I can be the first to say that at the beginning of this process, I had no idea that Tajikistan was even a country and had no clue as to where Tajikistan was located. To be honest, in the beginning, I had no interest in taking part of this trip, but as time went on and as I did more research, I became very interested about having the opportunity to travel halfway across the world to learn about a totally different country.

When I told family members about this extraordinary trip, many gave me a puzzled look as to why Tajikistan is the traveling point of this trip. However, my grandpa was very intrigued by what I said and started questioning me. My grandfather has traveled the whole world and has the most knowledge about what I got myself and supported me in my decision on traveling so far.

Being a junior in high school, I am so blessed and lucky to be able to go on this life changing trip. I have never traveling outside of the states and so far it has been a very unique journey, and I haven’t even left yet!

Wishing to travel to a different country since I was little,  is finally becoming reality. It still has not really sunk in that I will be on a seventeen hour flight halfway across the world in less than two weeks… but oddly enough I’m actually looking forward to it! I cannot wait to meet all the wonderful students from Tajikistan and to even pick up a little Tajik along the way.

All the research that I have done in preparation for this trip, has definitely helped me better understand the life of Tajiks and  just gave me some basic background information, rather than entering a country halfway across the world, not knowing a single piece of knowledge as to where I even traveled to.

As I said before, I am just so ecstatic to have the opportunity  to take part of this once-in-a-lifetime experience and without support from Mr. Lazarski and my family, I don’t think that I would have even taken this trip into consideration.