Once you’ve arrived at your ideal volunteer placement in Latin America, there’s often an awkward moment of realization when it feels like you’re back at your first day at school because you suddenly realize that you don’t know anyone and might be doing a lot of reading.
Luckily for you, Latin America has some of the most outgoing people on the planet. I’ve found people in Colombia to be incredibly friendly — it was a lot more difficult to get to know people on my previous placement in Kyrgyzstan where friendships seemed to take more time to develop. Of course, this all depends where you are located: your experiences in a very rural area are going to be completely different from a large-ish city like Barranquilla where I’m based. These are a few things I’ve tried over the course of my Kiva placements:
* Friends of friends. Colombia is a country with a huge diaspora of around 3 million people, but even knowing that was nothing to prepare me for what happened as soon as my friends found out I was heading to Colombia: I lost count of the number of people who put me in touch with Colombian friends living in or visiting Colombia and the offers of help I received from them. While none of them are in Barranquilla, it’s great to go to other cities and realize that you know people there.
* Twitter. I personally find that Twitter is a scary way to meet people, especially because from the reactions to the words “I’m going to meet someone from Twitter,” a lot of my friends seem to think that I’m going to meet someone really dangerous. Of course, he wasn’t dangerous.
* CouchSurfing.org. This has easily been the best way of meeting people in Barranquilla and in Colombia in general. Apart from the couchsurfing aspect, there’s a social networking side to the site that is huge in Colombia, especially Bogotá, where there are activities pretty much every day ranging from film nights to walking the nighttime streets in groups giving agua de panela and conversation to homeless people.
* Being that guy in a bar. A tactic of desperation I’ve yet to try in Colombia, but going into a bar and starting conversations with anyone who cared to listen was hit-or-miss in Kyrgyzstan. I’m not sure how much I’d recommend this in Latin America though — it might not get you too far unless you’re an expert at dancing salsa, vallenato or merengue.
This is definitely not a complete list. If you have any more, please add a comment.
Rob Packer is currently working as a Kiva Fellow with the Fundación Mario Santo Domingo in Barranquilla, Colombia. For more on his experiences, check out his blog or follow him on Twitter.
Latest posts by robpacker
- Asking the Right Questions - April 6th, 2010
- You, You and You - April 1st, 2010
- Working in the Barrios - March 17th, 2010
- Day in the Life: Times are Changing - March 9th, 2010
- Day in the Life: Barranquilla Carnival - ¡Quien lo vive, es quien lo goza! - February 16th, 2010
- Weird Words and How to Learn Them - February 9th, 2010
- Living in Two Worlds at Once - February 2nd, 2010
- ¡Por Fin, Me Quejo! - January 26th, 2010
My friend,, Rob,,
I like the way you develop the idea of friendship in latin america and how to get it, definitly, I need to say, you are a good writter, a good friend and definitly a excelent person, in latin american here in barranquilla “los barranquilleros” we all love you.