Time

 

The excitement of a new life was waiting for me. When a person makes a decision to start a new life, there is a kind of excitement that no one can describe. This new life can be about moving to a new country or about getting a new job. It is the feeling of starting a new thing.  That was one of the things that happened to me, and I was not expecting it. When I was in the university in Algeria, one of my friends enrolled me in the U.S immigration lottery. A few months later, I got selected. I could not believe it since it was not my dream to come to the United States.  It took me a lot of months to make the decision to come to a place where I did not know the language and where I did not have family or friends. I was excited but scared because I knew that I was going to discover a new environment, a new culture, and a new people.

When I arrived in Chicago, I did not know anything about it, but I committed myself to understanding more about the city, the culture, and the population. I started to know and celebrate a new holiday that I had never celebrated before, and I loved it. For example, in Algeria we never celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, and it is one of my favorite holidays now. I like to hang out with my friends and see the river dyed green and all the people outside celebrating this wonderful day with green clothes and different accessories. In Chicago, there are also a lot of activities that I can do that I could never do in Algeria. For example, climbing is one of my favorite’s activities. In Algeria, I am from a city called Béjaïa. Béjaïa has a lot of mountains, but not a lot of people like climbing and there was not a safe place where I could do it. However, in Chicago, there are a lot of places where I go to climb, and it is amazing.

Since I came to Chicago, three years ago. I have adapted myself to many things, but I still do not understand parts of this culture. For example, healthcare. In Algeria, a doctor visit and medicine are low cost and there are free clinics for families who do not have a high income. However, In the United States is different. A lot of people cannot go to the doctor or cannot pay for their medicine because it is really expensive. There is also another point that I do not really approve of, and it is education. The education in the United States is also expensive. Students must work too many jobs to pay for their studies, and it can be hard when they do not have the necessary help or resources that can pay for it.

Each country has its unique characteristics, and the United States is no exception. Like all other countries, there are things that one person can like and others that another cannot. After having some trouble adapting myself to a few concepts in America, I understood that it is all about time. Besides the time I know more about the place where I live, about the language, and the culture. The time has allowed me to identify things that I love and the ones that I do not without paying attention to any stereotypes or assumptions.