The Experience of a lifetime
By Deni Nikolovski (2021-22, North Macedonia, placed by ACES in Drummond, Wisconsin)
Having different experiences and different understandings of the things around us is what makes individuals unique. If you’re reading this, you probably have wondered what would happen if you did something different, those moments of pushing guilt down our hearts. Well, I, Deni Nikolovski, travelled and lived in a small town thousands of miles away from my home. That small town was Drummond, Wisconsin. I was an exchange student this year, and if I had to choose one word to describe all of it – unforgettable.
To give a little spoiler to this adventure of mine, one of the many favorite activities I had going on and purely enjoyed doing, was the sports, the specific one being basketball. I played basketball during my stay in the US purely because I was on a mission – to step out of my comfort zone and try out every single thing that I possibly could. Basketball was definitely on the list, and it was no mistake. From having exhausting and long practices all the way to tight and stressful games, everything was like a dream, simply perfect.
To many of you, the names Charity, Jace, Sammi, Roy, Jadon, Arian might just sound like regular names. Well, to me this was and still is my long-distance family. If this small story of mine somehow ends up across their screens, I want to say thank you a million times. One of my most memorable activities I did during my stay in the US, actually happened in the first week. I went canoeing with my host family, and something sparked in me, I felt like home.
Going on about memories like these can last forever. Countless of memories and I hope they stay with me throughout my whole life. But, that is what it’s really about. As one of the YES program’s main goals being create long-lasting relationships with people with completely different lives, different beliefs, experiences, pasts. I would like to think that I managed to check this goal.
This experience taught me how to understand the world better, how to see something that I couldn’t before. After my return home, I feel alive, I feel a part of something bigger. I encourage as many people to try and experience something like this at least once in their lifetime, as I would like to call it, a true blessing. But not everyone gets this opportunity. Being the lucky one that does, I feel obligated to my community, my roots, my country. Just participating and learning for myself is not enough. Knowledge means nothing if not shared. So, yes, sometimes I do think to myself what would happen if I did, but this time I ask myself what would happen, if I didn’t?
