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Interview with Patrick
More Than Volunteering: What I Found Through Community, Conservation, and Purpose in Bali
Patrick originally planned to spend one month in Bali. By the time we interviewed him, that month had already become two, and even then, he was beginning to feel that perhaps two months would not be enough.
He had arrived at the beginning of March from Sydney with a professional background in corporate IT and insurance, and with no academic training in marine biology, conservation, or environmental science. What he did have was a long-standing affection for Bali and a very clear sense that if the island was ever going to become part of his future, he did not want his relationship with it to exist only through tourism. “I really like Bali. I like the people, and I’ve wanted to live here for quite some time,” he explained. “But the idea of living here just in the capacity of being a tourist was not something that I felt comfortable with.”
That discomfort became the starting point for something much more meaningful. Patrick did not arrive because volunteering fitted neatly into his professional background, nor because he was searching for academic credit or a particular qualification. His motivation was much more personal, he wanted to understand more about the people, the culture, and the everyday reality of Bali, while finding a way to contribute rather than simply enjoy what the island could offer him. The word he returned to repeatedly throughout our conversation was gratitude.
“If I could be accepted and I could live here, I would want to do something meaningful with that and not just consume resources and not give anything back in return.”
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Patrick first orientation day in the Turtle center with miss Trisa from Bali Internships
Patrick joined a sea turtle conservation program where the days were structured around the practical realities of caring for animals and maintaining the center. Mornings generally began shortly before 9 AM, with tasks such as cleaning tanks, preparing food, feeding the turtles, assisting visitors, and helping with general maintenance. None of these activities were particularly glamorous, but that was also part of what made the work feel genuine.
He spoke with surprising affection about something as simple as cleaning a turtle tank, describing the satisfaction of taking a space that had become dirty over several days, restoring it, refilling it with clean water, and then watching the turtle settle back into a healthier environment. For him, there was a visible connection between the work completed and the wellbeing of the animal in front of him. The project also gradually turned him into an informal educator. Visitors frequently arrived with questions, and Patrick quickly learned that volunteering was not only about performing tasks but also about knowing enough to explain why the work mattered.
“You might not necessarily have the exact answer to that question, so you bank it and go look up the answer for next time.” Through that process, learning became constant and practical. It happened through the questions people asked, through conversations with staff and visiting specialists, through observing veterinary procedures, and through simply spending enough time in one place to begin understanding the larger purpose behind its daily routines.
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Getting a closer look at the incubation process during Patrick's first day at the turtle conservation center.
One of his regular activities involved collecting seagrass for green sea turtles from selected coastal areas. The conservation team rotates the collection sites to avoid putting too much pressure on one location, an approach Patrick appreciated because it reflected the same environmental awareness the organization was trying to teach. He barely considered the activity work.
“The seaweed collecting doesn’t even feel like a job. It’s more like a privilege.”
Once the collection was completed, there was sometimes an opportunity to snorkel and observe the marine environment around the area. For Patrick, this offered another layer to the experience because he could see coral restoration work taking place alongside the conservation activities he was already involved in. He described seeing the coral structures and marine life up close as something almost cinematic, particularly because these were environmental issues he had previously encountered mainly through news reports, documentaries, or general discussions about climate change.
What affected him was not simply the beauty of the coral or tropical fish, but seeing local people actively working to restore and protect an ecosystem under increasing pressure from human activity and environmental change. That distinction between observing conservation from a distance and participating in it became even more apparent when Patrick joined the response to a rescued green sea turtle found in distress.
The turtle was small and had suffered a serious barnacle infestation, including several barnacles that had penetrated deeply into the shell. Patrick watched as the veterinary team removed the growths, treated the wounds, disinfected the affected areas, and administered medication.
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A close-up of a hawksbill sea turtle, one of the world's most threatened marine turtle species, receiving care at the conservation center.
“When you first arrive here, it’s very hopeful and happy and you can see all of these wonderful creatures up close, but then when you go to a rescue and you see one of those animals in distress, it really opens your eyes up to what they’re trying to do here and what the objective of the center is.” After treatment, the turtle was placed in rehabilitation and monitored closely. There was no neat conclusion at the time of our interview. The team continued watching its appetite, movement, and buoyancy while waiting to see how it would recover.
That uncertainty made the experience more real. Conservation work rarely unfolds with the tidy conclusions people are accustomed to seeing on television. Sometimes there is a rescue, treatment, and recovery, while at other times there is simply careful observation and the hope that the animal responds well enough to survive. For Patrick, being present during those moments gave the work a seriousness that could not be replicated through passive observation.
Another experience that stayed with him happened during a night monitoring activity, when an olive ridley turtle came ashore to lay her eggs. The team remained nearby for around an hour, quietly observing while making sure she was able to complete the process safely. Patrick had seen similar scenes in documentaries before, but being physically present altered the experience completely. “Normally, there’s a screen between you and the animal. You see it in a documentary, and that separates you from the feeling of what it’s like to actually see it.” He watched as the turtle laid her eggs, covered the nest with her flippers, and eventually made her way back toward the sea. The eggs were later moved to a protected area where appropriate. He described the moment as magical, but also emotional, particularly because it brought him physically close to a process that is increasingly fragile for threatened marine species. Handling turtle eggs during relocation also became one of the few tasks Patrick described as genuinely challenging. The difficulty did not come from complexity so much as the awareness that each movement needed to be deliberate and careful. “You have to be really, really careful. It’s a very delicate operation.”
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The conservation center's incubator provides rescued sea turtle eggs with a safe, protected environment, improving their chances of hatching successfully.
