Awesome and Invaluable

I traveled to Nerekhta in the summer of 2011 to teach English at the International Youth Center. As an English and Communication major with hopes of becoming a secondary English teacher, my main motives for seeking a program like this was to gain teaching experience and to travel.

My host family was amazing: hospitable, kind, understanding and always asking questions. I felt living with a host family was a valuable component of my experience because it was an authentic glimpse into the lives of people from a completely different part of the world than what I'm used to. I'm also a vegetarian and was pretty anxious about how this would play out, but again, my host family made sure I had everything I needed. I always felt included, whether that be with going to pick berries, going swimming in the river, or making dinner, they always invited me to do family activities.

I also loved that on weekends we would take little day trips to neighboring cities. We had a lot of freedom when it came to exploring and I was grateful that I was able to see more than just my host-town while I was there.

One to three months can seem daunting especially if you haven't traveled alone before, but Crossroads helped so much in the whole process and made it incredibly stress-free. They gave me a timeline (and as someone who loves making lists and charts, I found this especially great), and also helped with the visa process, and coordinated my living situation, having someone meet us at the airport and help us travel to our destination. If this hadn't happened, then I would have been so scared and confused. My Russian skills aren't the best, and working out how to get around a new city is difficult enough! Communication between myself and the coordinators was always really easy and they were always helpful. It's rare that in an international teaching program the correspondence is personal and friendly. I'm so glad I went through Crossroads to have my international teaching experience and would definitely do it again!