Rite and Reason: More and more young Irish people are going abroad to help those less fortunate than themselves. One such person is Sorcha Pollak
As I sit here in my Amazonian home, watching the last rays from the sun illuminating the trees around me, I ask how this life can be compared to my sheltered childhood and adolescence in Ireland.
I am aged 18 and took my Leaving Cert last summer at Muckross Park College in Dublin, and am now working in an orphanage in the Peruvian jungle city of Iquitos. A life of hot suns, tropical rainstorms and mass invasions of mosquitoes was not something I could have even begun to imagine a year ago.
So why am I here?
Sixteen months ago, as I was browsing through the Higher Options fair in the RDS, I came across the Scottish "gap year" company, Project Trust.
I got in touch and after two selection and training courses on a Hebridean island, and nine months of fund-raising (juggling this with the demands of the Leaving Cert), I found myself last September on a plane to Lima.
My purpose was to work for a year in an orphanage run by the Fundacion por los Ninos del Peru. To be completely honest, I had no idea what to expect in relation to this work and was genuinely petrified as I said a tearful goodbye to family and friends at Dublin airport.
Before I left everyone used to joke about how I would change as a person while living out here.
So have I changed? In one respect I have: living among 80 smiling Peruvian faces has converted me into a lover of children. I cannot even begin to describe the feeling of being greeted every morning by hugs and whoops of joy from everyone from toddlers to teenagers.
It puts life in a much clearer perspective when one sees children with such a positive outlook on life, regardless of the tough backgrounds and difficult circumstances they come from. I'm beginning to see that these children are teaching me more about myself than I could have ever learned in a classroom.
So how do I describe my life here? Every day I wake up to the smell of heat mixed with tropical fruit, the sound of birds singing and motor-bike taxis speeding past, and the sight of exotic plants and dark Peruvian faces.
The streets are teeming with children, as there has been a massive growth in the population in the last decade. Unfortunately, the job opportunities have not grown with the population boom.
That is why so many children are forced to live and work on the streets. In a way the kids in the Santa Monica orphanage where I work are the lucky ones.
Amazing as it is to ride a canoe through the floating shanty town of Belen on the banks of the Amazon, it is also difficult not to notice the huge number of families living in tiny wooden shacks without clean water or other basic facilities.
When Europeans think of Peru, the things that come to mind are Machu Picchu and the great Inca civilisations. People tend to overlook the poverty and hardship that are the daily lot of most people here.
However, despite these difficulties Peruvians are full of life and energy. One thing they know is how to party. Bars closing at 2.30am and loud music being kept down at night would be laughed at in Iquitos. Once the music starts here, it never stops. And feeling tired is not permitted - you must keep dancing Salsa and Merengue until daybreak.
One thing I have noticed is that Latin America doesn't seem to be a destination for young European travellers these days. I wonder why that is. This is the continent of youth, energy and music, and lying on a beach in Spain or Greece or even Thailand doesn't even begin to compare to it.
That's why I feel so privileged and happy to have been able to take this year out to come to Peru, to get to know its people and to learn about their lifestyle and language. I know it's going to be difficult integrating back into the normality of Irish life on my return next autumn.
Leaving the children in the orphanage, whom I have come to see as younger brothers and sisters, will be extremely hard. It's even harder knowing that the opportunities for them after life in the Santa Monica Children's Village are few and far between.
That's another thing I have learned: that this world is full of inequality and injustice.
The children of Santa Monica have taught me that optimism is one of the keys to a more fulfilling life. For despite the unfairness in society, which means the lives of those children are not easy ones, their happiness and optimism would brighten the dullest day.
That will be the strongest memory of my time in Peru: the brightness and hopefulness of its children.
• sorchapollak@gmail.com went to Peru with www.projecttrust.org