When asked to point to Macedonia on a map, most people have no clue where it is, and some don’t even realize that it’s a country. Vesa Haliti knows where Macedonia is. In fact, she’s from Tetovo, Macedonia.
Macedonia itself is landlocked just north of Greece.
Haliti is one of the five foreign exchange students this year at South, and she is happy to be here.
“I always wanted to live abroad, especially alone.” Haliti says. “And this was like the perfect opportunity. And also, my mom was an exchange student and she always talked about how a wonderful experience it is and how much she learned.”
Her mom studied as a foreign exchange student in London and Luxembourg.
Haliti said that learning English from her native language, Albanian, wasn’t very difficult.
“For me, it was pretty easy because I learned it from a young age,” she says. “But I don’t think it’s really hard. I mean, I learned from books and movies.”
When she’s home in Macedonia, one of Haliti’s favorite hobbies is to go hiking.
Despite missing her home, Haliti says that there’s not much that she dislikes here.
“[I dislike] maybe how fast the weather changes,” says Haliti, “but nothing else. There’s nothing I don’t like. I like most of everything.”
Haliti says that she loves that people are so curious about her culture.
“Everyone is interested in learning about my culture and tries to learn a few words in my language. Like a lot of teachers greet me in my first language,” says Haliti.
