Megan reports that the language barrier was challenging, but the rewards were immense.

What did you enjoy most about your Quest in Japan?

The time spent with my host family and the time spent with the children at the school was what I enjoyed most about my Quest.

What was most challenging about your Quest experience?

The language barrier, if anything, was the most challenging.

Describe your volunteer work experience.

I helped at the local kindergarten at first with the small children and towards the end I worked with the 4, 5, and 6 year olds. I read to all the children in both English and Japanese, served lunch, and taught English songs. Everyday I played with the children.

Please provide a testimonial of your experience with as much detail as possible.

I could not have imagined a more perfect first visit to Japan, all thanks to United Planet. It was the most organized, fulfilling organization I have ever been apart of.

The experience surpassed my expectations: from the host family, to the volunteer work, the visits around Japan, to the everyday cultural involvement - the people of United Planet and Japan made me feel like I was a family.

I went to Japan to volunteer and in turn I learned more than I could have dreamed of in such a short quest time period. I will absolutely be using United Planet again and would recommend this amazing organization to anyone that asked with flying colors.

Can you describe your volunteer work experience?

I volunteered at a private hospital pharmacy.

My experience entailed shadowing the pharmacists on hospital rounds, a visit to an international pharmacy industry company,  and a visit to the University of Costa Rica Pharmacy school.

On a typical day at work, I would come in and work alongside pharmacists as they approved medication orders, filled prescriptions, counseled patients, and listened to drug representatives.

Tell us how you feel overall about your experience.

Describe your volunteer work experience.

I played with the children and assisted in feeding, changing, and daily hygiene.

In the outpatient area I was able to triage the patients; taking heights, weight, BP, pulse, temp and giving injections.

Tell us how you feel overall about your experience.

This was one of the best experiences of my life. I was a little unsure whether or not I was making the right decision before going, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat, in fact when it was time to come home I didn’t want to leave.

I lived with a host family for the entire 3 months that I was in Peru. They were so welcoming. They had a daughter the same age as me and we became fast friends. They showed me around the city and were very friendly and were always around to talk to and hang out with. They made the trip what it was for me. My “mom” also cooked 3 meals a day for us of traditional Peruvian food which was delicious. I am still in contact with them and am already trying to figure out when I can go back to visit.

The cultural activities were also amazing. Included in the Peru quest is a trip to Machu Picchu, which is an overnight trip. You take the train to Aguas Calientes and spend the night there and then head up to Machu Picchu in the morning where you have a guided tour and then time to explore on your own.

Also included in this trip was a tour of the Sacred Valley, a Cusco City Tour, and a Quechua (The Incan Language) lesson.

I also received Spanish lessons twice a week for the entire duration of my trip. The teachers were amazing. They really knew what they were doing and were so friendly and around just to chat if you wanted to as well.

The Spanish school also organized an event each week so you could meet other volunteers or travelers and hang out. Sometimes it was a movie night, or learning to make traditional drinks, salsa lessons, cooking lessons, or parties for the different holidays.

I also loved my volunteer work. I am a nurse and worked in a clinic for my entire stay. There is an inpatient part of this clinic which houses about 50 children with mental and/or physical disabilities whose parents couldn’t care for them. In this area I helped with the daily care of the children such as bathing, dressing, brushing their teeth, combing their hair, and feeding as well as played with the children. In the outpatient part of the clinic I was able to do more nursing tasks such as take blood pressure, pulse, temperature, height and weight to triage the patients and give injections. I also helped with preparing supplies and filing.

Overall this was an amazing experience. I am so happy that I did it and would love to go back someday. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone.

In August 2010 the University of Idaho informed United Planet of its decision to send a group of 13 students and two professors to build houses in Chile. The decision was a response to Chile’s devastating 8.8 earthquake in February 2010, the fifth strongest in recorded history, which had left thousands of Chileans homeless.

Idaho’s decision was not surprising. The university had been sending students on United Planet-organized group Quests around the world for the past five years, and enjoyed an excellent working relationship with the foundation.

Idaho’s Quest was divided into two separate volunteer experiences during their 18 days in Chile.  Their first worksite was a daycare center operated by United Planet’s partner organization near Viña del Mar, which provides all-day childcare to 63 children between six months and four years of age.

