First, a note about AFOS. While searching Idealist.org for volunteer opportunities in Argentina, it was AFOS’ mission statement that first caught my attention: “supporting the capacities of existing nonprofit organizations in the local community by providing volunteers and other human resource support.” I liked the idea of working with local groups to find out how they view problems and solutions.  (For more on ethics and strategies for evaluating international volunteer organizations, visit Idealist’s International Volunteerism Resource Center.)

I’ve enjoyed getting to know the AFOS cast of characters. My first point of contact was the Foundation’s director, Julio Herz.  Julio replied to every question and concern I had prior to arrival and was the first face I met at the airport in Cordoba.  Upon meeting my project coordinator, Marta, I could tell she had a direct and passionate approach to her work. She began her career as a chemical engineer, then pursued a Master’s degree in social work after discovering a desire to work with the what she calls vulnerable communities. Marta has worked with NGOs for several years now, and her daughter also works as a project coordinator at AFOS while pursuing her education as a veterinarian. Meanwhile, logistics coordinator, chef-extraordinaire, and all-around problem solver Diego keeps the AFOS residence running while proving a fun housemate to the volunteers.

From the local staff, I learned what they see as the challenges and joys facing nonprofit organizations in Argentina:

(1)    Organizing the disorganized. Foundation director Julio has a background in business management and is a professional accountant by day. “It’s not easy here,” he says.  He explained that the nonprofit organizations they support have very little formal structure, which can make coordinating projects difficult.

(2)    Managing expectations. With a large number of volunteers coming from more structured cultures, the local staff senses the frustration when volunteers struggle with a more fluid environment.  Add language limitations—such as when volunteers (like me!) arrive with minimal language skills and very few local staff speak English—and even understanding what is expected can be quite difficult on both sides.

(3)    The joy of meeting new people and watching them grow. I was most impressed with the warmth and openness I found while volunteering in Cordoba.  I sensed a real value in cross-cultural understanding even when pressed to accomplish a specific task.  AFOS took great joy in watching volunteers adapt and grow which was evident in the farewell parties organized with each departure.

I am curious what other volunteers in Latin America have found in working with local NGOs. What are the best practices, and what are your favorite memories? And what challenges or less positive experiences have you had?

I am by no means a heavy consumer – living on the $0 wage of a volunteer, my oatmeal, beans and rice are all bought in bulk. But seeing one of my used cans of refried beans being chucked into a pile of rotting garbage, I instantly was compelled to consume nothing whose packaging was not biodegradable. This, of course, is an outlandish claim to make, something that cannot be reasonably, or sanely, upheld. But it speaks to the root of my primary struggle – striking a balance between conservation and being a mere mortal.

Belize, like many Central American countries, has no nationally implemented solid waste management system. Household trash is usually burned or taken to a nearby open-air dumping place. Batteries are tossed in rivers, and pristine landscapes are littered with plastic bags and Belikin bottles. If I pick up one piece of garbage and bring it back to our garbage can, where will that can be dumped?

In our efforts to reduce our contribution to the rubbish problem, Ya’axché has conducted composting trainings in many surrounding villages, instructing community members on how to reuse their waste. As part of a marketing campaign for organic vegetables in the area, we are giving away reusable, canvas bags to each customer who buys more than $5BZD ($2.50 US) of organic vegetables at our market booth. A new project is underway that will bring inland villagers on day-trips to the coastal reef, as a way to illustrate how interconnected the water system is and where the garbage may end up. These actions may seem small in the beginning, but hopefully they’ll lead to a greater consciousness of consumption and disposal.

Any other grand ideas for a country that lacks solid waste management?

For more information on the conservation strategies implemented by Ya’axché Conservation Trust, check out our website at www.yct.bz. Interested in more creative solutions by other volunteers? Check out these entries: All-Female Transport in Mexico, It All Started with Our Apple IIGS…, and When Microenergy and Microfinance Meet.

Being objective, before you make the trip, cocaine cartels and violence will pop into your head to some extent. You may not mention this and opt for a more pleasant, roundabout answer that doesn’t say much, like “Well I don’t know, I thought it would be cool, heard good things about the people, I want to learn about the culture, just came to check it out .. and I’m here.”

The media portrays Colombia as a war zone. Watch Law + Order, gangster movies, or even Modern Family on ABC and you will get that impression. There is some truth behind the stereotype. Colombia supplies more cocaine than any country in the world and a lot of violence takes place. But the vast majority of  the 50 million Colombians are friendly and peaceful; they have nothing to do with the illegal narcotics trade. This is what causes ire in a lot of Colombians when they see their portrayal in the media only addressing the worst citizens of their country.

