Realizations

        I've passed the one month mark. I have 29 days until my departure for my pre-departure orientation in D.C. and I'll be leaving for Morocco immediately after the orientation. It's still not hitting me that soon enough I'll be in a completely different continent in a beautiful country and I'll be living a completely different life. This past week I volunteered at the YES arrivals orientation in D.C. Throughout the week you could sense the excitement of both the students and group leaders. As a group leader we were preparing these students for one of the best years of their lives. The students knew something big was coming and being D.C. meant it was a reality, but they still hadn't reached the stage of living with their host family or attending an American high school. On departure day the students were excited, nervous, and mainly tired because of their early flights (some had to be up at 2:00 a.m.) many had cried the previous night due to the realization that they were all going their separate ways and wouldn't be seeing each other again until June. Being surrounded by this wave of emotions made me start to think about my own departure and since getting home I've slowly been realizing that I'm going to be in the same position as them soon enough.
      Even with these realizations I'm still not sure what to expect from Morocco. I met some Moroccans while volunteering at the orientation and they only made me more excited for my departure. I will definitely say that the first Moroccans I met have been some of the most welcoming and warm people I've met and they definitely fulfilled the positive image that I've always heard about Moroccans. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity I had to once again volunteer at a YES orientation. I had an amazing group of kids that made it a great week and they're already making me proud by sending me messages telling me of their safe arrivals and one of them has already done volunteer work since arriving in his host community! I'm wishing all of the students a great year and I know that they're going to achieve many amazing things.
     I have made a photo sharing site since I do plan on taking many pictures while I'm in Morocco and it gets difficult to upload more than five pictures. I have already uploaded pictures from the orientation and I hope this is a good format for pictures.
https://happinessiswayoftravel.shutterfly.com/pictures/8

     The students did have a talent show on the last night and it was absolutely incredible! I will be posting a video of the performances later on this week. Right now I will just post a video I took of a few of the Turkish students making music in the hallways.

    One more thing! Although there are many students that have already arrived in the United States there are still many exchange students that haven't arrived and still need to be placed with host families. My host families are some of the most important people in my life and being an exchange student as well as hosting one is an amazing experience. Here's a video made at the YES arrivals! Give being an AFS host family a try!

Returnee Initiative and YES/CBYX Departure Orientation

 AFS events never cease to be amazing. I've been home for two days and I already miss being around other exchange students so much.This was the first time I went to this big of an AFS orientation and I really hope I will be able to attend more of these orientations in the future.

The first four days of my stay in D.C. were part of the returnee integration conference. I was focused on the returnee ambassador track so I got to work on giving presentations about my AFS experience. Now that I got to experience this conference I'm looking forward to my continual involvement with AFS!

The last five days of my stay in D.C. were spent volunteering at the YES and CBYX end of stay orientation. I can honestly say that it was honestly one of the most amazing weeks of my life. This is my first summer in two year not doing a study abroad program, but spending a week around more than 450 international students was just as fun. I was a group leader for the CBYX kids, but I also got to spend time around the YES kids. The orientation was focused on getting the kids prepared for going home and giving them an idea of how to handle reverse culture shock and the different circumstances they are going to face when they get home.

The two German Philipps and Sasha

In addition we got to visit the Department of State and the students had a question and answer session while we were there. Many students also got to visit their embassies or host state representative.

One of my favorite parts was the culture show on the final night. Each country put together a performance that ranged from traditional country songs and dances, a Nelson Mandela memorial, and the famous azonto dance.

At the Department of State

After spending nine days around so many amazing students and volunteers I have only become more excited for my year abroad in Morocco. I'm down to 74 days left in the states an I'm so grateful to be having all of these amazing experiences!

Ashoka Youth Venture

This year AFS started a new program in connection with Ashoka Youth Ventures. Ashoka Youth Ventures serves to help people become changemakers and create something that will benefit society, you can look into it more at https://www.ashoka.org/youthventure. This is a scholarship program that will last four days, and only three students were selected. I just found out today that I have been selected to participate in this training opportunity, so I will be headed up to D.C next month! I'm ridiculously excited for this!

AFS Mid-Year Orientation and Matisyahu

My amazing group!

      Last week I finally became an official volunteer for AFS! I have been volunteering with AFS ever since I came back from my study abroad in Paraguay in 2011, but it did not become official until now. As an official volunteer I was able to be one of the group leaders. The mid-year orientation consisted of reviewing of topics such as safety and being an ambassador, but also included goal setting and a reflection of their year so far. All of the exchange students from the Austin and San Antonio area were there and being able to spend a weekend with them was just another reminder of why I love being around exchange students and why I love studying abroad.

The other exciting thing of the week is that I got to go to the Matisyahu concert in San Marcos! I had gone to the San Antonio concert in November and it was absolutely amazing (it included getting on stage and singing with Matisyahu for One Day!) Go to 2:55 on the video. Both concerts were truly amazing and for the concert in San Marcos I got a vip pass so I was able to meet him! My friend and I decided to give Matisyahu a baja sweater from the downtown market because we wanted to attempt to do something memorable, and it was honestly nerve-wracking for me. Luckily, it ended up being a success. He decided to put it on right away and in one of his pictures on instagram from later on the week he was wearing it! For those of you that are in an area where Matisyahu is going for his acoustic show I definitely recommend going! 

Here's a video of one of my favorite songs he performed.

    Since this blog is mainly for writing about studying abroad I'll give a quick update on my plans. I recently had my NSLI-Y interview. Now I just have to wait patiently for my notification sometime in April or maybe even late March. I also decided to apply to CBYX, which is a year abroad scholarship to Germany. I really want to take a gap year and I decided that I might as well give it a shot and open up as many opportunities as I can. Wish me luck!