By Samuel
It’s already been five months of my gap year, and if there’s one thing that’s been drilled into my mind, it’s the idea that I’m really not in control of anything. Sometimes that thought comes almost as a relief. But on some late nights, it turns into pure torment.
My gap year wasn’t planned. Because of external issues, my visa was denied—and that denial led to one of the worst mental breakdowns I’ve ever had.
‘What could I have done differently?’
‘Was it something I said?’
‘Was it some trip I took?’
Those thoughts wouldn’t stop running through my mind as I tried to find some way to fight them.
And it was almost like a divine blessing when I got an email from Duke’s Gap Year Program. By that point, I already knew about the program and had even exchanged a few emails with the program coordinator, Camey VanSant (who honestly deserves a special shoutout for putting up with my panicked email rants for hours).
Basically, that’s the behind-the-scenes story of how my gap year started.
But the idea that I wasn’t in control of anything kept growing during these five months.
In early July, through the NGO Children and Nations, I was called for a volunteer project in southern Brazil. Now, mind you – for someone who lives in the middle of the Brazilian Northeast, heading to the South in July is basically like an average American deciding to spend their December vacation in Alaska.
When I first arrived, what seemed like an aesthetic kind of cold—the kind that looks good on Instagram – quickly turned into a big symbol of loneliness. Watching my Brazilian friends head off to their universities, getting ready for their visas, packing their bags, saying goodbyes, it was a constant reminder that I wasn’t in control of anything.
Instead of being on the verge of boarding a flight toward my dream, I was in a completely unfamiliar place, freezing cold, and constantly being bombarded with news saying that international students might no longer be welcome.
Then the volunteering actually began.
For context, the South of Brazil is a region that faces heavy floods and winter storms every year. A mass of cold polar air comes up, bringing waves of destruction, and this year was no different. Over 800k people were directly affected; entire cities disappeared in a matter of days. As usual, the country went on alert and began mobilizing volunteers for the region.
Another important thing to mention is that along with me, a group of volunteers came from abroad. Partnering with local institutions, a group of volunteers from Kenya was also mobilized to join the efforts. That’s the context where I found myself—in intense weeks of local aid and organization (and also sharing the fear of the cold with my African friends). Between classes, social actions, services, and lots of English—Portuguese interpretations, something kept bothering me. Everything I saw, everything I translated, and all the cities we passed through—the idea of control showed itself in a new way.
How can someone lose their home overnight?
How do you keep your mind steady when everything you have—everything you’ve worked and fought for—can just vanish from one day to the next?
That almost fatalistic thought built up into a heavy feeling of anxiety that kept growing in me. Exclusion, FOMO, and impostor syndrome were basically my mantras through many of those weeks.
Until one night during a social action. It was Friday, around 8 p.m., and a long line began forming outside the church that was hosting us volunteers that week. Families were lining up with their kids to secure a good spot for the donations that would start at 7 a.m. the next morning. Watching that struggle—those people, in the freezing cold, fighting for the bare minimum to survive—hit me deeply.
When I went outside to talk to some of them, I brought one of my African volunteer friends with me. And that completely amazed the people there. How could a group of people from another continent come all the way to help them?
Smiles, attempts to speak English, hand gestures, laughter—suddenly, for a few seconds, that whole situation became about connection. We started exchanging phone numbers; many people downloaded Google Translate, and a wave of excitement spread through the line.
The next morning, the only thing anyone could talk about was that group of volunteers who had crossed a whole continent and an ocean to be there. And by the end of the day, the group of Kenyans I was translating for gathered in a room and sang. They didn’t sing because of the pain my country was going through—they sang for the connection that was being created there, for the lives being touched through contact. They sang because we were there, living in the now.
Well, I won’t drag out the rest of this trip (I’ll leave some photos below), but I really want to leave this reflection for Future Samuel:
You’re really not in control of things.
So embrace that. Use all your so-called “setbacks” as opportunities to meet people, explore cultures, languages, and music. Connect with others, exchange experiences, and live. Live through life’s instability. Live your denials, live your approvals, and feel everything you need to feel—even the pain.
That’s all for now, folks.
Samuel.
P.S.: I also wanted to make a quick mention of my trip to São Paulo, where I had the pleasure of watching the Brazilian production of Wicked – The Musical. It was a trip I hadn’t planned, but once again, it turned out to be another positive experience that came from not being in control of things.
