By Hiba Al-Sheyab (YES 2014–2015, Jordan, placed with ASSE in Mead, CO) 

When we left for the airport to start our exchange year, each one of us was given a little card with an inspirational quote. The quote on my card said, “Exchange year is a life in a year, not a year in your life.” This little quote motivated me to try new things and not miss the opportunity to experience something different.

Throughout my YES year, I tried many different things, including helping with flood damage rehabilitation and attending rodeos, but my most favorite experience was getting to snowboard. Around the time of New Year’s Eve 2014, my host mom talked about starting 2015 with something different, and so she proposed snowboarding! My host family and I were very excited about this idea as we planned our winter break.

At first, I was having second thoughts about trying to snowboard. I even told my host mom that I was considering only going snow tubing and skipping snowboarding since I didn’t have any experience with the sport, and I’m not a winter person at all. I also kept thinking about how cold it would be. My host mother encouraged me to give snowboarding a chance. She told me that, from her experience, skiing is so much fun, and so snowboarding would probably be just as fun, too. Then I thought to myself, “This is not something you may get to do back in Jordan, so why miss it?”

We spent the first day of 2015 snowboarding, and after countless times of falling, I managed to snowboard through the beginners’ slope, which felt amazing. For once, I was having fun while doing something in the freezing cold! 

I kept on trying more and more different things throughout the rest of the year, whether it was trying new foods or taking different classes, and I believe these are the things I learned the most from my YES year and will always remember.