Volunteer Experiences - Luke Parkhurst

The orphanage, the orphans, and all your experiences, will have a huge impact on you.

When I set off for the orphanage, I didn’t have much of an idea of what I was getting myself into. Early in the year I had been looking into setting up a home-stay in a Spanish speaking country so that I could improve my Spanish; when I received a link to Diane’s page, I got inspired. Here was a way that I could really immerse myself, and give back at the same time. I didn’t know a whole lot about the orphanage, except that Diane’s organization seemed pretty solid and that lots of great people were involved. One thing that I really liked about the program was that my fees were going straight to the orphanage. Orphan’s Hope Project isn’t a volunteer placement business that Diane runs, it’s a passion of hers that she maintains solely for the boys, she doesn’t pocket anything.

So, I showed up at the orphanage at 6:00 on a Saturday, and one of the medianos, Ozman, opened the gate for me. He showed me around a bit and then we played soccer until the morning food was prepared. I spent the day getting situated and going with some of the boys and another volunteer on a hike to a creek which we unsuccessfully tried to dam up (still lots of fun though). There is a room for male volunteers in between where the middle aged boys sleep and where the older boys live. However, I stayed in the “New House” on the top of the hill next to the chapel. This worked out really well for me. I enjoyed the opportunity to go up to my room and ‘get away’ when I needed to. Additionally, I’m vegetarian, and wound up cooking a lot of my own food - which I was able to do in the “New House” because it had its own stove. Downstairs this would have been a bit more difficult. I admire any one who’s able to go the orphanage and live on all the same food that the boys eat. I had originally planned to do this, but they serve a lot of meat, and my stomach couldn’t really handle a diet made up of 50% black beans (the alternative to meat). So, I wound up supporting the local economy a bit and purchasing my own stuff. I often had oatmeal with mangos and bananas in the morning (yum!). Pasta or embellished rice and beans (I’d grill up some sweet peppers, onions, garlic, and tomato, top with fresh avocado and lime and eat them with fresh tortillas) were my staples in the afternoon. I recommend trying to eat with the boys often. I began by eating with them all the time, but that gradually descended to the point where I would eat the majority of my meals on my own. The boys enjoy having the company. However, it is important to take care of yourself while you are there. If you tax your body and don’t eat well, you’ll get sick and then you’ll be a burden instead of a help. So, let yourself appreciate all the great cheap fruits and veggies they have for sale. I got to the point where I was eating about a mango a day! I felt a bit guilty about having ‘special’ food, but I was able to eat it on my own, out of sight and mind of the boys.

I don’t recommend giving out ‘treats’ to the boys, because then they will expect this from you. I was able to avoid this for the most part, but would still get asked by some of the boys for presents. I guess they’re used to special treatment from the volunteers. If you want to give out a present, save it for the end of your stay (so they don’t keep pestering you for more!), work it out with Karen, who’s the director of the orphanage, and make sure you get something for everyone.

A bit about the location: the orphanage is in the hills outside of Guatemala City, so you can see the city all lit up at night, but the nearby area is very simple, and relatively safe. The first two days of my visit I was at the orphanage the whole time because it was the weekend. I quickly got cabin fever. On Monday I walked with the boys to school and spent some time in Satelite using internet (there is internet at the orphanage, but it’s pretty dang slow), and getting some fruit. FYI - the market doesn’t really get going until more like 8:00-9:00, and the boys are dropped off around 7:15 for school. So, at first I was horrified to find that there wasn’t a single mango for sale anywhere, and sent a rather disappointed e-mail back home. But when I came out of the internet cafe, there were mangos, papayas and watermelons everywhere. You can also buy some things (like plantains, onions, and some fruit) in the village of Aguacate next to the orphanage, you just have to keep your eyes open because they are sold at the small family run tiendas. They aren’t as obvious like they are in the town of Satelite. You can also get your hair cut in Aguacate. Ask for Monica - her hair salon is at the back of her store, so it’s easy to miss. She charges a little less than $2.00 (15 quetzales). If you like to run, you can follow the route the boys take to school and then run back up (it’s about 4 miles round trip, with lots of climbing on the way back!), or you follow the main street into and through Aguacate, go up the hill (it’s steep!), take a left then a right and you’ll find yourself on a private road that passes by a different orphanage for infants, and many fancy houses with vicious looking dogs. The road extends for quite a ways until it hits a highway. I wasn’t a big fan of the dogs, but there’s no traffic up above, and it’s pretty safe because all the rich people have their private security guards. I wasn’t really able to find a ‘flat route’. I don’t recommend going on the street towards San Cristobal. Some of the locals go along this in the morning, but the micro-busses (old german VWs full of about 20 people) take this road and tend to spew noxious fumes, and don’t give you much room.

