Haarika Kalahasti, 12

“A thing that changed me a lot was me going on a service learning trip. I’m part of this organization called Medlife, and we went to Lima, Peru to help underserved areas that were in poverty. One day on the trip, we went to this community which was completely different from the community in Loudoun County. It was really interesting to see how they lived on the other side of the world, just the polar opposite. [There were] people coughing all the time, struggling to get up the mountain to their house. It changed my perspective on life. I’m just so thankful for it and thankful for my resources. Another day, it was a mobile clinic day, where we set up these little tents and little medical stations — like triage, doctor station, dentist station, etc. So I was just doing my work in the dentist station, and a man walked up to me and started to speak in Spanish. I was a Spanish III student at the time — and I knew a little bit of Spanish — but not a whole lot to really maintain a whole conversation. I started speaking, and we ended up having a ten-minute conversation just about life in Peru versus life in America; things that he enjoyed and things that I enjoyed. It just taught me a lot about confidence. I shouldn’t be afraid to do anything. Because I’ve always struggled with confidence in my life, that really helped me. I’m really thankful for him for allowing me to open up a little bit.”