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My Melting Pot Experiences.
This is the dough we made! – Maetzin
is a Mexican girl who moved to the US with her family almost 10
years ago. She was the first and has been the best friend of mine
ever since I arrived here! I've been to her house twice and that was
really good fun! She is an immigrant and she was in first place last
year!!! I've learnt a little about the Mexican culture from her.
This
was Maetzin’s Birthday Party!! I and a couple of friends went to her
house and we had camp fire. We made grilled marshmallows and they
were really good! They said it was an American Snack.
They are all my friends at Southland. The girl in the middle is
Mexican. The rest are all American but they all have a similar
background which is being German.
These are my exchange student
friends. From the left is Fidan from Azerbaijan, Maria from
Bulgaria, Shegofa from Afghanistan and myself, from Thailand.
It was something I couldn’t imagine until I saw the melting pot. I
went to the mosque in Rochester in the holyday and I saw lots of
Muslims there. They are from all around the world like Pakistan,
India, Egypt, Somalia, South Africa, Turkey, Russia and Cambodia. I
was told that there was Muslim everywhere in the world but I didn’t
realize until that day.
I went to a party celebrated on the Holyday with my Indonesian
friends and their host dad. My Indonesian friends met another
exchange student from their country and I thought they missed each
other so much because they were together all the time and spoke
their language like they forgot a Thai friend like me. So I decided
to find a new friend and I met her, Hajra. She is a Pakistani girl
but she was born in the USA. We talked a lot and exchanged our
experiences. It was a wonderful night. We still stay in touch today.
It was Halloween Party at my coordinator’s house and these people
were their son’s friends. The first one from the left was a senior
whose background was Native American so he dressed up as an Indian
and he was very proud of it. Other two were his friends and their
background was German.
These people are exchange students in my school. Flo is from Belgium
and Hakim is from Indonesia. I went to Harry Potter and I told Flo
that it was hard to me to understand because they spoke in British
accent. Flo said it was easier for her! She speaks French and
Dutch!! And she went to Paris in twenty minutes from her house in
Belgium!!! I was so jealous because from my house to just Bangkok is
like 10 hours!
My Melting Pot
Experience!
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My
Volunteering Experiences.
Volunteer projects seemed to be so
boring to me with no idea how it would be like. That was what I
thought before I really did volunteer and it was so silly to think
that way. My mind was changed when I first did it, immediately.
I did my first one and I did not even
think it would be a kind of voluntary project. We, my host mom and
I, went to a nursing home. She had been there twice that summer and
asked me if I wanted to go. We made some food like pies, cup cakes,
bars and juice and took it all to the nursing home. We played Bingo
with the grandmas and grandpas. Some of them couldn’t hear very well
so it was my job to help them. Almost all of them looked so happy
that we had gone there to visit them. The nursing home was a nice
clean place but I will never let my parents live there. I just knew
that people living there felt lonely and some would rather to stay
with their children. Visiting these people did teach me something.
It doesn’t matter if I know them or not but my visiting made them
feel happy to think that there are people who still think of them.
My English might not be good enough to explain all things I felt but
I could just say it was amazing to go there.
The second one was a bit different
and funnier. It was Recycle Festival or REFEST in Austin, 45 minutes
from where I live. This festival was all about the recycling things
and saving the world. Taking care of the environment had always been
on my mind so I just loved this project so much. Some people brought
some inventions from remnants to show how they made them. I did make
brace laces from the beads and string made of banana trees for
people who visited the festival and wanted it. In the afternoon I
helped making popcorn and cotton candy to sell and the money was for
the organization about the environment. I also worked as an usher
for the kids who wanted to play on the play things. It was so much
fun. I felt so useful more than at any other time. Even if my brace
laces were not perfect, some people liked them. Even though I
puttied some cotton candy to eat, I was pretty sure I'd made enough
money from selling that stuff. It was an awesome day and I was so
proud to have done something for this world.
I’m a Muslim. My host family live
next to a church and they go to that church almost every week. Once
we had supper in church. I and my host dad went to the grocery store
to get groceries for the supper. It was a tiring day. I had fun
though. The money from selling the tickets was for helping poor
people in winter to have warm clothes. It’s interesting that I was
only one Muslim working with Christians. That was not a problem at
all. It does not matter what religion we believe in but what we do.
