immediately decreased the level of our homesickness.
Our first Western NY event was as a family picnic in early September where we met the other students hosted in our region who were not necessarily in the YES program. We found out that WNY has a really passionate group of volunteers who schedule activities for us as well as make sure we are all doing OK. Along with our parents, we met with our fearless leader, Mrs. Carol Collins. Mrs. Carol has an enthusiastic, encouraging, and charming personality to show us American life styles, society, cultures and government. We had a rich cultural event at least one weekend per month which she systematically arranged. We learned a lot about America as well as about other countries as we discussed how the experiences compared to things in our own countries.
Besides our regular cluster events which we learned so much from, we also participated in volunteer activities and community service. We found that volunteerism is a very strong ethic in America and learned a lot about giving to the community and about leadership skills because of these activities. In addition we were active in giving presentations to various groups or organizations in our region. We shared information about our countries and about our experiences. We found our audiences were very interested in listening and learning from us. On top of the required activities that a cluster is supposed to do, such as learning about American government and Native American culture, our coordinator invited us to many concerts, musicals, dramas, performances, festivals, museums and such.
We enjoyed watching each other in a high school musical or go to an art gallery event to try to learn how to Tango. We truly appreciated her kindness in everything she did for us. She is my role model forever.
We did so many things as a group and wherever we went, people who met us told Mrs. Carol that she had a United Nations with her. That’s what we felt like, which was a great feeling. Our crew consisted of Sinbad Silongan from the Philippines with his genuine sense of humor and the best smile ever; Suka Pradita from Indonesia with a charming affectionate character was always ready with a quiet hug to make you feel better; Talal Alhenaski from Saudi Arabia, whom we affectionately called our “King of Oil”; next we had Gehad Abdelgawad from Egypt with his strong positive attitude and class clown humor that could make anyone laugh; Ece Mese from Turkey with her strong organizational and great leadership skills demonstrated by her arranging surprise birthday parties for us; then we had Lolita Zarifullaeva, our beauty queen, who showed us how one is supposed to dress and present themselves. Max Schumann from Germany with his candid baby face and most welcoming smile, showed us what a warm friendship feels like; Nico Holtgrefe from Germany with his smooth dance moves, blew us all away at the talent show.
But our tight group did not consist only of sponsored students. Some other locally hosted students became a close part of our group and participated in many of our activities. These included Tata Nokmeerod from Thailand, with the sweetest, most polite personality anyone has ever met; Raban Burcher from Switzerland who has a most earnest disposition and competed on the track team with the best. Andrea Schneider and Briggitte Pace from Eden NY gave us a huge amount of support and friendship throughout the year and came with us on many events. Their friendship will never be forgotten and these Americans will be in our hearts forever.
I never would have imagined I would have been a part of such a wonderful group, always together, always having fun and making people laugh. It was an amazing group of individuals none of whom felt they were better than anyone else either because of where they were from or what their personality was. Everyone appreciated everyone else for who they were and respected each other’s culture. They had interest in each other’s culture. We had fun with the American language, making mistakes, and also trying to learn each others’ native language at the same time.
At the close of this astonishing year, it was miserable to believe that we will not be together at a same time in our life again! It was very cheerless feeling. We talked and spent lots of time together as much as we can at the end. But, still the year was going to end. We didn’t stop our imagination and came up with following idea. We have made one card which has everybody’s name and other things as well. It’s going to travel to everyone’s home as world map goes. Like, first to Philippines then it will stay at him (Sinbad) for a month and then travel to Indonesia and then so on and so forth. It will stay at everyone for a month and they will forward the same card to next by adding a note or picture etc. Then, when it comes to USA again, they will continue the same cycle again. By that way, we will again share a big experience. We will be in touch. Internet helps us but we suffer through some problems like, time difference in countries, so, we can’t talk with each other at the same time. A Card gives real experience, we thought! So, I think, “Our hearts were breaking, but despite the pain, it was better to have loved and now be hurting, than never to have loved at all.”
For, all this, I would like to give thanks to all of our host families, AFS volunteers’ team, Mrs. Carol Collins, everybody in the group and all who gave us huge support!
Faiz Rahman, YES 2009-10 student from Indonesia, writes about the gap between rich and poor.
This article was originally published in the Jakarta Post
Poverty: If you were there, would you survive?
I don’t know if being poor is an option. I grew up in a developing country where the standard of living is far from enough for those people who struggle every day just to get some money to buy food. Some of them even don’t know what they will eat or how to get the money to buy food each day.
