Weiwen Chen, ProPeru NGO Intern

How often can you wake up to your host family singing their hearts out to hip Peruvian music, go out into the community to make stoves, teach English, give vaccinations to young children living in the Andes, or share chicha (a favourite Peruvian beverage) with visiting farmers learning advanced milking techniques, return for a sumptuous lunch with your family, polish your Spanish with your professor in the afternoon, and hang out by the cosy fireplace at the ProPeru quarters or play Monopoly with your host brother after dinner.

These, plus ceramics, jewellery, bee-keeping workshops on Fridays, and weekends left to your utmost imagination—exploring the Incan ruins in an all-expenses-paid ProPeru organized trip, being humbled by the traditional practices of islanders living by Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, and crossing the border into Bolivia, or trekking 4 days through breathtaking landscapes before reaching the crown of Incan glory, Machu Picchu.

I did almost all of these, and returned with a renewed vigor, a profound appreciation of life’s simple joys, and most importantly, a firm resolve to translate my first-hand experience of heartbreaking poverty, merriment of unending Peruvian fiestas, and infinite longings for a better life into sustained efforts to reach out to those in need.

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