A Lifelong Friendship
Karindra Malikahasri (INA YES to USA YP 18–19)
Hello Everyone! My name is Karindra Malikahasri and I’m an exchange student from Indonesia who’s currently living in Maryland, United States. A year ago, I would’ve never pictured my life the way it is now. I’ve been here for three months and I still can’t believe
that I’m here.
Living in a different country without your family and friends, with a different language than what you’re used to is hard. I’m not gonna lie and say that it’s easy. But something that has really helped me through it all is my friends. Now, it’s also not easy to find friends because where I live, people are so diverse. They don’t even notice that I’m an exchange student! People from different backgrounds go to my school (River Hill High School) and it’s really cool seeing people with different cultures coming together and creating a beautiful friendship. I was always scared of not being accepted or having to go through some kind of racism but now that I’m here, I’m so glad that it’s so diverse and people are very accepting.
Speaking of friends and different cultures, I have found friends that also have different backgrounds. One major thing we share in common is that we’re all AFSers. We came from different parts of the world and we’re all together on this journey. Even though we met 3 months ago, I feel as if we’re best friends already. We also spent a lot of time together because we’re in the same team area.
I remember our post-arrival orientation. It was a cold day and I was wearing shorts, unaware of what’s going to happen next. All we know was we’re going to do some team-building activities. We start off by doing warm-ups. We talked a lot about cultural differences and setting goals. Right off the bat, I noticed a lot of differences between each culture. For example, when we talked about eye contact with adults, I personally feel a little bit uncomfortable talking to adults and staring at them in the eyes just because it’s a little bit disrespectful in my culture, but people from other countries feel as if it’s disrespectful if we don’t look at them in the eyes.
Next, we played a few games and we noticed the sky was getting a little darker. Then, we got to the good part. Now, I am afraid of heights and one thing I would never do back in Indonesia is wall-climbing. Simply because I don’t have the strength and the bravery to do it. But then I thought to myself, “I’m in a different country, might as well do something different.” Right before I climbed, it started raining. I felt very uncomfortable by the situation and the fact that I have to climb all the way up in a slippery wood wall. I almost backed out, feeling scared and unsure. But then the other AFSers cheered me up. As cheesy as it sounds, I started believing in myself again and I finally climbed up even though I was scared to death. 8 minutes later, I was halfway to the top but my hands were tired so I finally came back down. That moment, I realized that you can really do anything you set your mind to. I never thought I would be able to climb that high but I did. After that intense wall climbing event, we finally went inside because it started raining harder and harder. I felt as if we were closer after that orientation. We then started hanging out, even when it’s not an official AFS Baltimore Team “hangout”.
One time we had a sleepover and I was feeling really homesick for some reason. I just couldn’t get it out of my head and so I told them about it and little did I know they were feeling homesick too. It felt great having someone to relate and talk to. I finally feel like I’m not alone. Honestly, without them I don’t think I can survive this journey. 3 months in and I already have a feeling that this friendship is going to last forever and I sure hope it does. I never thought I would have such amazing friends that are from Germany, Columbia, France, Thailand, Norwegia, Japan, Italy, Finland, and Cameroon. I’m so glad that I got to be here thanks to AFS and the YES Program. I feel so blessed!
