My American Experience: Evineldy from Mozambique

May 21

For Evineldy, a 2020-21 YES student, participating in the Virtual Exchange Program wasn’t always easy, but he has forged important connections with his virtual American community in Texas! See selections from his essay below.

Firstly, I would like to thank you all for the chance to participate in this virtual exchange experience as a scholarship, even the trip was cancelled because of the pandemic. I can not complain right now because it has been very good to participate and share Mozambican experiences for my virtual parents there in the USA and my colleagues from there and other countries.

I will start my composition I can say by talking about the first difficulties that I needed to deal with for the first months being a virtual exchange student.

The first difficult was about the network issues (mobile data megabytes and some failures in the network of my country). As a virtual exchange experience, it was really hard at the beginning. The other problem was that, I needed also to put in my mind that I will not be in the USA this year, and it was a hard decision to continue in the program being a virtual student. It was hard because I really wanted to be in the USA. I really used all my time in Mozambique to improve my English skills, my leadership skills just to put myself ready to get the scholarship and do all the best from me. Despite this, I did not give up of this virtual exchange experience, and I accepted the new step that I was invited to do. By the grace of God, everything went well and I am here writing this for you.

The other problem was that this year I was studying for my exams, which kept me from participating in some activities. I am a little bit sad because these activities would help me to be a better person and a great leader. I could have gotten a certificate of participation, but I learned that sometimes we do not need a certificate of participation, we need to have all the knowledge to be better people to the world.

I think I have talked a lot of my problems, let us go now to the best experience that the virtual program provided for me.

In the process of have the virtual families I received an e-mail that told me, I have a new virtual family. I received an e-mail from my Virtual Dad, giving me the welcome to the family and I enjoyed because it was the first time that I had a contact from an American person, and to keep me happier, he was my dad (I lost my dad in an accident car, and having another dad was a great news). So, we have that presentation that was so awesome, and he told me everything about his family, and I did the same too. After that, I received another e-mail form my Local Coordinator in the US, and it was only to keep me happier that I was n the beginning of the virtual exchange experience idea, because I thought that it would be bad and not so good as being in the US One more time, I was out the line, I liked it at all.

Me and my dad are great friends, I can say, because we don’t need that formal conversation, like I would in such a job interview or something related to it. He showed me a great side of the American people.

At the beginning of the program, I was preparing for my sister's wedding in December, so I did not have a lot of time to talk with my American Family. Even though I didn’t have much time, we talked a lot about something new for me. For example, I learned that when the Winter arrives, they change the hours in the clock, moving it an hour! It was amazing for me, and I have never heard it in my life. This is the spirit of an exchange experience: we share things about our country and they share things about their country. Sometimes, I take my time thinking about how my life could be if I was a member of this family when I was in the US. Certainly, when I have a chance to go to the US, I will visit my American Family and be some days in their home and walk a lot with them.

In addition, I had a lot of conversations with my Local Coordinator, and it was awesome too because we shared some nicknames. It was cute. With my Host Dad and my Local Coordinator, we have also some videocall conversations together. We laugh a lot, and we always share news form both countries. I remember when I presented my house to them, and they liked it a lot.

I also shared things about our traditional weddings in my country, in order to explain them how my sister's wedding was. I told them that here, besides the civil wedding we do a traditional wedding too, where the bridegroom family offer something to the bride family as a thanks for giving the permission to marry the woman. This is some culture of my country and if I told you everything I would take all of your time.

Finally, I cannot talk anything else, only thank you all to give me this chance to exchange things about my country to my family and to you.

It is really being a great experience that I had never in my life. I love it!

Interested in sharing your corner of America with another exceptional exchange student? Find out more about how you can host a FLEX or YES program exchange student with American Councils here!