America was created for everyone and it is full of fun. You can live there as you want. Of course under the American laws. You have the rights and duties. If you are under 21, you can’t drink alcohol. It’s prohibited by Federal law.

During my trip in America I found a lot of friends from different countries of the world. Most of my friends are from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Turkey etc. We are still keeping in touch. Some of them invited me to see their countries. And I decided to write something about them.

The first person who I met in Rehoboth Beach was Mirela Balan – helpful Balkan girl. She is very friendly, intelligent, attractive, beautiful and clever. She is from Romania and she has been living in America for some years. When I was working in Corner Grille as kitchen assistant, she also worked there as waitress. She is really nice person and true friend. I dream to see her again and I believe that my dream will come true in one day...

Rehoboth Beach is full of students from all over the world. We meet most of them on the street, on buses, in churches. The next friends I met were Monika Mageranova and Didi Ilieva from Bulgaria. We met while we were going to the Walmart supermarket. Monika helped me choose a phone. Before that, I walked around for 3-4 days without a phone. Yes, walking without a phone is not an easy task. At this moment, I realized that our lives are completely tied to mobile phones. When we are in our country, if something happens, we immediately run to the phone. Following this habit, I also reached for the phone in my pocket, took it in my hand, and only after looking at the screen did I realize that it couldn't help me here. Only then did I wake up. Even though there were people all around, I felt lonely. I really had no one there. I didn't even have a phone with Wi-Fi to access the internet. Others at least had these phones. But I had nothing at all. The French language, which I had been struggling to learn for years, was of no use. My only weapon in my hand was the English language. From this moment on, I realized that it is a very powerful weapon. Only when I mastered this weapon freely did my life improve. Yes, English is truly the most powerful weapon in the world. If every Kazakh child masters this weapon perfectly, no enemy can defeat us.

I met many people in America. It is impossible to write about all of them individually. I will only briefly touch upon the most noteworthy ones.

One of the people who left a special impression on me was a Kosovar girl, Arjeta Zabeli. I met her on August 20, 2014, when I went to the state of Pennsylvania.

• Hi!

• Hi!

• What’s your name?

• Arjeta.

• Oralbek.

• Nice to meet you!

• Nice to meet you too! Where are you from?

• Kosova.

• Kosova? Oh, really?

• Yes... Do you know Kosova?

• Yes, I know Kosova.

• Where is it?

• It’s in Balkan Peninsula. Between Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia.

She was wondered and said: “You are the first person who knows Kosova. Nobody knows Kosova here”.

• I know. It’s new country... That’s why most of people don’t know about it.

• How do you know Kosova?

• I like politics. I know your President Ibrahim ...(I couldn’t remember his last name)

• Ibrahim? Our President is woman....

• I know. Your first President... Who was his last name...?

• Do you mean Ibrahim Rugova?

• Yes! Ibrahim Rugova. He was very nice person...

She was very surprised when she found out that I also knew about Ibrahim Rugova. Because even about Kazakhstan, which gained independence in 1991, many people in America do not know much, let alone Kosova, which gained independence only in 2008. If they know, they only know from movies. Yes, Ibrahim Rugova was indeed a good person. But he did not live to see his country gain independence. He passed away 2 years before independence, in 2006, at the age of 61.

I never thought I would meet people from a small country located on the Balkan Peninsula in America. I met such a pure creation of nature for the first time in my life: educated, intelligent, free from bad habits, polite, and natural. I didn't miss the moment and managed to take a picture with her. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to meet Arjeta again. Our meeting place is only social networks.

Our next character is Malinda, a Hungarian by origin from Romania. I forgot her last name. I can't say that we were close friends, but when we met, we would start a conversation. She introduced herself as being from Hungary. When I asked further, it turned out she lives in Romania. Even though she lives in Romania, she says she studies in Hungarian at the university. When I asked if she knew Romanian, she said she didn't. "They hate us, we hate them," she ended her sentence. It was clear from her words that she hates Romanians. And how could she not hate them, after they occupied their ancestral lands...

After Bibinur Bolatova left The Back Porch Café, a Romanian guy named Nicolae took her place. Later, when I asked this Nicolae about the issue of Hungarians in Romania, he exploded. He called the Hungarians bad names. "We have provided them with everything! Even though they live in our country, they speak their own language, they get education in their own language. They don't even want to speak our language. They don't understand kindness," he said, criticizing the Hungarians living in his country. He also blamed the Hungarian government for "inciting them." Of course, a Romanian guy doesn't understand the pain of the Hungarians. And he doesn't want to understand. Because Romania is on the winning side. By participating in the First World War on the side of the Entente, it increased its territory by almost double. Thus, it emerged as a major state on the Balkan Peninsula. Poor, miserable Hungarians. The consequences of the mistakes made by the Hungarian establishment of that time are being experienced by several generations of their descendants, and will continue to be experienced. At a time when Prussia was strengthening and Otto von Bismarck was gathering all German states under one flag, the Austrian Empire was also in trouble. When the question arose as to who would come to the aid of the ethnic German Austrians, the naive Hungarians lent a helping hand. Thus, in 1867, they joined a union with the Germans, changing the name of the country to Austria-Hungary. Apparently, they thought they would rule the empire together. It didn't take long for them to realize the historical mistake they considered an achievement at the time. It only took 50 years. The Hungarians, who lent a helping hand to a decaying empire, were left stuck in the mud themselves. After the "Trianon" treaty signed in 1920, the Hungarians lost 72 percent of their land and 67 percent of their population. Millions of Hungarians who were living peacefully on the land of their ancestors became an ethnic minority within another country. This was a true tragedy. Even though almost a century has passed since then, the mark of the wound that hardened like stone in the hearts of the Hungarians is still felt today. Hungarians are basically a people similar to Kazakhs. Their distant ancestors descend from the Huns. I understand Malinda well, because the Kazakh people also suffered a lot from colonial oppression and lost 25 percent of their land. And now, just as we have gained our independence and are just starting to get our act together, we have become members of the Eurasian Union and the Customs Union, which are of no use to the Kazakhs. I hope we don't repeat the mistake of our Hungarian brothers by lending a helping hand to a decaying empire. We must learn from history!