For me, it was almost impossible to feel alone during a Round River program. There are always people needing you, having fun with you, teaching you, arguing with you, and supporting you. In many ways, each group eventually evolved into a family, a community with its own unexpected similarities, interesting dynamics, and beautiful disagreements. Tension is always there, as is camaraderie and a fraternal feeling that pushes everyone in the group to coalesce and live together.

I believe it is the kind of people that these programs attract that make them so successful. People who share the same overall mission – to help conserve nature and culture, to find a way for humans to coexist with wildlife and forests, and to better understand the world and themselves. Most of my best memories are about adventures, natural beauty, and unexpected situations, but they are only the best because these stories were shared with incredible people. When we share stories we create our own myths and legends, the ones we will tell others potentially for the rest of our lives.

And even though mountains, valleys, elephants, lions, and unbelievable sunsets are there, I am most fond of the more simple and ordinary stories – the ones no one from outside would understand what’s fun or interesting about them. Things like driving “Lucy” around, cooking an asado on the fire, grocery shopping, digging latrines, making popcorn on a hot afternoon, watching the stars at night, getting second-hand embarrassment from student romantic drama, telling stories by the campfire, burning lentils for lunch, seasoning the cast iron pan, changing tires, laughing at poop stories, setting up the group tarp, talking about movies and pop culture, drinking maté by the river…