I love my job.

Now, these critics have a point. If volunteering abroad could be a full-time, financially viable profession, I would jump on that boat in a heartbeat. Currently, I am home working my tail off, specifically so that I can afford to venture back to Central America and volunteer with another non-profit organization.

But working abroad can be a “serious” job too. As a 23-year-old American, I believe that my generation’s conception of a “real” job differs from that of my parents’. When my parents were in their 20s, the professional world existed largely within various office settings and occurred between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Sure, Mad Men, Pleasantville, and I Love Lucy have impressed upon us a generalization of professionalism in the 50’s and 60’s, but that generalization is grounded in truth.

However, in the globalized and tech-savvy world of today, “serious” jobs can have many different forms. While many young adults work the traditional 40 hour weeks in offices (which can be very productive and fulfilling), the advancement of communication technology enables many young professionals to work from home. Likewise, increasing numbers of young adults seek careers as consultants, which allow them to travel throughout the country and work with different companies. For me and many others, the most rewarding jobs are based in developing countries. Nonprofit jobs look very different depending on the country, the organization, the coworkers, etc., but they all require a commitment to development, and a passion for experiencing new lifestyles and cultures.

As fruitless job hunts and the media remind me frequently, the current job market in the US is uninspiring. Nevertheless, I feel so lucky to be part of a generation that has options in the types of jobs available. Any job is a “serious” job, if it supports me and allows me to pursue my passions.

Ginny just finished a thirteen-month commitment as Program Director with Manna Project International-Guatemala. For more on Ginny’s experiences in Guatemala, check out her blog.

Limeans reading at a news stand

Everyone knows someone teaching English in South America, so there’s little to really be said on the subject of finding a job (look in the newspaper, especially on a Sunday; google “city name” and “profesora de ingles”) or doing it (worrying about not knowing English grammar; overpreparing for each class for the first two weeks; quickly developing the confidence to tell your students you’re teaching them real-world, rather than textbook, English; getting good and teaching them textbook English adapted for the real world).

There’s a lot to be said, however, for using the job as gateway into other endeavors you want to explore.  I teach most of my classes through an Institute, which means I teach to bankers, lawyers, marketing professionals, etc. My company encourages us to engage with the students about what they’re interested in, so a class spent discussing an issue and not opening a textbook counts as a success (I happen to agree).

So I ask about customs and daily life, local events and festivals, current events, and topics such as women in the workplace and changes over the last ten years as the economy has grown. Presidential elections are in less than two weeks, so I’ve been asking them to explain the electoral process, the last 20 years of history, and their thoughts on the candidates. I’m doing work for an NGO (more on that next week), and the students I’ve had for a couple of months help me out with legal tidbits and donor contacts.

Sometimes you know when a teacher is just showing up- I make it a point not to do that, and instead, to engage about what interests everyone. Teaching is not what I hoped to do in South America, but five months in this job have been an incredible tool to understanding the culture, the people, and building bridges into a future on the continent.

Luba Guzei is currently an English teacher with Langrow in Lima, Peru.

The Chilean English professors use English-Spanish dictionaries pretty often in class. Unfortunately, the ones we have are old. When you pick some of them up, they fall apart. Pages slip out onto the floor, and students frantically run to gather and scotch-tape them together. Moreover, all the dictionaries are covered with extremely colorful graffiti, not appropriate to be repeated in this post. These inscriptions tend to be quite the distraction in class; instead of looking up English words, kids turn their books sideways and upside-down trying to make out exactly who did what with whom.

At a ceremony last month, a be-gloved student carries scissors on a silver platter to the representatives of EnergiAustral, our corporate sponsor, so that they can cut the ribbon separating us from our new texts.

And in library storage, there are 50+ brand-new Oxford English-Spanish dictionaries, languishing in their plastic wrap. But we couldn’t use them until last month.

“Why not?” I asked innocently when I first found out.

