At 64, Kathleen had already lived a few lifetimes. A former chef, a fishing boat worker, a business owner, a veteran, someone who’d spent years working with teenagers and food policy. When she retired, she didn’t slow down. She set off on a journey that took her through three GoEco programs across two countries: teaching children in Cambodia, caring for elephants in Cambodia, and living alongside monks in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal.
“I’m 64 years old, so I’m a little bit older,” Kathleen said. “Ten years ago, literally ten years ago, I wanted to retire. I was a chef, I worked on a fishing boat for ten years, I had my own businesses, I worked a lot with teenagers, teaching.”
That seed, planted back in 2016, eventually led her to Southeast Asia, and years later, straight to GoEco. “I just Googled volunteer Cambodia elephants, and GoEco popped up,” she said. “I’d never used any organization to navigate my travels.”
Sustainable Community Development, Cambodia
Kathleen’s journey began teaching children through GoEco’s Sustainable Community Development program in Siem Reap. “When I landed to come out and, you know, slightly exhausted, and to grab my bags and see somebody with a sign that had my name on it, that had never… I never experienced that before,” she said. “They were like, yep, we got you. It was just like, wow.”
Settling into the school and her host family’s world came with its own kind of learning curve. “This is my mother, this is my father, this is my sister, these are my nieces, nephews, and this is my family,” she remembered being told on arrival.
Working with the children left the deepest impression. “You do what you can do, if you will, but I was so full of joy, quite frankly, to see these kids and to engage and build their trust,” she said. “They’re so innocent and they’re beautiful and they’re full of play and joy. Once the trust was established, they just surrounded you, and it was amazing.”
In her free time, she got to know Siem Reap and its history. “I hired a tuk tuk driver and I got really involved with his family,” she said. “I took his whole family out to a dinner buffet dance performance on Christmas.”
Elephant Sanctuary & Forest Conservation, Cambodia
From the classroom, Kathleen moved on to GoEco’s Elephant Sanctuary & Forest Conservation program in Mondulkiri, home to an indigenous community that owns the land the elephants live on. “The indigenous tribe community, they own land, and these were their elephants,” she said. “They’re all engaged. So the cooks and the cooking was fantastic. And then even the men that were building or doing maintenance, but the whole crew there, the whole team there, I learned a lot.”
What stood out most was how closely the sanctuary read the elephants’ moods before any interaction. “If they felt like the elephant wasn’t into it at that moment, they were like, we’re not going to do it today,” Kathleen said. “They really were reading the elephant in the room.”
Zoe, GoEco’s team member, spoke to why placements like this one matter. “We’ve got 20 years of experience working with organizations around the globe. We know which ones are reputable and do real impact long term,” she said. “We want to make sure that you’re joining really top quality organizations that really, really care.”
Teaching in Buddhist Monasteries, Nepal
Kathleen’s final stop was GoEco’s Teaching in Buddhist Monasteries program in Nepal’s Everest region, which she began with the program’s culture week in Kathmandu, staying with Rajesh and his family. “Oh my gosh, they are just, talk about a family that prays together, stays together,” she said. “Remarkable, really helpful, amazing family.”
Getting to the monastery itself meant trekking, something Kathleen hadn’t done in years, and with two new hip replacements to work around. “There’s like thousands of steps, and one of them is 3,200 steps in a row,” she said. “I think on day two, my mantra became moderate.”
Once she arrived, life in the monastery asked something different of her than either of her Cambodia placements. “Rajesh was telling me prior to going, he said, English is going to be almost like secondary to what you’re… the reason you’re going there is to live a monastic life and see what that’s all about,” Kathleen said. “If you’re not comfortable being uncomfortable, it can be difficult.”
She found herself in the role of quiet observer as much as teacher. “It’s not for me to engage as a woman, as a maternal instinct, to want to come in and hold or grab it,” she said, describing watching the youngest monks. “I watched, and just the way they were guided, if there was a situation, it was always with compassion and gentleness. I did get into some nice conversations with the teenagers. They were curious about some things, and I was just as curious back.”
Looking back on the experience, Kathleen described a shift in how she thinks about traveling alone. “I’m often, when I travel, I’m on my own, and I used to think, oh yeah, I go alone. But it’s not alone anymore. It’s along,” she said. “I go along a path, because so much can come at you, if you’re open to it.”
Her Advice for Anyone Who Thinks They’re Too Old
Kathleen was often the oldest volunteer in the room, frequently alongside people in their early twenties. Her advice for anyone her age hesitating to sign up is simple.
“As an elder, really, and embracing that, because of course we all still feel like we’re in our thirties or forties, but we’re not,” she said. “I could listen and I could share, and I saw how curious and engaged they actually were because of my experience and my age.”
“If you’re gonna want to take any kind of chances in life, you know, because time moves, you don’t get it back,” she said. “Why not experience something, and when the experience turns out to be as wonderful as what I just experienced, then you’ve got something even more to share when you come back.”
