In the desert of Peru, there is no challah bread and definitely no kosher wine. That, however, didn’t stop the participants of AJWS’ volunteer summer program from sanctifying the Sabbath in a special way. They found their kosher substitutions in a sweet bread called bizcocho and a drink made from purple corn known as chicha morada.

In an ever-shrinking world, an increasing number of opportunities are appearing for kashrut-observant Jews who wish to visit exotic foreign locales. But the age-old question for the wandering Jew remains: Where can we eat?

American Jewish World Service, which runs 25 service-learning programs each year in rural communities in countries such as Myanmar, Liberia and Cambodia, often venturing where no Jews have previously set foot, has devised ways to eat local and kosher food in some of the most remote parts of the world.

AJWS volunteers work up an appetite.

Refusing to bring in food from abroad, AJWS works with local cooks, who they train in the rules of kashrut to set up a kosher kitchen at each project site. The organization’s basic guidelines, which it sends to its local non-governmental organization partners, stipulate that no meat or dairy will be served to participants, all packaged foods must be “ingredient kosher” and a fresh set of pots and pans must be purchased.

Dahlia Norry, 20, an undergraduate student at Tufts University and participant in the seven-week volunteer summer program in Peru, was impressed by AJWS’ approach to kashrut, but admits that keeping kosher was not always easy. “Definitely for the group it was a struggle. Three times a day it was an issue,” she said.

The leadership at AJWS acknowledges that keeping kosher at their work sites comes with no shortage of difficult situations. On a trip to Nicaragua two students, concerned with bishul akum, a talmudic injunction that specifies that Jews must be involved in the cooking of kosher food, woke up at 5:30 a.m. to light the cooking fire. But the limitations of kashrut don’t end with what participants eat. While planning a program in Uganda, the local organization, knowing the Jewish prohibition against eating pork, asked if participants could help build an income-generating piggery for the community. They could.

In some countries, the challenges come from the local food culture. Adam Esrig, group leader for two AJWS trips in 2010, said, “In a country like Peru, if they aren’t feeding you cheese and meat they don’t know exactly what to feed you. They express concern that you won’t be comfortable.” Another example is the commonly used chicken and beef bouillon cubes of Latin America, which AJWS has had to repeatedly explain to local cooks cannot be used — even though the cubes are a far cry from resembling meat.

In other countries the locals have an easy time adjusting to the rules of kashrut. In India, where vegetarianism is common, eliminating meat is a simple request. In Senegal, cooks are often Muslim and observant of halal, so they readily understand the connection between religious obligation and dietary law.

AJWS is not the only program designing kosher programs in improbable places. There is an entire generation of programs that, unlike typical kosher tourism, aren’t settling for packaged foods with an occasional stop at a far-flung Chabad house. Ve’ahavta is a Canadian organization that runs ongoing volunteer opportunities in the rainforest of Guyana. “We want to make volunteer opportunities available to anyone who wants to roll up their sleeves and engage in tikkun olam,” said Sarah Zelcer, director of International Projects and Education at Ve’ahavta.

Aish ran a kosher, weeklong  educational trip to India. Camp Kanfei Nesharim runs outdoor adventure programs for observant Jews to places such as New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii. Rabbi Ben Zion Scheinfeld, founder of the camp, described his elaborate kashrut system: “A week before camp the counselors and I go out shopping for food both packaged and fresh that can be shipped, and paper goods etc. … We pack up 60 crates less than 50 pounds each and at the airport each kid is given a crate to take as their second piece of luggage.” The group cooks its own food and flies in meat from the kosher community in New Zealand.

Ultimately, all of these efforts to keep kosher in unlikely places yield lessons well beyond kosher logistics.

By removing themselves from an environment where kashrut is taken for granted, young Jews are forced to ask themselves why they keep kosher at all — a question they may never have asked before.

This story originally appeared on the blog the Jew & the Carrot, a Forward/Hazon partnership.