Hey Guys,
Background Info:
My name is Hamid
Ahmed. I was born in Yemen , in the Middle East. I lived there six years, and
then after that my family moved to Hungary. I spent the next 10 years of my
life here. When I was 16 , I applied to a high school system called UWC (
United World Collage). I got accepted to UWCIM, this is the UWC school in
Bosnia and Hercegovina. So I ended up spending two years of my life there,
doing IB. Those two years were one of the most memorable, beautiful time of my
life. I developed a lot, and made some life time friendship. UWC changed my way
of thinking and made me more open-minded, more educated and also helped me
develop my personality. At the second year of UWC an organization called GCY (
Global Citizen Year) grabbed my and one of my best`s attention. We both applied
and got accepted. Yaaaaay! However we had to manage it financially too. With
the help of a lot of nice people (in my case especially I wanna say thank you
to a special someone who helped me a lot. If you are reading this I just want
to say thank you one more time) we were able to make it, which meant we gone
spend our next year as a bridge year in ECUADOR. After we graduated from UWC ,
we spent our summer struggling to get our visas and all the necessary paper
work done. (these things are very hard when you`re brown).
After a lot of
struggles we made it. (huge credits to GCY for helping us to make it come
true). We both flew to California for the Program Lunch. We spent approximately
10 days there, where we met with a lot of awesome people who are also part of
this program. After 10 days we finally flew to Ecuador, and that’s where the
story begins….
Ecuador:
Quito.
When we arrived to
the capital of Ecuador, Quito I was shocked and amazed. It was that moment when
I realized that, this gap year is happening and I am going to live here , it`s
gonna be the place I will call home now.
We stayed 3 days in a place called San Patricio. After that we moved to our Quito host
families.
I was staying with a lovely Mama called Patty, and a host brother called
Ted. We had an amazing week together.
Patty was taking care of me so well, and she told me some stories of her life.
Every night I was talking with Ted, we had some very deep conversations. It
felt like I’ve known them for years. I was very comfortable with them. On my
3rd day with my Quito family we got announced the sites where we are going to
spend the next 6 month. I was placed in the south of Ecuador. In a province
called Canar. They told me I will be a teacher. Soo many feelings were in my
mind then. But I was optimistic and happy overall.
The goodbye was very hard, It was very difficult to live this family, I felt
very connected with them.
It was an 11 hours ride until we got to
Canar. There was 9 of us who got dropped out in Canar.
The place where we stayed was a little village next to my new home city
Azogues.
Azogues
We stayed 3 days
there, after that we all left to meet our new host families. My host family
lives very close to the center of the city, Azogues. ( I had a very hard time
learning the name of the city). I was a little bit scared, very excited and
little overwhelmed. My biggest fear was the language, I did not speak any
Spanish at that time, and I had no idea how will I communicate with them.
When I arrived there, they gave me a very warm welcoming. They all introduced
themselves. My Host mom ; Azucena , and
my host brothers; Carlos and Adrian.
My host mom can speak English, and that helped me a lot to communicate with
her, and the rest of the family. They showed me around in the house, and then
my room. After a while my host dad got home, his name is Francisco or as
everybody calls him ;Pancho. The first day passed by very quickly. One of the
best thing was finally to unpack my suitcase, after almost a month of living
out of a suitcase.
The next day, when I woke up only my big brother was home. We took the chance
to get to know each other. He also speaks English, making it easier to
communicate. After breakfast he took me around the city, showed me the school
where I will work. The city was so cozy and nice. It was very warm, people are
working, walking, driving. Everybody was doing his own business, it is a very living city. Everybody in a rush,
however they had enough time to give a smile to each other once in a
while.
