What I Wish I Knew Before Volunteering Abroad
If I could go back to the moment before I left for Tanzania and sit down with the person I was then, there are a few things I would tell her. I would tell her that volunteering abroad is going to be one of the most beautiful experiences of her life, but that it won't always be easy. I would tell her that she is going to laugh, learn, grow, meet incredible people and experience things she will never forget. But I would also tell her that there will be moments when she feels overwhelmed, confused or homesick. Moments when things don't make sense and when she wonders whether she is doing enough and I would tell her that all of that is okay.
Before you leave for another country, it is easy to imagine how your experience will look. You picture yourself arriving, meeting new people, starting your project and immediately feeling comfortable. You imagine all the amazing things you are going to see and the memories you are going to make. But the reality of volunteering abroad is often much more than that. You are not simply visiting another country. For a while, you are stepping into someone else's everyday life. You are surrounded by a different culture, different habits, different ways of communicating and sometimes completely different expectations. Things that feel normal to you may not be normal to the people around you, and the other way around.
That can be beautiful, but it can also be confronting. You may find yourself questioning things you have always taken for granted. You may notice differences in the way people work, communicate or approach certain situations. Sometimes you will understand those differences immediately, and sometimes you won't. There may be moments when you feel frustrated because something is not happening in the way you expected. But one of the biggest lessons you can learn abroad is that different does not automatically mean wrong. You are entering someone else's environment, not bringing your own environment with you and expecting everything to work the same way. The more you learn to observe, listen and understand before judging, the more you begin to appreciate the culture you are experiencing.
Another thing I wish I had known is that you won't always know what you're doing. Especially when it's your first time volunteering abroad, you might arrive with the idea that you are there to help and make a difference. You may have imagined yourself knowing exactly what to do and being useful from the very beginning. But sometimes you'll stand somewhere and think, What am I actually supposed to do here?, and that's okay. You are there to learn too. You may need time to understand how a project works, how people communicate and what your role really is. You may have to ask questions, make mistakes and adjust your expectations. You may discover that the things you thought would be most useful aren't necessarily what is needed most.
That can be difficult when you genuinely want to help. Because another important thing I wish I had understood before volunteering abroad is that you cannot fix everything. You cannot solve every problem you see. You cannot change an entire community in a few weeks. You cannot take responsibility for things that are much bigger than one person and that can be a hard realisation. But making a difference isn't always about doing something huge. Sometimes it's about showing up. Sometimes it's helping a child understand something they didn't understand before. Sometimes it's spending time with someone who simply needs attention. Sometimes it's sharing a skill, helping a teacher, supporting a healthcare professional or simply being willing to listen. You may never know exactly what impact one small moment has had on someone else, and perhaps that's not the point. You don't always have to see the result to know that your presence mattered.
I also wish I had known that I would miss home. Even when you're having an incredible time, you can still miss the people, places and routines that are familiar to you. You can have an amazing day and still wish you could tell someone at home about it in person. You can be grateful to be where you are and still have moments when you want your own bed, your own food or simply a familiar face. Those feelings don't mean you made the wrong decision. They mean that home matters to you. And sometimes, experiencing something completely different makes you appreciate certain things about home in a way you never did before.
At the same time, being away from home can give you something you might not have expected: space. Space to think, space to make your own decisions and space to discover what you actually enjoy without constantly being surrounded by the routines and expectations of your normal life. This is something that became incredibly meaningful to me during my time in Tanzania. Being there gave me the opportunity to look at myself from a different perspective. Away from everything that was familiar, I had more room to discover what made me happy, what I cared about and what kind of life felt meaningful to me. I learned things about myself that I don't think I would have discovered in exactly the same way if I had stayed in my usual environment.
And that's one of the things I would tell my younger self before leaving: don't only focus on what you are going to give. Pay attention to what you are going to learn. Because volunteering abroad is not a one-way experience. You may think you are going there to help, but you will probably learn just as much from the people around you. You learn from the local community, from the people you work with, from other volunteers and from situations that don't go according to plan. You learn from having to adapt and from seeing the world through perspectives that are different from your own. And slowly, your own perspective can change too.
You may return home and look at everyday things differently. You may appreciate things you once took for granted. You may become more independent, more confident or more open to experiences that previously felt outside your comfort zone. You may even come home with more questions than answers. And that's okay too. I used to think that a journey was successful when you knew exactly what you had gained from it. Now I think sometimes the most meaningful experiences are the ones that continue to change you long after you have returned home.
You may not understand the impact immediately. Maybe you notice it when you make a different decision, when you choose to step outside your comfort zone again or when you realise that something that once seemed scary doesn't scare you anymore. Or maybe you simply realise that you are not exactly the same person who left.
If I could go back and talk to myself before leaving, I would tell her not to put too much pressure on herself. You don't have to change the world. You don't have to have the perfect volunteer experience. You don't have to know exactly what you're doing every day. You don't have to feel happy all the time. You don't have to come home with your entire future figured out. Just be present. Listen. Ask questions. Be open to learning. Allow yourself to be uncomfortable sometimes, and give yourself the freedom to experience Tanzania for what it is, rather than constantly comparing it to what you know.
Because volunteering abroad isn't only about the project you work on or the number of hours you spend volunteering. It's about the person you become while you're there. And perhaps that is the thing I wish I had known most of all: you may leave home thinking you're going to make a difference in someone else's life, only to discover that the experience changes yours too.