Memory with her host brother.

Day One, I stepped out of my AFS counselor's car and shakily said, "Uhhh... Hola? Estoy muy... um, feliz?" My host Mom gave me a look that sort of said, 'This might be a tough one...' It was thier first time hosting an AFS student and my first time being one so it looked like we had our work cut out for us.

There are few words to describe the things you learn while on an AFS exchange program. The most important is that we are not alone in this world. English is not our global community's only language. Not everyone can spend five dollars each day. People can be happy without a plethora of choices. Choosing to go on my exchange to a developing country really humbled me, and made me appreciate all that I have, all that I can do. I try my hardest now not only to conserve in my own family, but to let others know how they can contribute to the Earth as a whole.

That first sentence that I said to my host Mom; "Hi, I'm very... um, happy?", pretty much sums up my experience with AFS. It was hard to get those first few words out, but my family got the message. While I was in Panama my first couple of days I couldn't understand the culture at all. I never realized how difficult it could be to accept that there is life outside of the United States. There are people with different religions, languages and mind sets whose lives really do go on. The first few months for me were all about learning that.

When I was interviewed here in the states, the AFS interviewer asked, "What would your ideal experience be?" and I responded, "I want the complete opposite of what I have here." Well, I wish she would've told me to be careful what I wished for! Now I was waking up at 5:30 each morning, sharing an outdoor lavatory with six other people, wearing uniforms to school, feeding chickens, and hand washing my laundry. I thought that I might get tired of all that; but I was loving it! The first step to getting over the differences was to actually try EVERYTHING. I remember eating literally a hundred different kinds of fruit picked fresh from my neighbors yards and finding strange and terrifying looking things in my soup. I listened to folkloric music that sounded like dying cats. I learned six new types of dance. I tried anything and everything.

Memory jumping for joy.

I met my best Panamanian friends through school, where I learned to speak Spanish in English class. I got used to the uniforms and realized soon after I got 'back home' that they weren't such a bad idea. My biology teacher brought me on any field trips he could, and I visited places and saw things I never could have on my own. I shared the experience of sighting a toucan in the jungle, a phenomena that my professor had only seen once before in his life outside of captivity. I volunteered with a national environmental association, cleaning up waterways and parks with my friends from school, an experience which changed the way I think of the Earth entirely.

I made life long AFS friends on our trips to beaches, valleys, and just shopping in the fresh markets. The friendships I have with students from Germany, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Thailand, Iceland, Italy, Norway, and France I value as much as my Panamanian friends. AFS students connect with each other instantly. We all go through the same experiences and little bumps in the road and help each other through them. Even now that I'm home, we're communicating about how strange it is to be back; how we're so 'American' or 'German' or 'Dutch' again.

My family truly treated me like their own child; which was difficult for me to believe as my host parents already had four children of their own to look after. My Mom taught me to cook, my little sisters to shine my school shoes, my brother how to dance and my Dad to make the family first, myself second. They taught me about their faith, without pressuring me to be exactly as they are. At their church, I met a priest who my Aunt and Uncle from the States had met 20 years before in Saudi Arabia, which made me realize what a small world this is.

Getting through the day while I was abroad didn't seem too significant. It was when I left that I felt the real value of my experience. Arriving at Miami International Airport, I didn't feel as if I were just an American anymore, but part of a bigger picture. When I saw an AFS representative outside of baggage claim, I knew that I would be part of the AFS family forever and that I would always have this experience to look back upon, as the greatest time of my life.