My name is Christine Gates, and I am originally from St. Louis, Missouri, where we are famous for our baseball team, the Cardinals, and our hockey team, the Blues. I grew up in the heart of the city with my mom and my twin brother, Christopher. A fun fact about me is that I actually went to an all-girls high school. In my hometown, my favorite hobbies were trying new restaurants and hanging out with family and friends.
As a kid, I always had an interest in learning about ,other cultures. Both of my parents traveled all around the world and use to show me photos of their old adventures. This sparked my interest of traveling to other countries. By the time I was in high school, I knew that I wanted to travel to another country. I met a woman one day while I was in high school who told me about Peace Corps. She explained how it is a U.S. government program that sends U.S. citizens to volunteer in foreign countries for two years. I thought it sounded amazing, but I knew I had to wait until after I finished college. I still wanted to travel while I was in high school, though, so after I graduated high school, I went on trip to Guatemala. It was my very first country that I had ever visited! I volunteered for organization there for two weeks. During this time, I helped build a garden for a local community and stayed with two host families.
