Trials and Errors When Volunteering in a Developing Country

I have now been in Xela, Guatemala for five weeks and have only just started volunteering regularly. I came on this trip thinking I would be volunteering at least a few hours each day. However, I quickly discovered that the school I attend had been somewhat misleading with the availability of volunteering positions and their connection to them. When I began to look on my own, there were several other problems I encountered in my volunteering quest. Initially, my level of Spanish was an issue because many of the medical clinics prefer you to have an intermediate understanding of Spanish. My availability is somewhat limited as well, because I have class in the mornings which is when a lot of things are available as well. Also, they often want you to commit to a minimum of two months. I plan to spend the last two weeks traveling and couldn't commit to that much time. Finally, my low level of self-starter-ness played a big role. I am not quite up for the challenge of organizing and coordinating the disorganized Guatemalan non-profits. It makes sense to me now knowing more about Guatemalan culture and realizing the difficulty of organizing a non-profit, and I was admittedly naïve about the navigability of the volunteering situation here. Through my trials and errors over the weeks I have at the very least come away with several interesting cultural experiences.

Prisión de Mujeres
Through the school, I visited the womens prison last week for the first time. In my registration process I thought I had signed up for this “volunteering opportunity”. It turns out the school visits the prison maybe once a month, and if you want to start a an activity with the women you have to come up with all the materials, organize the whole thing and get a teacher to accompany you. This is not something I wanted to do and didn't visit the prison until last week with a group of students. The experience was interesting, however, anticlimactic.

We stood outside a fairly nondescript building for a few minutes waiting to be let in. The security turned out to be very minimum. It is basically a two door system. From the first door we walked into a foie of sorts while we were processed for entry. The processing involves giving a guard your passport and getting two stamps on your are to distinguish from the prisoners. There were zero pat downs and definitely no metal detectors. I am not suggesting there needs to be, but it was just different than what I thought it would be like. Upon receiving our stamps we were allowed in the second door which led to an open courtyard where many of the women were milling about. There are about thirty women and a few of their young children. There are only a few rooms to the prison and really, no bars except for the door. There are no windows either, but it isn't exactly a lock down.

We started by playing a couple of games with the women to “break the ice”. After that, the plan was somewhat loose. Some of us sat around and spoke with a few of the women to exchange stories (I was among this group). Others started playing basketball in the courtyard. Speaking to the women was definitely interesting and worth it for us, but I just didn't think it was exactly helpful for them. Through these conversations, we found out a bit about the legal process in Guatemala. Initially, the women are held for a maximum of three months while the investigation and trail occurs. They can be sentenced up to one year at the prison in Xela. Another, much larger prison, is located in Guatemala city. That seems to be where the more hardened criminals are.

We left after approximately two hours. The school brought medical supplies, but that was about as close as it came to really doing anything for the women. I want to emphasize that I found it to be an interesting cultural experience, but it was definitely disappointing as far as "volunteering" goes.

Entremundos
Due to the difficulty of finding volunteering work through the school, I decided to head to Entremundos, an organization that helps set up volunteering jobs for travelers for Q25 ($3 ish). They try to make the experience of volunteering easier and they have set up a database of organizations with information about possible time commitments, different activities of interest and level of Spanish. Through this database, I picked out a few possibilities and Entremundos helped me contact the other organizations. The two I felt most interesting were Ama: Asociacion de Amigos de los Animales and Manos de Colores.

Ama: Asociacion de Amigos de los Animales
This is a brand new organization with the mission of helping rescue street animals and providing medical care and housing for the rescued dogs until they get adopted. The real problem I had with this organization is that it just started and nothing is set up yet. I met with the director one afternoon in his pickup truck and listened to him talk (in a higher level of Spanish than I really  understand) about what the organizations mission is, the difficulties of getting people to adopt the animals due to certain laws in Guatemala, and where to house the animals they rescue. We went to the location of where they want to put the animals in the future.

Right now, there is only one dog living there (the others are staying with people throughout the city). The dog was pretty timid and minus an arm. We were there to feed him and let him run through the rabid rat infested yard (seriously, according to the guy the rats had rabies and he told me not to walk in the grass). We waited for the dog to have his twenty minutes of exercise and he offered to drive me home, he just needed to make a couple stops. We were pretty far away, and I didn't have a lot to do so I accepted the offer. After that, I spent the next two and a half hours running errands with him that were totally unrelated to the organization all the while he kept telling me just one more stop and I can take you home. It was all very weird, not exactly dangerous I don't think, but ultimately an unsatisfying experience and a waste of my time. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that they are just getting started, but after that afternoon, I was done.

El Nahual: Manos de Colores
I was fairly discouraged from my previous experiences and before heading to Manos de Colores, I had determined this would be my last attempt at volunteering. Manos de Colores is an after school program under the blanket of El Nahual which acts as sort of community center type thing. It is sort of far from my house (25 minute walk) and in a sort of rural area, but the facility is very nice and well kept. There are a few teachers and volunteers (pretty much all expats) who do activities and English lessons with the kids from 3pm to 5pm every weekday. The kids range from ages four to twelve and all have different levels of English comprehension. The organization also has a few on-site after school programs (I have yet to visit any of these).

Initially, I wasn't sure about volunteering with kids, but I have really been enjoying it. They are all pretty cute and some of them really impress me. The other day a four year old named Bebe (the youngest one I have met) schooled the other kids when learning the animals. He would shout each name with the certainty and enthusiasm of a native speaker. I don't even think his Spanish is all that great.

I have been acting as a teachers assistant, and next week I will help do some lesson planning.  All in all, it was incredibly refreshing to find a solid organization to work with and I am glad that it has finally worked out.