By Toma Pavlov, YES Bulgaria, ‘12

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On October 14th, Bulgarian alumni had a meeting at the American Corner in Bulgaria&rsquo;s capital, Sofia. This was the first meeting for those of us who, like me, had returned in the summer of 2012. It was truly an exciting event to see to talk with the other YES Alumni about what they do now, more than a year after their return.</p>

The first part was the re-entry seminar for the five of us who in June, were still living at a host family in one of the fifty states. During the time in America, we didn’t have the opportunity to see each other and share what we experienced. But now that we had returned, we had that chance at the re-entry seminar. Especially for the occasion, the Regional Director of American Councils Southeast Europe, Sarah Hennessey, came from Belgrade, Serbia. We discussed what we had experienced during our time in America, difficulties that we had and shared some of our greatest moments in our host community. An important part of the re-entry seminar was learning how to overcome culture shock and readjust to life in our home country. It is a process that most of us had been going through since our return, however despite this fact, it was worthwhile to hear valuable advice from Ms. Hennessey.

Later that day, the rest of the Bulgarian alumni joined us. We had some time to get to know each other and they told us more about how the YES program continues from now on in our home country. They shared stories about past projects that they were involved in and offered us tips on how to organize future projects. Having understood the basics of writing and realizing a project, it was time to brainstorm ideas. A variety of ideas were heard and some were accepted by the whole group as a future project. It is great that we can rely on alumni who already have experience with writing projects and, of course, that we may always ask the staff from American Councils for assistance.    

I am very happy to have had the chance to participate in the re-entry seminar and the monthly meeting in Sofia. I got to know some new people that I have a lot in common with and also learned from them about future activities as an alumnus. If I had to summarize the experience in one sentence, it would be: “Meeting with other alumni is the greatest way to feel that somebody actually understands what you have gone through—both good and bad—while you were in the U.S.”