Farmers in my country are out in the hot sun every day; they don’t have high technology and advanced equipment to cultivate crops. Most of them grow their crops using very traditional methods. For example they use a bullock cart to help do the harvest. They live very poorly. They provide food for people, but they have problems of "what to eat today’.
Fishermen in my country risk their lives every day by facing huge waves that in a second could destroy their small boats.
These fishermen are the providers for their families. If they died then who would take care of their families? And they live in very poor circumstances.
Some little kids in my country have to walk more than 10 miles every day and they have to swim across the river to get to school. The determination of these kids to get their education is very highly appreciated.
They live in villages – if Argyle (where I’m staying now) is considered as a village, we would call Argyle a town in my country. We define villages as places where we have no access to lots of things; transportation, good schools, clean water, good telephone system, internet, or even proper bathrooms. Villages perhaps have just one or two teachers at the school who teach every subject.
Why is the gap between the rich and poor so huge? If Tiger Woods was paid a million dollars a month and shared 30 percent of his golf prizes with people in Angola or Ethiopia, maybe the money would be a lot better spent than if he spent it cheating on his Swedish wife.
Or if Bill Gates spent 20 percent of his company’s monthly profits on the needs of people in the Western Hemisphere or Southern Asia, maybe that money could build thousands of schools and water points.
Or, if we stopped making wars or spending billions of dollars on wars, causing death and injuries, maybe we could help more homeless people by building shelters or helping community groups, so they won’t feel cold every night because they have to sleep outside, or not feel lonely anymore, because they can make friends with other homeless people.
Poverty is one of the major problems we’re facing now. From more than 190 nations in this world, only about 40 nations are considered developed countries, and the rest are considered to be developing countries, which means that the standard of living in these countries is much less than in the developed ones.
And lots of countries are still struggling to get good education, proper houses, enough food, clean water, etc. At least 80 percent of humanity lives on less than US$10 a day, according to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty, around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted, 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
Maybe you were shocked about the facts, me too. I don’t want to talk theoretically about this poverty problem, but I want to talk about it logically. I don’t know how hard it is to work and maybe that makes people not want to share their money. They think they deserve it, because they have worked hard. Maybe I don’t understand this because I never had a job.
But imagine if all the world shared with these unlucky people, I believe the world would be a better place. They are poor not because they are cursed by God, but they are just unlucky, or maybe God wants to see evidence of their patience and faith. You and I don’t know why the world works this way. Let’s find the answers and solve the problem.
Faiz Rahman
Argyle, Wisconsin, USA
By Baya Inggas, Indonesia 09-10
Hosted in Downs, Kansas
Well, I’m the kinda person who believes that his world needs some more smiles. There’s a lot of ways to make people smile, like telling something beautiful, but I prefer to tell a joke, it’s easier and lots more fun!
I ended up finding some funny American friends, one of them is Jordan at Lakeside High School. We have the same way of telling a joke, we can do it all day long (quite hyperbole, but you got my point).
Then, we got a chance to join the Forensic team, which is about speech and drama, not science. We both were in a one-act play, and also IDA (impromptu Duet Act). In case you haven’t heard about IDA, it’s a duet act in which you have to draw the characters that you are going to pretend to be, the situation, and location also, so most of the time nothing makes sense and all is improvisation, you’re only given 30 minutes to prepare a less-than-7-minutes performance. But that’s the point, it’s not an act that you remember so you can mess around with a lot of stuff! And Jordan was an amazing partner, we both were just perfect together to make a funny story from unpredictable topics.
We were partners for almost the whole season, cracking up a lot of audiences, and the best part was if we cracked up the judges. Therefore, with our chemistry as friends and partners, we made it to the Forensic State Festival! That time we had to make a performance from something we thought was not gonna be funny at all, but who wanted to give up at state level? it’s about a garbage picker, a student, locked out, in the bathroom. When we performed, there were a lot of students from other schools too, so we were kinda nervous. But though, we succeeded to crack everybody up and we ended up getting a 1 (one) ranked and got a medal! The teachers and our coach were impressed to know that a freshman and a foreigner actually are able to get 1 ranked in state festival.
