#flexprogram

Third group. Left: August 10.

Kurbonsho, a FLEX student from Tajikistan, shares the impact of his exchange experience in the US.

Greetings from Tajikistan. I am Kurbonsho and I am an exchange student here in US through the FLEX program. This year has been a wonderful gift for me with countless lifetime memories that made me think and act differently. Starting from playing soccer, doing GLEE activities with my other exchange friends, celebrating american holidays such as "Halloween", "Christmas", Thanksgiving", "New Year" and others, really made my year wonderful and unique. I loved all of these celebrations where I go a chance to meet new people and make new friends.

I hardly believe that I am going to leave all of this soon, all my friends, my host family and my amazing teachers that were supportive all the time. Time passes by so quick especially your exchange year that looks short, but during this period, it seems like you have lived in US for your entire life. Most importantly, I loved my re-entry workshop that was held in Vermont where I got a chance to meet all of my fellows from the World Learning organisation and make friends with individuals from 14 different countries. It was an amazing opportunity for me to create this lifelong bonds among different countries and it really made me become not only the citizen of my country, but the citizen of the globe. I am very thankful to all the people that made this year very special for me, my high school friends and teachers, my amazing local coordinator and my World Learning organisation which is just like my family and last, but not the least, my wonderful host family that accepted me for one academic year which requires a lot of courage to do.

Donara, a FLEX student from Armenia, shares her experiences making new friends and adjusting to her high school in Washington D.C. during her exchange year.

Hi everybody! I am Donara, a high school student from the mountainous and tiny land of Noah’s ark, from Armenia, who got the huge luck to spend her exchange year in this beautiful and hospitable city, in Washington DC. And I have my own exchange story… First of all I want to share with you the fact, that I failed my 2 tries for coming to U.S. and this is my 3rd try. But they say you are not failing, your are just finding ways that are not working. I am so glad that I failed those 2 times, because if I didn’t, I would never meet this amazing people who helped me to feel like home. Everything has some reason.

So can you imagine feelings of a teenage girl, who is having her first flight out of her country, alone, going to unknown place too meet unknown people? Do you know about expectations?  And do you imagine how the same girl can feel after understanding that nothing is the same as she imagined? And I started to learn in the best school of the world( actually in the beginning of the year that was the worst school, but I will share a secret, I  like this school more than my Armenian school ). So can you guess which one? High school of McKinley Technology. For a girl, who thinks that she is sure about her future profession, which is psychology, it was unbelievably hard to start learning subjects like engineering or computer application. And than we can add culture shock. And as a result life gave me some health problems and bad grades. It was being almost the middle of December and I had a culture shock for 4 months. Where is the great experience?

And by the time I was really planning  to tell my parents that I am going back , suddenly everything had changed. I don’t know if it was a miracle or something like that ,but I met some amazing people. And I was closer to have a perfect exchange year. So the person who helped me the most ( I hope she knows how amazing she is) is Imani, African-American best friend, who makes fun on my strong Armenian accent, understands what I want to say when I am forgetting all the words I’ve ever learned in English and just makes me feel like I knew her in my whole life. Sometimes I am wondering, how you can met somebody from the whole another continent, nationality and race, but find yourself in that certain person. How we can think and feel the same? Honestly there are always some people who kind a don’t believe in friendship of races, but I just wanted to tell them all, that it’s not about race, it’s about friendship. Do you know that pleasure of having braids in your hair done by Afro-American best friend? Of course you don’t. But I know, believe me that’s one of the best feelings ever. Literally all the people who supported me this year where not from my race or nationality. I have an amazing Pilipino host family and the best African-American friends ever. And if somebody will still think that it’s about race, I think they better meet me and my friends.