My name is Anna. I am 29 years old and I was working for a pharmaceutical company in the marketing and sales office for about 8 years. I decided to leave behind a life which was very stressful and did not make any sense to me anymore. Years ago I dreamt about learning Spanish in South America and getting to know this incredible place in the world , not just as a tourist but from a different perspective. So I started my journey in Colombia where I spent one month learning Spanish and then I traveled to Peru, spent one week at NGO Taxi’s HQ, and after that 3 further weeks in the Animal Shelter in the jungle. I was very interested in going to a place with a lot of nature and I love monkeys. During my time at the Animal Shelter it was so much fun to see the animals’ behavior, especially that of the monkeys which is sometimes so similar to a human. I really fell in love with Rosita, the wool monkey. The sounds in the night were amazing, it was a concert of animal sounds.
To be honest the first week was very hard for me because I was not used to physical work and to the simple standard of life. But after I settled into it I was able to enjoy it. I had different tasks, like for example feeding the animals, renovating the shelter, and improving the conditions for the animals. Apart from this we released two of the tortoises into the wilderness, which for me was the most important work as this should be the objective of the shelter. Sometimes it makes me a little bit sad because the chances of releasing the animals into the wilderness are not that realistic as often the financial resources are missing.
