How time flies! It feels like yesterday I was sitting in a host mother’s kitchen, eating rice and potatoes, explaining AMIGOS and what it might be like to host a volunteer. The host mother, Marta, was enthusiastic and determined to show me that she was up to the task. “Hay que cuidarle como nuestro propio hijo!” she repeated to me, we must care for him as we would care for our own child. I knew she would be an incredible host mother. Tuesday I sat in the same kitchen having a parallel conversation, this time looking back at the powerful experience of taking another person into your heart and home. Marta sat eating rice and potato soup and beaming at her adoptive daughter while she bragged to me about each of the special things they had done together. “Ella preparó una cena Americana para nosotros. Nos ayuda con los cuyes y las gallinas todos los días. ¡Estamos acostumbrados! ¡Es como nuestra hija ya, como la vamos a echar de menos!” As she spoke, tears rolled down Marta’s face (and shortly, mine).
In an organization focused on cultural exchange and development work, it is impossible to ignore the importance of personal relationships. I have returned to spend four summers with AMIGOS because the relationships I have built endure and continue to be meaningful to me. Watching Marta prepare to say goodbye reminded me of my first summer as a 16-year-old volunteer preparing to let go of what was then the most powerful experience of my life. No one prepared me to fall so deeply in love with the Panamanian lifestyle. No one prepared me to miss my family all summer long, only to arrive in Colorado missing my other family, the one I had left behind among the rolling hills and mango trees. I admire Marta’s courage to feel so deeply, to let the tears roll and tell anyone who would listen how much these 7 weeks have meant to her. Another part of me questions the ethics of our exchange. Who are we to bring in volunteers and snatch them away less than two months later? The director of one of our partner agencies asked me today if we were having a closing workshop for the host families, maybe with a therapist, to help them process saying goodbye to their volunteers. I explained that checking in about this was part of our evaluation process, but a part of me understood that nothing we do as AMIGOS truly prepares or softens the blow of saying goodbye. We have to hope that the experience is worth the pain of its conclusion. A friend once commented to me that she would never want to be an AMIGOS volunteer because she would never want to be as sad about losing an experience as I was when I first returned from Panama. And yet, she missed the point. Sadness when you loose something beautiful is worthwhile because it is filled with the underlying joy of having been lucky enough to have the experience in the first place. We all have our own versions of letting go in different moments of our lives. On my last night in community with the company of my volunteers, I was struck by the power of my personal journey with AMIGOS and the joy of finding new homes scattered across the world. I don’t know where my next steps will lead me, but I could feel the power of that moment. Hoping to capture something of my transition, I jotted down the following haiku. Last night on route Bittersweet, alive. Deep breath Step into the new. Wishing you beautiful experiences to keep you focused, alive, and to be worth the sharp pains of goodbye.
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I am baffled by how quickly the time has gone -- I’m already one month into my summer in Cajamarca with AMIGOS! Perhaps it’s because each day is filled with new (and often unexpected) challenges. In the month I’ve been here I’ve:
• Furnished and decorated a staff house for 9 people (including building a “Love Nest” for snuggling and fixing the hot water after 4 weeks of cold showers!) • Planned and implemented two 5-day trainings (supervisor training and volunteer briefing) • Visited communities to see if they wanted AMIGOS volunteers, surveyed communities to ensure a good fit, and prepared communities for volunteer arrival (host families, meal plans, emergency evacuation procedures, completing community profile information packets) • Coordinated transportation, lodging, and food for volunteers and staff in multiple cities • Filled out countless forms and paperwork • Responded to medical emergencies and taken volunteers to the clinic • Brainstormed solutions to every day (and more intense) challenges of volunteers and supervisors • Gone to the discoteca and sang karaoke with friends from Enseña Peru • Wandered the streets of Cajamarca, found awesome new restaurants and enjoyed the constantly evolving streetscape of political graffiti, vendors and people watching That list makes me proud, but also feels deceptive. Yes, I completed each of those tasks, but never alone. The incredible challenge and joy of AMIGOS, and so many other worthwhile endeavors, is that every day is full of give and take, sharing tasks among a crew of capable, thoughtful, busy people. My team in Cajamarca holds me together, keeps me focused, and knows when to push me to the next