Lots of helping hands at the daycare center

The volunteers’ tasks included landscaping, pruning trees and painting outside gates.  The volunteers also participated in playgroup activities with the children and daycare center personnel.

On their second morning at the worksite, the volunteers discovered some wooden desks out back which had been thrown away.

On their own initiative and with the daycare director’s consent, they took apart the old desks and began constructing a slide, a long table, and refurbishing a swing set which was not being used. They went to a hardware store and bought sandpaper, screws and nails.  They dug holes and trenches to lower everything to the level of a four year old.

Constructing the swingset for the children

The last morning at the daycare, the director arrived at the site and could not believe her eyes.

Just two days before, she had welcomed the volunteers with the expectation that they would clean up the large outdoor area with its overgrown fruit trees and weeds, and make it look nicer. 

Now she was looking at a new outdoor play area for the children with a table, slide, and swings in a setting that might appear on the cover of a gardening magazine.

The volunteers’ only weekend at Viña del Mar was full of excursions and activities.  There were tours to Viña’s lush botanical gardens, a walking tour of Viña del Mar’s colourful boardwalk and arts and crafts shops, and a ride along the 44 steep hills surrounding Valparaiso included a visit to the home of the Nobel-prize poet, Pablo Neruda.

An unexpected added treat was witnessing a spectacular New Year’s Eve fireworks display at midnight from Playa Amarilla beach along with thousands of cheering and festive Chileans.

The volunteers’ second quest consisted of building houses at a rural worksite seven hours south of Santiago by bus. The agricultural, coastal town of Cobquecura had been at the epicenter of February’s 8.8 earthquake, and many of its adobe structures had collapsed.

Constructing houses in the coastal town of Cobquecura

United Planet’s local partner organization had recently received Chilean government funding to build four homes for displaced families that would use anti-seismic and energy-saving technology and hopefully serve as a prototype for future low-cost housing.

The local families who would receive the houses cooked meals for the volunteers. A few more Chilean university volunteers arrived the second week and joined the group staying at the school.

At the worksite, various tasks were done by groups of four or five volunteers. A lot of time was spent on constructing the walls of the houses which were a mix of straw and mud placed in wooden frames.

Frame of house during construction

The Idaho volunteers enjoyed the multiple challenges at the worksite, and had made significant progress by the time they had to leave.  On their last night they made a large bonfire on the beach and sang songs with their new Chilean university friends.

The group arrived back to Santiago one day before their return flight, tired but happy. They enjoyed a special tour of the Presidential Palace, La Moneda, and shopping at the Pueblito de Los Dominicos, an area of 150 arts and crafts shops.

What was obvious was that they had changed. Now they felt more independent and comfortable in the Chilean culture. For example, they returned to a restaurant they had eaten at on their first day in Chile, but this time they were able to give their orders to the waiter in Spanish without any help.

What they then realized was that an inevitable consequence of their quest and their effort to help others bring about change had been a change in themselves.

“What’s the biggest animal in the world?” asked Mr. Roly. “The whale or the elephant?”
“The monkey!” shouted a little indigenous student.
“It’s the whale,” smiled Mr. Roly amidst the ingenuous laughter of her classmates. “And where do whales live?”
“In the water!” cried the entire class. “Correct. Whales are the biggest creatures in the water. So what’s the biggest animal on land?”
“The monkey!” shouted the same little girl.
“It’s the elephant,” smiled Mr. Roly between another wave of laughter from the class.
“And where do elephants live?” “In the Yungas!” (a region in Bolivia where elephants definitely don’t exist—not even en zoos.)

This is what classes are like in “Jesús de Machaca,” a small town located in the plateaus near the border between Bolivia and Peru. The villagers here are “aymara,” the same race as the current Bolivian president Evo Morales. It’s a pretty isolated town, with hardly 600 inhabitants under the rule of the local authorities. The daily routines here embody the typical lifestyle of the Bolivian country-dweller, characterized by the lack of internet, transportation, supply of water and electricity, and variety of diet (normally consisting of nothing but potatoes, potatoes, and more potatoes). In addition, many students must make a daily trek of two hours in order to arrive at their closest schools. For those of you who don’t know much about the Bolivian education system, the students down here only go to school for four hours per day. This means that many of them spend as much time getting to their classes as learning in them. It doesn’t surprise me that many parents simply choose to utilize their children as additional hands in farming and cattle raising instead of sending them to school.