“They were part of a large donation,” a colleague explained, “from a private company. We can’t open them until the official ceremony.” This means that for six months – three-quarters of the school year – we continued using fifth-rate resources, waiting for the corporate donors to arrive, give speeches, and take a picture with the brand-new books.

Here’s another: my school actually has a computer lab with thirty brand-new PCs, head phones, microphones, video cameras, and internet access. Incredible. And we can’t use it. Why not? Because due to poor teacher vigilance, the kids trashed it last year: they stole cables, broke a few keyboards, etc. This year no one uses it; it has supposedly been in repair all year. It might be fixed by now, it might not – honestly, I don’t think anyone asks anymore. The general feeling is that the students can’t be trusted to use the lab – so no-one uses the lab.

Inaccessible resources like these are so common here that they have a name: elefantes blancos, white elephants.

A more personal white elephant incident was my discovery that Puerto Aisén owns an Steinway A  grand piano. It lives in the town hall’s cinema, which is unheated and damp (awful conditions for the instrument) and, to prevent vandalism, it sits locked in a wire cage. It is never released, and no-one ever touches it. I played it once when my friend and I sweet-talked Mario, the projectionist, into letting me in for a few minutes, but it was so cold I could barely move my fingers. In any case Mario was nervous about his boss coming back so he shooed us out fairly quickly – he could get in trouble. The piano continues to sit alone in its icy cell.

Working for the Harlem Children’s Zone back in New York City, we had less trouble getting around bureaucracy, red tape, and formalities. Our main problem was that we had no money. Whereas here, the funding and resources – all those white elephants – are out there. We just can’t seem to catch them.

Nereida Heller is currently volunteering in Puerto Aisén, Chile with the English Open Doors Program. For more about her experiences, check out her blog.

Spelling problems are just the obvious outer layer of a profound lack of language education.  It’s pretty hard to teach tenses to kids who find it difficult to identify verbs, even in Spanish – or adjectives, pronouns, etc. Never mind more complicated topics, like direct and indirect objects, phrasal verbs, or – horrors – the conditionals.

Earlier in the semester I was flabbergasted during a conversation with some students in which they asked me whether I thought it was easier for Spanish-speaking babies to learn English, or English-speaking babies to learn Spanish. It turned out that my kids were operating under the assumption that a person’s language is inherent in their genetics. I actually panicked a little when I heard this – I thought, if that’s really how they think about language, I’m done for. No wonder it’s so difficult to convince them they are capable of learning English, if they feel Spanish is as much a part of them as their eyes, or their hands.

At times, discoveries like this one sometimes make me feel somewhat useless  – even though I’m here because the government of this country identified a need and sought help. But my students’ real problems go much further than English or Spanish grammar, and it is frustrating to realize that my work does not address those very scary challenges. The most I can do is try and make sure that in my classroom, at least, they have a positive experience. Unfortunately, once they leave, it’s out of my hands.

For more on teaching English in Latin America, check out posts by Kent Green and Amanda Patterson.

Social profiling is rampant in Chilean society. Your neighborhood, last name, high school, and complexion can directly dictate who you get to hang out with, and sometimes where you get to study and work. There is also a great deal of value placed on European characteristics. Lots of folks change their Mapuche-Indian last names to sound Spanish, speckle their speech with English-isms, and hire people with Castilian accents to improve the image of their businesses.

The nice thing about this is that gringos can come and go as they please between class barriers. In Puerto Aysén, my friends and acquaintances include the owners of the fanciest hotel around, a few doctors from the hospital, and a couple of the taxi drivers that constantly buzz around town.

The downside is that because English and blonde-ness are class markers, many people believe that I am wealthy, pretentious, or missish. Recently I discovered that outside of the educational community, my hair color has led people to conclude that I am a Mormon missionary.

But such assumptions are easily shaken; what makes me far more uncomfortable is being perceived as the embodiment of the Western world’s cultural hegemony. I’m not sure what to do when I receive compliments on my eye and skin color, or when my female students tell me they wish they could have hair like mine.  Small wonder that Chilean girls feel this way, considering the number of women that dye their hair in this country and the amount of American movies they watch – often, even the dolls they play with are blonde and blue-eyed.

