About Me and My Year

 

Hi I'm Emily from a small town called Linlithgow Scotland. I study Marketing at the University of Strathclyde and for this class I am required to create a blog about something I am passionate about, so I chose my gap year...

In 2019 when I was 17 years old I set off to begin one of my biggest adventures of my life. I left my family and home to travel to the beautiful country of Honduras with 19 other volunteers, similar ages to myself, to volunteer teach primary children English for one whole year.

Project Trust is an incredible organisation that sends out hundreds of volunteers yearly to countries all over the world to volunteer in local communities from 8-12 months allowing them to fully be immersed in the culture. There is a rigorous selection, recruitment and training process where I spent 4 nights twice on the Isle of Coll (where Project Trust is based)  meeting my 'project trust partner' for the first time and then lived with for the following year. This is also one of the best things that came out of my gap year, I made best friends for life! 

I had to fundraise £6, 200 so really had to put my thinking cap on. I organised a ceilidh; bag packed; lots and lots of bake sales; and did presentations to organisations for grants. All my fundraising took place a year prior to me leaving.

I stayed with a host family in the rural village called Tomalá, Honduras. It is one of the most beautiful towns I have encountered with lots of greenery, churches, coffee plantations. My host mum was one of the big things that contributed into making my year great. She was a second grade teacher at the primary school (so I worked alongside her everyday) and was a very well respected figure in the village. She took care of us like we were one of her own and made sure we were well at all times. Her humour was one of the best things about her and she always liked a laugh. I felt like my host brothers and sisters were actually my younger siblings doing classic sibling things like my host brother pranking me and putting hot sauce in my food lol! 

I feel there are many misconceptions about Honduras regarding crime and violence, however I wish to break these misconceptions as Honduras is truly a wonderful country with a beautiful culture.

In this blog I am going to write about different things that I experienced during my year away. I forgot to mention that it ended up being 8 months due to the pandemic where the borders locked down and I was stuck in the country. We had to be escorted out by a security team but thats a whole other story I will write about in my final blog.

Writing this was very difficult as it is very hard to articulate just how unique and incredible my experience was. I really struggled putting this into words as unless I write a book or film a documentary I do not think anyone will fully understand the beauty and individuality Honduras holds unless you have lived there. 

I hope this gives you some insight into my gap year and I hope you enjoy the stories I tell- Emily



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