It’s so wonderful to have old friends visit!  Their impressions of my life here, and my concerns over their comfort, are illuminating.  Yesterday, my twilight bus ride through Centro’s Friday market seemed fresh.  Individual people shimmered against the background of a city I have been riding through for six months.  I anticipated how my friends would see these scenes —shirtless young men steering fruit-laden donkey carts;  cheery, aggressive bus drivers; beggars and pedestrians with grotesque physical deformities; clumps of lovely, aimless school girls —and they looked new to me. New, in a different way.  Because I finally realized yesterday that I’m starting to know this city.  Life in Barranquilla has been becoming unremarkable to me without my even noticing, and that comfort (dare I say grace?) is something really remarkable.

Sonja and Josh are not impressed by the moldy frying pan I offered as a simmering apparatus.  But they were blown away by the beauty of Parque Tayrona.  They danced salsa in the street last night at La Troja, and today we gave some historical perspective to their trip with a visit to El Museo del Caribe.  As their host, I am luxuriating in the fact that I have plenty to please a couple of guests with here.  As a visitor to the city myself, I thank my friends for reminding me of the beauty of my Colombian home.

Eliza is currently an English professor for WorldTeach at Fundación Aliarse in Barranquilla, Colombia. For more on her experiences, check out her blog.

1. Establish what the needs and interests are within the community. As Kati Mayfield pointed out, communities may have a logic in setting priorities that isn’t immediately obvious. Take some time to get to know the place before expending resources on a project that may not get earnest community backing, while also acknowledging your own interests and unique skill set.
2. Create a project that is appropriate for your timeframe. Whether it is maintenance of a garden or construction of a house, you can’t necessarily count on future volunteers to sustain a half-started project.
   

   WorldTeach program site in Colombia

3. If it is a long-term project, establish means for its sustainability. Identify a local team willing to oversee the project’s continuation. If you anticipate excess donated funds, those are best entrusted to an organization with oversight and accounting safeguards rather than to an individual. Also, what challenges may arise in the future? For instance, a photocopier may be a great addition to a school, but in the future will teachers be able to acquire and afford toner?
4. Write a proposal. Clearly outline materials and manpower necessary with precise cost estimates, and set a timeline. If you will be actively soliciting donations, the proposal shouldn’t be so limited that the funds cannot be applied elsewhere if you overfundraise or end up with too little funds to start the project. That may be deceptive to donors. At the same time, alternative plans should be germane to the project’s primary intention, be it adding to a school library or creating a safe play area for kids. If you are working within a bigger volunteer institution, make sure you understand their guidelines for donations and projects.
5. Get your community back home invested and informed. Keep a blog, write a newsletter, start a penpal exchange. Remember that in-kind donations (shipping is the biggest one) can be as valuable as cash, but understand donor expectations (can you provide a tax-deductible receipt? Do they expect one?).
6. Have fun!

Flora Lindsay-Herrera is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more about her experiences, check out her blog. For more resources on community development, check out Idealist.org’s Community Action Center.

At the end of orientation in Ecuador

I’ve been thinking about the pros and cons to volunteering through an organization vs. going abroad on your own.

When I went to Ecuador through an organization, I wasn’t just another person trying to make it on my own there; I was part of a team working for something, with other volunteer friends around the country whom I could go visit if I needed a break or a pick-me-up.  When things got tough—if we didn’t like the work assigned to us or we took issue with the way things were organized—the sense of camaraderie pulled us through.

It also meant we had security in numbers. At the same time, while being in a group of other foreigners during orientation wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it could get awkward. How many times did we walk into a quiet restaurant with 15 loud-mouthed Americans? Going anywhere as a foreigner can bring attention, but rolling down the street 30 deep can really turn a few heads.

My life in Argentina is quite different from that. I’m not with an organization, and I’m essentially down here on my own. When I first arrived I had a friend from WorldTeach visit me for a couple of weeks. It was great to have a friend with me, but we still branched out and met other people. At her hostel, we became friendly with a Spanish girl who as it would turn out was from the same city I studied abroad in, went to the same university I went to, and worked in the Internet cafe across the street from where I used to live! Even after my friend left we continued to hang out. And without a large group, I didn’t feel obligated to have to go anywhere with large groups of people, freeing me up to do whatever I wanted.

Ultimately, I still look back fondly on the friendships I was able to make last year. Not only did it give me friends across Ecuador, but I now have friends across the U.S. too. I wish I could say the same about Argentina, because I don’t have another volunteer to hang out with or go on a weekend trip with. But that also gives me more freedom to do what I want to do – I don’t worry about breaking the rules of an organization or not fulfilling my end of the deal.

If you’re trying to make the decision between joining an organization or coming down on your own, keep those things in mind. Are you the kind of person that wants to meet other people with whom you can share the experience, or would you rather wing it and try to find opportunities on your own?

• Stay in touch with old friends. Whether it was your school director, host family, or fellow volunteers, maintain the contact. You can all vent together, reminisce, or find other ways of continuing volunteer opportunities, or even going back some day.

• Write it all down. However you’re feeling. Whatever is in your head. Just put it out there. Even if you never show it to anyone, just processing the thoughts you’re having will help you deal with things and sort out the reverse-culture shock or the anxiety or depression of going home. If you did keep a journal while you were volunteering, go back though it and read it. Add some new entries from a post-volunteer mindset. If you save it for years to come, it could really help you see how you evolved and changed once you were home.

• Get out there. Instead of staying at home feeling sad for yourself or frustrated in finding a job, just go to the local shelter, school, or community center and put in some time. Even if you’ve never done it before, at the very least it will help you in transitioning from a volunteer to just a regular person, no matter what you did as a volunteer. Look into programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters or the United Way. You’re experienced as a volunteer and they’d be more than happy to have you.

Continue chugging alone, and it will get easier. But don’t lose track of the things that made your experience so worthwhile in the first place. No one will make it easier for you, so you have to be the one who is proactive in remembering what you did.