¡Saludos desde Guatemala! For the next several months, I will be living in Xela, Guatemala’s second largest city, and volunteering as a trek guide for Quetzaltrekkers, the only all volunteer-run, all non-profit outdoors organization in Central America. Quetzaltrekkers (QT) leads treks through som[...]
Posts Tagged ‘volunteering’
Good Intentions: The Charity Curse and the Peace Corps in Honduras
“Here were these poor people, living on the edge of a mountain with a million-dollar view,’’ she says. “But they needed the basics, food, shelter. It was such a moving experience.’’ The Peace Corps’ decision to leave Honduras, she notes, is “heartwrenching.’’ “I thought about t[...]
December 18th, 2011 - 6:00 am § in Careers, Guatemala, Looking for Opportunity, Volunteer, Volunteer Spotlight
Trabajo: Job Hunting, Working Abroad, and “Real World” Work
“So… when are you going to get a real job?” I think many people, especially of my parents’ generation, see working abroad as a filler for the time period between college graduation and the entry into the American professional world, as a way to productively delay the start of adulthood. [...]
Why I Volunteer Abroad
Before I volunteered as a Kiva Fellow in Sierra Leone (May of 2011) and Bolivia (September 2011), I was living in Santa Barbara, California. Imagine: Santa Barbara beaches saturated with color, mansions with the smell of jasmine twisting through the air, and a pace of life only to be set by the sun[...]
My First Day
I am trying to install Windows 2003 when my computer shuts down for third time because I’ve slightly nudged the power cord. My self-doubt surrounds me. It’s my first day of volunteering, my supervisor is nowhere to be seen (I guess that’s what they meant by being ‘able to work independently[...]
Conquering Sexual Education Classes
What actually constitutes a teen sexual education class in Guatemala? This is the question I asked myself last month as I sat down with a group of four other Somos Hermanos participants as we prepared for our first class. We were going to be teaching a general health and sexual education class in a [...]
It’s All About Who You Know
Awhile back, I learned an important lesson about international volunteering. As Peace Corps volunteers we enter our communities for two years equipped with an entire flash drive full of resources (ideas, pre-made programs, previously used programs, workshops, talks, etc.), most of them tried and tru[...]
