When McKenna Wilson graduated from Flathead High School she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do and made a decision to seek out the answer abroad.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to study or where I wanted to go, but I knew I always wanted to travel, so I just started looking at options,” Wilson, 19, said. “I was hoping to figure out more about myself by putting myself in a very different situation,” Wilson said.

And she did just that over four months in 2014 by volunteering abroad in Cusco, Peru, through a New Zealand-based company, International Volunteer Headquarters.

After volunteering at a rural health clinic, in schools and at a rain forest ecological reserve, Wilson had more than just a career path when she returned to the U.S. The gap semester taught her just how capable she was on her own, abroad for the first time. She will share her experience at a Friendship Force Flathead Valley dinner meeting at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 19.

One of the challenges Wilson quickly discovered was overcoming the language barrier. While Wilson had taken two years of Spanish in high school, she wasn’t prepared for the level of conversation with native Spanish speakers.

Wilson seemed most aware of this during her first volunteer placement at a rural health clinic, where she was put to work assisting with medical care, something she had never done before. And she was getting directions completely in Spanish.

“I mostly helped out with physicals with infants up to 5 year olds — take their weight, height measurements and give out medicines. A couple times I actually got to help in the lab,” Wilson said.

While she had planned to stay there for two months, there were some safety concerns in the surrounding neighborhood, so she worked there for only two weeks, yet this was the opportunity that led her to her to choose her current studies in ultrasound technology at Flathead Valley Community College.

“I got to help out in the OB clinic and gave ultrasounds. It was really cool to see these mothers hear the heartbeat of their babies for the first time,” Wilson said.

In her second volunteer placement, Wilson taught English to adults for about two months. The adults were excited to learn and so was Wilson.

“It was about 75 cents a lesson. It was really cool having conversations with these people about their lives and it was an opportunity for me to practice my Spanish,” Wilson said. “I learned a lot and I learned really quickly.”

From there, Wilson traveled eight hours by car and by zip-line into the Amazon rainforest at the Reserva Ecológica Chontachaka.

“The closest town had 22 people living there,” Wilson recalled.

The weeklong adventure was an opportunity for Wilson and other volunteers to explore the wilder parts of Peru.

“There was no running water and we took showers in a waterfall,” Wilson said.

She lived in a roofless shelter and got to know one of the reserve’s wilder residents — a playful primate named Paula.

“She lived on the reserve and would crawl in bed with you at night or try to steal food,” Wilson said. “She was super funny.”

Even the work felt like play during her time on the reserve.

“We would go on hikes and everyone would have a machete to clear away bamboo that had gotten out of control and then go back to plant other plants,” Wilson said.

Her final placement, caring for kindergarten students, was probably the most rewarding, she said.

“A lot of our job was just to help keep the class under control,” Wilson said, laughing. “I think the youngest was 4 and the oldest was 7. It was an absolute madhouse, but it was so much fun. Mostly we gave the kids attention because most of the families using this rural school had worked and lived outside the city as farmers. When they have kids they move into the city thinking there will be better opportunities for their children, but they realize they don’t have any experience for the jobs, so they spend a lot of time on the streets selling things and making blankets to get by.”

A trip abroad was not without sightseeing excursions. One highlight was going to Machu Picchu twice and looking at Incan ruins. The first trek was a week spent hiking every day.

“It’s indescribable,” Wilson said about Machu Picchu. “It was just kind of hard to wrap your mind around. It just goes on forever — all the ruins.”

One of the toughest hikes she made was on the Huayna Picchu mountain (near Machu Picchu) to a ceremonial temple called the Temple of the Moon. This hike involved steep, almost vertical stairs.

Despite all the sights and ancient marvels, Wilson said her favorite part of the trip was meeting the local people.

“They live so incredibly simply. A lot of times, being from the U.S., people see living simple lives as poverty — that they need help, or are barely getting by. When you talk to these people they are the happiest people I’ve ever met. There’s celebrations going on constantly. It was like I was surrounded in happiness all the time.”

Her advice to other students considering a gap year or semester in a volunteer program is to go for it.

“You get to really immerse yourself with the people, especially coming from a town like Kalispell — it’s a very narrow, small part of the world. Get out there and push yourself. When you get out and see the world it changes your perspective on everything.”

Hilary Matheson is a reporter for The Daily Inter Lake. She may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.