In terms of my experience as a volunteer, I had envisioned spending the mornings doing my own thing while the boys were in class, and helping them with school work in the afternoons. This wound up working pretty well. I would often go to Antigua in the morning by bus to take dance classes ($8/hour for private salsa classes!), then return in the afternoon and see who needed assistance with school work. Helping with school work was an eye opening experience. Most of the boys go to public school, with class sizes of 40+ in rooms that may not even have electricity. Many of them are far behind in their studies, and are given asinine assignments by their professors, requiring for example, that they write all the multiples of 5 between 1 and 500 - giving the boys the minds of robots, and making studies extremely boring. Other boys were in math classes trying to do long division without having developed a firm grasp of their times tables. They wanted to just finish their homework, but it was impossible for them to do their homework without their time tables, which can’t exactly be taught in an afternoon. So that was a bit depressing. There were however, a few boys on the cuspwho needed someone to encourage them and help them over stumbling blocks, but were able to do the work on their own. I really enjoyed working with them. I was asked to teach English classes early on in my stay, but nothing ever got set up until the very end. I needed someone from the staff to designate a time when we could have our classes so that the boys wouldn’t get called away to do something else when they were supposed to be studying with me, and this didn’t happen for a while. I should have been more insistent about them setting something up. I figured that if they really wanted me to teach the class, they would organize it. But they’re all very busy, and if you want to do something, you need to push for it. If you wind up establishing a class, I would recommend finding a smaller number of boys to teach instead of trying to teach them all. That way you will actually be able to make progress. The temptation is to want to help everyone, but if you were able to find a few people and make a real impact, I think that that would have the most lasting effect. To learn, they really need individual attention, and that’s very hard to do with a big group.

Karen, the director, is really good at getting donations, but they tend to get disorganized very quickly, and many of the donations appear fairly useless. There are rooms full of ‘junk’ that someone felt bad about throwing away so they sent it to the orphanage. There’s always the opportunity to try sifting through this stuff if you’ve got the patience for it. I actually enjoy organizing things at home but I burnt out really quickly at the orphanage. There’s so much garbage. I often wanted to just throw it all in a dumpster. If you ever plan to donate something, make sure it’s clean, complete, and if it’s clothing, folded. If Karen has extras of something, she’ll sell it for a very cheap price to the women in the village, or donate it to another orphanage, but it needs to be something that someone can use. Donations should not just be garbage that you feel guilty about throwing away because ‘someone somewhere might be able to use it’. If you wouldn’t want it, why would they? Nice shirts from breast cancer walks, etc., that you’ll never wear, are actually a good donation, especially if the shirt is colorful. However, the most popular items, of course, are one’s with logos like American Eagle or Nike. The older boys see the images in our media and want to look like Hollywood Stars too. There is plenty of ‘stuff’ there though. What the boys could really use, in my mind, are more adult staff from their own culture to give them more attention (having volunteers who flit in and out and don’t speak the language doesn’t really cut it). Three people for 60 boys is not enough. And that requires $$. Anyways, the main point of this paragraph was that if you’re down there, you’re going to witness this situation first hand, and my advice is to do what you can, but don’t feel guilty if you don’t feel like sifting through garbage. It seems like there will always be more.

One thing I should have done when I arrived, was to sit down with Karen and discuss what I could see myself doing to help out, and what she had in mind. Instead she sort of left me to my own devices, it was kind of ‘what do I feel like doing today?’, which meant there were days when I felt pretty useless.

On a whole, I was actually a bit disappointed with my volunteer experience - I didn’t feel like I contributed much. However, my main goal of learning a lot more Spanish and becoming well immersed in the culture was definitely met. Another volunteer was there from Honduras and we wound up spending a lot of time together. However, I knew that my fees were going to the orphanage, and they weren’t exactly spending much money on me. I was pretty much just occupying a bed, eating food (which the orphanage gets donated, and seems to have plenty of), using the laundry machine occasionally, burning some electricity, and going through a bit of toilet paper. Most everything else, including my cooking gas, I purchased myself. So, they were able to make some money from my stay, which could be used towards paying for school fees, teachers’ salaries, etc. I think the biggest impact wasn’t teaching the boys skills or anything of that nature, but simply becoming friends with some of them for a short while. I definitely recommend trying to pick up some Spanish while you’re there. I had some Spanish experience when I showed up, and it improved a lot. I used a verb workbook, which was very helpful (not a bad idea to bring something with you).

So, if you plan to go, be honest with yourself about your goals. If you want to organize stuff, and scrub floors, there will be plenty of work to be found. If you want to spend time with the boys, you’ll be able to do that, but it can get depressing. Make sure you bring a good book, and figure out some kind of way to call back home. In the past I haven’t been good about calling home while abroad, but there, it was invaluable being able to get some outside perspective. And if things are getting rough, treat yourself to a weekend away. Go with a tourist group from Antigua to Lake Atitlan, Tikal, or even just the beach. Eat well, and make the most of your situation. Even if you feel like you weren’t able to make a huge impact, the orphanage, the orphans, and all your experiences, will have a huge impact on you.

Luke Parkhurst

Hogar Miguel Magone Volunteer for 4 weeks

May/June 2009