A YES Program Graduate [Archives:2007/1065/Community]
Mohammed Jarhum
[email protected]
To be a Yes Program student, I think, is a privilege for many students .That means we have the chance to take part in a preparation course here in Yemen, namely in the AMIDEAST, for few months before leaving to the USA, the dream of many people to visit , live , work, or study.
We were many students from different schools and from two governorates, Sana'a, the capital city, and Aden, the commercial port of the country, where good education is provided in comparing to other governorates all over the country. In fact, the competition was too hard to be selected to have the opportunity to study and live for one academic year in the USA.
Fortunately, I have been accepted to participate in this program. I remember that I had mixed feelings i.e. I was happy to pass the competition to be distinguished among many who wished to get the chance to study there. However, On the other hand, I was somehow worried and wondering about many questions, how can I live in a different society with a different culture? How are they going to accept me as a guy from a different world? Is it safe to live there because of the movies which I used to watch, and which show a very risky and unsafe society?
Anyway, last August With love and tears, we left our families and homes, 32 students, boys and girls flied to Washington DC via Frankfurt. It was not my first experience to travel abroad because for several times I have been outside to many parts of the globe but all that trips were with the family for vacations, just to have fun and to have rest after hard time of work or study, but this time it is totally different.
At the beginning in the airports, in the plane and in the hotels, it was fun; I was with all friends and fellowship mates. Later, they sent everyone to a different State. That was the more suffering and painful part of the story.
I was supposed to go to Kansas, but, at the last day, the family which had agreed to host me apologized. Another family hosted me for a while in Virginia and then I have been sent to stay with another in West Virginia.
The Family has 5 children. The youngest one 10 years old, lives with his mother, the ex- wife of my host dad, and spends the weekends with us. It was not the first time that the family had host a student from the YES Program. Actually, I was the fifth one, I shared the room with Justin, 15 years old. At the beginning, we could not get well along but his father handled the matter equally
The purpose of the program is to spread peace between the United States and other Middle-eastern as well as Asian and African countries. This program was presented to the US Senate after the events of 9/11 by Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator of the State of Massachusetts, and Senator Richard Lugar, Senator of the State of Indiana.
In fact, when I spent my year in USA, I had a lot of adventures, and I learned a lot about the American history, the American society, and the most important one is the peaceful American people. I am very proud of myself for representing my country as a young Ambassador, like we were taught in AMIDEAST's before-departure orientation.
And now that I've came back, I eagerly want to encourage as well as help the new pre-departure students to carry on. From my experience I think it's a very successful program, and we were told in Washington D.C. that the number of countries and students, participated in this program, increase every year. I wouldn't doubt it. For, it is very hilarious/ you learn a lot and you meet a lot of friends. So, all I have to say is that this program is an awesome program and it, for sure, did change my view of the west.
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[archive-e:1065-v:15-y:2007-d:2007-07-05-p:community]
