Lucinda's Guide to the Gap Year

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Trains in Moscow, Russia

Perhaps the most famous train-route of all - the fantasy of every short-trousered boy who has ever stood at Victoria Station and watched people depart to who knows where.

The name alone smacks of adventure. The Trans-Siberian rail system is the world’s longest and in addition to the basic stop-start trip, a number of operators now offer a multitude of tailored trips - from the ‘Original Trans-Siberian’ to the ‘Dr Zhivago’.

They range from a few days’ jaunt to an epic, month-long voyage, or from a restful sightseeing tour to a full-blown expedition. Moscow to Beijing can include (depending on the time of year) the Ural Mountains, snow mobile rides, scuba diving (!), the Gobi desert, the Great Wall of China and the Harbin Ice Festival.

But for sheer romance and gritty adventure, nothing can beat stepping aboard the 21:25 from Moscow - duration? 147 hours on a good day.

Review by larapiegeler

Photo by kimiwatson

Community Development Project in Akrade

Volunteering in Koforidua, Ghana

People live in so many different circumstances all over the world, and though many of us try and be aware of that no one is really aware of it until they’ve experienced some of those other circumstances. This is why I wanted to spend my gap year abroad living in a different society and different kind of community to the one I know, and my experiences teaching English to school children in Ghana while helping out with tasks around the village potentially taught me more than a years worth of university - though don’t tell my tutors that as one of them recommended the experience.

You think you have a good attitude because you’re trying to give something to those people who have less than you do but that sentiment is nothing compared to the actual reality of coming into a tiny town and being welcomed by people excited about every tiny opportunity your presence may afford them. These kids were desperate to learn. Their parents have instilled in them the mantra that education means a better future that goes a lot deeper than the scars mine drove into me. I guess it’s that these people’s lives aren’t as secure if they don’t act for themselves. That has to be the all pervading lesson I learned. The highlights are harder to pick out from my notes but this all pervading message, even several years after my six week experience, I feel even more acutely.

I took part in programs around Akrade on the Volta River, an area with some natural advantages, being on a trade and transport route, but ravaged by years of disorganisation and lack of the kind of infrastructure that sees schools and medical centres, among other projects, completed, the money for them lost. The feeling was one of being part of a group lead by the needs of the local community, and though the organisation I went with are international, the people I worked with and for were either locals or had been involved with the local communities for years. I went into the experience with the attitude to use my skills in the best way other people could see fit. If the strongest need was to dig, I would dig, if the strongest need was to carry things, I would put aside my education and background and do it and if I was most useful as a teacher or carer I would do my best. I’m very proud to say that these six weeks were some of the most productive of my life. I helped build classrooms for a pre-school, we had to make even the bricks from scratch, and taught the children English by teaching them songs, which was so much fun to have been almost a guilty pleasure seeing as I was there to work. I was also involved with the medical centre in New Arkade, helping out young mothers and people with illnesses who still had family or community duties to attend to. Again it was a pleasure to be useful and the bonds I felt with some of these people whose community I had only been part of for such a short time were closer than my relationship with some people in my own community who I had grown up with. I am still grateful for their gratefulness and inspired by their experiences.

Practically I felt looked after and respected. I felt able to make suggestions to the program leaders and to the community and my education and limited life experience was appreciated and vastly expanded. I was fed and watered and I had plenty of fun as well as doing plenty of work. Though a cliché I have to say that this experience was life changing and one I draw on every day.

Review by Allie Aniston

Photo by flickr user oneVillage Initiative

Watamu Turtle Watch Program

Volunteering in Coast-Tsavo, Kenya

It’s a clear night under sweeping Kenyan skies and I’m sitting on a quiet beach, waiting for something to happen. I’m in the company of people I was never expecting to meet, in a landscape I had only ever inhabited in my dreams and I, usually so busy and frenetic at home, wait patiently for hours for something my new friends have promised will happen.

