Muraho! (Hello!) My name is Carolyn, and I am so happy to be sharing my experiences in Rwanda with you. As I have grown older, I have been able to carry many of the hobbies and passions I had as a child into adulthood. I am currently working as a student researcher with a conservation organization called Gorilla Doctors, and I found myself here because I have loved animals ever since I was a kid. One of my favorite shows was BBC’s Planet Earth, and I remember watching the series for hours.
Since I am interested in a career helping others, namely medicine, I chose to attend Johns Hopkins University as a pre-med student. There, I worked at the laboratory of a veterinary pathologist, and I thought she had the coolest job. When an animal died from a disease at the Maryland Zoo, the zoo staff would bring the deceased animal's tissue samples for this vet to look at and would ask for her professional opinion. This lady connected me with some people at the conservation group Gorilla Doctors who were happy to host a student. As a kid, I could never have imagined I would ever see gorillas except on television, and now, here I am working for their conservation!
Other than caring for and studying animals, another lifelong passion of mine is language learning.
