By: Shihab Elhafi (YES 2017-2018, Libya, placed by YFU in Farmington Hills, MI)

When I was 17 years old, I participated in the YES program. I considered myself to be a little aquaphobic at that time - I hated anything that had to do with swimming. Ironically, when I arrived in the U.S., I found myself in the middle of a family of swimmers.

I started my year with a hard decision, which was whether to join the swim team at school. At first, I totally rejected the idea, but a few days later, my host family talked me into it.

Practice was twice a day. I would leave the house at 4 AM with the temperature around -15 Celsius and then get back home around 5 PM. I was almost never home when the sun was out!

In the first two weeks of practice, because I didn’t know how to swim at all, the coach focused on teaching me how to breathe while swimming. Then, at practice in the gym, my training partner accidentally dropped a 4 kg ball on my head, giving me a concussion. This made me hate swimming even more.

When it was time for me to actually swim with the team, I suffered through practice until I actually started liking swimming! That was until it was time for my first official race. With the crowd’s eyes on me, I started to panic until I heard the beep sound to start the race. My competitors all jumped in the pool, and I followed despite my fear. At the end of the race, I got third out of three swimmers. Even though I lost, at least I can tell my friends in Libya that I placed third in a swim race in America.

Most importantly, I was able to defeat my fear of water, which I could have never imagined overcoming before I participated in YES.