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Traveling thousands of miles from her home country of Kazakhstan, Aiaru Akylvayeva returns to the United States.
Florida isn’t Akylvayeva’s first destination in the States. Akylvayeva and her family previously lived in Washington when she was a toddler and New York for four years, only recently moving to Florida in October due to her father being active military.
Akylvayeva’s adaption to Florida was successful, but she did experience both cultural and climate shocks. In Kazakhstan, during the fall and winter, it’s cold and snowing, while in Tampa, it remains hot and humid. Akylvayeva also expressed that the cultural differences make it difficult to make new friends and adapt. The main example of this is language, however, she has managed to regain some of her English skills due to the many years living in the US.
“It’s really tough to make a lot of new friends because of the language. In my country, we speak two languages at the same time [Russian and Kazakh],” Akylvayeva said.
Aside from language, the math curriculum differs vastly from her old school.
“In my country, math is really hard and these formulas make me crazy,” Akylvayeva expressed. “[I’m taking] Algebra now, but in Kazakhstan, we take Algebra, Geometry and Physics at the same time and we have 16 lessons which are different every day.”
Another difference Akylvayeva experienced was the food.
“In our country, we can’t eat pork, but here [in America] there’s pork everywhere,” Akylvayeva said. ‘I miss my home country food a lot. [I miss] Beshparmak [a cuisine consisting of horse meat, noodles, chopped onions and potatoes]. But I really like mac and cheese here. The portion sizes are much bigger than in my country.”
While Robinson is one of the smaller high schools in Hillsborough County, Akylvayeva finds it to be a lot larger than her old school back home.
“The school [Robinson] is really big compared to my old school. I really like the students here and most of the teachers here are really nice,” Akylvayeva said.
Although Akylvayeva has adapted well to life in Florida, she still feels homesick at times.
“[I miss] my school and all my friends,” Akylvayeva said. “I knew all the students and all the students knew me. I hung out a lot with my friends.”
Akylvayeva doesn’t know what’s to come in her future but does hope to remain in Florida.
“In two to three years, years we may go back to Kazakhstan, but it depends on my dad’s work. But I hope I will graduate school in America,” Akylvayeva said.
