When senior Stephanie Atabong’s father won the green card lottery and moved himself and his two daughters from Cameroon to Nebraska, Atabong was a shy, quiet girl.

School in Cameroon had been in English, so she didn’t have to learn a new language, but jumping into sixth grade at Swanson Elementary was intimidating. Fortunately, Atabong had her twin sister, Benita.

“She was more of the outgoing one, so she used to get me to talk to her friends,” Atabong said. “I guess I’m kind of happy that she was with me, because I wouldn’t want to go through that alone.”

Now, though, Atabong has confidence of her own; she doesn’t have to rely on anyone else to be outgoing and make friends for her. Part of that personality shift she just attributes to “high school,” but she said it’s mostly because of one activity she’s participated in since freshman year: Step Team.

“Before Step Team, I used to keep to myself a lot,” Atabong said. “I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I just wanted to get through high school and get out. That was it. But when I joined Step Team, it kind of helped me make friends, and then I made other friends. You have to be outgoing to be in Step Team. You can’t be shy to be in Step Team, because everybody talks to everybody, and everybody has to teach everybody.”

When Atabong joined Step Team because her friends thought it would be cool, all she knew about it was that it had something to do with dancing. Learning the steps and making sure she had “good rhythm” was hard at first, but she was hooked right away. After about two weeks she started to get the hang of it, and she’s loved it ever since.

Now, Atabong is co-captain of Step Team with senior Minx Thomas. Together, they’re in charge of coming up with steps, running practices, and helping ensure team members are on top of their schoolwork, among other things.

“I like Step Team because it’s different from what you usually see,” Atabong said. “It’s not the same as just dancing. Facial expression is different, and it’s more active. I just like how you can use music, you can use sound, and you can use a beat — to come up with different things.”

Six years after she moved to the United States, Atabong still has some ties to Cameroon. She speaks French with her dad and her sister, and she has an older brother and half-sister in Africa. She feels completely at home in Omaha, though.

“At first it was scary, but now I feel like my whole life is here because I’ve grown up here, I’ve been independent here, I’ve gotten a job here, and just everything,” Atabong said. “I wouldn’t say I’ve forgotten where I was from, but this is definitely my life now.”

Atabong, who has been openly gay since middle school and volunteered for the Heartland Pride Festival last summer, said being gay gives her one more reason to call America home. Homophobia is very prevalent in Cameroon, and gays and lesbians often experience harassment and discrimination and suffer under the laws.

“More people started coming out [in Cameroon], but it’s still not accepted there,” Atabong said. “It’s still taboo…here, some people can deal with it and just live their lives, but there, people will say things and do things. I guess they’re not civilized yet like that.”

Despite some negative associations with Cameroon, Atabong said the things she learned there have helped her out with Step Team. People did a type of dancing similar to stepping in Cameroon, so she’s brought ideas from there to Step Team at Westside. For Step Afrika, a concert Step Team performed in at the Holland Center in 2011, Atabong tried to come up with steps she had actually done in Africa.

Besides for stepping, Atabong enjoys writing free-verse poetry to relax. She said her eighth-grade English teacher got her interested in poetry, and one day she wanted to get things out of her mind on paper, so she just started writing, and liked it enough to continue with it. She submitted one poem to Westside’s former literary arts magazine, Xanadu, that was about her mom, who passed away in Cameroon when Atabong was 8.

“It’s a little dark but it’s about love too,” Atabong said of her poetry.

Atabong has also run track for the past few years, but she said Step Team is her favorite activity.

“I’ve met a lot of cool people, especially going to step competitions and step things,” Atabong said. “I’ve met a lot of cool seniors that were in Step Team and a lot of cool people in college when we would go to step teams at other colleges. I’ve met a lot of people that have benefitted me in life. They’re like sisters.”