Sakina Mou

I wanted to take this opportunity to write a bit about someone who has become my foundation and inspiration here in Greece. Her name is Sakina, but I call her Sakina Mou (my Sakina in Greek) or 'Kina for short. We met on the first day because we both arrived late, and she was to be the roommate to the other girl to arrive on the last day. Little did I know that our friendship would blossom into one I see lasting til the end of time.

Her birthday was towards the beginning of our program, so we decided to go to Santorini. After all my travels up until now, that is still one of my favorite weekends to date. Sakina is one of the most genuinely, warm hearted people I have had the opportunity to meet. She constantly thinks about others' feelings and is quick to ask, "how are you?" In a place where we're all struggling to get the most out of our time, I think it's so vital to ask that question in order to maintain sanity. It's a small gesture, but one I don't take for granted and neither does she. We've gotten to the point in our friendship where we can look at each other and already know the mood, ideas or feelings of one another. It's something I admire in our friendship.

Not only do we connect well in terms of where our heads are at, she is always up to dance. I love dancing and never thought I'd find someone who loved it as much as me, or someone who'd be willing to dance at any time: weekday, daytime, anywhere. Sakina is my main dance partner. We can go out, just the two of us and dance our happy butts off into the wee hours of the morning and do it again the next night. #Awesome.

Not only do we share our passion for dance, Sakina and I spend a lot of time talking about serious things within our lives. I've found it amazingly easy to open my heart to her, and in return she has been able to gain the same trust and confidence. Whenever I have a problem, big or small, I know I can turn to Sakina to get a REAL, honest answer or opinion of the matter. Her rawness is something I think is hard to find no matter where you go and no matter how long you've known someone, it's never easy to be brutally honest. I would die here without her.