I respond by telling them they are beautiful. Sometimes, I say that dark skin is considered more attractive in the States (my state, at least, is littered with tanning salons) and that blondes are supposed to be stupid.

I’m not sure how else to handle these situations, or my own discomfort.  Do others who have been in this situation have thoughts or advice?

There are occasional strikes here anyway, mostly of the transit kind, and mostly in response to violence — such as when rowdy soccer fans roughed up about thirty buses after the national soccer championships. August, however, saw the implementation of strikes across the public sector to influence the allocation of the national budget: health workers, teachers, and even state bureaucrats raised their signs. Not everyone is the biggest fan of this – it’s inconvenient to be sure – but they knew it was coming and they are dealing.

Union rally downtown

Some American English teachers I know here are also a bit dismayed, as some of them work at the IPA, a teacher-training institute which has been occupied by the students for several weeks now. The students are lobbying to have the education budget increased to 6% of the GDP. With the occupation rumored to continue into September and the U.S. teachers’ contracts ending in November, that doesn’t leave them much time to do what they imagined coming here to do. The strikes do, however, provide didactic lessons of a different sort. How important it is to check the news, before you find yourself waiting at a bus stop forever. How to resign yourself to the gap between your plans and hopes and those of co-workers with a much longer time horizon. How to fill suddenly empty days. How institutionalized strikes here are a form of redress.

I don’t know much about labor movements back home in the United States, but mention strikes and I come up with: the baseball strike. The Hollywood writers strike. The hockey lockout. All entertainment based. Good things did come out of them for the benefit of the nation: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog comes to mind, and the boost Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court bid got from her reputation as “baseball’s savior.” But I don’t really watch sports or T.V. I do use public transportation, as did the millions affected by the New York Transit Strike of 2005, which is probably why it got resolved a lot more quickly. I’m sure I’ve forgotten other strikes.

I don’t have the statistics on how influential the strikes here in Uruguay are, and I imagine at some point their predictability undermines their efficiency. But I do find it interesting how something so overtly part of the political landscape here occupies such a sporadic place in the U.S. these days – or at least, because of the size of the U.S. and the smaller likelihood of stumbling over a massive rally on your walk home, it feels that way.

Flora Lindsay-Herrera is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more about her experiences, check out her blog. For more on politics in Latin America, check out “Loaded Questions on Wheels: Politics and God,” “Coming to the U.S. Sin Papeles,” “Day in the Life: Elections in a Foreign Land,” “An Avalanche of Human Rights for Same-Sex Couples,” and “Can English Really Open Doors?”

Photo from Flickr user 100Wasser

A few months ago I left my volunteer position with Ya’axché Conservation Trust in what I think was a career upgrade. I moved to Guatemala to start a position, hold your hats readers, with pay! Now, being the polite albeit devastatingly curious people that we all are, I’m sure you are dying to know what sort of pay a cherub-faced, 22-year-old know-nothing has been able to earn in this unforgiving economy.

But you probably wouldn’t ask in fear of breaking the sacred code of money-talk etiquette often seen in the West: Never ask how much. Conversely, Guatemalans will ask how much your left shoe cost you without a second of hesitation. Living in such a money-obsessed, impoverished community has been difficult and bitter, and at the increased exposure to the question “How much?” I find myself fretting for my personal financial future. How much will graduate school applications cost? How much will I make as a barista working part-time? How much will I possibly be able to make with a degree in sustainable development?

To quench your thirsting curiosity, I earn Q2000 a month, the equivalent of $250. Over the course of the next year, I’ll be making less than the cost of one semester of schooling at my university. The following year, I plan on spending ten times as much for graduate school. After that, I expect to pay more dues through internships and entry-level jobs making a pittance.  I seem to be welcoming a decade of debt, with wide open pockets.

