A Life-Changing Incident: From Self to Others

The personal narrative essay tells the story of a student who had a life-changing experience during a trip to South Africa. He visited the Karoo National Park and witnessed the harsh conditions of rural African communities, including poverty, hunger, and lack of education. This encounter made him realize that his previous dreams of wealth and royal living were not fulfilling and inspired him to start volunteering and helping those in need.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE
ESSAY
[DATE]
[Company name]
[Company address]

Personal Narrative Essay
Our life is like a roller-coaster that has ups and downs. There is possibly no one in the world
who can say that his life is simple and straight. Elders said it right that it is the life which
teaches a lot than books. It is also truly said that our life experiences give the best lessons that
help us in future.
In this personal narrative report, I am going to narrate an incident that turned me to live for
others than for self only.
It was the time of March 2017. I was giving my 10th-grade exam. I was nervous but I was
determined as well to score good marks so that I would get into a good College. My aim was
quite clear. I was aiming to join an MNC so that I could earn a good amount of money and
reputation and would live my rest of life in a royal way. For making an entry into the
position, it is required to be an alumni of some of the reputed institution and for that my 10th
grade, 11,12th, and graduation marks are important. I was fortunate that my all exams went
well and I scored enough percentage of marks to get into any reputed college. I was happy
and excited about my future thus, I decided to go on a foreign trip with my family members
for relaxation. We decided to go to South Africa for adventure.
I was full excited about the adventure travel as it was my first overseas trip and that to an
adventure one where I could find wildlife closely. We all went to Karoo National Park in
Western Cape. (Poulsen et.al, 2017)We were students thus hired a local guide to visit that
place. It was the 15th April 2014 we visited the park. I was excited to see the rare species of
animals and birds which I only found in books or on the internet. We went there in morning
around 7.30am so that we could see the greenery and birds before the scorching sun arrives
on top of our head.
During the 6 hours of visit, I saw cape buffalos, cape zebras, rhinoceros, foxes, jackals,
elephant, and snake. I was thoroughly delighted in the trip and was ready to leave the place.
Prior to leaving the place, I went alone outside the park to a nearby village where I found
tribal African people who were busy in stitching bamboos, melting irons, and some are
returning from daily labor jobs. I found some children who were waiting with their mothers

for their father at the door. I found that in one small bamboo shed, a boy was looking at his
father’s bag like doing some sort of inspection. Later, he asked something in their local
language and went inside home angrily. His father followed him inside. I heard some loud
noise from that home like some family fights is going.
On returning, I asked the local guide about the matter. He smiled and answered that the boy
was looking for food to eat. Probably he hasn’t eaten anything since morning thus waiting for
his father to come and give something to eat. As the boy didn’t find to eat, then till next day,
he would have to wait for eating something and had to survive with water.
I was shocked completely as I couldn't believe such things exist in the 21st century with so
much government support, technology, and voluntary organizations for poverty and hunger
but it was reality. I asked the guide and he told everything about the ground level lacking
support for these uneducated, untouched, and neglected tribal group. I came to know that
only 1 or 2% people are having jobs and rest are jobless or doing seasonal jobs such as
farming or craft work which they sell it within 5 km. They hardly get any money to feed their
family.
I was moved by such condition of them and I went again to the same place as the guide. I
found all said things are 100% true. I gave few food packets to 5-6 families as that was my
birthday to celebrate with them. I felt so happy to see the small kids smile and blessings from
the local people for the help. On that day, I felt the real joy.
The dream of having money and royal life melted. I decided to start volunteering such needy
people as soon as I reach my home. I couldn’t find a better way to find joy and blessings than
to have money. I returned home and did research on such people and their condition.
Instead of going for any regular courses such as Science or Commerce, I joined Humanity
course, so that I could go to such places and can help these people who are in need. I joined
an organization called "Save the Children" along with my father in Africa to visit at least 2
times a year to volunteer the rural community in African region.(von Grebmer et.al, 2016)
It all started with an accidental witness and now it is becoming my ultimate goal. I really feel
proud of myself and also my parents, friends, society people etc. feel proud of me for my
decision. Living for others is the greatest joy that I learned from the incident.

References
Poulsen, J. R., Koerner, S. E., Moore, S., Medjibe, V. P., Blake, S., Clark, C. J., ... & Rosin,
C. (2017). Poaching empties critical Central African wilderness of forest elephants. Current
Biology, 27(4), R134-R135.
von Grebmer, K., Bernstein, J., Nabarro, D., Prasai, N., Amin, S., Yohannes, Y., ... &
Thompson, J. (2017). 2016 Global Hunger Index: Africa edition. Intl Food Policy Res Inst.