On the reverse side, how do Colombians view Americans? Could some of them come to a wrong impression about us? One of the first channels on TelMex cable is MTV. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never visited the U.S. and watch My Super Sweet 16. It would be pretty tough not to feel a sense of contempt for the girls complaining about receiving an Acura instead of the Mercedes they wanted. The reality is, while the U.S is the wealthiest country in the world, most teenagers in the United States don’t act like that. But this is all they see, if they haven’t had the chance to visit.

I have seen a lot of foreigners get worked up in purchases of food or other nominal items when they paid a little more than they thought. In a lot of cases, it was a gringo price. In others, it was an honest mistake. Most of these foreigners care about making a good impression of their culture to the people here in Colombia. However, they don’t want to get ripped off. Plus, there can be an ego/pride win/loss attachment to the negotiations.

On the other end, I can feel the justifiable anger of poor street vendors to the rebuttal of a rich tourist. They know you come from a lot more money and the difference of .50 cents is nothing to you, but a lot to them.

I am not arguing that all gringos should accept being ripped off with a smile on their face. But is important to keep in mind how you are perceived and the value of the disputed price to the buyer and to the seller. Or else you may very well fulfill a stereotype that you tried so hard to prevent…

For more about gringoes in Latin America, check out “Day in the Life: To Haggle or Not to Haggle?” and “Let’s Talk About the ‘G-Word’: Gringo” by fellow La Vida Idealist blogger, Dan Malin. For more about Colombia, check out posts by Rob Packer.

Emanuel, a student from Santa Rosa, takes a picture.

I’ll never forget watching my first group of photo students in Solentiname walk away from me to shoot some of their first pictures. I was standing inside of the poorly lit classroom with a massive smile on my face – I could hardly contain my happiness – and reminded them one last time that I would be waiting in the classroom if they needed help with anything. But I doubt any of them actually heard me. With donated digital point-and-shoot cameras in hand, the students walked out of the small classroom building (that used to be somebody’s home) and immediately stopped to take pictures of each other, of the brightly colored hand prints painted on the wall, and of the pathway that led away from their current positions. It seemed as if they couldn’t wait to start taking pictures. It also seemed as if they were looking at the banal area outside of the classroom for the first time.

That was over two weeks ago. Now, I’ve started to give classes to four other groups, including a group of ten students from a very small island with a population of roughly 55 people called Santa Rosa (one of the archipelago’s 36 islands). Most of my students, whose ages range from nine to 18 years old with the exception of one adult student, have proven themselves to be natural born photographers even though the majority of them had never taken a picture before.

Just days before my first class I was having doubts about the role and importance of photography in such a rural area of Nicaragua. I kept thinking about the countless other ways that I could help the community of Solentiname and continuously questioned how photography might help the youth here.

After witnessing the beautiful pictures and even more beautiful smiles on the childrens’ faces as they took or looked at their pictures, my apprehensions withered away. My sense of purpose became clear as I realized the importance of developing a child’s confidence and creativity through extracurricular activities such as photography – especially in a place where extracurricular activities are virtually nonexistent. Another benefit of these photo classes is that each student receives prints of his or her best photographs after completing a certain number of photo assignments. While the students’ photos document their culture, the prints they receive will help preserve memories of their families, friends, and archipelago well into the future.

Well, as the title of this post indicates, I still have a year’s worth of photo classes and pleasant surprises ahead of me. Stay tuned for more!

I’m currently working on a blog where I can showcase the student’s work and share their stories. I’ll include details when the blog is up and running. For the meantime, check out Kids with Cameras, an awesome organization and a great example of how photography has helped a group of children from Calcutta’s red-light district.

Though often this is a valuable skill that lets my overworked brain have a little break, it is not without its dangers. For example, I was having dinner with several friends (none were native Spanish speakers) and the waiter was very friendly and talkative. At one point, he went off on a tangent about some friends of his and I lost track of what he was saying. When he finished, we all laughed and nodded our heads. He laughed in a conspiratorial manner and walked way. At which point, we all turned to each other and asked “What did he say?” Not a single one of us had actually understood the whole story, but we had all known exactly how to respond. Problematic to say the least.

Meg Gray is currently a Kiva Fellow in San Jose, Costa Rica. Follow her or La Vida Idealist on Twitter.

The Colombian coast is famous in other parts of Colombia for being swelteringly hot, but ever since I arrived in January, I’ve yet to feel really very hot. Sure, a twenty minute walk to visit a client in a barrio in the south of the city is going to have me sweating, but at 28°C and sunny it’s just about fine as long as you aren’t carrying anything too heavy. But this is all because I’m here in the dry season, or winter, which runs from around November to April. The wet season is a whole different story and last week was just a foretaste.

