By Aniyyah Fatmah Guinar, YES 2016-2017, Philippines, hosted by AFS in Wisconsin

I had heard about International Education Week even before I left my home country to come on program and I was so excited for it to start!

I started my very first presentation in my host family’s church, Mount Zion Lutheran Church, on a fine Sunday morning wearing Filipino traditional dress. I woke up early to prepare everything.

I was a little bit nervous. I’d done public speaking in my home school but this is different because the audience is from a different country and culture. I presented to the church youth group as well as adults. I started with a powerpoint presentation that gave information about myself, my country and my culture. I introduced myself and talked about my exchange program and IEW.

In the middle of the presentation, I organized an ice breaker that introduced the Filipino language and the audience had fun playing it! I ended with a question and answer session. First, the audience asked me some questions and then I also held a contest based on information from my presentation. For those who answered correctly, I handed out two IEW bookmarks, two IEW stickers and one pen holder from my tribe in the Philippines. I was so happy to see they were really engaged! At the end, I left them with a famous quote from Mahatma Ghandi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Being an exchange student, it is our responsibility to promote world peace and build bridges between cultures. That saying, to me, sums up the reason why I am here as an exchange student. After the event, we all enjoyed Filipino street food I had prepared and had a group photo.

And that was just the first day!  Over the next week, I presented to my Creative Writing class wearing Baro’t Saya, the national costume for girls, Spanish class. French class, U.S. History class, Theatre class and German class. I really enjoyed the question and answer portion. One student asked me, “How many languages do you speak?” and they were all amazed when I answered “I speak three languages now: Maranao, my dialect, Filipino, my country’s official language and then English. But as part of my religion, Islam, we use Arabic language and I am also taking French here in school.” Other questions were about my home school, if we have chocolate candies, if the houses are made of cement, how we travel from one island to another, about the hijab women wear, what I like most about America so far and if Filipinos also have misconceptions about Americans. It was really good exchanging ideas and having a dialogue with everyone and very touching when students told me they want to visit the Philippines and try our street food!

I presented to approximately 155 people throughout the week, wearing different types of clothing to represent my program, my tribe, my country and myself. Now that IEW has ended, I will make sure that I will not stop giving presentations. I had so much fun celebrating this event! All thanks to the people who helped me especially to my Omie, Abie and T! This will surely be treasured!