In January of 2015, I was hit with the travel bug. After spending a few months in Spain and traveling to Portugal, England, France, Italy, and Greece, I couldn’t stop thinking about traveling. I love everything about travel—the delicious cuisines, faces of new people, the clothing styles, the way people say hello and goodbye, and everything in between. There are simply so many things that traveling can teach you that no textbook or course could possibly communicate to you.
Although my adventures in Spain were among the most memorable of my life, Peru was a completely different experience, and I loved it more. Every country and city has something different to offer—a different perspective, pace, and way of life. Peru offered me humility and gratitude. I think that most of that came from the service projects that my colleagues and I worked on while abroad.
Peruvians also are well known for their impeccable love and respect for their earth, most of which comes from the practices of their ancestors and their religious values. Their lifestyle is more humble and sensible—they have and use what they need and that’s it. They don’t believe in extra things or excess. They constantly live with the bare minimum and that is sufficient for them, which is how they remain in harmony with the earth. Coming from the United States as a group of kids from a private college, I think that for me, it was really difficult to follow their admirable lead, simply because we are accustomed to having so much at our fingertips in an instant.
As a group, I think that what we did was admirable as well—a lot of tourists don’t take the time to live like the locals, especially in a third world country. But we did. And I must admit that I have done many difficult things in my life, but none compare to this. We built a bathroom for a young girl with cerebral palsy, learning how to construct an outdoors bathroom from nothing. We used a pot, a bucket, rope, three different mixtures, two shovels, and two trowels. As a child and a teen, I’ve worked on lots of projects with my dad, but none compare to the physical labor of building a bathroom in eighty-degree weather. Still, I cannot complain. We built the bathroom over a course of a few weeks but there are so many people whose livelihood depends on their ability to continuously participate in physically taxing labor.
In our last few days in the country, my group and I were divided and sent to host families in a rural community called Huiiloc. One can go to Huilloc to stay with host families and live their life. That’s exactly what we did for three and a half days. My two friends and I were placed in the home of two loving individuals and their two sons, a fifteen year old and a two year old. In our time there, we went fishing, collected corn, peas, and firewood, learned how to weave, and watched our host mother cook, using her own family’s harvest. Since this small community allowed a small group of eager students to experience the authenticity and humility of their lifestyle, we too have become more authentic and humble.