This summer I had the opportunity to travel to the Amazon region of Peru with six other students and work at a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Project Amazonas. I found out about the trip through Nourish International, a development club that I’m in at school. The club supports NGOs around the world and sends a group of student volunteers to intern at an NGO in a developing country every summer. Though I only joined the club this past December, I jumped at the chance to join the trip. Despite the fact that I am majoring in International Studies with a focus in Development Studies, until now I had never actually been to a developing country. I learned a lot about developing countries this past year year, but I felt like I needed to actually go to one to experience what life is like in a place that has very different living conditions than what I’m used to. Additionally, after I graduate I plan to move to a developing country and work either in the Peace Corps or at an NGO or doing some sort of hands-on development work. So not only would this trip be a fun travel experience but it would also allow me to experience what might become my future career for a few short weeks.
I learned a lot during my trip, and most of what I learned came from the experience of traveling independently and living in a new environment for a long period of time, rather than from the work itself. The work we did was hard but fun – we mixed cement to build a new path at the station where we were staying, painted a new house for nurses to 
live in next to the local clinic, re-planted tree seedlings in places where they could grow better and experimented with a hydroponic vegetable growing system. But living in the middle of the rainforest was how I learned the most – not being able to make contact with the outside world, using river water to do my laundry by hand, having to deal with lizards and jungle rats in my cabin, eating a whole piranha and holding a tarantula. These were just a few of the ways that Peru helped me get out of my comfort zone. Aside from these things, my internship in Peru also really increased my sense of independence. Though I have traveled a lot in the past, including several international trips, this was my first time traveling without a chaperone – it was just me and six other students who were just as clueless as I was. During the fifth week of our trip, we left the Amazon region and headed to Cusco to see Machu Picchu and do all the touristy activities one must do while in Peru. We had a lot of freedom to explore the city and find fun things to do and choose where to eat and shop. It may not seem like much, but all the trips I have been on before have been planned for me. This was my first independent travel experience, and though I was a bit unsure at first by the end of the trip I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to navigate a foreign country.
In terms of my future career and academic endeavors, this trip was extremely fruitful. Having never been to a developing country or traveled on my own before, I had a few concerns about my choice of major and potential career. Though I had enjoyed all my development studies classes so far, I still wasn’t sure if it was the right path for me – what if I moved to a developing country only to find out that I hated living without all the luxuries that I have here at home? I don’t like camping, I never liked summer camp as a kid, I hated bugs and to be honest I’m a little scared of the dark so the no electricity thing kind of freaked me out. But this trip showed me that I can handle all those things, and not only can I handle them but I can actually enjoy them. I loved being off the grid in Peru so much that I cried when I left, and I would go back in a second. This was really the most valuable thing I learned from my trip because it confirmed my choice of what I want to do in the future.