I think it’s all about friendship, and once we know each other, we can share the smiles with the world. And yes, we’re trying to give more smiles to the world as well as give a hope for peace, and every single person has his/her own way to do it.
by Fauzia Osman, Ghana alumna 2007
On 19th June, 2010, the YES alumni in Ghana and some active AFS volunteers organized a send-off party for the YES Abroad students in Ghana. The program was to start at 2pm but because of the World Cup game that was going on and because it was the time Ghana was to play Australia, the party was postponed to 4pm. Adam Streeter said, “Fauzia, I would have loved to be there at 2PM but I am now a Ghanaian and skipping a very important game of Ghana does not show my patriotism.”
The party then started at 4PM as suggested by the students and we still were able to accomplish the purpose of the party. Host families were invited and friends and staff. The three YES students each gave a speech of appreciation to their host families and how delighted they were to have met them. Adam said “this will forever be one of the greatest experiences of my life."
Justine said a wonderful “thank you” to her host father who happens to be Anna Marie’s host father as well because she changed families during the middle of the year to have a different host family experience. Their host father was proud that his host daughters prepared a whole speech just to say thank you. The AFS staff present also gave their speech of appreciation to the students for making such an impact in their lives and also sharing their US culture with their Ghanaian friends and family. The students also made some American snacks to share at the party and everyone had something to take home with them to remember this memorable event with these very special students.
Related Articles: Video: YES Abroad in Ghana Learn the Art of Fabric Painting
by Baya Inggas, Indonesia 2009-10
Hosted in Downs, Kansas
Well, the basketball season is over, but it’s great memories are just unforgettable. If you ask whether I ever played basketball back home, yes, but not in a real team, messing around you might call. But basketball is just such a big deal here, and so nothing can stop me to try something new!
I can conclude that actually, I knew nothing about basketball and there’s no way I could make it to a basketball team, but that’s the luck of me to be in a small school. There were 28 boys joined the team, too big, eh? yea it was just a big bowl of boys, but the idea was to teach everyone how to play and everyone got the chance to play, including me, for the JV team, not a big deal but at least I learned something.
If you ever played basketball, you know that play in the last 45 seconds at the last quarter in every game is just nothing but to step on the court, move around, and go back to the locker room; no score.
I really wanted to play and score, I wanted to know how it feels to put that wicked orange ball into that pretty little basket, once at least. I knew, the only way to obtain it is to do my best at practice, which was sort of harder because you learn something new with different language. I started to practice on my own after the regular practice, thinking of one day I will score!
One day, I was just about to tell my assistant coach to let me play at least until I scored, I was more than ready to play, but I decided to keep myself calm, keep believing the day will come. In the same game day, in the locker room, my coach said something I will never forget! He said, “We need a lot of improvement here, I need everyone to improve themselves. We have Baya here, he never played basketball, right?” I nodded, “But he improved from nothing here (his hand was down low) to here (put his hand a lot higher) . That’s what I want to see from you all.” in my mind I was like: really? he said that in front of the boys? wow!
That happened just before the game, and for the first time i let my desire to score go away, it’s not important anymore, I’ve obtained something more important. In the last 2 minutes of the 4th quarter, I was still watching the game without any worry that my coach would call me to play, but he did, that game was the longest game I played, not a really big deal, but it was a big deal for me. So I played, did our formation without any concern over whether I would get the ball or not. Before I realized it, the ball was in my hand, a couple of feet from the ring…. “this is my chance,” I thought, so I just shot it, and that wicked ball bounced into the net. At the same moment after I made that shot, the crowds stood up and made a greatest moment in my life, my team went crazy as they screamed to me and as I screamed back. It was great, just great! and I didn’t realize that it was called ‘And 1’, I got a free throw, I didn’t make it, but still, it felt so great to make that shot!
The last JV game, we only played 2 quarters, and my coach didn’t let me play even in the last 45 seconds. I wanted to play so badly to end the great season. Then he called me at the last 10 seconds, really, I mean what can I get in 10 seconds? thank goodness someone fouled on me so I got 2 free shots, the first bounced out, but I made the last one, the last point for the last game, felt so awesome! a great experience!
The best part is that I could be an inspiration for my own team even though I didn’t know what I was doing, an inspiration for the great American players. So yeah, I do believe as long as you want to do your best, nothing is impossible!
I got an Honorary Letter for Basketball, fell in love with that sport, and got a new nickname, for what I achieved is a lot better than those who played the same amount of time. The nickname is “NBAsian” not too bad, eh? :)
So great for me to learn something new.. Thanks a lot YES Program!
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