Victor meets his host mom Beverly for the first time in Arkansas.

Since I was young, I knew that my family’s plan was to send me to the United States as an exchange student. My uncle lived in Iowa for 8 years and he wanted me to do the same. I cried in the airport because it’s impossible not to cry when you leave the people who you lived with for 17 years. So when I left them, the last smile, the last tear, I felt like a lost bird, without knowing where to fly. Well, I would live like that for one year. That would be hard. But when I got here and when my host mom and my coordinator received me, the voice inside my head said that it would be different. That it would be the best year of my life.

First of all, my coordinator. I’ve…