When I was only nine years old my mother approached me and my brothers with a choice. We were told we could all move to Ethiopia until we graduated. The offer was mainly focused on my second older brother and me, seeing as my oldest brother was graduating that year and preparing to join the military. My mother was a hard-working middle class woman and wanting a break we all knew that life would be much easier for her if she moved there. She wanted to move but at the same time she didn’t really want to pull us out from our current lives in Virginia where we went to school and had many friends and family. She came with the offer, if we agreed that is, that we would move to Ethiopia and if we didn’t like it after two years then we would be able to move back to Virginia. I, disbelieving her promise, refused and wanted stay. My older brother, on the other hand, liking the idea of an easier life for my mother had agreed. Of course, had I been a bit older and more mature, I probably would have made the same decision. I was outvoted and the move was sudden.
The whole time that the preparations, like packing and shopping, were being made, I begged my mother to change her mind or leave me behind, wanting to stay anywhere in the US rather than move to Ethiopia. My attempts were futile though and the move was inevitable. When we moved to Ethiopia, I arrived in tears. I still did not want to be there and no one could tell me otherwise. My family in Ethiopia was overjoyed to see us but I did not feel the same way that they did. I felt as if they had influenced my mother to move so I considered them enemies of mine. I saw them as people who I shouldn’t trust for they had already hurt me so much. When I started the fifth grade, I was rude to the other students and got into multiple fights. I kept getting in trouble with the teachers and neither my mother nor the rest of the family could understand why I had become so difficult.
It took me a long time to adjust and when I did, I started to try to socialize, introducing myself and trying to make friends. At first I found it hard since I had been such a troublesome child at the beginning of the year, but then my cousin introduced me to her friends and soon they became my friends. Later on in the sixth grade my classmates took a liking to me and I ended up making friends among them as well. I lived in Ethiopia for five years before I moved back to the U.S. When I left though, I felt as if I had left a place very dear to me that I would definitely be returning to. Living in Ethiopia was the best experience that I’ve ever had and I’m glad that I was outvoted in our decision to move.

Because of all of this I learned I should always be willing to explore things that I’ve never experienced. This lesson has impacted me very strongly and has, as I’ve grown over the years, structured my whole way of thinking towards that of a person who’s able to take risks and still be optimistic about my decisions.