Whether traveling for pleasure or for any of his other endeavors, especially the Asante Kenyan Charity, Brendan Harding has taken (in his words) “snapshots of life in different places” and written about them. He is a writer, graphic designer, activist, singer in a band and all around “good guy” Check him out!

© Gretchen for TravelBlogs, 2010. | Brendan Harding’s Trivial World of Travel | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: activism, Africa, cultural experiences, Europe, Ireland, photography, solo travel, volunteer work, writer

On The Streets Of Mumbai

There’s a street just around the corner and down the footpath from the Churchgate train station. I couldn’t tell you the address of this place, but I could describe it as bordering one of Mumbai’s several maidens, or grass malls, and housing a line of cheap clothing stalls. It doesn’t much matter the address, as Mumbaikers generally describe locations based on what they’re across from or next to. A result of being a city in two languages, I imagine. And I’m certain the families who live on this street – who’ve lived on this street, up against the surrounding fences and in the nearby gullies for the past 40 years – don’t have any need for an actual address.

It doesn’t much matter the address, as Mumbaikers generally describe locations based on what they’re across from or next to. A result of being a city in two languages, I imagine.

The streets of Bombay smell of warm piss and cooling feces. This isn’t surprising given that over 14 million Indians call the city home. With more people per square kilometer than any other city in the world, Bombay (re-named Mumbai in 2006) is over 14 times more populous than New York City. And Americans wonder why Asians have a different sense of personal space.

It’s impossible to step foot out of a Mumbai house (and often even inside one) without tripping over some form of humanity. There are hapless businessmen dressed in slacks and long-sleeve Oxford shirts, unaware that other parts of the world practice a thing called short sleeves in this kind of heat. There are hordes of schoolchildren: girls with thick, shiny, black plaited hair and boys with varying levels of pre-pubescent acne. There are beggars who wheel themselves on small wooden boards, reminiscent of the yellow plastic scooters I played with as a child in elementary school physical education. There are hawkers – half of them children – who’ve ascertained my need for a coloring book or to have my shoes polished (He ends up polishing my sandal and half of my foot) and are relentless in convincing me of this fact. I search and search but the dogs asleep on the pavement and the rats dead in the gutters outnumber any other white person I see. And I see lots of people.

The Encounter

“How old are you?” I ask in slow English, crouched down on my haunches as if I were an Indian myself. She wobbles her head like Indians do, the whites of her eyes large in the glow of the stall lights. The Indian head wobble can mean any of a thousand things, but in this case it indicates shyness and her lack of understanding. “You”, I articulate again, touching my finger to her tiny chest. Four? Five? I hold up my fingers, clean and white.

My guide translates my question into Hindi and the little girl holds up six fingers. “She says she’s six”, my guide reiterates, “but I think she’s five”, and I wonder if anyone at all knows this little girl’s actual date of birth.

I pull my camera from my backpack and, in the international language of I Don’t Speak Yours, state my request to take the little girl’s photo. With the aid of technology, shyness melts into the heat of the evening, and little hands clamber up my sides, groping for the glow of a screen that has captured her image. Her fingers are dry and grimy and she smells of dust and petrol fumes. Her hair is slightly matted and her teeth gleam white against her dark skin. She continues to play my body like a jungle gym until, at last, she flops down onto a pile of plastic bags and begins unwrapping a tinfoil ball, which, I find, contains the Indian bread, roti. I don’t know the address of where I am in the dark heat of Mumbai, but I know now why I’ve come.

Editors notes:
Hannah Barth is currently in India volunteering for Hamara Footpath. This grassroots organization combines education with playtime activities and is designed around the city’s street children. Their goal: Give a child the tools to reclaim their childhood. (Hannah will be on the move again in the near future.)
All photos are courtesy of the author: Hannah Barth

© Gretchen for TravelBlogs, 2010. | Through the Lens: A Snapshot of Mumbai | 14 comments |
Post categories: Articles
Post tags: children, cultural experiences, India, Mumbai, volunteer work

Lola Akinmade combines her professions as a photojournalist, travel writer and volunteer worker with her personal experiences while on the road. Follow her journeys through her beautiful photographs and vibrant commentary at Geotraveler’s Niche.

