AnimalsJUN 5, 2017

I Choose My Career At 9 Years Old, And I Never Changed My Mind

Usually, little girls have lots of dreams, and they change their mind many times over their lives…but not me.

I decided that I will work in the environment field a morning in 1984, when I was 9 and my mother told me about people that chained themselves to a tree to prevent them to be cut. In that moment, I realised that those where the kind of things that I wanted to do when growing up: working to study and protect nature will be my profession!

Because I was very young and playful at that time, I integrated my new discovery in all my games: I was all kinds of scientist: I played that I was a veterinarian, a chemist, an astronomer, and animal behaviourist…

The time passed, and at 16 I was a volunteer at the local zoo of Cordoba (Argentina) working with howler monkeys, snakes, anteaters, lamas and more! They were my friends that I saw and took care of them every weekend through my last year of high school.

Then I started to study biology, but because at the beginning it was mostly pure sciences such as math, chemistry and physics, I was a little disappointed. I did not do very well. But I keep trying, I helped to start an environmental NGO, I was a research assistant for many projects and I keep volunteering in many different organisations. I changed programs, and finally I graduated in Environmental Geography in a Canadian University.

After that, two years of trying to find a job in my area, but it was very difficult and frustrating. Finally, I was accepted as a guide in an environmental complex: a green building, a recycling center and an old landfill site. For 10 years I was a guide in a whale watching ship, a zoo, a botanical garden and an insectarium, and I travelled during holydays to 55 countries to see wildlife, take courses or volunteer. I realized many long term dreams such as seeing the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, the Galapagos turtles, and the national parks of East Africa.

In 2015, I started working as an environmental consultant for a Canadian international cooperation organisation. The first assignment was in Guatemala for helping to install a recycling system, and this year I am in Senegal, trying to implement an environmental management plan in a horticulturalist association.

I have invested all my energy, time and money in these projects and travels. It has been very difficult at times to find a job in my area, but I kept trying, I preferred to wait until I found a related job, even if my bank account was in the negative numbers!

My primary school friends remember that I use to bring turtles and other animals to school, and that I tried to found an NGO in my class! I am 42 now, I own nothing, but I am rich in experiences, friends and travel memories. I decided my profession at 9, and not even for a day I changed my mind.