Sharing Travel Experiences

Volunteering and Seeing the World

by Andy Hayes

There are lots of ways to see the world, and nobody can see whether one is better than the next. Today’s interview guest combines volunteering with her need to see the world and soak up unique travel experiences. Let’s hear what she has to say.

Can you please introduce yourself?

Hello! My name is Lillie and I’m a six-foot-tall, 28-year-old Boston native who has been traveling around the world on a one year (or more?) voyage since early August, 2009. For the previous six years, I was an English teacher in a large urban high school in Boston Public Schools: a career that was both fantastically wonderful and heartbreakingly intense. During those six years of teaching, I would spend the two months of each summer vacation in Latin America, practicing Spanish and volunteer teaching. In my current Around the World year, I am focusing on Asia, Africa, and (to a lesser extent because it’s so crazy pricey!) Europe. This trip is WONDERFUL, and I am so extremely thankful that it has been able to happen.

From August to December, I did a loop through Southeast Asia (after short stops in California and Japan), and was stunned by how much of a backpacker’s paradise that area is! From there I met with dear family in Italy, then bopped down to Ghana, West Africa, where I am volunteer teaching for three months with a wonderful youth organization in a small town two hours from Accra. I truly love being here in Ghana and working with these great folks!

Through this all, I have been writing like a crazy maniac, because it brings me great joy to discuss experiences with others, and it also keeps me sane. Hooray for just publishing my two hundredth blog article in seven months!

Boston is a great place. Any travel secrets or tips for Boston you can share?

Mmm, Boston is SUCH a great place! Here are some tips:

1. Bar trivia is all the rage in this college-saturated city. Google search “Stump Trivia” and find up to forty different bars offering trivia competitions on any given night of the week! Be prepared for some strikingly stiff competition– and a really fun time.

2. WALK. Boston is the most deliciously walkable city imaginable. You can do the Freedom Trail (or “Idiot Trail” as my friend likes to call it, because it’s so simple) in which you follow a red line on the sidewalk through all the famous historical landmarks of the city… OR you can just pop a map into your pocket and start walking, seeing what will happen. If you end up feeling tired, there is almost certainly a ”T” or bus station nearby to lift you the return journey back.

3. The bridges! The bridges! One of my favorite long walks (I got into seven-mile “city hikes” before I flew out) is to walk from Davis Square, Somerville, through Harvard Square, Cambridge, then to Central Square, Cambridge, then across the AWESOME Mass. Ave. bridge across the Charles River. I LOVE that bridge! There is always gorgeous light glinting off the water, boats zipping by, fun people walking alongside you, a view of the skyline… ooh, what a feeling. A similarly excellent journey is the walk from Kenmore across the ”Pepper-pot” bridge (following the tracks of the “T”) to the Charles MGH Station which features the Liberty Hotel (in the old Charles Street Jail!) and two of my favorite theme bars ever: “Clink” and ”Alibi”! That’s right: you can drink right inside a famous old jail cell.

4. Understand that, like far too many cities of the world, Boston is notoriously segregated by race and class. Try to consider ways to explore these less touristed areas, which are still of great historical significance, either by finding volunteer opportunities, or by looking for specific events (such as the “Roxbury Film Festival”), museums, or guided tours.

5. If you’re going to be in the city for a little while, consider online dating. Because the Boston social scene is known for being a little icy and hard to break into, online dating is all the rage in order to form new bonds. Alternately, you can try online FRIEND finding through platonic sites like Couchsurfing.org or Meetup.com. To connect with Boston folks you often need some sort of “in,” and chatting first on a website can help create that. Honestly– it’s perfectly respectable nowadays!

What made you decide to leave teaching and study abroad?

I’m going to be very honest here:

A) A Rut/ Bad habits

Over six years, I got into a routine of work and social life that was fine, but… just fine. I was getting lazier and putting less effort into everything, as I am a gal who needs changes and newness to stay vibrant. I was starting to create drama for myself just to stay occupied, and I began realizing that I needed to ask…

B) What else is out there?

It’s a wide, wide, WONDERFUL world out there, and being twenty-seven years old with no kids or major ties, and with a surprising amount of savings through six years of thrifty living and a steady career, it was really now or never to take the leap into that “Leave of Absence” to travel. And I’m so, so glad that I did! And finally…

C) Getting to the next stage of life

How does a 27 year old wanderlusty single gal make the transition into the Next Stage of Life: a family of one’s own? Answer: she needs to get out of her comfort zone and achieve the dream of an Around the World trip!

Your web site mentions “Hop on board for learning, laughter, liberty, love” – tell us more about that. Maybe you can explain what each of those four things means to you?

Learning: First, I’m a teacher. But also travel itself is all about learning! A major aim of my blog is to provide some sort of learning for the reader every day, either regarding world cultures, or regarding the human experience as a whole!