The sand 15 metres away from us begins to shift, the girl sitting next to me gasps and the older African man puts a finger to his lips and turns his torch around. Then the sand appears to fall in and tiny flippers reach out, followed by tiny heads and tiny shells and suddenly two tiny turtles are breathing their first air and tumbling towards the sea. I can’t move, but the man springs into action whispering to me to keep an eye on the first ones, “Ghost crabs” is all he needs to say and I know what to do. As more hatchlings start to come over the top and follow their elder siblings I look out for the trail blazers, shooing the crabs, who appear so quickly on the scene to have been waiting there all along like us, away with my torch and my flip flops. It’s almost the dawn of my third day at Watamu Turtle Watch Program and I’m having one of the most amazing experiences of my life, helping sea turtle hatchlings, only a few minutes hatched, only a few inches inches in size, on their very first journey from their nest to the sea.

I’d arrived at the airport at Malindi hoping I knew enough to be useful and make a difference but wondering how I could possibly make a contribution. But by my third dawn, as well as helping those babies to the sea, one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had, I had also rescued a teenage turtle from a fisherman’s net and cleaned out the tanks in the turtle infirmary. On my third day I was booked in to go with one of the permanent staff to a local school where I would use my skills from my training as an English and Drama teacher (I’d just finished the second year of my degree.) to help teach some of the local children about conservation. I felt thrown in the deep end after a few hours sleep, but I was still so inspired by what I’d seen the night before that I taught with bright eyes and all the enthusiasm of the newly converted!

The project centres around Mida Creek in a National Biosphere Reserve, a beautiful bit of coastline with mangroves on one side and an inviting reef on the other. It’s here that sea turtles have dug their nests for probably hundreds of years, but changing human activity in the area threatens their continued survival. Watamu has always been a fishing village, but people didn’t always fish using poison and narrow strung nets which effectively dredge the sea. And people didn’t always come here to holiday and, though often unknowingly, pollute the sea. As well as the work I undertook in my first three days, volunteers to the program look after sick or injured turtles, help with geographical surveys of nest and coast changes, track turtle numbers and sightings, look after the environment the turtles depend on, by planting new mangrove plants for example, and raise awareness in the local and visiting community.

On a practical level that means as a volunteer you have to keep your wits about you and do a variety of different things, always representing the program. As well as the reward of really making a difference you get to spend time on a wonderfully perfect bit of African coast, swimming and snorkeling in your free time, and meet some truly amazing people with a real passion for the environment. I felt looked after and part of the program from the first, the accommodation was great and the people were just unbelievably generous. It was a real privilege and I can’t stress too keenly how much this experience enriched my life.

Review by Sam Browne

Photo by flickr user smudger888

Conserving the Amazon

Volunteering in Cusco, Peru

I guarantee you have no idea how mind blowingly big and amazing the Amazon Basin is until you go there. It all comes down to the gulf of difference between seeing a photo of a frog the size of your fingernail and coloured with more colours than your Mum’s eyeshadow from the 70’s and waking up to find said frog on the top of your can of baked beans.

By now we all know the Amazon is endangered and that it’s full of all sorts of things which could be the answer to cancer etc. but how do you go about actually doing something about saving it from a practical point of view? This was my line of thinking anyway. I ain’t Richard Branson so I couldn’t just throw money at the problem I had to actually go out there and do something with my hands or eyes or what every body part they need out there, so I got hooked up to be part of a program at The Rainforest Centre and took two months out of my regular life to try and still the nightmares I keep having about wrecking the environment.

Turns out you do a lot of counting things and walking around poking though the rainforest. This contributes to studies about how humans are changing the forest and of animal numbers and the ability of the Amazon to regenerate. There is also some tracking and trailing and spying work to be done: unearthing mud to trap footprints and see what kind of critters have passed by, and trailing unusual species or even just ants, I spent quite a few days trailing different kinds of bugs – not something I thought I’d do but totally enlightening. I also spent a few evenings staying up watching monkeys – I like to call it Monkey Big Brother – and tried to attract birds using all my charms and some recorded bird calls. There was hard labour as well, gentle clearing and building projects, but it was very varied and – here’s the cliché – I learnt a lot, well of course I did, last year I went skiing in Chamonix.

