I hope you can take a moment after reading this to give her a well-deserved thank you, as teachers are often the unsung heroes of our society.
I am sure many of you know this already, but for those of you that don’t, I got the opportunity to live in Paraguay for two years by enlisting in the Peace Corps, a United States government organization that sends volunteers to over 60 countries all across the world to live, integrate and serve in smaller rural communities. My specific mission is environmental conservation, which means that I teach about environmental conservation, plant trees and help the community better manage and reuse their trash.
I did not study environmental conservation or any related subjects, nor did I even plan on coming to Paraguay to do environmental conservation in the first place. I studied computer science in college, thinking I would follow in the footsteps of my dad, who was a software engineer for many years. However, due to the emergence of A.I., and also other personal factors, such as wanting to learn Spanish and live in another country, during my senior year of college I decided to apply to the Peace Corps in Costa Rica, serving in a youth development role. Although I was initially accepted into the program, I was transferred to Paraguay four months later due to medical reasons. Even though I did not plan to be here in Paraguay, and did not think I had anything to contribute to environmental conservation, I have nonetheless felt adequate at my job, and I feel that I have a lot to contribute. I say all this to acknowledge that although life often does not go as we plan it, this can sometimes lead to things going better than we could’ve ever imagined.