I’ve been talking a lot about an article the New York Times Magazine published last weekend that shed light on the current predicament of us “emerging adults:” no spouse, no children, no financial independence, and no determined financial stability in sight. Though our paths are all different, what we have in common is our dwindling bank accounts and idealistic views leading us in directions that offer little pay, but great reward. Though I sometimes curse my inability to enjoy two bottles of wine and a wheel of cheese each week, it all comes back to the knowledge that I am working towards something I think is important, enjoyable, commendable, and just downright good.

Please don’t let small paychecks and missing comforts guide you away from a challenging life in the field. At the end of the day, you’ll know that you are accomplishing something grand.

Bridget Barry is currently a Program Associate with Limitless Horizons Ixil in Chajul, Guatemala. To read more about Bridget’s time abroad with limited economic means, check out her past entries or posts by other La Vida Idealist bloggers in Guatemala. For more on the financial challenges idealists face after coming home, check out Patrick Furlong’s “Dueling Realities” and Kimberly Friedland’s “The Well-Planned Life or Summoned Self?“

Yuppie travel gear. Nearly every middle-class hiker that arrives at Machu Picchu or any other hiking destination comes with extendable walking sticks, nice Columbia or North Face sports gear, and a massive full-brimmed hiking hat. How much of this is necessary or appropriate, I’m not sure, but I guess everyone needs to look the part of the rugged (or not so) rugged traveler.

Machu Picchu

Speed limits. They don’t exist in Cusco. Although there are signs everywhere for a 35 KPH speed limit, the rule here is that the speed limit is as fast as the car can accelerate and maintain.

Spanish. Like any worthy pursuit, Spanish provides an endless amount of study and time to master. When I first arrived, I thought I was going to be fluent by the time I left. Although I can now listen without internally translating and say what I want to say, it will be a long time before I am eloquent. Unfortunately, that means I will probably have to come back to South America for an extended period of time.

Thinking before I speak. My first couple of weeks here were slightly challenging when it came to communicating. I always had to think about what I was going to say before speaking. I think this is a valuable skill for all languages; hopefully I will translate this patience and thought process to English.

Electronics. Everyone my age (21 years old) give or take, is connected to some form of electronic equipment. I’m guilty myself. Everywhere I go I turn on my iPod and listen to the soundtrack of my life. It’s getting a little ridiculous though as I saw a kid, probably aged 16, with a laptop at Machu Picchu. Who takes a laptop to one of the wonders of the world? I’m sure his blog updates could wait a couple of hours.

Blog. Every traveler has one.

Home comforts. Being abroad for an extended period of time can be rattling at first. Thankfully Cusco has a full supply of chocolate, popcorn, and fresh oranges.

I’m leaving Cusco in a week and it’s strange to think I’ll be starting my senior year of college so soon. Then the real world starts. It’s tough to say how much I have really learned from this experience because it is still occurring. However, I’m fairly confident that it will be one of those things that I am still learning from 20 years down the road. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have changed anything.

Jonah Brill is currently volunteering as a Field Researcher with Arariwa in Cusco, Peru.

Love at your doorstep. Latin America, you will be missed.

Dear Latin America,

Thank you for teaching me how to feign a command over salsa steps and for putting people in my path who will happily sway me to the beat of your music.

Thank you for feeding me fruit that ostensibly appeared downright poisonous, ominous or otherwise inedible and for showing me the beauty that lies behind spikes and inside sharp seeds.

Thank you for making princesa (princess), amorcito (my little love), preciosa (precious) and querida (dear) my middle names and for the affection that drips into all your words.

Thank you for teaching me that development and a commitment to peace can crop up right next to coffee and conflict. Thank you for exposing me to your people–ex-combatants, victims of conflict, sufferers and perpetrators–whose thirst to learn and reconcile with history is a lesson in living.

Thank you for showing me the beauty of cloud forests, volcanoes, and thunderstorms – and for highlighting the kindness and benevolence of strangers who come together when these natural phenomena go awry.

Thank you for making it impossible to sleep without the sound of a bus exhaust, the ice-cream bell jingle, or a woman selling tamales. Your aromas will follow me home.