© Gretchen for TravelBlogs, 2010. | Geotraveler’s Niche | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: cultural experiences, photography, travel writer, volunteer work

Two Stops Past Siberia is a mix of personal letters to family/friends, blog entries, bonus content and a whole lot more. Carl Beien, a Peace Corps volunteer in Kyrgyzstan, takes you from “big city” life to “small village” living via the written word.

© Gretchen for TravelBlogs, 2010. | Two Stops Past Siberia | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: Asia, cultural experiences, education, Kyrgyzstan, Peace Corps, volunteer work

© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2009. | Travel Guy | 3 comments |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Ecuador, South America, teaching English, volunteer work, volunteering, voluntourism

In a time when voluntourism – the act of travelling to volunteer, or volunteering to travel – is becoming big business, there is one question I keep coming back to: Does voluntourism help the people who are supposedly being served, or is it primarily for the benefit of the volunteer?

It’s the question I asked Brian Hermon about his volunteer work in Ghana; and it’s the same question I asked Chris Guillebeau, who also volunteered for a time in Africa.

And now Stephen Greenwood. Last year, Stephen spent five months living in Tanzania, shooting footage for a documentary and film about an orphanage in Arusha, a city in northern Tanzania. His blog, Observations, is a treasure chest of insightful snippets, beautiful photos and probing questions. After spending an afternoon browsing through, I asked Stephen to share more about his experiences in Tanzania.

What were you doing in Tanzania?

Half of the time that systematic international aid is distributed, it doesn’t end up in the right places.

I was living in Tanzania for 5 months, doing various documentary video work with Non Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) in the Arusha area.

After graduating from university in June, I received an invitation from a classmate, to go to Tanzania. Our job was to shoot video for a nonprofit that began construction on an orphanage in July. We lived at that site and covered the day-to-day operations for them to use as promotional material, and ended up shooting what we hope to be a feature length documentary on a related subject.

When you first came to Tanzania, what were you hoping to achieve?

As a volunteer, I didn’t really have many expectations or much knowledge about foreign aid work before my arrival, but I was eager to learn about it through experience. I went into it with an open mind, hoping to meet and interact with as many people as we could along the way.

As a photojournalist (and I think this is true for any journalists that travel) – I wanted to meet as many people as possible, and carry their stories with me to share with the rest of the world. I think we were able to do that and I hope that we do get the chance to share some of those stories through the documentary that we are now editing.

You shared the heartbreaking story of Amina and her 3-year old daughter Shamin, both of whom have been infected with the AIDS virus. How have experiences like that affected your world view?

It’s hard, because that was the first time I’d come face to face with this epidemic that we hear about so much in the media. I had a good friend that tried desperately to help Amina by placing her in a facility that would encourage healthy lifestyle choices, and several times she ran away. I think that was the hardest part, because here you had someone who was genuinely trying to put her on the right path to receive treatment that would allow her to live longer, and she was rejecting it for the lifestyle of the streets. However, I believe that Shamin (her daughter) is now in good care at the facility and will continue to receive treatment. 

Shamin is one of the most lively and witty 3-year olds that I’ve ever met, and that’s the hard part – knowing that she’ll inevitably suffer from choices that were out of her control.

Shamin is one of the most lively and witty 3-year olds that I’ve ever met, and that’s the hard part – knowing that she’ll inevitably suffer from choices that were out of her control. There’s absolutely no reasoning that can explain that.

I would say that this experience, combined with others that I had in Tanzania affected my worldview greatly. It provided a context to suggest that no matter how bad you want to help someone, real change can only come to the willing. Half of the time that systematic international aid is distributed, it doesn’t end up in the right places. If government doesn’t change from within -if the people who are running the country care more about their personal gain than the improvement of their country, then how much progress can one expect from foreign intervention?

How much can foreigners realistically achieve as volunteers in Tanzania? 

I think that it really depends on the organization that they are volunteering with, and the length of their stay. Obviously those that can stay for an extended period will get to know the area and be able to understand the needs of the people more, but no one can expect to come and change a village by themselves. This shouldn’t be the focus. Our focus as volunteers should be if anything, to try and make an impact on one life. If everyone made significant change in just one person, it would be greater progress than attempting to help many people in a small way.