The Bolivian education system has never been known for its quality, especially in the countryside. I once taught an English class that couldn’t understand “My name is Clarke, what is your name?” after six full years of previous English classes… Thanks to my great Polish friend Alexandra, I had the amazing opportunity to start working in this tiny village yesterday. I’d been volunteering for two and a half months as in La Paz (the capital of Bolivia) and El Alto (the capital’s neighboring city of chaos), and although I’d been working In projects with great people, these projects simply weren’t fulfilling my aspirations. The project coordinators only gave me trivial work that could be completed by anybody who cared to take the time and do it, making me feel like I was completely wasting my time while I could be contributing so much more with my talents. I decided to embark on my gap year because I wanted to widen my knowledge of our vast world and forge a more complete worldview through volunteering in places that desperately needed help… and I didn’t need much time to reach the conclusion that La Paz wasn’t one of those places. The city was already full of foreign volunteers, and while some of them were certainly doing great work with street children, La Paz really didn’t harbor that many homeless people — especially for a city its size.

After nearly three months of working in La Paz, I just couldn’t stand the feeling of uselessness within me. The simple truth was that I wasn’t doing anything to make a positive impact on the societal situation. All that I was doing was losing motivation and becoming a lazy bastard. In short, I wasn’t taking advantage of my amazing gap year opportunity to experience and help out our vast world. This situation simply had to change. So one day an idea suddenly appeared in my head: “Why don’t I start working with Alexandra in her project in Jesús de Machaca? I remember hearing that new volunteers were always welcome.” I didn’t need to think about it much — immediately I knew that it was the solution that would save me from my utter lack of inspiration. I don’t know how I knew; I just remember that I felt the same certainty as I did when the brilliant idea of deferring my college entrance entered my head.

I decided to follow my intuition back then, and as a result I’ve experienced some of the best moments of my life throughout my fascinating travels. Obviously, I had to follow this same intuitive feeling one more time. I’ve only worked in Jesús de Machaca for two days, so it’s still too early to reach conclusions about my change of working environment. However, what’s certain is that I’ll definitely get the chance to live a truly “Bolivian” experience during my stay here in this tiny village, watching videos about whales and elephants alongside little indigenous kids who’ve only seen a world with llamas, cows, and sheep…
 
Intrigued? Read more about Clarke’s experiences on his blog or plan your own gap year in Bolivia!

One of the most recognizable peaks on the Panamerican highway, Cotopaxi, has been calling to me ever since I arrived in Ecuador. Literally meaning “neck of the moon”, it is the world’s highest active volcano and stands at a mighty 19,347 ft above sea level. For a while, I had entertained the thought of trying to summit this beast, but my lack of technical skills involving crampons and ice picks convinced me to scale back on my ambitions. Hence, Sunday found me and a few friends on a guided trip up to the snow line and around the national park.

On a clear day, you can see Cotopaxi’s snow-capped peak from Quito. Unfortunately, Sunday was not a clear day. Oh well. Onward and upward we went in the bus through the entrance to Cotopaxi National Park and to the parking lot, where we would start our ascent to the base camp at 16,400ft. The wind was howling and icy rain was pelting us from all sides as we trudged along the path covered in volcanic ash. With the fog closing us in on all sides, it felt like we were on another planet. Certainly not Ecuador, since it seemed pretty strange to be seeing snowflakes so close to the equator. Even though I’d been hitting the gym pretty frequently, it was still difficult to breathe at that altitude.

We finally reached the Base Camp refuge after an hour of hiking and were treated to lunch and hot tea. Everyone in our group was soaked and freezing, but we sat around the table animatedly swapping stories and sharing travel tips with fellow volunteers and other backpackers from a handful of countries around the world. I think everyone was secretly relieved when our guide told us that the visibility was too poor to continue our hike up to the glacial line. Instead, we scrambled back down to the parking lot to pick up our bikes and zoomed down to Laguna Limpiopungo, about 8 miles away. Freezing hands aside, it was a great ride and once we emerged from the clouds there were some spectacular views.

