A-Smyle scholar meets Serbian President Boris Tadic in Cleveland

I came to the United States as A-Smyle scholar about month ago. As I started this new journey in my life, I knew that I would meet a lot of new people, but I couldn’t even imagine that I would get a chance to meet Serbian President, Mr. Boris Tadic!

These past few weeks I was busy getting used to the new life style, making new friends at school and getting used to my new family. Since I was so busy doing all these things together with practicing volleyball and going to school, I didn’t have time to follow what is going on back home. This is why I didn’t know that my president, Mr. Boris Tadic, was coming to the United States and that he would be visiting Cleveland, OH.  News that Mr. Tadic was coming to visit Cleveland didn’t go unnoticed, because my Local Coordinator, Mr. John Church, heard about it. He told my host family and me about this. John Church told me that Mr. Tadic would visit the Serbian Cultural Garden in Cleveland in September and that I should use this chance to go and see my president.

My father told me that Mr. Tadic was going to meet with Mr. Alex Machaskee, the honorary Serbian consul, about building a bioethanol factory in Smederevo, my town in Serbia. An idea came to my mind – I wanted to see Mr. Tadic, but I also wanted him to see me! I knew it would be hard for him to notice me because I knew that garden would be crowded, so I came to idea to make a sign with a symbol of his political party and to write on it the name of my city. It worked! There was a lot of people, but I did catch his attention with that sign. He saw it and came up to me. My heart started pounding very fast, my voice was lost, and I who am known for being very talkative couldn’t say a word – I froze. The feeling was something special, I never felt like that before. Shaking his hand and seeing a big smile on his face made me relax and get back my talkativeness.  I was able to answer his question and have a little talk with him. We also took a picture together and it will definitely be one of my most precious memories.

Nothing of this would have happened if it wasn’t for my A-Smyle scholarship to theUnited States; my Local Coordinator, John Church, who informed me about this event; and my host family, the Russells, who took me to this event. Thank you all for making this possible for me. Somewhere deep inside of me I hope that I will get a chance to meet the president of the prettiest country in the world – Barack Obama. When I came to United States, I had no idea that I would get to meet my president but it happened, and maybe my other dream will come true sometime in the future.  

- Milena