It was March now, and April was coming soon. Time was coming to leave soon. Breakthrough memories of everywhere. I was not ready yet to leave for Pakistan. In March, I didn’t have much to do. We started to saying bye-until-next-time to my host community. About language learning, we finished our final test and after few weeks, we had our local partner gathering show by Global Citizen Year. This was where we invited GCY partners like our host fam and supervisors to say thanks for having us and making this year great for us. I went with my entire family. My supervisor couldn’t make it because he had some important work going. For this program, we went to Florianopolis with host family. We didn’t do a lot that day. We had some formal speeches and presentation of appreciation to our partners. We had a nice lunch there. I with my family and friends played some football to enjoy the sunny day. We had a nice swimming pool. All our host siblings were having a good time with swimming. We took some family photos and other fellows. It was very emotional time. Usually, I don’t cry for something like this because I’m always grateful it happened, and we enjoyed our time and I look forward for more of this soon. But I felt emotional and cried a bit. After lunch, we chilled a bit and then started to head back to our home.
It was April now. Things were getting packed now and fellows were getting ready for their long journey to Re-Entry Training (RET) in Red Woods, California. It was our last week in our host community now. I spent most of the time with my family and packing my stuff and some cleaning. But I also spent some time with my friends to appreciate for everything. It was not easy to believe how my time in Brazil has come to end and in couple of days, I will be saying goodbye to everybody in my community. It´s very heartbroken feeling to live your host family who you spent good times with and your good friends. I knew it’s going to be hard for me and I am going to miss my host family, apprenticeship and my friends. It was a day to say bye to my family. I was quite emotional but grateful for my host family for everything. I saw that sadness on all our fellows, it seemed like they weren´t ready to leave now, same as I felt. We had our last thing left in Brazil. It was our last learning seminar in the same where we had our Welcome Week. Now we were there for Goodbye Week. I was very glad to be there in the same hotel, because I just felt in love with it from the very beginning. During our learning seminar, I had my This is Brazil presentation. I did it with my friends on surfing and bodyboarding combined. In my section, I threw some pictures and shared some rules of bodyboarding with my positive experience. Fellows seemed very interested in our presentation and shot some many questions in feedback sessions. It´s our last night in Brazil. On that night, we had some special dinner with everybody dressed beautiful. It was our small closing ceremony. There were some formal speeches and some superlatives were given our fellows and staffs. I received the most glow-up superlative. Later, we had a small dance party. It´s Departure day. Some were cleaning and packing their stuff. Some were saying thanks note to their team leader. Some were just resting. We made our everything ready to RET. We made to Sao Paulo airport then waited some hours for our next flight to Atlanta. We were in Atlanta after a long while. From Atlanta, we headed to San Francisco. There were we and other cohort members were there to say welcome us. Later, we headed to Red Woods, in the middle of forest. I really appreciated the nature of Red Woods. Very tall and strong trees. Very diverse community of forest. Very clean and chilling weather midst Red Woods. It was our Re-Entry Training (RET), every cohort was asked to present something from their host country. We made some presentation on culture, tradition and religion of Brazil. We performed some Samba, Capoeira and Funk. It was very good to see other cohorts changed and diverse. They seemed like they did really have an impact from their host country as we had. During RET, we visited Santa Cruz for some group work. Our group worked quick and went to the beach, which was nearby the city. I felt quite nostalgic when I was at the beach there. I awfully missed the beaches from Brazil. Now, RET was finished and time to say goodbye to our fellows came. I wasn´t ready for another goodbye. It was unbearable to say goodbye to my friends, but it happened. Then other day, I started my journey to Pakistan all emotional. Last few words, this year taught me a lot and been one of my best and unforgettable time. I´m really grateful to GCY for everything.
Thanks for Reading it.
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Haider Ali
Student
UWC Robert Bosch College