Thank you for aggressively overflowing with passion. For your vivid gesturing, your poetic harpings of love in the face of Garcia Marquez, Neruda or Benedetti, your feverish addiction to soccer.

Thank you for diminishing the distances, for poking into my personal, private space, for forcing the conversations on love, religion, family, marriage, children, poverty, war, and opportunity, and for coloring everything with a hug.

Finally, thank you for teaching us or reminding us or encouraging us to feel, and learn, and serve, and give of ourselves, and lead, and follow, and love, and dare, and appreciate beauty – and for carving such a space for yourself in our memory that we are just bound to return.

Roxanne has just completed a cycle of post-conflict development projects benefiting women in war zones worldwide and, most recently, in Latin America. To read about Roxanne’s journey, visit her blog.

Standard wisdom says it’s harder to come back home than it is to go abroad. Certainly that was my experience when I lived in Japan—it was difficult getting used to the tightly controlled chaos that is Tokyo. But I had no way of assessing how my experience abroad had changed me until I was back in a context where I could do a before-and-after comparison. My expectations of an easy re-entry were totally off. To put it simply: it sucked.

Based on that, you can imagine my pleasant surprise when it was easy to come back from Ecuador.

Welcome back to the States, Lizzie!

I’ve spent a week wondering, why am I not feeling confused and displaced? How have I managed to easily transition from my broken Spanglish back to English? Is my experience representative of what other volunteers feel when they come back?

And while I have been thinking this, I’ve realized there are two crucial differences between my experience in Japan and my experience in Ecuador. And a handful of reasons why my transition isn’t representative for other volunteers in South America—maybe not even representative for the majority.

First of all, I was not in Ecuador for a cultural learning experience. I was there to provide support for a nonprofit that I cared about. I did learn Spanish and interact with many people who come from a culture different than mine, but my sole purpose was not to learn ABOUT those other cultures. Learning to think in Spanish didn’t have a significant effect on my psyche. Either I didn’t put as much effort in, or it simply isn’t THAT different from thinking in English.

Second of all, the first place I went when I came back from Ecuador was my parents’ house in Cleveland. For better or for worse, Cleveland doesn’t change very quickly. Coming back to a place that is exactly how I left it makes it easy for me to shed my recent experiences and revert to a former self. Yes, I probably changed in Ecuador, but my personality changes aren’t standing between me and my current environment or the people in it.

So why is my experience not representative? Well, I think most volunteers are more profoundly involved in their experiences where they are. My particular position dealt mostly with information online and so enabled me to skim the surface of life in Ecuador. I could talk to and write about refugee clients without getting invested in their lives. This is not to say I didn’t care or didn’t feel like my relationship to them was important—it just means that because I wasn’t working with them directly on a daily basis, I did not establish long-term professional relationships with any of them.

I was also not invested in Ecuador itself. I preferred the company of other expats, and so I didn’t create significant social networks to tie me to Quito. I never learned to salsa dance and I never learned the lyrics to any reggaeton songs. I didn’t meet the girl of my dreams and fall in love, as my friends predicted I would (and some volunteers I met seemed to have done).

It seems to me like most volunteer experiences are more firmly tied to the PLACE where they happen, and that other contexts are more conducive to creating social networks that reaffirm ties to that place. And, quite possibly, that the vast majority of volunteers are much more emotionally invested in what they are doing than I was. Volunteers go abroad for a multitude of reasons that are carefully and accurately detailed throughout this blog. Volunteers are driven by idealism, passion, determination, or simply a desire for something new. By putting this emotional energy in, volunteers get something back. And that something will decide how easy re-entry is.

Kent titled his most recent post, “Nobody Teaches You How to Say Goodbye.” I think that sentiment is common for most volunteers. For me, I took a breath, opened my mouth, and said, “Ciao, Ecuador.” And that was that.

Lizzie LaCroix was most recently a Development Associate for Asylum Access in Quito, Ecuador.