Sure enough, I had two of the best weeks of my life -- learning how to take care of elephants who had been rescued from the logging industry, visiting historic temples and forming strong friendships with the people in my group.
I couldn’t get the feeling I had from my adventure in Thailand out of my mind. This memory is probably what motivated me to go to college in New York City, and it is definitely what made me start to seriously consider the Peace Corps a few years later. If you’ve never heard of the Peace Corps, I’ll give you a quick explanation: it’s a program through the federal government that sends qualified professionals to countries who request them. Volunteers commit to serving in the Peace Corps for a little more than two years, living and working with the people of their host country. There are a variety of programs and dozens of countries involved in the Peace Corps. I am a Health and Well-being volunteer in Ecuador, a small country in South America. In Spanish, “ecuador” literally means equator; a fitting name, as the equator does run through Ecuador -- in fact, there’s a place in the capital city Quito called Mitad del Mundo ("Middle of the World") where you can do a lot of equator-related activities (although, there are a few different locations that claim to be the “true” mitad del mundo).
I joined the Peace Corps for three main reasons: I wanted to learn Spanish; I was intrigued by the opportunity to integrate so deeply into a different culture and I wanted to work closely with a community to build sustainable, community-focused projects. So far, I have been able to do all of those things!
