Different Is What Makes You Special

When I was four years old, growing up in a family where both parents work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I traveled abroad. My parents had to go on a mission for the Israeli Embassy in Burma for two years and from there we moved to Peru for another two years. I studied in American Schools that were mainly for International kids who were from all over the world. Finally after four years we came back to Israel, and I entered the 3rd grade Hebrew speaking classroom. But as time passed by growing up in Israel, when I reached the age of thirteen my parents got a new assignment, this time we were to move to Peru for four years, meaning my whole High School years.

It was the second time I was exposed to this Spanish speaking country, only this time I was a bit older, a teenage girl, who was taken from her “safe zone”, from her friends, from her boyfriend, from her relatives, from her everything.

My parents enrolled us to the same “International School” where everyone spoke only in English and learned Spanish as a second language. The only problem was that for me, both languages were strange and for me, both languages were a second language, since I was already fourteen years old and had forgotten these languages from back then when I was eight, because the Israeli school did not know how to deal with a “special” student like me.

Being different in a strange country was very hard at first, mainly because I did not speak the languages. At first I did not try to fit in, I was very angry with my parents who made me go with them. For almost four months, I used to escape classes and lock myself in the bathroom crying my heart out. And then it “hit me”, I said to myself, “SHAKED! Wake up and get over it! You need to make the most of this experience, after all, you know your parents won’t let you go back to Israel, you are stuck here and now, enjoy these four years and make the best out of it, crying won’t do any good and won’t help you go through”

So as I grew up, going  through 9th grade to senior year, learning to speak all these three amazing languages and getting to know all these beautiful people I realized how life gave me this amazing gift.

This awesome experience I had in life made me who I am today! Firstly, I thank my parents for giving me the opportunity, for making me a better person, for enriching my knowledge and enabling me to  get to know new cultures and new places, and especially gain two new languages.

Today I know that being “different is what made me special and still makes me special”, being able to speak different languages, to navigate all these different people and places, gave me a unique sensibility, it has opened my horizons, it gave me so many tools to manage life and to know how to deal with hard times, made me stronger, and has made me stand out and be successful.

Now I know that “being different" is an advantage.