You Never Know Where Life Will Take You

In just a few days, on September 4, it will be 25 years since I started working at the United Nations.

Twenty-five years.

It feels strange to write those words. When I first came to New York, I never imagined that all these years later I would still be here. My plan was actually quite simple: come here, work, and stay for only three years.

But life had other plans.

Those three years became twenty-five.

And when I think about all that time, there are a few photographs that mean something completely different to me today.

Before I started working there, I visited the United Nations just like anyone else coming to New York and wanting to see the place. I walked around, took some pictures, and continued with my day.

Nothing particularly special.

Or at least that’s what I thought at the time.

Today, I look at those pictures and can’t help but smile at that woman standing in front of the United Nations with absolutely no idea what was coming next.

I didn’t know that shortly afterward I would start working there.

I certainly didn’t know that my plan to stay for only three years would somehow turn into twenty-five.

There I was, smiling for a picture, completely unaware of everything that place would eventually represent in my life.

The people I would meet.

The cultures I would discover.

Everything I would learn.

The good times and the difficult ones.

And a life I couldn’t yet imagine.

Maybe that’s why those photographs mean so much to me now.

Because they captured something I couldn’t see yet.

The beginning of a story I didn’t even know I was about to live.

And there is something that makes this anniversary even more meaningful to me. Looking back now, I realize that I have spent almost half of my life in Peru and the other half here, in New York.

Two places. Two chapters of my life. Two versions of home that, in different ways, have become part of who I am.

When I came here, I thought I was beginning a chapter of my life. I never imagined how long that chapter would last or everything I would experience along the way.

And in those years, there has been a little bit of everything.

There have been wonderful moments and very difficult ones. There has been happiness, excitement, loneliness, disappointment, fear, laughter, friendship, love, mistakes, beginnings and endings. There have been moments when I felt completely at home here and others when Peru and my family felt impossibly far away.

But perhaps one of the biggest things these 25 years have taught me is how to build a life on my own.

Not necessarily alone — because many people have walked beside me — but on my own.

I had to learn how to make decisions without having my family around the corner. I learned how to solve problems, how to start again, how to make mistakes and live with them, and how to keep moving even when I wasn’t completely sure where I was going.

I also learned something that perhaps only time can teach you: living far away from your family doesn’t mean you stop needing them or missing them. It means learning to carry them with you in a different way while building your own life thousands of miles away.

My work became a huge part of that journey.

Working at the United Nations gave me something I don’t think I fully understood when I started: the opportunity to meet people from all over the world.

Different countries. Different languages. Different cultures. Different ways of seeing life.

Over the years, conversations with people whose lives began thousands of miles away from mine taught me things that no book ever could.

I learned that there are many different ways of looking at the world. Customs can be different, our stories can be completely different and yet, so often, we end up sharing the same worries, the same joys, the same fears and the same desire to find our place.

I also learned so much professionally.

I arrived with things to learn and, twenty-five years later, I am still learning. My work taught me to grow, adapt, face change, solve problems and learn from people whose knowledge and experiences will stay with me forever.

But not everyone we meet over so many years remains in our lives.

Some stayed for a very long time. Others were there only for a season. Some became great friends. Some disappeared. Some disappointed me. Others helped me at moments when I needed it most.

And some probably taught me something without ever knowing they had.

Twenty-five years is enough time to understand that not everyone who enters your life is meant to stay.

I have lost friendships. I have watched relationships change. I have met people I thought would always be there and discovered that they wouldn’t.

There were also people who came into my life for only a short time and still left something important behind. People who made me laugh. People who kept me company. People who gave me a hand. People who believed in me. And people who were simply meant to be part of one particular chapter of my story.

With some, I shared wonderful moments. From others, I learned lessons I probably would have preferred not to have to learn.

But all of them, in one way or another, became part of the journey.

And somewhere along the way, I began discovering other parts of myself.

Photography became one of them.

Taking photos gave me another way of looking at the world. A building, a sunset, a street, a face, a place I was visiting — suddenly these weren’t just things I was seeing. They became moments I wanted to keep.

Every photograph has a story for me.

Sometimes other people know that story. Other times, I am the only one who knows why I took that photograph, what I was feeling at that moment or why I decided to keep it.

And perhaps those old photographs in front of the United Nations are one of the best examples.

When I took them, they were simply pictures from a visit.

Today, they tell a completely different story.

Photography became a way to explore, to create, to observe and, sometimes, simply to escape from everything else for a little while.

Over the years, it stopped being simply something I did and became something I wanted to develop, learn more about and take a little further.

Cooking became another unexpected part of my life.

When you live alone, you have to feed yourself. That’s simply reality.

At first, cooking was something I had to do. But somewhere along the way, I started enjoying it.

Then I started experimenting.

Trying recipes. Changing them. Making them my own. Discovering flavors. Cooking dishes from my country that connected me to my roots and trying new recipes I discovered along the way.

