Each year, many students come back from Spring break with stories to tell to their friends  of the interesting places and countries they visited. Many people agree that traveling to foreign countries is one of the best ways to broaden one’s horizons and experience new things. Many people in the WFS community have had the opportunity to to travel abroad in many different ways, including service trips, study abroad programs, and even living in foreign countries for years at a time.

   Matt Hinderhofer ’17 is one of the students who had an opportunity to travel abroad last summer for a school service trip to the Dominican Republic. It was his first time traveling out of the country, and it was definitely a culture shock for everyone on the trip. “We were staying in a hostel. It was really hard for people to get used to how different things were. We couldn’t use the tap water and there were cockroaches everywhere,” he says. The trip required students to step out of their comfort zones frequently. “The food was strange but really good. You’ll be eating spaghetti, and then realize there’s octopus in it. But you had to eat it, or you wouldn’t eat. You had to be really adventurous,” he adds. The trip not only required them to be adventurous, but challenged their Spanish abilities as well. “No one spoke English. We had to speak Spanish. It was difficult to have to really think about everything you’re saying.” The trip definitely challenged the students constantly, with a steep learning curve of adapting to a completely different way of living.

    The service aspect of the trip also impacted the students greatly when they volunteered at a summer camp in the Dominican Republic. “We were teaching children in a summer camp how to read. The kids varied from little kids to kids that were about 12 or 13, and they were just learning how to read.  “There’s something really powerful about that; a 13 year old kid with a Clifford book, learning to read for the first time,” Hinderhofer says. “A lot of extra kids showed up because they got to have a free snack and get a free book. They all really wanted to be there.”

By the end of the trip, all the students had adapted to the different way of life. “It was more natural at the end, more second nature,” Hinderhofer says. The students also strengthened their friendships with each other while navigating a different country; “I learned more about people who I wouldn’t have talked to normally. By the end everyone was really good friends with each other.”

Another way people can experience a new culture is through taking a gap year between high school and college. Kate Zipin, former WFS teacher, did exactly that: she went to Ecuador between graduating high school and college. Zipin worked as a teacher in a high school in the Amazon, teaching students English, sustainable farming practices, and conservation. Similar to Hinderhofer’s experience, she experienced an abrupt culture shock as well: “I planned the meals for 60 students. It was mostly rice, beans, and eggs. Eggs were the main protein. No one in the town had electricity; some wealthier families had generators. We had to wash everything by hand.” However, one of the things that stood out to Zipin the most as different from American society was the authority she was given.

“I had this privilege as a white person, where everyone looked to me to make decisions. I was only 18, but they deferred to me,” Zipin comments. While she had privilege in some areas, she was at a disadvantage in others: “In a patriarchal society like that, it was hard to be heard.” Other aspects of how the culture differed, however, had a much more positive effect on Zipin.

Living without many resources that are readily available in the United States and seeing how the people in Ecuador did not seem to be bothered by this helped Zipin realize something about happiness, “Your circumstances, and your happiness and emotional state are not as linked as they seem. Maybe it was because of the context; they didn’t realize what they didn’t have, and they were just as happy without it.” Zipin still carries this lesson about happiness as well as her other experiences with her 10 years later.

For both Hinderhofer and Zipin, their experiences traveling to a country very different from the United States had a strong impact on them that they still carry today. They gained insight into different ways of life, while simultaneously learning more about themselves and their peers. Whether it is a trip to a drastically different country, one for service, or a family vacation, there is no doubt that traveling around the world will teach unforgettable lessons, and will be nearly impossible to forget.