After spending two months watching women and girls fetch water from the village tap and then walk home with the enormous containers balanced on their heads, I had become increasingly determined to try to help with this daily task. I had admired the women’s strength before, but as my neck muscles ached and my scalp bruised under the weight, my admiration had only grown.
Gambian women’s lives were very different from my life in Long Island, New York — and that was exactly the point of my gap year between high school and college.
The trip consisted of teaching English in Gambia, exercising and caring for the resident horses on a private wildlife reserve in Namibia’s Kalahari Region, teaching English in Patate, Ecuador, volunteering at both an elderly care center and an animal rescue in Quito, Ecuador, and exploring the Galápagos Islands.
Eighteen years later, I can confidently say that my gap year played a significant role in shaping the person I have become, and that’s why I am encouraging my little sisters, who are 18 and 13, to take a gap year after high school as well.
I developed important skills during my gap year
Starting my trip in the Gambia was like being thrown into the deep end of the adulting pool. The only ATM in the country that accepted my debit cards was a six-hour round-trip from the village where I was staying, and it had a daily withdrawal limit.
Overnight, I went from being a financially clueless teenager who asked my parents for a top-up when I needed it, to getting a crash course on setting and sticking to a budget. I quickly learned the value of money.
My relationship with time was as lackadaisical as my relationship with money. But having people and animals relying on me forced me to develop a sense of time management. This was especially true in the Kalahari Desert, where it was imperative that every worker, visitor, volunteer, and domesticated animal be inside before the sun was directly overhead to avoid heat stroke.
Learning budgeting and time management served me well in college and my career. But these were small nuggets of wisdom compared to the bigger lessons I learned about racism, privilege, and the freedom of life lived offline.
As a white-presenting Colombian American living in the Gambia, it was only the second time in my life when I looked different from everyone else around me. People stared when I walked through Serrekunda Market, and kids would excitedly yell “toubab” (the Mandinkan word for “white person”).
I did not fault them for their reactions; instead, I did my best to absorb the experience of being treated differently because of the color of my skin. It has since helped me better identify when my unconscious biases arise.
After my gap year, I went to college better prepared
I stepped into my freshman year calm, confident, technologically detoxed, and refreshed after my academically rigorous high school experience.
Where some of my peers self-medicated their separation anxiety, social anxiety, or overwhelm with binge drinking, I had already had a year to process these emotions and learned to adapt. The result was a smoother transition into academic life, a high GPA at the end of my freshman year, and a maturity that caught the attention of internship hiring managers.
More importantly, though, it gave me freedom, awareness, compassion, and a global lens through which I still process life.
I hope my younger sisters can follow in my footsteps
This is what I really want for my sisters. I want them to know a life away from the noise and pressure of the digital world. I want them to have the space to learn from and be shaped by different people and cultures. I want them to have a year where they are not pushing themselves to excel academically or professionally, but instead can just learn who they are and what they want to do with their lives.
College has become an oppressive financial burden. If they pursue it, I hope they are as mentally and emotionally prepared as possible so they get the most out of their financial investment.
My sisters would undoubtedly have their own experiences that leave unique imprints on their minds. If that helps them collect themselves before journeying into the messy, confusing world of adulthood, that sounds like a year well spent.
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