For a few days, the rumour had been going round that it had rained in Soledad, Malambo, Sabanagrande or another town to the south of Barranquilla and the leaden skies seemed to confirm that it was going to rain sometime. Then colleagues started telling stories about when it rains in Barranquilla you’re going nowhere and the streets become rivers: something that a friend from another part of Colombia had already told me—and I’d been warned by street signs saying Arroyo peligroso (Dangerous stream) with a picture of a car being washed away. When the rain finally came, I was at work and by the time I wandered outside, the streets were a lot more puddle-like than riverine. And the main response when I tweeted the photo above was “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” I had expected things to be a bit like my previous home of Hong Kong in a typhoon: according to this video, an Asian typhoon doesn’t even come close.

I’ve lived in London and Hong Kong, two cities which alternate between what can only be described as beautiful days and days which are depressing beyond belief: if you are lucky enough to be in either city on a run of good weather days, you’d think these amazing cities were perfect. What it does go to show, is that no matter how much you think you know a place, until you’ve seen it in all types of weather, you really haven’t.

Concurrently in Guadalajara, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hosted an invite only international conference titled “Agricultural Biotechnology in Developing Countries.” Among the movement to protect native crops, many view the FAO as an operating arm of big agriculture, in this case genetically engineered seed companies.  Now that the European market is closed to genetically engineered seeds, the Latin American market is the most attractive area for expansion.

The theme of the “Transgénicos? No, Gracias.” conference was how to protect diversity: diversity of seeds, crop planting, and culture. Scientists, anthropologists and campesinos stressed how important diversity is to our collective survival, particularly in a time of increasing contamination and climatic change.

Mesoamerica (Mexico extending to the northern portion of Central America) is the genetic home to maíz where corn varieties have been evolving for thousands of years. Many consider the prospect of genetically engineered corn a threat that extends to most aspects of life.  Every year, genetically engineered corn erases thousands of years of native corn evolution.  And that means the potential loss of many types of corn: there is blue corn, black corn, white corn, yellow corn, sweet corn, and the list goes on.  There are, in fact, between 55-60 species of corn in Mexico and it serves as the basis of food, medicine, artisan projects, and more.

Transgenetic corn was first discovered in Oaxaca in 2001 and they believed the contamination came from US food aid, but it remains undetermined.  Two other sources of contamination are families based in the US sending genetically engineered seeds to Mexico and the government providing genetically engineered seeds without proper labeling. These seeds are difficult to control, identify, and contain. The looming question is, “How do you preserve this rich cultural and food diversity in the face of such an elusive opponent?”

Growing genetically modified corn was illegal in Mexico up until last year, 2009.  Now there are “experimental fields” in Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuaha, Tamaulipas, and Jalisco.  During pollination, cross contamination is extremely high, especially with corn. Many in Mexico are understandably concerned that the experiments cannot be contained.

“Sin Maíz, No Hay Pais.”  Without corn, there is no country. Here is a short video clip of a public hearing against Monsanto held in Guadalajara.

The movement to protect genetic and cultural diversity here in Mexico is impressive and moving.  Michael Pollan writes in Omnivore’s Dilemma that many people in the US have lost cultural connections to food. I originally wrote this article for writer April Davila, who is trying to live a month without consuming Monsanto related products and is finding it very challenging to access information about the origin of food, seeds, and clothes. It is often difficult to access information about where our food comes from and what it contains.  If we had deeper cultural connections to food, perhaps we would be more motivated to understand it and protect it.

If you would like to learn more about the movement to protect corn in Mexico, visit Red en Defensa del Maíz or Sin Maíz No Hay País.  For an English website, there is also the North American based organization Vía Campesina.

I am here in Guadalajara, co-directing an organization that is creating a documentary on water issues and teaching video workshops.  You can check out what we’re up to here, follow us on Facebook, and/or check us out on Twitter.

When I heard the news of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile on the morning of Saturday, February 27th, the first thing I did was log into Facebook. With telephone and power lines down, wireless internet quickly became the best mode of communication for many of my friends and former colleagues in Chile.

I’d been in Chile just a short time ago, not only for an internship, but also for a wedding between a good friend I’d grown up with in my hometown of Baltimore, MD and a Chilean girl who had come to be like second family while I was living in Chile. 47 Americans had come down for the ceremony held at a vineyard outside of Santiago. For some, it was their first time ever leaving the United States. We all shared a wonderful experience and were sad to leave behind the lovely Chilean landscape and our many new Chilean friends.

After the earthquake, we were all worried and shocked. Many of us sought contact with friends in Chile that Saturday morning. The newly-weds were quick to establish contact. They, along with their two kittens, were shaken but safe and only their television had fallen during the quake. Gradually, other friends came forth to ensure that they, too, were shaken but OK.

