Counseling Volunteering in Mexico

Oaxaca was everything I hoped it would be. I got so much experience improving my Spanish by speaking with the locals, and everybody I had the pleasure of interacting with was extremely kind and gracious to me. I also had SO many opportunities to expand and explore my artistic journey, including painting a mural, which led to two more opportunities for me to create art for businesses outside of the program. I made so many friends, and re-discovered my true passion for art and illustration. This trip sparked my interest in traveling solo more often, and I can confidently say Mexico has such a magical soul.

CFHI is a great program to experience cultural immersion, clinical exposure, and language acquisition. It was a very well rounded experience with a lot of helpful support in place from the coordinators, my host family, and alumni advisor. We had enough structure in our schedule to reap benefits from the experience and enough free time to relax and enjoy the environment. I definitely would recommend it to other students! It was interesting to see some of the common chronic diseases (diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia) because of diet and food access, also seeing unique tropical diseases like Dengue and Chagas, and seeing the younger age that women tend to have children as a result of social factors. My host mom was very kind and helpful and an amazing cook! She would always be interested to get a recap of our days so we could practice our Spanish. I really enjoyed my stay with her. Spanish classes were also super helpful and I learned a lot that helped me increase my fluency. My teacher, Rocio was extremely kind, patient, and supportive to help us make progress on a lot of grammatical and conversational skills. The many beautiful beaches and the overall environment in Puerto Escondido were very beautiful to enjoy. We even took a weekend trip to Oaxaca which was also a wonderful place to visit.