By Sophia Marcum
Hours after receiving her diploma at Bluffton High School with the class of 2014, Sara Chappell-Dick boarded a plane and headed to Guatemala. Since then she has filled her gap year with a number of adventures. She shares highlights from her year with us and gives insights on where she’ll be heading next.
What exactly did you do in Guatemala?
I was in Guatemala for 3 months with a wonderful program called CASAS, which stands for Central American Study and Service. I spent the first 2 months in Guatemala City living with a host family and studying Spanish. I would go to about 4 hours of Spanish tutoring in the morning and then a few hours of Guatemalan culture/history class in the afternoon.
I spent the last month of my time there in a small, mostly indigenous town called Santiago Atitlan. CASAS set me up helping at a special education school, which gave me an amazing opportunity to practice the Spanish I had learned in a more real-world setting. Santiago was a beautiful place and it was so satisfying to be able to function without any English!
Where there any components of Guatemalan culture you wish Americans would adopt?
My host family in Guatemala City got together every day around 5 to have coffee and bread. They would always drop everything they were doing for this, and would wait for me if I was a few minutes late getting home. I love that they made this a part of each day. I think that spending time like this with your family should be made more of a priority. This isn’t always common in the US, as we're always rushing off to another sports practice or meeting. Those coffee breaks were my favorite memories with my host family!
After Guatemala you took a couple months to walk El Camino across Spain. What sparked your decision to do this?
I first heard about El Camino on a travel show on PBS a few years ago. After getting home from Guatemala, I was sitting around trying to decide what to do next, and I remembered this episode about a 500 mile hike across Spain. It had always been a dream of mine to see Europe, so I bought a plane ticket to Paris before I could change my mind! It turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.
That’s incredible, talk about spontaneity! What was your biggest challenge during this journey?
My endless quest for peanut butter in a peanut butter-less land. I finally found some for about $8. You don't know what you've got until it's gone, America.
Who was the most interesting person you met during La Camina?
Oh my, too many to count. There was the unsatisfied British businessman who quit his job and started walking a week later. There was the Canadian woman who always seemed to be dishing out incredibly profound life advice. There was the hilarious family from New Zealand, who comforted me when I had an incident with an electric fence while chasing after a horse. There was the pair of sisters from Texas, some of the few who understood my intense need for peanut butter. I could go on and on!
You also recently returned from a few months spent in the Americorps working in the areas around Flagstaff, Arizona. What type of projects did they have you doing?
I was working with an Americorps program called American Conservation Experience. We were mostly employed by National Park Service, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, or the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The work varied with each project. Sometimes we would do trail maintenance, and sometimes they would have us doing invasive species removal or native plant seed collection. I discovered that Arizona is an incredibly diverse place - one week I'd be dying of heat in the desert, and the next week I'd be at the top of a mountain waking up to a foot of snow.
I think it’s safe to say you made the most of your gap year. What advice would you give to other students considering taking a gap year?
DO IT. I believe that every single person would benefit from a gap year before college. Whether it's for travel or work, I am 100 percent sure that they wouldn't regret it. Many high school seniors are excited to start college right away, but it will still be there for them in a year.
There's a whole world out there just waiting to be experienced!
(It will also make you stand out to admission counselors, if you're into that sort of thing)
In what ways did your gap year affect who you are now as an individual?
I am definitely more comfortable being away from home, and I'm newly excited and ready to start school again!
Where are you headed in the fall and what will you be studying?
I'll be attending Roosevelt University in Chicago, studying Social Justice and Law.
Can you describe your dream job?
Starting a free legal clinic in Appalachia. Or Amnesty International. Or the UN.
Dave Matthews said “the saddest part of the human race is we're obsessed with this idea of 'us and them,' which is really a no-win situation, whether it's racial, cultural, religious or political.” Do you agree with this sentiment? Why or why not?
Absolutely! I think this is especially important to remember when volunteering in a situation that you're not used to, such as an international mission trip.
I've learned that a mindset of working together with your fellow human being rather than helping the "poor underprivileged" (or, "them") is crucial to forming relationships and having experiences that will help you change and evolve, therefore changing the world in a realistic way.
Sara will be a freshman at Roosevelt University in the fall. Leave a comment below to wish her luck in her future endeavors.