On the practical side you get to stay in what is essentially a tree house and pretty much go native and entertain yourself. Limited electricity and no hot water were a shock at first but the replacement options, climbing into the canopy, swimming in the Amazon River, oh, yeah baby, and messing around in boats is so much more fun and the staff are a fantastic, sexy bunch of people, if not a little challenged with the English – I would advise you learn a leetle Spanish - as were the other volunteers who came out with me.

Why anyone would want to stay in a lodge costing hundreds of dollars a night when you can be part of a project like this is totally beyond me. Don’t get your feel good kick and cheque for carbon credits for the rest of your life from throwing money in the right general direction, get down and dirty and do some counting of tiny frogs or something, man. It’ll be way less hippy and way more science than you think and it will potentially be the best holiday you ever take, and the girls love it.

Review by Rich Andor

Photo by flickr user caitlinread

Madurai Special Needs Volunteer

Volunteering in Madurai, India

“I don’t really know that much about caring for children with special needs, but I want to learn, will that be enough?”, I finally asked out loud as well as worrying it in my head. By that stage I was already off the plane and through the airport on my way to the project and special needs school in Madurai with another new voluntary recruit. She looked at me and laughed, “I have no idea, but we’re all here to give what we can, and that’s all anyone expects of us.”. Sage advice, because the skills I found I really needed were lots of good humour and lots of patience and lots of energy to keep jumping up and down.

Of all the valuable contributions you can make volunteering at home or abroad what could be as valuable as working with deprived children with special needs. When looking at the options available for someone like me who really wanted to take some time to give something back there are so many deserving cases that it is a heartbreaking prospect to even decide where to donate your time, energy and the vital funds your voluntary experience inevitably brings to a community, but like choosing a sponsor child I knew when I looked into those eyes on the website that these children were as deserving of the care, and anything else my energy could bring to them, as any wildlife or environmental project

The children in question weren’t all children, the age ranges of the people in my care here was from less than a year old to 20 or 30 year old adults and their needs were just as diverse. I was expecting the softer features of the Downs children and physical difficulties which come with Cerebral Palsy, but the brilliant kids with the twinkling eyes kept apart from society because of their deafness or epilepsy or autism, proved, for me to be the greatest challenge and the greatest reward. People whose requirements were more physical needed help being fed, bathed and taken to the bathroom, or needed assistance in their remedial dance or yoga classes, or the basics like hand-eye coordination or help with their physiotherapy exercises, but some days during my month long stay some of the more physically able kids were bouncing off the walls at the restrictive environment they felt they were in. Trying to get them focused on the task at hand, be it an arts and crafts class where they could learn useful life skills like basket weaving or sewing, a dance, music, maths or yoga class or even a game in the garden, was sometimes a feat of both great patience and great will and I had to be both sly and wily to get the better of any of them.

Some of the kids are residents but a lot are brought in daily by their parents who need to keep working to pay for the family’s needs and in some cases the stories of the parents are more heartbreaking than the children themselves. It was an amazing experience just to be able to give something back and both an honour and a pleasure to meet both the kids and the people who care for them all the time.

As far as my own comfort went I sometimes felt bad not to be able to take less space and comfort considering the amazing attitudes I fell across here, but I was very comfortable and the program managers insisted that we saw something of the country while we stayed, though as my time was drawing to a close I wanted to spend as much time as possible giving love and care to these people who I found just so easy to love. I don’t know if it was the spirit that I went there with but I have come back with a far greater awareness of needs in my own community that I would never have even noticed if I hadn’t gone away looking to make a difference.

At the end of my stay I would say that there is no way I could have been prepared for what I saw and experienced but that the program managers advice to do what I felt comes naturally was brilliant and gave me a lot of confidence. Wonderful. Life changing. Mind expanding. Heart breaking. And beautiful.

Review by Louisa Hyde

Photo by flickr user mckaysavage

Pinawala Elephant Orphanage

Conservation in North Western, Sri Lanka

I never in my life thought I’d be at the wrong end of an elephant, close enough to be cleaning up its poo and having to watch out for more deliveries, but that’s just a day to day event when a volunteer at the Pinawala Elephant Orphanage. I thought getting sprayed by an elephant was something that only happened in films with trained elephants but I think elephants have got more of a sense of humor than they’re credited with and are far more likely to spray you in pure jest or because they can.