Santiago had indeed suffered some major damage, but the real devastation was a bit further south in Chile’s Bio-Bio, Maule and Araucania regions. A former colleague from my internship, an American from New Jersey, put it best in a mass message she sent out. She said, “I feel we have dodged a bullet just to watch it hit someone else.”

She went on to say: “While it is true that Chile is not Haiti- it is a far more developed country that has done a fantastic job of preparing for this disaster- it is important to realize that recovery from an event of this magnitude, no matter what country it strikes, requires months, if not years, of effort. Long after Chile disappears from the front page of the news (which it already has), schools will need to be rebuilt, jobs will need to be created, and the injured will need to be cared for. Furthermore, before the earthquake, Chile was on track to becoming the first “developed” country in Latin America within the next ten years. However, now that the earthquake has seriously affected the Chilean fishing and wine industries, this progress has been threatened.”

The positive side of this is that the people and government of Chile are pulling together to help with recovery efforts. Another former colleague from the Chilean Ministry of Education wrote in an email, “The most vital thing needed right now is already happening at a grassroots level: Chileans pulling together to rebuild, help in relief aid and comfort one another.”

Of course there is always more that can be done. My colleague wrote “Even one dollar can go a long way in terms of the Chilean pesos that will purchase materials needed to construct new homes, buy school supplies for affected students, give medicine to the sick and get the country back on track. Please remember that the fact that you can’t help everyone doesn’t mean that you can’t help anyone, and the amount of money you would spend on one movie or dinner out can make a great difference in the life of someone who has lost all they have.”

Ways you can help out in Chile:

Attend:

Chile Earthquake Relief Fundraiser in D.C.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
5:30pm – 9:00pm
Eye Bar
1716 I Street Northwest
Washington, DC

Or if you’re not in DC, other local fundraisers in your area.

Donate to:

Un Techo Para Chile (this organization did great work and is now attempting to build 30,000 temporary houses for displaced families).

International Red Cross/ Red Crescent Earthquake Relief

Habitat for Humanity

Also, please consider donating money to Haiti or any other relief effort the world over!

Oxfam

For more on Chile relief, check out this post by fellow La Vida Idealist blogger, Lauren Foukes. For additional resources, check out Idealist.org and Idealistas.org.

With a Chilean grandmother, the events of last week hit especially hard for me.  Fortunately, all relatives of my family are safe and were several hours away from the hardest hit areas.  I did have the opportunity to speak with one of my cousins in Chile and she was able to give several recommendations on great organizations to donate to for those looking to help.

Un Techo para Chile – This organization typically works with constructing new neighborhoods in Chile’s poorest regions.  With the many people left homeless following the earthquake, Un Techo para Chile will be an instrumental organization in helping with reconstruction.

Cruz Roja Chilena - As the Red Cross of Chile, Cruz Roja has been responding to the quakes since the beginning.  They have even set up a separate site to help families who have lost contact with relatives since the earthquake.

Bomberos de Chile - I recently learned that the firefighters in Chile do not receive salaries.  These professionals are assisting with the rebuilding efforts on a completely volunteer basis.

Armada de Chile – The Chilean Navy has also been critical in responding to the crises over the past week.

While the devastation to the country of Chile is immense, fortunately aid appears to be reaching those in need in a timely fashion.  Currently I have plans to travel to Chile in late April.  I hope to be able to report then that the country is well on its way to recovery and that the people of Chile will prevail.

To learn more about the earthquakes in Chile, check out CNN’s dedicated site to coverage or for first person accounts of life after the quake on The Pulse.

I’ll admit it – I haven’t been on top of my WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) game. I left the ranch two weeks ago for backpacking adventures, and accompanied by the ranch caretaker and a dog, we set out and took in the highest waterfall in Mexico and hot springs, among other things. I spent a week in Mexico City and now I am at my newest WWOOFing venture in Malinalco, DF, a little southwest of Mexico City.

A skull that my host plans on cleaning and selling

It is as different as possible from where I volunteered in Chihuahua. Instead of a half hour walk to the nearest neighbors, I can instead wave across the courtyard at the children playing around the empty pool. The store is three blocks away instead of three hours and the only wild animals are the lizards that scurry up the walls, which, contrasted to the previous wildlife of coyotes that howled at all hours of the night, seems like a walk in the park.

I haven’t done a lot with actual farming – mainly just cleaning up and helping around the house. But my host has a large knowledge of the history of Mexico as well as a workshop full of instruments that he works on in between playing guitar and singing. It really is something different, more like a home stay, but over all it is just as interesting and fun as my last farm.