For three and a half weeks, Esther Hindin, 17, of West Orange, made bricks from mud and water, then hauled them to the site where she helped build a bungalow for the secondary school teacher in the village of Likpemate in Ghana.

"We could walk on a little dirt road 100 feet to our neighbor's home. They had nothing. Just a pot to get water, a pot to cook in."

Esther, or "Sista Esta," as she was known in Likpemate, who will be a junior at Ma'ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls in Teaneck, was one of 58 students, seven from New Jersey, who participated in the summer program of the American Jewish World Service.

Fifteen high school students (one from New Jersey) were sent to Ghana, while 43 college students (six from New Jersey) went to Honduras, Uganda, or Thailand.

The trips have been both touted as a meaningful way for American youth to spend their vacations and criticized as the latest flavor of noblesse oblige, a nearly required rite for university students.

AJWS communications associate Sara Hahn defended the trips as something beyond resume building for the wealthy. "The volunteer summer is not easy. Participants cannot go back to their family and friends at the end of the day. They are doing hard physical labor in a hot country and getting dirty. They are putting themselves in the uncomfortable position of being the other. This is an expression of more than a desire to improve one's resume. It is the expression of wanting to help others that is at the root of tikun olam," she said.

Esther said she has spent some time trying to understand her own motivation for going to Africa rather than taking the more obvious trip to Israel like so many of her Orthodox peers.

"In a world where there is so much hatred toward the Jewish people, we had a positive effect," she said. "Now when they hear about Jews, they will think about the help we offered."

The impulse to go also had as much to do with tikun olam, repairing the world, as with exploring the world.

"I wanted to do something different. I wanted to help people," Esther said.

One lasting impression of the trip for her was her awareness of the grinding poverty. Soon after they arrived in Akra, Ghana's main city, she recalled, "A woman with no shoes pressed her face against the bus and screamed, ‘Help me, help me.'" In the villages surrounding Likpemate, the children often asked for food or money; the volunteers were instructed by AJWS not to give to beggars.

The gap between the American visitors and their African hosts was huge, from the language barrier to the most basic cultural cues. But they managed to forge friendships despite the differences. "Everyone got so close to the people in the village," said Esther. "They would come to our porch at night and bring their drums. They taught us Ghanaian dancing style. The kids there don't get so much attention so for us to come and play with them — they loved the attention. We taught them the Macarena; they taught us some of their games."

An avid soccer player, Esther played the game with the villagers. Since her sneakers were in her baggage that was lost in transit — it was found just before she left Africa — she wore her sandals. Playing until dark one evening, she twisted her ankle in a ditch, tearing a ligament. The four-hour journey to the nearest hospital for an X-ray was an eye-opening adventure.

"When we arrived, they were closed until the morning. In the morning, we had to wait, but there was no waiting room, just a corridor. And people were waiting there with all sorts of bandages," she said. "It made me feel bad to see what their hospitals are like."

She was given a cast and, to help her walk, polio sticks in lieu of proper crutches. It wasn't long before she realized she would have to leave Ghana early. "I couldn't get around," she said.

She left after three-and-a-half weeks of the seven-week program.

The most religious student on the trip, she surprised herself in her ability to serve as her own decisor in matters of Jewish practice. "I'm glad I paid attention in school!" she quipped. And while everyone participated in communal Shabbat prayer, she got up earlier than the rest of the group to daven on weekdays and continued davening after the formal Shabbat program.

Although her peers just returned from Ghana last week, she has been back long enough to internalize the experience.

"It was hard to go from the village where people are so destitute and come back and see how privileged people are without realizing it."

She knows there are changes she can make.

"When I go shopping, I ask, ‘Do I really need this? Do I really need another shirt or another skirt?' It seems so ridiculous when these kids [in Likpemate] wear the same clothes every day."

The trip has also inspired Esther to take an interest in global issues and engage in local advocacy on behalf of the people of Likpemate. She is already contemplating a project for the group of AJWS volunteers as well as a tzedaka drive at her high school, where she is president of the student council.

"It will take a lot of work, but I want to try to do something," she said.