I think this is what’s wrong with many foreign aid projects. Often people with great intentions start organizations and have dreams of changing an entire country or region. These goals are unattainable. Instead, people should be searching for things that already work well in foreign communities, and using international resources to amplify those great local ideas.

A while ago, you posted this quote about international aid by Pete Brierly on your blog: “The thing is, helping people has become fashionable – where as it used to be just good old-fashioned people, helping.”

How much truth do you think there is in that statement? Is this shift necessarily a bad thing?

I think that this truth is evident when pride gets in the way of progress. In Arusha, I saw a lot of ‘competition’ between NGO’s. This isn’t true of all organizations in the area, but there are a few that aren’t interested in partnering with the others, because they believe that they know the best way to tackle the problems that Arusha faces. I don’t understand this. If it’s really about helping, there should be endless interaction between these overlapping groups.

The first thing that a new organization should do is contact organizations that are already in the area, to draw upon their knowledge & resources and to ideally form a working partnership. I fear that foreigners trying to ‘do something’ for various kind of attention back at home is becoming more common, and that it becomes a distraction from why they are there in the first place.

Just before the US election, you posted about how Tanzanians were filled with hope at the prospect of Barack Obama becoming president. Now that he’s president, what do you think is the number one thing Barack Obama could do to improve the lives of Tanzanians?

Fair trade.

After reading various opinions on the way forward for international aid, I personally believe that the smartest and most immediate thing that Americans can do is to promote fair trade laws.

American taxpayers are over-subsidizing agricultural products like cotton, which allows farming corporations to sell their cotton to African nations for less than those nations can farm it. Africa has been left out of many international trade decisions in the past few decades, because they don’t have much pull in the economic community. If we insist on educating ourselves more about this, and bring change domestically that the rest of the developed world can follow, then African nations will have a chance at developing their own economies – which is more valuable in the long run then most of the systematic aid that the west distributes.

One of the first books that got me thinking about this was Aid and Other Dirty Business by Giles Bolton – I’d recommend it as a starting point for those that are interested.

© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2009. | The Value of Voluntourism: Interview with Stephen Greenwood | 6 comments |
Post categories: Interviews
Post tags: aid, Tanzania, volunteer work, voluntourism

Waiting for the rain. Timbuktu, Mali. Photo by Luis Dafos.

All it took was a nun.

The flight from New York City to Paris and on to Benin was about as uneventful as flights go; maybe half an hour of turbulence and two complimentary glasses of cognac rocked the entire sixteen hours of travel. Until I landed in Benin, the only thing eventful that had happened to me was that, despite my best efforts, I thoroughly and completely lost an armrest war to my left-hand neighbor, who seemed to consider that his window-seat ticket also bought him a controlling share in the adjacent aisle seat.

Given that he was approximately double my size (you will see…this promises to be a recurring theme), I’m surprised I lasted as long as I did—which, to be fair, was only about 27 minutes. I had little choice but to become intimately familiar with the contralateral armrest, and each passing, just-wide-enough-to-make-you-rue-elbows, duty-free-stocked beverage cart propelled by plastic smiles.

All this changed, though, on arrival at Cotonou’s Cadjehoun airport. Miles more developed than Monrovia’s airport, Cadjehoun has regimented lines with regimented passport agents sitting at actual, regimented desks behind actual, regimented plastic, with actual stamps, making actual, official, stamp-like sounds.

It’s a thin veneer.

Evidently passport confiscations are de rigeur here; my kindly, smiling, official-sounding passport agent conveniently “couldn’t find” my passport after she sent me aside to fill out an arrivals form (the first attempt being deemed subpar). She was sure she’d given it back to me. I must have just misplaced it.

My refusal to believe her led to a swift surrounding by three other very kindly and official-sounding passport agents, reminding me that—don’t you know?—they were police officers and would be sure to deal with me as police officers do, merci beaucoup. Thankfully, the bluster didn’t last long, and some well-placed obstreporousness aided the magical reappearance of my passport.

