The Road Less Traveled

Students resist the lure of the beach to care for Guatemala's poorest citizens. Welcome to a new kind of spring break.

By David Hunt

It's spring break and a dozen college students walk through the dusty streets of Antigua in Guatemala's central mountains. A column of ash rises from the top of Volcán de Fuego, the volcano of fire, sending giant smoke signals into the western sky. If there's a message to decipher in the distant clouds, the students don't have time to look for it as they walk through the doors of Hermano Pedro Hospital, where the atmosphere is heavy.

"You could smell the urine and mucous," says Vansana Nolintha, a senior at North Carolina State University who organized the trip. "People were screaming and crying. I remember so well the tension."

Outside, tourists lazily roam through the ornate Baroque ruins of Spanish colonial churches, destroyed by a series of earthquakes in 1773, and relax in the air-conditioned comfort of the city's modern day spas. But for the students from NC State, the crowded hospital is the only attraction on the itinerary. This is where they will spend their days for the duration of spring break, caring for some of the facility's mentally and physically disabled patients, including scores of children with chronic ailments, from cerebral palsy to spinal cord injuries.

As a nurse leads the students on a tour of the wards, Nolintha is struck by the need all around him.

"In the Western world we think we can help, we think we can heal," he says. "But many of these people will not get better. What can we do as heath care professionals, as volunteers, as human beings to touch these people while they are alive?"

At Hermano Pedro, the students quickly learn that questions are more abundant than answers.

Vansana Nolintha at NC State University.

Back on campus, Nolintha shows no sign that he considers the trip a disappointment. While many college students spend their spring, summer and winter breaks chasing fun and sun along an MTV-inspired trajectory, Nolintha is among a growing number of young people who view time away from their studies as the perfect opportunity to confront some of the planet's most intractable problems.

"We weren't comfortable," he admits. "We slept with spiders, we had cold showers, and sometimes we didn't shower for days. But it was amazing. So many times we place ourselves in circumstances where we can excel; where it's easy. But to put yourself in an extreme situation, where you don't master the situation - but maybe you grow just an inch – that is worthwhile."

NC State, with its global perspective and emphasis on student leadership, is eager to channel this kind of energy and idealism. At the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service, director Mike Giancola has developed a framework for students seeking meaningful ways to connect with the world. The center provides training, support and partial funding for service projects within the region and around the world.

Last year 180 students worked through the center to organize 10 service trips, like the one to Guatemala, over spring and winter breaks. Teams, accompanied by faculty members, built houses in Ecuador, taught English to orphaned children in the Dominican Republic, assisted homeless families in Philadelphia, and worked with residents of the Gulf Coast struggling to rebuild their lives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Overall, students logged more than 100,000 volunteer hours.

"The purpose is to inspire students to think about their vision, their calling," says Giancola. "It's not just about getting a career, it about being relevant."

For some students, it's transformational. Nolintha came back from Guatemala determined to pursue a career as a surgeon. He will graduate from NC State next year with a double major in design and chemistry.

After he earns his medical degree, Nolintha hopes to work in some of the world's poorest countries, where he'll confront many of the same questions that troubled him in Antigua over spring break. By then, he hopes, the answers – like the clouds of ash over Guatemala's restless volcanoes – won't seem so distant.

Links:

• Launch Photo Gallery
• Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service