As the weeks passed, Patrick also began looking beyond the routine tasks and asking how his own professional experience might contribute to the organization in a more lasting way. His career had been spent largely in corporate IT and website-related work, which initially appeared disconnected from marine conservation. After spending time at the center, however, he began reviewing its existing website and thinking about how it could better support the organization’s work. He saw an opportunity to improve its functionality, search visibility, loading speed, and eventually its ability to receive support from people who care about the mission but may never be able to travel to Bali themselves. He spoke about people such as his mother and her friends back in Australia, who might be willing to contribute financially if there were a simple and reliable way to do so. Better digital infrastructure could ultimately help the center fund medical equipment, improve facilities, or strengthen other aspects of its conservation work.
For Patrick, this became one of the most meaningful parts of the program because it allowed him to combine something he already knew well with something he had only recently begun to understand deeply. “It’s all well and good to be here and to help in the here and now, but I want to do something that leaves a lasting impact, and I think the website is the way that I can do that.”
There is something valuable in that realization because volunteering is often imagined as stepping completely outside one’s professional identity, when in reality some of the most useful contributions can come from applying existing skills in a new environment. A person does not need to become a conservation scientist overnight in order to contribute to a conservation organization. Sometimes the useful question is simply what knowledge, experience, or professional ability a person already has that might strengthen the work being done locally. Patrick’s website project also gave him something he had been missing in previous corporate roles: a stronger sense of purpose behind the work itself. He spoke openly about how easy it can be to lose that connection when working inside very large organizations where individual tasks feel distant from the final outcome. “Everyone needs their why. Why am I doing this? What’s the objective?” In this case, he did not have to search very far for the answer. “This has given me a why, and professionally that’s the best thing that you can have.” What Patrick perhaps expected least was how important the human side of the experience would become.
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Bali Internships gathering in Warung Nads, Umalas, Bali, Indonesia. Where all Bali Internships clients, students, volunteers and interns are invited to meet, connect and have a lovely dinner together. One of the most anticipated times for everyone to meet up especially for those who travels alone.
Patrick described himself as naturally shy, and during the first few days he was uncertain about where he fitted within the group. He was older than many of the local students around him, came from a completely different professional background, and was entering a space where most people already appeared to know one another. That uncertainty disappeared quickly. He was invited to sit with the local students, conversations developed naturally, and over the following weeks those early introductions turned into friendships he now speaks about with real affection.
“They were all so warm and welcoming, and over time they’ve become like family now.” That sense of belonging became one of the strongest parts of his reflection on Bali. He noticed it again one evening when he was trying to reach a turtle monitoring activity but was struggling to arrange transport. Instead of simply accepting that he would miss the experience, several people around him began working together to find a solution and make sure he could attend. The situation itself was small, but the response left a strong impression on him. “I was genuinely touched by that.”
He described the experience as an example of something he felt repeatedly in Bali: a stronger sense of collective responsibility and mutual support than he was accustomed to. For him, this became one of the clearest cultural differences he observed during the program, not because people behaved in completely unfamiliar ways, but because there appeared to be a greater instinct to treat another person’s difficulty as something worth helping to resolve together.
When asked to describe Bali in three words, he chose “unity, love and happiness.” Those words might sound simple in isolation, but by that stage of the interview, they carried the weight of everything he had already described. His experience also reflected the importance of reducing unnecessary uncertainty when entering a completely unfamiliar environment. Patrick had never volunteered overseas before, and he had no idea what to expect when he began planning the experience. Before arriving, concerns about transportation, accommodation, language barriers, meeting people, and navigating a new country all felt potentially significant.
That was one of the reasons he chose to organize the placement with additional support rather than trying to arrange every element independently. “I thought to myself it would be best to have as much structure and support as possible.” What he found interesting afterwards was how quickly those initial concerns disappeared. “Things that I worried about initially, like transport and meeting new people and making friends and the language barriers, just turned out to be a total non-issue.”
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Traveling alone does not mean experiencing Bali alone. Our community gatherings bring together participants from different programs, backgrounds, and countries to connect over a shared meal and meaningful conversations.
Meaningful experiences do not need to be completely effortless, and Patrick’s time in Bali certainly included moments that were emotionally difficult, physically demanding, and unfamiliar. However, the challenges that remained were the ones worth engaging with: caring for threatened animals, learning new responsibilities, communicating with people from different backgrounds, responding to wildlife in distress, and understanding a community from within. The practical uncertainties that could have distracted from those experiences were reduced enough that he could focus on being present. Perhaps this is also part of why Patrick’s story reaches beyond volunteering itself.
He is turning 40 this year and has been thinking seriously about retiring from conventional corporate life earlier than most people expect. Bali is part of that future, but his experience suggests that retirement, for him, does not mean withdrawal or inactivity. If anything, the opposite seems to be true. What began as a plan to spend time in a place he loved developed into a much broader reflection on how he might eventually live there responsibly and meaningfully. He arrived with the idea of giving something back, but through the process discovered that participating in a community changes the relationship a person has with a place completely. He no longer speaks only about Bali as somewhere he enjoys visiting. He speaks about the people he has met, the animals he has cared for, the projects he wants to continue supporting, and the contribution he still hopes to make. That may be the most important part of his story.
Age, profession, nationality, and academic background mattered far less than willingness. Patrick did not arrive with conservation credentials or years of field experience. He arrived willing to learn, willing to work, and willing to become part of something that existed long before he arrived and will continue long after he leaves. In return, he found confidence, knowledge, friendships, community, and a renewed sense of purpose in his own professional skills. By the end of our conversation, he returned once again to the word that had framed the experience from the beginning. “Gratitude.” Patrick originally came to Bali intending to stay for one month. He extended that to two, and before the second month had even finished, he was already thinking about how quickly he could come back. Perhaps that says more than any recommendation ever could. Sometimes the strongest connection to a place begins not when we ask what it can offer us, but when we decide we are willing to become useful within it.
By LK
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