Do you agree with me? I did it and I helped those poor people by
working with Christians and that’s all. There is no difference
between people when they get together to help the mankind.
One day after school, I went to
Sacred Heart School, where there was another voluntary project.
People in Adams came there and helped package the dried food like
rice, beans and veggies for people in Haiti. I have known that there
was a huge disaster in Haiti. I help put stuff in bags and then
weighed the bags. While I was working, I thought of people’s faces
when they got this food after starving for days and then my tears
did flow. My parents are not rich but we always have enough food to
eat, nice clothes to wear and a place to sleep, whereas some people
don’t have anything. Being far from home teaches me a lot things. I
realize how worthwhile everything sent is.
That night I went back home with a
happy heart after helping my brothers and sisters whom I had never
seen before. It was impressive that I had come all the way from
Thailand, lived in the US and packed food for people in Haiti.
Wherever we are, we can always help people someway, somehow.
I also helped serve food in Spaghetti
dinner fund raiser at my school. Actually students got money for
their trip to Florida. I was not on that trip and I declined to take
any money either. I just helped my school. Because Southland is a
very nice host school I felt like doing something for it somehow. It
was a little thing I did but it was a proud moment and I will keep
doing it for the school.
I did my presentations about my
country, Thailand. I did in Art class, Creative Writing class,
American History class and Public speaking class. I brought a lot of
souvenirs from Thailand for my friends in classes. In classes I did
my presentations, everybody got at least one souvenir, mainly
elephant key chains. I also had special things for three people who
can answer my question after I finished my presentation. Special
things were T-Shirts with Thai style printed or Thai language
printed, Thai Traditional fabric purses, handmade handkerchiefs
which I made them myself and money from my country. I also talked
about my country with the ex-veterans in Adams legion. I showed them
my stuffs from home ant it was so impressive.
My host mom asked her colleges if
they would like me to do presentations in their classes. So, I went
there to do my presentation with 2nd grade classes. I had
to change something on my PowerPoint for them to interest them. I
also gave them some food that I brought the ingredients from home. I
loved those classes so much they are just so cute and talkative.
They asked me tons of questions. Some of them liked my food some
didn’t but that didn’t make me sad because I didn’t like some
American foods either. I wrote their name in my language and they
just loved it. Some of them gave me like four or five hugs before I
left. Some said, ‘Maream, can I help you carrying your coat please’
or ‘Maream, Please come back again and make me some food.’ That was
adorable. I was proud to present about my country to the kids who
never knew any about Thailand and make them happy so much.
I know that almost all American don’t
like spicy food like I do. Once I made Tom-Yum-Kung or Sour and
spicy soup with Shrimp at home. I made it very plain for my host
family and kind of spicy for myself. My host mom tried like three
bowls of soup. She had the plain one and she said it was spicy. She
did not know that mine was different so she tried mine and she
cried. She didn’t really cry but it was just spicy. She said she
liked hers much better. I was so happy that she loved it.
I got an email from my coordinator
and he asked if I wanted to help pack food for people in winter. I
said yes!! It was at a church in Lyle and there were only four
people included me! With bunches of food I had no idea when I would
be done. I supposed to be there for an hour but that night it was
more than two hours. It was hard to control my starving stomach
while I was working with those foods that I couldn’t eat. It was a
nice thing to do, though. There are people who starving waiting for
the foods, so, I never mind to do it.
Sound like it’s not a lot that I did.
But I’m not going to stop doing my voluntary work. I will keep doing
it. I love this year in the US. I do a lot of things that I really
want to do. I made friends who are so much different but we can be
friends definitely. I see the world through my own eyes and my own
mind without anybody telling what is going on. I learned to share
with people. In here, I am not supposed to get A in every subject so
I can have time to do Art project that I like and give some of my
art works for poor people. It’s amazing that I’m learning what a
life really is. I realized that this life is really short. I might
die in every second. Years after I die, people would forget me but
good things I had done will still stay. That’s why I am keeping
doing it and helping people. God knows what I’m doing so I don’t
need to present how bad or good I am to anybody.
My English is kind of confusing; I
wrote it from my real feeling though. I do apologize for some errors
grammatically. Actually I have been learning English seriously like
two or three years so mine is not very good but I promise that I
tried my best. Thank you very much for reading.
My
Volunteering Experiences.
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