Serena in the Galapagos Islands: Part 2
Serena Chen
As I spent more time at the Hacienda Tranquila, I grew accustomed to waking up to the sound of birds tapping at my tin roof, the exhausting farm labor, and the quiet afternoons of reading in a hammock. Every day proved difficult, but rewarding. But one of my main takeaways from my experience at the farm was getting to know the other volunteers.
Volunteers gathering for our twice-daily meetings with Giovanni, the farm manager
All of the volunteers were either college students or adults, so it was interesting and enjoyable to spend two weeks surrounded by people who were older than me and had many fascinating experiences and ideas to share.
Eve (names have been changed to protect privacy) was taking a yearlong sabbatical from her stable office job to travel and explore her passions. Upon returning a year later, she had decided to quit her job and chase her dream of working with sharks. Other volunteers and travelers I met in the Galapagos Islands had similarly left their jobs to travel, and many had no plans of returning home soon. Their goals were similar–they desired a change from their routine lives and yearned for some significant soul-searching.
To my mom’s relief, meeting Eve and others did not inspire me to drop out of high school to travel. But, the other travelers’ willingness to embrace uncertainty struck a chord in me. Their ability to drop everything that they had built up at home and start afresh in a foreign country, along with their positivism about their futures, taught me to have faith in second chances in life. Their ideas and life journeys were unconventional, and vastly different from the traditional route to success that had been ingrained into my mind from a young age.
One night, all of the volunteers were sitting around the table for dinner, when the topic of the World Cup arose. Jokingly, my mom and I mentioned that we should have a reunion during the next World Cup, as we (mistakenly) thought that it would be held in America. “Wow,” I said. “I’ll be in college by then, an actual adult.” Janice, a woman who had quit her job a month ago, responded, “Maybe not, maybe you’ll decide that college isn’t worth it anymore. Who knows?” My mom raised her eyebrows and wagged her finger, to which all of the other volunteers chuckled. But, the others’ mindset that there is no one path to success and to a happy, fulfilling life provided me with a new and refreshing mentality towards my future.
Written by Serena Chen, United Planet Volunteer in Ecuador & NSHSS Merit Scholarship Winner
To read the first post in Serena’s series, click here
Learn more about volunteering in Ecuador with United Planet!
ABOUT UNITED PLANET
United Planet is a non-profit organization with a mission to create a global community, one relationship at a time. Established in 2001, United Planet offers volunteer abroad, virtual internships, internships abroad, gap year volunteering, and global virtual exchange in more than 40 countries.
