Yolanda

交流生計劃 (阿肯色州)

‘Bye I love you all.’ This is the last sentence I said in Prescott, Arkansas. With tears and memories, I left Prescott, a little town in Arkansas, which I have spent 9 months at.

The first day I arrived, my host family and new friends warmly welcomed me. They held a party for my arrival. Everyone introduced themselves to me enthusiastically. The first thing my host mother told me was, ‘you stay with us, you are part of us. If anyone mess with you, just tell me and I will take care of it.’

At first, everything was so different to me and it was really hard for me to adapt to it. Fortunately, my host sister is the same age as I do. At first, we did not talk much to each other. After one week, we became best friends. We went to school everyday and hang out with friends after school together. She took me out all the time so I am never bored. We told each other everything, helped each other whenever another one need help. She took care of me and made sure I got everything right. I can never forget how both of us stayed up all night, telling each other secrets, end up being late to school the next day. I can never forget how we did stupid things together, scared to be found out. We were like real sisters. There was one time, we took a picture together, someone took us, ‘Look at you two, you look like real sisters!’ The first thing she said was, ‘what are you talking about? We are REAL sisters!’ She is right! We are real sisters. We acted so much alike. We shared the same room. Our room is never neat. Things are everywhere. People had to watch out whenever they walked into our room because it would be really easy to be tripped over by our stuffs.

The day before I had to leave, my host family gave me a videotape. In it, there are videos they took of the little town. There are also messages of my friends and every member in my host family. I was balling my eyes off whenever I was watching it. My host sister made me a scrapbook with pictures of all friends, things we like to eat, places we like to go and 2 pages of memories we had.

Prescott is not a rich town. People there don’t have a lot of money. But it is a town of love. Everyone is friend of others, they are always there when their neighbors need help. If I can do everything all over again, I would still choose to be an exchange student in Prescott, Arkansas.