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Monique's Story

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Living and working in any developing country can be a big culture shock – there will be lots of new sights, smells, new food and interesting public transport to deal with …Here’s some highlights from an email Monique wrote home while volunteering in La Paz Bolivia…

I was exhausted – a 25 hour 2 leg flight takes it out of you but all tiredness was soon forgotten as we approached La Paz and we seemed to ascend to land- well almost at over 4000m El Alto Airport is one of the highest airports in the world, - the view took my breath away, literally, I was struggling for breath after lifting my luggage onto the trolley but it was so exciting to meet my host family at the airport who had a big Welcome to Bolivia sign and were so immediately welcoming with lots of hugs, smiles and kisses!

…the altitude is quite something and in the first few weeks even cleaning my teeth left me huffing and puffing like Id just run a marathon! In the mornings even having a chat was a workout and I would have to pause for breath every 3 sentences or so! It didn’t help that the city is set in a canyon and every street seems to be a 100m ascent…oh the pain….

The Volunteering has been great and I have been working with local street kids running music, drama, art and craft - we travel around the city to various street areas and set up creativity and expression activities. And every 2 weeks I travel to a rural village for similar activities which has been absolutely amazing. Last week I had a group of 24 little kids between 1 and 7 with who I painted made pasta jewelry and plastic creations! It was fun and the kids find my beginner Spanish hilarious!

I live a little out of town so I catch a micro bus to and from the city every day. I’d say these buses and taxis make up 90% of the vehicles on the roads. They scream round corners with a young boy hanging out the window yelling the destinations as many people can’t read the names of places handwritten on the windscreens. You flag it down and cram in with loads of people and kids and just tell the driver where you want to get off by saying Voy a Bajar! Its a door to door service for just 15p – can’t beat that!

The city definitely has loads of character and the views are just stunning, snow capped Andes, incredible mountains, the Chola ladies in their traditional dress and all the women carrying their babies, animals, food and all sorts in brightly coloured South American style pieces of material on their backs. I am really loving it and taking in all the sites, smells and situations and so far have been lucky enough to avoid the robbings, parasites, worms and salmonella - touch wood!!!

The other night I was out waiting to meet friends at a Plaza I do workshops at every second weekend and lots of little street kids recognised me, came to say hi and grabbed every free limb I had and failed to let go - crying 'Hola Senorita, when do we paint again?, Senorita, remember you played ball with me!' its these little moments that make you get those warm fuzzy feelings that make you feel great being here…


Jhinuk's Story


Volunteer Arts Haven Cusco Peru August - September 2007 and The Deaf School and Centre For Children with Physical Disabilities  in La Paz Boliva September - October 2007

JHinuk

Although it took me a long time to think about volunteering abroad, how it might benefit me, decide where exactly I was going to go and work out exactly what I would be able to offer to the children out there, I am so glad that I made the choices I did.  As well as seeing some astounding sights like Machu Picchu and the Bolivian Salt Flats, I have also gained some amazing memories of the warm, welcoming families I stayed with and the children and staff I worked with.

In Peru, I had an amazing time immersing myself in the language and culture. The kids loved making the masks with me, coming up with dances with Caroline and putting them altogether to perform a play-which they even performed separately for some of the children’s parents/guardians, they were very proud of their work. The children were also definitely enthusiastic when I set a self-portrait drawing competition-especially when they knew some prizes were involved! My multi-tasking skills were put to the test here! I had the best time with the children and teaching staff whilst there - we even took the kids on a picnic outing into the countryside towards the end of my time there-now there’s a memory of Peru that I couldn’t have got by just being a tourist!

Bolivia was a very different place, and the projects I set for myself, I realised once there, were quite ambitious for the time I had. But I managed to befriend a great group of volunteers willing to help and through the miracle of teamwork and support of the volunteers, children and staff, we all took part in producing an amazing mural based on the kids’ ideas and interests which brightened up the school’s atmosphere altogether.  At the school for deaf children, communication was difficult in the beginning, but through wonderful sign classes and enthusiasm from the kids, we were able to produce bird costumes, come up with dances and perform them together, they looked so colourful and had a brilliant time. Even though my original plan was to make Christmas cards, we still managed to make some thank you cards with a sign language theme that the kids loved making.

Since coming home and reflecting on my time in South America, I have realised how many skills I have gained from just two months of my two projects in Peru and Bolivia.

I pushed my project leading skills into doing things that I never even dreamed would come into volunteering - such as becoming very comfortable with speaking Spanish (a language that I did a crash course of self-learning in from around two months before-hand); learning Spanish Sign Language; cooking a traditional Bread and Butter Pudding for around 60 kids and staff whilst trying to teach the method of cooking to the children and home economics teacher; and coming up with dances to teach the children of the deaf school and prepare them to perform in La Paz’s main sports stadium! That’s quite a varied list, and I’m sure there was more!

See more of Jhinuk's photos here

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