Laughter: So many ridiculous things happen each day on an Around the World trip that you really have to laugh about them, lest you melt into a pool of tears!

Liberty: There is absolutely nothing more free than an Around the World trip, solo, paid for with money you yourself have saved through years of work. If you don’t like something, you take the next bus out of there. If you love something, you stay for as long as you like. You sleep or eat as much as you desire, and you interact with as many or as few folks as you wish. Incredible!

Love: Travel is about love of humanity, love of one’s inner self, and (for a solo gal like me) an underlying quest for what future long-term love could and should look like. Finally, I put TONS of love into writing my blog articles, and try to fill them with all the gushing love I feel for so much I see and so many that I meet!

You’ve also spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia – Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia. Which one is your favourite? Top tips?

I loooooved Laos, specifically Luang Prabang, which is known far and wide as “The most beautiful city in Southeast Asia.” It boasts green hills, two kissing rivers, sparkling golden temples, and orange-clad monks. What I didn’t realize, however, is that it is also one of the best places in the world to eat like a KING– for two to five dollars a plate!!

Thailand is a total backpacker’s dream: extremely well-traveled, interesting, and easy. The beaches are fabulous an varied, and the massage course I took in Chiang Mai was great! On a side note the pervasive sex tourism industry was captivating and frequently disturbing to witness.

I found Cambodia difficult because of the tragic recent history and current poverty, but I have since met scores of people who have stayed there for months and loved it.

Vietnam was the most FASCINATING of the four countries for me: every day brought a massive revelation about history, culture, people, and more… but I will admit that I cried hysterically a miniumum of once a week my entire month there!

Tell us about your most inspirational travel experience?

After five months cavorting through Southeast Asia and a brief stint in Europe, I arrived at Youth Creating Change in Ghana, West Africa to begin three months of volunteer teaching. Words cannot express how happy I am here and how much I love this work, this country, and these people.

Every day after a delightful few hours of teaching class, a flock of seven or eight sweet Ghanaian children walk me down the dirt roads the twenty minutes back to my guesthouse where I am living with my coworkers. As we pass the goats and chickens and little kids pointing towards me and shouting “YEVU!” (white person!), my students become my teachers and patiently teach me the Ewe language!

“Madame Lillie, do you remember how to say bicycle?”

“Oohh… I know it! I know it! “Gasor!”"

“VERY GOOD!” The grinning students cheer and applaud.

Those pint-sized, endlessly patient teachers have led me through a recitation of the Ewe numbers one through ten (then back from ten to one) about a hundred times now, bless their hearts!

After six years teaching in my extremely intense 1,200-student school in Boston, teaching in Ghana is an absolute dream. Working here also provides priceless perspective on our American school system, and on life, habits, and beliefs back home in general.

Of all the countries I have visited so far on this trip, Ghana is by far my favorite because of the learning and love provided each day.

The lesson: for an Around the World trip to have heart, incorporate at least one month of volunteering in your itinerary! Feel free to contact me if you want more info on Youth Creating Change: the fabulous organization in Ghana with which I’m working.

Any advice for those want to get off their sofa and do some world exploring – and maybe help change the world while they’re at it?

This needs a full body answer, so visualize:

I am jumping up and down waving my arms, screaming: “DO IT! TRAVEL MORE! TAKE TIME OFF EVEN IF BEING UNPAID IS TERRIFYING! MAKE SACRIFICES TO MAKE IT HAPPEN! IT IS SO, SO, SO, SO VERY WORTH IT!!!!!!”

(Throwing myself at your feet and encircling your legs with my long yet muscular arms): “I quote a Ghanaian speaker I heard at a recent youth competition: “In fifteen years, will you rejoice, or will you regret?” If you do not travel, which will you feel? If you do travel, which?”

Travel is so much easier, more inexpensive, more wonderful, and more worth it than you can possibly imagine. If you incorporate volunteering into your itinerary (and you should because you’ll love it!) fellow humans across the world will benefit from your talents (even ones you don’t realize yet that you have!), and you will benefit in turn from all you learn from those you work with and from living in a country so different from your own. The skills, knowledge and perspective you will gain through a few months travel and volunteering abroad are the equivalent of years of university. How can you, and our world, allow you NOT to go?

Picture me leaping to my feet and dancing wildly around the room, hurling flowers and balloons and ultimately inflatable plastic globes of the earth into the air so that they fall all around you in a soft yet forceful caress.

Now listen: TRAVEL THIS YEAR! You can do it and you should do it, and you will love it! Make it happen, and REJOICE!

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Wow – I hope everyone got that. To learn more about Lillie or to get in touch about anything you’ve read here, visit her website, Around the World ‘L’ or connect with her on Twitter.

Thanks Lillie for sharing your passion, vigour, and inspiration.