Growing Excitement

About a month ago, I had my local AFS Orientation, where I was able to meet a few other Americans who will be living abroad for the next school year. This was exciting and interesting to talk to people with similar goals as myself, although none of them were going to the same part of the world as myself. 

This upcoming week, I will be flying to Washington DC for my YES Abroad PDO (Pre Departure Orientation), where I will meet other Americans going on year long exchanges to similar parts of the world as myself. I will be there for four days, and will have orientations, tour the Filipino embassy, and talk with US State Department officials about the YES Abroad program. 

In case you are confused, YES Abroad is the scholarship program that sends to 13 different countries with different implementing organizations. My implementing organization is AFS. This means that I will have AFS volunteers as my local support in the Philippines and in the US, but I also have support from YES Abroad regarding scholarship details and questions. 

As of right now, I do not yet have a host family or city in the Philippines. This is usual, as none of the other YES Abroad students going to the Philippines have host families either. I am excited to find my host family, and will post as soon as I get the information. 

I hope you enjoy reading about all of my exchange adventures! I will post again about PDO and host family information. Thank you for reading and I will try and keep you up to date!