And, most of all, I discovered how much I enjoy cooking for other people and sharing what I make.

What began as a necessity slowly became another way to create and something that brings me happiness.

And then, ten years ago, Lexi came into my life.

I don’t think I could write about these years without writing about her.

She became my little companion through a decade of this journey.

She has been with me through ordinary days and difficult ones, through trips, changes, adventures, quiet afternoons, nights at home and so many moments of my life.

When you have lived far away from your family for so many years, companionship can come in many forms. And having that little heartbeat beside me for the past ten years has made so many moments different and made home feel a little less empty.

Looking back now, I realize that the life I built isn’t necessarily the life I imagined when I arrived.

But maybe that’s exactly the point.

Life doesn’t always follow our plans.

It changes them.

It takes us places we never imagined. It introduces us to people we never expected to meet. It allows us to discover things we didn’t know we loved. It gives us opportunities, but it also puts disappointments, losses, responsibilities and difficult decisions in our path.

And very often, it makes us grow without us even noticing while it’s happening.

I have made mistakes during these 25 years.

Of course I have.

There are things I would probably do differently today. There are people I wish I had understood better. Situations I might have handled differently. Moments when I should have trusted myself more and others when I probably should have walked away sooner.

I made good decisions, and I made wrong ones too.

But all of that is part of these 25 years.

I don’t want to look back and pretend that everything was wonderful, because it wasn’t.

And I don’t want to look back only at what was difficult, because there has been so much beauty too.

I want to look at the whole journey.

The young woman who arrived thinking she would be here for only three years.

The woman who, without knowing it, took a photograph in front of the place where she would end up working for so many years.

The woman who learned to live far away from her family.

The professional who learned from people from every corner of the world.

The woman who discovered another way of seeing life through a camera.

The woman who learned to enjoy cooking and sharing what she makes.

The friendships that stayed.

The people who left.

The people who appeared when I needed them.

The mistakes.

The trips.

The adventures.

The loneliness.

The laughter.

The disappointments.

The happy moments.

The lessons.

Lexi.

And all the versions of myself that have existed somewhere between that September in 2001 and this September in 2026.

And when I look at this entire journey, there is one feeling that rises above everything else:

Gratitude.

I am grateful to life for giving me the opportunity to come to this country and experience so many things I never imagined I would experience.

I am grateful for those three years that somehow became twenty-five.

It hasn’t always been easy. There have been moments of loneliness, difficult times, losses, disappointments and probably moments when I wondered what I was doing so far away from home.

But even those experiences are part of the person I am today.

I am grateful for the opportunities I was given.

For everything I was able to experience.

For the places I was able to discover.

For the cultures I had the opportunity to know.

For the people from so many countries who crossed my path.

For everything I learned from them.

For everything I learned through my work.

For the people who supported me.

For those who made me laugh.

For those who were there when I needed them.

And for everything I ended up learning about myself along the way.

I am even grateful for some of the experiences that didn’t turn out the way I hoped, because they taught me something too.

Perhaps we don’t always understand an experience while we are living it. Some things only begin to make sense after enough time has passed and we can look at them from a little distance.

Just like those photographs.

At the time, they were simply pictures from a visit.

Twenty-five years later, I can look at them and see the beginning of something that the woman in those photographs had no idea was about to happen.

The life I found here was very different from the one I imagined when I arrived.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest lessons these 25 years have given me: we can make plans, imagine what our lives will look like and try to control where we are going, but life often takes us down roads we could never have imagined.

Twenty-five years ago, I couldn’t have known any of this.

I couldn’t have imagined the people I would meet, the places I would visit, the things I would learn, the times I would make mistakes, the times I would have to begin again or the parts of myself that were still waiting to be discovered.

Today, I can look back and say that I have had the opportunity to live an extraordinary experience.

Not because it has been perfect.

But because it has been my life.

With the good and the not-so-good.

With happy moments and difficult ones.

With people who came into my life, people who stayed and people who continued on their own paths.

With everything I gained, everything I lost and everything I learned in the process.

All of it is part of my story.

And I am deeply grateful that I had the opportunity to live it.

Twenty-five years later, I am still learning.

I still make mistakes. I still change my mind. I am still discovering new things about myself. I still have moments when I don’t know exactly where life is taking me.

And maybe I don’t need to know.

Because if these 25 years have taught me anything, it is that a life can become something completely different from what we planned and still become exactly our life.

In a few days, September 4 will arrive.

And I will probably look at those photographs again.

At that woman who visited the United Nations without knowing that shortly afterward she would start working there.

At that woman who thought she was staying for three years.

She had no idea about the people she would meet, everything she would learn or the life she would eventually build.

I thought I was starting a job.

I didn’t know I was starting a life.

And 25 years later, I’m still writing it.