I can not describe how I felt when I first got there. I was confused, amazed, excited, afraid, happy, all at the same time. All of us, the interns, needed to stay in Bangkok for several days before going to our schools for a preparation camp. So I went to the national stadium and I was really happy to realize that there were more than 70 interns from all over the world.

The very first diversity that I felt was the fact that my roommates were from France, China, Pakistan, and Vietnam during the preparation camp. And after that I found out that my partner to teach with was a guy from South Africa, Johannesburg.

At first I thought I would never feel culture shock in Thailand since thai culture is pretty similar with Indonesia’s. But it turns out I had another kind of culture shock. It was a bit difficult to accept that I had an african partner and especially it’s guy and a gay. I was really confused what to talk about with him since I realized that we had very different ways of seeing things and very different ways to live our daily lifes.

And to be honest the fact that he was so opened to let anyone knows that he was a gay was even harder for me to accept because as we know in Indonesia gays always hide their identities. I was lucky that I had some friends to tell me that I was lucky for having him as my partner because it was obvious that I could learn a lot of new things from him. Day by day we passed together and finally I found him interesting that we had many good talks.

One of the things that I and my partner often talked about was our school. We had such an amazing school with amazing students. We were really happy that the students had very high enthusiasm to what we taught. I loved my kids so much even though it was quite difficult to teach them at first since they barely knew english. Teaching those kids gave me a very amazing feeling. My personality is actually more to introvert than to extrovert. I didn’t really talk much and sometimes I didn’t realize that I could give such a huge impact for others. By teaching them I had to put a lot of effort to speak in front of the class and made a fun learning condition.

Sometimes I had to make funny faces, do funny things, create funny games, and sing many songs to make them interested to what I was teaching. I didn’t even thought at first that they would make such a very good improvement after I taught them. I noticed how they hardly ever spoke english and I noticed how they always tried to talk to me in english every time I m t them. I was so touched to see that. Somehow they could become a reason for me to cheer up the day even when I had tough days like when the homesick attacked me.

We didn’t spend much time with our host family since we had to live in a flat instead of her house. We had some difficulties to face her since she couldnt speak english at all. Communication was such a big problem for me and my partner. We both struggled several times just to talk to our host family. Sometimes we had to talk to the english teacher to make her understand. Even when we already did that, there were still some things that they took it wrong.

The most unforgettable experience during my exchange was that I spent the whole ramadhan in Thailand. I met up with most of the Indonesians in Bangkok for the eid day and did the prayer at the embassy. It was the most amazing eid day that I will always remember. I had a good time with the Indonesians especially we also shared our difficulties in doing the fasting during ramadhan.

Those above are not yet all of my amazing experience in Thailand. Some experiences are just so undescribable and those I wrote above represent my amazing experience. I am so glad that I can be the part of AIESEC and joined this Global Youth Ambassador Programme. I hope more people can get even more amazing experience than mine through this programme.

Nadya Nurul Fitria Prasetyo
Jurusan Teknik Industri Angkatan 2012