When I was growing up my family would take a month each summer to travel in our station wagon and travel trailer. These trips taught me many things. First, that I love to travel; to meet new people, to see new places, to get lost (I really do like getting lost) and how to find my way back on track. It helped me learn that there are many things of interest outside of Minnesota and gave me a taste for more. I learned to read maps and how to find places to stay (camp grounds), how to cook out on a picnic table, how to plan for these meals, how to deal with the unexpected in a new place. When we traveled in Europe for three months, my Dad gave each of us a fixed sum of money each day and we were responsible for paying one sixth of each day’s lodging, our own food, the conversion to the local currency, as well as scouting out places to stay, eat and see. I was able to use my smattering of French and Spanish and saw how that made people warm up to us. We met lots of interesting people, saw wonderful places, but we never stayed any where very long. We always had to move to the next city or camp ground.

When I was in fifth grade my teacher, Mrs. Peterson, joined the Peace Corps with her husband. She left before the school year was finished but then she came back during a holiday and shared some of her experiences with us. It was wonderful and thrilling to think about the things she’d done, and was returning to. This was the first time I thought about being in the Peace Corps. Since then, it’s always been in the back of my mind but I’ve never had the confidence in my skill sets to check it out, until now.

The excitement of going to a new place and meeting new people has increased for me as I’ve grown older. I’m now confident enough to be willing to make mistakes and I’ve always wanted to stay longer at the many places I’ve visited to try to learn about the culture within that community, to try to learn about the people and their life experiences. I also feel it’s time to re-focus my priorities. I want to do something because it will help others grow to help themselves. I believe I have skills that can help other people help themselves succeed.

My motivation is to grow myself and to share my experience and knowledge as best I can. The prior motivation is for me, the latter is probably going to be for me too, because I’ve discovered when I teach someone I learn even more.