Getting to spend time with elephants you realise just how clever they are and how lively. When they’re all playing together they slide down the river banks like it’s a game or almost frolic (I know that’s not a word people may associate with elephants) in the rain. Some of them enjoy a good rough scrub with coconuts, like a bath, and some are more standoffish and only like some of the mahouts, they’re like people that way, all of them with totally different personalities. They’re also amazingly intelligent and can be trained to do all sorts of things to only what seem like tiny vocal commands.

As well as the orphans I had the opportunity to see some pregnant mums and a baby only a few hours old. Can and elephant ever be considered to be tiny – the answer is yes, and like a foal taking its first ungainly steps. We were able to ride the elephants and to go on an elephant safari and see them in the wild.

I would recommend this experience to anyone who wants to live a different life for a few weeks, to get closer to nature and to do something totally different with their holidays. You see so much more than you would as a tourist and though the work can be hard at times, and you do get strong, fit and tired mucking out the elephants, the afternoons are all spent by the river relaxing with the group of 70 or so elephants and that’s another experience I can believe I had. The more you put into this the more you’re going to get out of it and though you can take time out from the rest of the group if you want I was lucky enough to be there with people who were really committed and though we could have slept in later and spent less time by the river in the afternoon, skipping the effort of getting all the elephants down there, we all wanted to spend as much time as possible mucking in. Literally.

Review by Diego Thoms

Photo by flickr user S Baker

Orang utans at Sepilok

Volunteering in Sandakan, Malaysia

Like pandas, orang utans are very easy to feel love for, those big soulful eyes and human like faces cry out for our help, so, a life long animal lover, I couldn’t wait to take two months out of the daily cycle of my city life to spend some time getting back to nature with the orang utans in Sepliok, Malaysia.

Sepilok offers volunteers the opportunity to help rehabilitate injured, sick and orphaned orang utans and release them back into the wild. It’s a careful process where at first the animals are let out for only a few hours a day then are allowed to roam and come back for food if they need to – like orang utan day release the program call it – before they’re captured and moved away from the centre into the wild. Day visitors to the centre can see the animals in the day release program visit for a meal so if you’re unable to make a full time commitment you can still meet with these truly indescribably intelligent, and funny creatures.

The Sepilok program is very popular with volunteers, and people come from all over the world to donate their time and energy to these amazing, rare creatures in their beautiful natural habitats in the shrinking virgin rainforests of Borneo. As far as I’m aware you can only stay for two months, and only between strict periods. Volunteers follow an organised program where they’re first taught how properly to handle and relate to these creatures. Some of them have been badly mistreated by humans in the past so are nervous and require extra patience, and volunteers have to become aware that these are wild creatures that are being rehabilitated to go into the wild so you have to learn the appropriate level of affection to show and allow. That’s one of the hardest lessons to learn, the feeding and cleaning details are all much simpler and less heart wrenching to grasp. The reason for the minimum time commitment is that even the most calm and gentle person needs the right training.

While I was at the centre I, and my fellow volunteers, worked in the nursery with the wonderful orphans, from the babies who need feeding and care like human babies, to the more adventurous older orphans - one, Jaky, was a little terror full of energy and life who treated everyone he met as if they were a climbing frame and had a grip that I think was stronger than mine. I was also involved in surveying the grounds of the centre and the population, which was like an orienteering expedition into the jungle and in conducting nocturnal surveys – which is like camping out. There are many more menial duties, cleaning, preparing food and feeding animals, but over the two months I found the work rewarding and felt like I was making a real difference to the lives of these animals. I won’t say I didn’t cry when I left.

In Sepilok as well as learning about the world of these endangered creatures I also experienced life in another country, and worked with and developed strong ties with people from more countries still. I benefited from working with and for people who’ve been involved with the centre for years who were enthusiastic and encouraging and very generous to share their knowledge and understanding with me.

Of all the highs the highlight was the first time I managed to coax one of the young orphans up to the top of the rope, it was an amazing moment and I wont say I didn’t feel a bit Dian Fossey.

Review by Karen Andrews

Photo by flickr user doug88888