Tahlia 's story in Sri Lanka

              

              

     The story is kinda funny. It was actually unplanned when I finally decided to go exchange to this beautiful country. (Un)fortunately, I got rejected from a project in other country. So I started looking for another one in Sri Lanka and I got accepted in Guru Gedara project from AIESEC Colombo South. I’m kinda glad that I didn’t get accepted in the first place, because my 5 weeks in Sri Lanka was the best 5 weeks of my life.

                The project is a about teaching English to the Sri Lankan school children. I’ve never teach english or anything ever before to a school students, but I always want to share my knowledge to others and I think this is my opportunity to make it happen. By doing this, I know that I can develop myself.

                 Since I’ve never done this before, I was a little bit nervous to teach in front of all the students at the beginning. But the teacher is really helpful and the students are cooperative. As time passes, I’m getting comfortable with it.

                Not only cooperative, the children are

very lovely as well. On my first day teaching here, one of the students gave me a pen, the other day some students gave me a flower. They keep giving me stuffs almost every day. I never knew such small thing like this could make me happy.

   From this project, I made friends with the exchange participants (EP) from other countries. There are from China, Taiwan, Pakistan, Bahrain and New Zealand. Beside the “Guru Gedarians” people, I also met EPs from other project. They are from Brazil, Peru, Greece, etc. At first we didn’t

know each other at all. Then we start to understand each other and respect our cultural differences, and suddenly in a short period of time, we become a family. This is actually the best part of going exchange.

                Besides doing the project, I also traveled a bit in Sri Lanka. One of the places that I visited was Kitulgala. I went there for water rafting along with all the Guru Gedarians and the AIESECer. The place is really breath taking, and the rafting was so much fun!

  

I’ve traveled to several countries in this world, and I always think that people from my country (Indonesians) are the nicest people in the world. But I changed my mind after I visited Sri Lanka. All of the people in here are very nice and lovely! Wherever I go, all of the people are smiling to me sometimes I even feel tired that I have to smile all the time :p

Thank you so much AIESEC CS for giving me this kind of experience, I’ve had the time of my life :)