A Global Venezuelan

My biggest adventure began a bit over ten years ago, the day I left my homeland of Venezuela. Little did I know at the moment, that my plan to travel for two months to improve my English would turn into a lifetime of travelling doing what I love the most, working with people to help them improve their lives. Having to travel the world to do so has been the icing on the cake!
Working as a humanitarian worker for the last 10 years has allowed me to travel to many places. I have seen a bit of everything from the most underprivileged places like Bolivia or Sri Lanka to the most magnificent and sumptuous palaces like Nieuwenstein Castle in Germany. I have swum in the warm waters of the Caribbean and dove in the Maldives. But among this diversity I have seen there is a constant factor that always manages to amaze and surprise me without fail; people. People have, without a doubt shaped my biggest and most memorable adventures; those amazing people I have met during my travels are who make a country and a culture the unforgettable memories that I always keep with me.
One anecdote that sticks in my head took place in a small town in Sri Lanka. I had been there already for a few months and was invited to a local’s birthday celebration. A friend and I drove to their village, windows rolled down to take in warm air—even though the locals thought foreigners only like air conditioning— we were enjoying the warm breeze from the ocean! On the way there, we were told that we were going to make an unscheduled stop, when we inquired, our driver, actually my friend’s colleague said: “I am going to show you where a pineapple grows madam!” they all used to call us madam which made me feel a bit old! The reason why he wanted to show us a pineapple plantation was that on a previous occasion, he overheard us talking about a plant and I said: “oh, look pineapples hanging from a tree” OF COURSE we knew that pineapples don’t HANG from trees. However, this particular tree’s fruit looks exactly like a pineapple hence the joke, but alas there was no convincing our friend that we were NOT one of THOSE silly foreigners who think ketchup comes from ketchup tree! Nothing persuaded him, he was determined to rectify our poor knowledge of tropical fruits and for the next hour or so we saw rows and rows and more rows of…yes! Pineapple, after pineapple, needless to say we played along with the plantation owner who had a somber face since our friend told him about our grave mistake! By the end of the trip of course we left with quite a few juicy pineapples. I mean after all, having learned where pineapples come from the only obvious thing was to try them and learn that, no in fact they don’t take like chicken!