When a fight breaks out at school, as a volunteer you neither really know what is happening nor are able to do anything about it. It’s a bizarre feeling to be such an unwilling and powerless observant. It’s these times, and those when I’m particularly cold, hungry, and exhausted, that for [...]
Posts Tagged ‘youth’
June 1st, 2010 - 12:34 pm § in Around Town, Chile
Off to Chile: A New Beginning
Today I sit here wondering how I am going to cram all the stuff in my apartment into my parents’ tiny crawl space for storage. In forty-six days I begin working as a volunteer for an orphanage in Santiago, Chile. It’s an odd feeling staring at all of the belongings I’ve collected over[...]
Two Weeks into a Year’s Worth of Photography Classes
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 las[...]
How to Fundraise With No Funds
This week I was really impressed by another volunteer here at Tashirat. Some of us (myself included) are intimidated by fundraising events, by the thought of all the time, energy, and resources spent resulting in little or no money raised. And, being in a rural community in Mexico, one may think: If[...]
The Perks of Being a New Volunteer
I’ve been at the Tashirat orphanage just outside of Tepoztlan in the state of Morelos, Mexico for about a week and a half now. Tashirat is a very interesting place, because not only is it an orphanage, it’s an ashram and a school as well. They are also beginning an ambitious garden/greenhouse pr[...]
Saludos de Ecuador!
I have now been living in Ecuador for nearly three months. It seems unreal to me that just a few short months ago I showed up in this country not knowing Spanish, never having taught before and never having lived abroad. Needless to say, I was nervous when I arrived. But after [...][...]
Hello, Mundo Hermoso!
Having spent the last month and a half in what, to me, feels like the most remote farming town in all of Central America, it is hard to believe that people all over the globe could (and will) be reading my words! I am excited and honored to be a new Idealist blog “contributor” and [...][...]