It’s amazing that a country as small as Ecuador can have such diverse landscapes; the sparse vegetation and craggy mountains were a stark contrast to the lush cloud forest and humid coast that I enjoyed the other weekend. Sometimes I forget that I’m living in the Andes mountains, and this trip served as a reminder of what an amazing part of the world I’m calling home for a few more weeks.

To read more about Olivia’s time in Ecuador, follow her blog. Want to plan your own trip to Ecuador now? Visit our website!

If one was to provide me with a blank canvas and ask me to paint a portrait of Kampala, these are the steps I would follow: I would begin by taking a brush, dipping it into some paint of a light blue hue and with gentle strokes painting the skyline. I would pin a few fluffy clouds in the sky, which here quickly accumulate, release their rain and then disperse to leave mostly clear, bright and warm days for the sun to shine upon. Amongst the clouds I would paint the buzzards, giant birds that soar and circle far above this city looking to feast on any source of meat . Uganda is actually home to over a thousand species of birds that fill the air with constant chirping, but the most noticeable to me are the ever-watchful buzzards. I would then take a dirty rag, one discarded for days on the ground, and smear the skyline in a dirty brown haze. Each morning on my journey to the Institute the small piles of garbage smoldering on the sides of the streets collude with the taxis and trucks that belch their thick diesel fumes to choke the little oxygen that seems to subsist in the air. I clutch for a piece of clothing to cover my mouth in a vain attempt to filter the air, alarmed by the fact that the city skyline, a mere three miles away, is completely enveloped in a thick brown haze.

Cleaning the brush, I would then use a multitude of green shades to represent the undulating hills that make up the topography of Kampala. In fact, Kampala started as a planned city stretched across seven hills. But it has never been able to cope with the swell of people migrating from the rural areas in search of wealth over the last three decades. Picture a water balloon, initially designed to comfortably hold a body of water necessary for a particular period of time, and then that same balloon being rapidly filled to ten times its capacity. Such a balloon, bursting at the seams, leaks springing all over the place, unable to manage the sheer overcapacity, is Kampala. Today the city spans twenty-four hills with the wealthy perched on top and provided beautiful views of neighboring Lake Victoria, while the poor struggle to survive at the bottom in slum areas primarily amongst wetlands. In a city of 1.5 million people, over 60% live in slum areas, 36% aren’t served by sewers, and in many areas functional latrine coverage is below 50%. 40% don’t have access to safe and clean water and only 39% of the garbage generated is collected and transported to a landfill site.

From a distance it is easy to be deceived by the apparent beauty of your surroundings. Uganda offers a verdant and fertile land that is hungry for seeds and eager to quickly return fruit and vegetables of proportions unimaginable. Who needs genetic engineering when this country produces bananas, avocadoes, pineapples, grapes and a variety of other produce twice the size and a number of times better tasting than what we consume in the Western world. In fact half the land in Kampala is used for agriculture, farming provides the primary source of income for over 80% of the population and agriculture contributes almost half of the country’s GDP. Underneath the trees and amongst the vegetation however is a stark reality that at times I find difficult to accept.

Washing the brush once more, I would use the grey paint to represent the few bitumen roads that exist in Uganda. These paved single lane roads serve as the main, heavily congested, arteries that connect the heart of this country to its rural neighbors. All along the main roads are a variety of little shops constructed of bricks, cement, metal sheets and large shipping crates that somehow got lost on their way back to China.

The Ugandan people are truly amazing for their entrepreneurial spirit, with no form of social security to fall back on they each find a way to make what little money they can each day. I only need to stand in front of the Institute for five minutes to see walking past a range of vendors: a woman carefully balancing a basket of bananas on her head; a boy balancing on his head over a hundred boiled eggs; a man offering a multitude of little bags of peanuts; and another carrying fifty pairs of pants across his arms. I wonder momentarily if these vendors would be appeased to me tickling them or startling them suddenly, but somehow sense they would not in turn regard me with a warm smile and a clap on the back.

