At Loyola University Chicago I have gotten the opportunity to be a positive role model to a refugee family from Nepal. It all started as a requirement for my UNIV 190 class, a class offered by the International Learning Community. It ended up being a wonderful experience that gave me the chance to enrich a Nepali family’s perceptive on America and enlighten their stay here in this foreign country. Upon our arrival, the family was very welcoming and giving. They served us apples, noodles, and chai tea, something neither my partner nor I had ever tried before. There is a strange spicy after taste to every gulp that I wasn’t used to, so I would make a face, through this funny reaction to the tea the family and us somehow bonded that day and connected everyday thereafter. With our weekly visits, the two young girls we helped improved their grades at school and have advanced a lot with their english. This simple action of visiting a family on a weekly basis will impact the community in that these two girls will become very successful women; they want to help others just like we help them, having inspired these girls to want to give back is extremely rewarding.

My experience with our family could only be better if I would’ve gotten to see them more than ones a week, with my busy schedule that isn’t very likely, but the more time with them the greater our friendship becomes. I enjoy watching them grow and learn more and more about our culture and American lifestyle. Their nephew, Pukar, who we also help sometimes is becoming very Americanized and leading him toward the right track is wonderful. I am proud of the two girls in all their hard work and look forward to visiting them next semester.