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Imagine yourself being a person from a small town, who has never gone too far from home, and suddenly you’ll be living in the United States for a month. This is a summary of what happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and I still can’t believe it was true. You may ask yourself “how can a low-income Brazilian student live in the US for a whole month?” well, I did it after applying for Youth Ambassadors, a program for young leaders by the United States Embassy. All the costs were paid by the Embassy and this was my last chance to be in a high school exchange program like that. I was trying to be selected for a whole year and when it finally happened I was in shock for two reasons: one because I couldn’t believe I finally did it, and two because I was afraid of living that far with other 49 teenagers that I had never met. I spent a lot of time thinking “what if my English isn’t good enough?”, “what if my host family hates me?”, “what if I can’t handle the cultural shock?”. It was a leap into the unknown, indeed. I had a lot of help from the staff and the other Youth Ambassadors, who calmed down and lived the intense experience with me. My fears didn’t come true, unlike my dreams about this trip. I was embraced, welcomed and learned more in that month than in the last few years. I also see clearly now that my frights weren’t rubbish: it’s ok to feel insecure because it’ll only make you stronger and focused on overcoming your problems. It was great traveling without knowing much about the place because I was enchanted by every little thing, from the creeks on the floor to the inspiring people I met. It was some kind of mystical place for me. Above all, I’m thankful for having all that crew to support me while I was jumping into this hole to another world.