It is behind the store lined streets that I am confronted daily with the most disturbing sights. To do any justice to this scene it would require a collage of grey, red and brown paints, yet the greater challenge, despite my lack of artistic talents, would be to try to live amongst it. Houses typically consist of one to two rooms, of six by five feet dimensions, constructed primarily of either concrete slabs, mud bricks or just mud and bamboo that slowly erode under the rain. Rusting metal sheets and plastic bags are held in place by rocks that serve as roofing. Some houses have cement floors, others just have dirt, which as I walk past I see mothers endlessly sweeping in what must either be a futile attempt to promote cleanliness or a meticulous scheme to find hidden gold underground. These houses that contain six or more people are so compacted together that few vehicles can service them, surrounded by only tiny dirt lanes and alleys. The homes don’t often have electricity and gas, which are too expensive, so people burn charcoal and wood instead to cook. Water is accessed from communal taps or natural springs, collected in giant plastic containers and then transported by foot to the home. Sadly the underground water is heavily contaminated and even the water from the tap needs to be boiled, but this is not practical for a large family using a little wood burning stove. Most people in the slums use pit latrines as toilets, wait for a heavy rain downpour, and then release all the accumulated sewage so that it runs down open mud drains into the wetlands.

To finish off this painting I would try to capture some of the many children I see each day that are running, playing and washing outside their homes. These kids are always smiling and eagerly run up to you to shake your hands and say hello, amazing ambassadors for such a country. Half the population of Kampala is under 18 years of age, partly symptomatic of the fact that the average life expectancy is 50 years of age here, but also endemic of the fact that families still have too many children. In fact polygamy is abundant although publicly not condoned, and it is not uncommon for one man to have twenty or thirty children with many different women, then only discover each other when they attend the man’s funeral. Almost one in every ten children here dies at birth and 15% of children die before they reach the age of five. What is sadder though is not the horrendous mortality rate, the poor social services or inadequate education system, but that any child should live in such an environment and consider it normal or acceptable.

Finally, standing up after having completed my work, I would extend my arms on either side, take a deep breath and stretch every muscle in my back. Rejuvenated somewhat, I would step away from the painting, momentarily look at my work and judge it upon its merits. I would then slowly remove the canvas from its easel, crush it in my hands and throw it away, completely unsatisfied with the scene I see depicted. I honestly find it very hard to accept the living conditions and environment people here have to deal with each day. I only hope someday someone can paint a very different and better picture of this city.

Take care,
Jamie

I live on the third floor and spend a lot of my time in the living room (across from my room) or on the roof (the sixth floor) where I can see the top of some of the mountains on clear days.

Photo taken from Peter Akkermans, Flickr

The students at my school all ask for science experiments so I am thinking of small things that I can buy for the school that allows them to do science experiments. Even a beaker or graduated cylinder would be great. Any ideas? So far I’ve planned measuring water flow, playing with magnets, and some math games with flashcards and dice. I need help.

So there are two important things I forgot to mention because I am already getting used to them. The first is electricity. A comic was in the paper the other day that depicted two travelers getting shown to their room. The caption below read “This is your room. don’t worry about turning off the lights, the government does that for us.” The government turns out the electricity for eight hours a day (two – four hour segments). It usually is in the morning while I am at school and then when it gets dark from around six to ten. Most nights we eat, cook, talk, and read by candlelight. I actually like the simplicity. When the lights turn on there is a quick cheer and then everyone continues with whatever they were doing (or turns on the TV). It is a fun little surprise and makes a person appreciate the little things in life.

Photo taken from Dmitry_Sumin, Flickr

The other thing is the traffic. I have to cross the road to get to school and every day I feel like I should be so elated that I made it. Nima told me to “just walk, they won’t hit you.” So far that has worked! There are no traffic lanes and there are no traffic rules. When going around a corner they honk to see if someone is coming on the other side and they honk if they are coming. That way they know to try and stay on their own side. Very very few people drive something other than a motorcycle. They are the best because they can sneak through stalled traffic, lots of fun. I don’t almost scream when I’m in a taxi anymore because with this kind of traffic they never really get above 25 miles per hour. It is just a little scary at times.

Photo taken from ah_zut, Flickr

Well, I best get home and take a shower…I mean a “bucket bath.” There is no hot water so we heat up water in buckets and use a cup to rinse off. It is difficult to wash long hair in a bucket…but not all that different from camping. It is better than a cold shower!

Carrie Schramm is currently volunteering in Nepal. you can read more about her experiences on her blog. To plan your own adventure in Nepal, please visit our website.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-vInMvXNP8