Personal Narrative: My Trip To El Salvador

One of the most amazing experiences I've had occurred last year, when I participated in a mission trip to Honduras. My family and I volunteered at an orphanage and surgery center. There in Honduras, my perspective on everything changed. I saw how lucky I was to have a family who loved me and took care of me, and how I need to appreciate them instead of taking it for granted. I realized how fortunate I was to live where I live, in a nice house and in a safe neighborhood.

My father had cardiac problems. He used to Nicaragua. I was eleven when he suffered a stroke. Immediately my brother toke him to the hospital but there was not a cardiologist not a neurologist available. The only neurologist available was in Managua the capital which is approximately four hours away from Jinotega It was too late when we arrived to Managua he had passed away. Three hours later he started breathing .That was defiantly miracle. My father had an intestinal surgery two weeks after. Then he returned back to the U.S. My Father couldn’t move half of his body and he was losing weight. He saw the doctor and they found out that, Nicaraguan surgeon mistakenly left a small residue of a contaminated gauge in his body due to that my father

This question drove me back to high school. I attended a military school back from my home country, Ecuador, we only where surrounded by males. It was not difficult for me to cope, because I was in my comfort zone. However, I moved to New York City 10 years ago and I am still in the process of adaptation. I am still seeking to develop coping skills to adapt to my new environments, work, school, friends. Similar, I wanted to fit in and I seek for people that look, think and come from my same backgrounds. But, I did not give myself the opportunity to look for other friends. I even isolated myself. Once I started to give the chance to other people I got in trouble, because they want to use you, people want to take advantage of you one way or another,

I was born in a small town called Sesori in the country of El Salvador. El Salvador lays in the global south and it is extremely crime infested. I came to the United States of America when I was a small child; however, growing up in El Salvador allowed me to witness many of my neighbors and family members suffer from insufficient access to medicine. Knowing this has made me become a hardworking individual who acknowledges the opportunities and blessing that the United States offers its people. I wish to one day become a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner and activist for woman's protection all around the world through an international humanitarian non-governmental organization called Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders). I want to help individuals worldwide where the need is greatest. The world is in need of help with the

When I was 4 years old, my mother decided to send me and my siblings to live with our grandparents in Honduras. I was born in Long Beach, CA, USA, however, my mother was struggling to give us a better life working as a housekeeper, and it wasn’t until I was 12 years old that we were reunited in New York. Nevertheless, my mother’s sacrifice to send my siblings and me to her country was indeed positive; hence, today am bilingual and have respect for diversity.

I came to the United States 7 years ago. I used to live in El Salvador. There, I was taught that having discipline in life, is the key to being successful. Hence, my parents were proud of me because I was always in the ten percent of my class. Thus, it was there where I took two courses that inspired me to become an architect. One of the courses was physics, where I had to build a mockup with an electrical circuit included as a group project assignment in my first year of high school. Although I had never had done anything like that before, I had fun building a model of a modern house. The other course that I took was technical design where I learned how to trace lines using drawing tools, such as a pair of compasses, T-square, and triangle.

I am not a traditional student who, after high school graduation, is sent to the university to become a professional. I did not have that privilege. Due to life circumstances, I was forced to work to help my mother, who is a single mother, to support my little sister and my older brother who still lives in my native country, El Salvador. To clarify, he had medical problems when he was born and had to be submitted to multiple surgeries when he was little. Reason why, nowadays, he utilizes a wheelchair to move around and takes daily medicines to keep his sugar levels normal. In addition, medical expenses are cheaper in El Salvador than in this country. Even though I am in the work field already and I am a potential employee to be promoted to

I had already moved once to a different country where, from my point of view at eleven years old, the culture and the people were strange. The change from Cuba to Mexico had been difficult and adapting to their traditions and their dialect had been challenging, but I was able to adjust to this new place. It wasn’t bad, moving from my birth country to Mexico had taught me to observe the world in a different perspective and while struggling to adapt I learned a lot about myself.

“Mangos, mangos, 3 Quetzales !!”. This is the first thing I heard and saw on my trip to Guatemala this past summer. I saw a 9 year old barefoot boy struggling to walk through the busy streets of Guatemala carrying a woven basket that contained ripe and bright orange mangos inside of it. I turned around to my dad and said, “Dad look!! Oh my gosh!! Shouldn’t he be in school?”. My dad always told me about Guatemala and the continuous struggles that he and others faced on a daily basis when he lived there. For the first time I actually saw what my dad talked to about with my very own eyes. What I was seeing was crystal clear and not what I hoped to be a dream.

It was a Monday in the summer of 2015. I was riding in an old 11 passenger van with 30 other people, on our way back from playing soccer. Most of the people were Guatemalan children screaming at the top of their lungs as the van rocked side to side as we drove up a narrow, winding, mountain road without guide rails. In the summer of 2015, I went to Guatemala for ten days, on a mission trip. My team (18 youth and pastors of East Side Church of God) and I visited four different Indian vilages: Chupol, Paquisis, Sacbichol, and Agua Escondita. We spent two days in each village and slept in each village’s church.

It was the last day of my trip, and while I was washing plates in my grandmother’s house, the sunlight was reflected on the plates to my eyes. The fear going through my veins, my mind confused with everything that have happened two weeks ago. Uncertainty of what event would destroy or rebuild my heart. What would happen next ?. The future is unpredictable, so far that is a concept that now I understand. Considering the time spent in my country Colombia , vacations, friends, and parties were the words that stay on my mind for the first two weeks, otherwise the next two weeks were not what I planned. Firstable I was not supposed to be there for these last two weeks, but I am grateful. “No puedes viajar hoy” were the words asserted by the airline

From the moment I set foot outside San Jose Airport, I knew this trip to Costa Rica would be an amazing experience. Mountains which surrounds the airport was breathtaking and signaled the great experienced that was in stored for us. Our tour guide Daniel was very helpful and explained in vivid detail about the surroundings. The environment resembled very much about my home country Sri Lanka, and it gave me an overwhelming feel of happiness, almost like I came back home. I was feeling a little sad because my roommate Shannon missed her flight, but on the way to the hotel, Dr. Rhodd announced that she would luckily be joining us the next day.

Living in a first world country, I possess many advantages. My life is bound to be a decent one even if I make a few mistakes and go through some hardships. Except, it’s not. Half of lower-class Americans do not have the stability we need to live comfortably. Consequently, our way of living becomes a hamster wheel we have to keep turning to generate enough money for basic living necessities. Experiencing such first-world misfortunes almost makes my remarks seem cavil, but the reality of low-income Americans living in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. is ghastly to say the least. Moreover, I have had firsthand experience of extreme financial hardships in my household living with a single mom. To illustrate, within weeks, my dad was

time to go to the gate and wait there for the plane to board. But instead of an hour wait there was about a two to three hour wait because a delay in the planes. We boarded about eleven o’clock and once we boarded everyone on the team was out, getting their rest for the week in El Salvador.

Initially, I was an Ecuadorian girl that had a Christian family, I grew up surrounded by my family and loved ones. My cognitive development was in progress, and I had created fundamental bonds in Ecuador. Provided that my dad is an American citizen and due to his work in America, he could not spend too much time with us in Ecuador, so, my mom, my little brother, and I immigrated to America. After three years of my life, our family reunited, and I became an Ecuadorian-American. Since I was very young, assimilating the changes came to be unnoticed, if it weren’t for the fact that during the next years I spoke Spanish at home and English at school. As a result, my translations of these languages affected my communication, creating slow comprehensive