Journey of an International Student
My name is Abram Motlhaapula and I am an international student from Botswana, Africa studying Fitness and Sport Science at Washington Adventist University. I am a freshman at the school and my experience so far has been a dream come true. I am enjoying every aspect of it and the school activities have kept me busy which is very good as an international student.
I joined the Acro Airs team which is a mixture of acrobatics and gymnastics. This is a sport I never knew about until I arrived at the school. The team welcomed me warmly and was very patient with me, teaching me everything I needed to know about the sport so I could be great at it. The sport requires a lot from us; we have to be at practice five days a week from 8 pm until 11pm. We also go on Acro tours during spring break to perform for different schools throughout the week. I do enjoy sharing our skills with lots of people.
I also participate in cross country which is long-distance running. We run about 5 to 10 miles, but luckily the cross-country season is during the fall season, so my athletics are spread throughout the year.
I am currently an intern with Let's Play America, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping communities play. I get to work with children which I really love and play together with them, which has been a fun and interesting experience. One of our first events was for Kindness Day held at Piney Branch Elementary where we got to spread the mission of kindness and play with kids, too. In the second event, The Winter Play Day, my Acro Airs team were the star performers. It was amazing to see how much the kids loved seeing us flip in the air and do lots of cool stuff. At one point, they also tried joining us which was funny.
More recently I joined other volunteers from Let’s Play America at a bookstore to read story books to children. These storybooks are written by the owner of the Let’s Play America organization, Pat–The Play Lady. We joined her to play with the kids and to help her read the books. It has been a great experience volunteering with Let's Play America since there are so many interactions within the community.