level and when to jump in to hold my hand. Not that we’re perfect. Learning how to best support the people around us is the journey of a lifetime and navigating the ups and downs of 9 staff members’ lives (not to mention our 56 volunteers) is a rewarding challenge. AMIGOS philosophy relies on the principles of teamwork when they allow young, inexperienced people to attempt to catalyze community development. It doesn’t train volunteers to complete any project the community might desire, but instead focuses on giving volunteers and local youth the tools to identify strengths within a community, develop teams, and mobilize people. The ultimate metric of success is not production of goods or services, but the attitudes and energy of teams within communities to invest in what matters most to them. Some would argue that this isn’t community development, but developing human capacity on a community level is the first step to effective infrastructure. AMIGOS is about developing leaders, inspiring people to create change, and bringing people together across cultures, languages and backgrounds. At best, we recognize ourselves and our teammates as the human tools needed to invest in meaningful development. ¡Saludos desde Cajamarca, Perú! I’ve been in Cajamarca two weeks as of today, working as a Senior Project Supervisor (or coordinadora) with Amigos de las Américas. This is my fourth summer working with Amigos, an organization that seeks to develop young leaders through cross-cultural exchange and small-scale community development projects. I’m back this summer because I have had incredible experiences of personal growth and deep relationships on Amigos, and because I believe that empowering youth to create change in their own communities is more sustainable (and fun) than infrastructural projects or injections of aid.
Amigos has a multi-layered leadership structure: volunteers live in rural communities, collaborating with local youth to develop community-based projects and facilitate extracurricular activities with children; supervisors spend one night each week visiting 3 or 4 communities, supporting their volunteers emotionally and logistically; senior staff manages larger project goals, supports supervisors and volunteers, and coordinates directly with Latin American partner organizations that work in each of our communities. In Cajamarca, we are working with Enseña Peru (a branch of Teach For All), PRODIA (a public health/development org.), Plan International (a children’s rights org.) and CEDEPAS Norte (a Peruvian development/citizenship/entrepreneurship org.). My job this summer is open-ended. I am directly supervising one community, but the majority of my time is dedicated to supporting the staff team, organizing logistics, and communicating with our four partner agencies. I am really excited to be taking on more leadership opportunities and a more managerial role as part of senior staff, but it’s certainly an adjustment from being in communities with volunteers 5 days a week as a supervisor. This summer I hope to be happy, connected, and challenged. I want to actively promote a supportive and productive staff and volunteer community while developing friendships with leaders of our partner agencies and communities. On a more professional level, I hope to develop my networking skills and professionalize my Spanish by leading meetings with partner agencies and communicating professionally in writing. I hope to develop my delegation skills as I navigate taking on additional responsibilities and finding ways to empower other members of my team. I also hope to gain competence coordinating large-scale logistics of moving and caring for 60 volunteers and supporting my associate project director, Cara, in managing the project budget. I am excited to spend time discussing approaches to development with each of our partner agencies informally and professionally – particularly considering ways to inspire and empower young people in rural areas. Within Cajamarca, I am especially interested in learning more about how the conflict related to contamination from the Yanacocha mining corporation impacts rural and urban areas. The mines affect many of the communities we are working in, and though we (as Amigos) do not participate politically, it is amazing to see how each community finds small ways to stand up for their rights to uncontaminated water and land. Though I will be living in Valencia, Spain next year, I intend to stay connected with BUILD as much as possible. I hope that my experiences with Amigos help me to ground my understanding of different approaches to development in the specific experiences with different partner NGOs in Cajamarca, and that a deeper understanding of the context of this particular city and region can deepen my understanding of the challenges to development and public health initiatives across Latin America. |
Paige TweedyPaige is a Senior Project Supervisor with Amigos de las Américas. This is her fourth summer working with Amigos, an organization that seeks to develop young leaders through cross-cultural exchange and small-scale community development projects. ArchivesCategories |