By Mamoona Jan (YES 2019-2020, Pakistan, hosted with AFS-USA in Hickory, NC)

My beautiful day, full of challenges, experiences, and exploration, starts early in the morning — 5am. My host dad used to wake me up because he is a teacher in the same school and we used to go there together. I ate my breakfast with my dad and then took my lunch prepared by my mom. 

After school, I go to the hospice to volunteer and then my dad picks me up from there. We go back home and, after an hour or two, we have a family dinner with a huge discussion and lots of gossip.

I had never thought that the girl who used to wake up five minutes before the bus arrived would now wake up at 5am. A girl who loved to lay on the bed 24/7 now hardly sleeps for 6 hours, a shy girl that used to sit in the back of the class is now a club representative, a girl who used to keep her thoughts limited to her books is now giving presentations all the time, a lazy girl that had never thought about after-school activities is now a member of almost all the after-school volunteering clubs.

This exchange year has changed me completely. Every day, I am discovering a new part of myself. I would like to tell every exchange student that ever hesitated to take part in anything, go for everything and you will be amazed to see how talented you actually are.