We Are Foreign

When we are traveling with the team all dressed the same in school gear with signs of UTRGV, people are always curious and they ask as where are from and what do we play. My team has a lot of internationals, we have one girl from Poland, a girl from Africa, Brazil, Norway and three of us are from Serbia. Of course we all have accents so when people ask us where we are from, they are usually confused when we say we are from South Texas. Our height and our accents give us away. We like to joke around when we are at the airports and we like to see if we can get away with not being noticed as an international but just as an American .

It always happens because we look, speak and act different so people always assume that we are not from the United States. Eventually you get used to it and it is very funny with all the curiosity that people have, there are some questions I have been asked that made me laugh out loud. My country is small but we are living normal life just like everybody else is doing. First question I get when I say that I am from Serbia is most of the time the same and it goes “ Is it cold in Siberia?”  Well, it’s Serbia precisely central Europe and we have all four seasons which means that we have summer, autumn, winter and spring. Summers are super nice and warm, while during winter it is cold and it’s snowing, autumns are rainy and everything is orangish, yellowish and brownish and springs are fresh and full of flowers. After question about whether people are divided in two groups. First group is well informed and those people will ask question about Yugoslavia (big country on Balkan that was divided on six small countries after WWII and Serbia is one of them), about Novak Djokovic the best tennis player in the world, food, music, religion, etc. Second group is the one that cracks me up and never stops surprising me. There are different questions that I have been asked, one example is if we have internet, also do we take food from trees, do we have ice-cream, do we celebrate Christmas, if everybody is tall, and do we use cellphone and all different types of questions?

It does make me laugh but at the same time makes me think a lot about how people are uninformed. I don’t want to be rude but it makes me sad how people here think that the United States is all that exists. The world is beautiful and huge and there is so much more out of the United States. I have traveled, seen a lot, and I am so excited to travel more and learn more about this amazing world we are living in and learn all about cultures, religion and people's life in other parts of the world.