A little shaken, I got my hands on one of a number of freely-roaming luggage carts and settled into the throng of people waiting for suitcases. Apparently, I chose poorly, because, of all the passengers, with all their luggage carts, I was singled out.

“That’s my cart,” someone behind me said.

I saw no reason to believe him, and, admittedly, told him so.

“You use my cart, you pay me,” he protested.

This went on for a few parries, just long enough to settle the matter peaceably, without the exchange of either money or fisticuffs. But, unfortunately, also long enough to infuriate a thrice-as-large-as-me passenger from my flight (who, incidentally, happened to be friends with my armrest mate). He turned around, sheer anger on his face, took my two bags and proceeded to hurl them to the floor with as much force as he could muster (which was a lot).

As if this wasn’t dramatic enough, he then began screaming at me, his words mostly drowned out in the shower of spittle I found myself under. When he started pushing—hard—a small British nun in a grey habit stepped between us. For this, I’ll one day get to thank her.

After my erstwhile attacker had returned to his conversation with my erstwhile armrest antagonist, she turned to me, said, “They do things a little differently here,” and quickly disappeared into the throng.

Evidently.

Leaving Mopti for Timbuktu, Mali. Photo by Luis Dafos.

Why do this? Why dodge the near-blows of irate Beninese men? After all, we all have our share of near-miss travel stories. Is it simply wanderlust? Dopamine imbalance? An irrepressible search for better and better stories?

I think the answers are deeper. I volunteer for a humanitarian medical organization, as a surgeon on-board the world’s largest charity hospital ship and part of a crew of 400 strong that provides medical and surgical care to the populations of some of the poorest nations in the world. We come from all over the world, representing 35 countries, and we all come with that expressed purpose: to bring hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor.

You think differently, act differently, and hope differently when you’ve experienced the world.

Travel has been in my blood for as long as I can remember, and all travel teaches you to look at the world differently. You order your Starbucks differently when you’ve been to coffee plantations. You watch movies differently when you’ve been to the countries they portray. You hear music differently when it evokes nostalgia for places you’ve been. You think differently, act differently, and hope differently when you’ve experienced the world.

But this sort of travel—this is singular. Entering into the world of another changes you more deeply than I could ever have imagined. I spent five months in 2008 aboard the same ship, in Liberia. I met patients with long-neglected tumors deforming their countenances beyond recognition. I met children with diseases which we in the West give no second thought to—but which, there, became near-certain death sentences. But I also met the smiles and the laughter and the hugs and the tears of people who were just as real, just as broken, and just as hopeful as any you would ever meet. Back then, I wrote this:

Their faces were fantastically deformed by Brobdingnagian tumors, scarred expressionless by burns, and bandaged beyond recognition. They jumped, shuffled, and shook, with their trachs, their crutches, their legs casted into immobility. They danced, amputated. They sang, voiceless. They smiled, scarred.

In the middle of all of us westerners who sheepishly ringed the edges, this was the church of the outcast, the shunned, the spurned, the grotesque. This was the congregation of the sideshow.

And it was beautiful.

So it was, for that beauty, that I found myself in Benin this year, saved only by the grace of a diminutive nun. And my first night back, standing on the top deck of the ship, watching the water and breathing the diesel-laden African air, I’d come home.

© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2009. | Why We Travel: Mark Shrime’s Story | 3 comments |
Post categories: Articles
Post tags: Benin, medical volunteering, volunteer work, voluntourism, why we travel

I was conducting a voluntourism workshop not so long ago. Some participants were new to voluntourism and wanted to learn more, some were already semi-veterans of several volunteer tours of duty and wanted to learn how to “do-it-yourself” on a budget. But a couple of participants were rather disgruntled and unhappy former volunteers. They came to complain, though to no one in particular and voice their concerns.

They said they had followed all voluntouring instructions they’d read about to the letter and yet had been totally disappointed with their volunteering experiences. We sat down to chat after the workshop and one thing became immediately apparent. “Nobody told us that before,” they said. “If they had, maybe we would have enjoyed it more,” they said, “and maybe we would have chosen better.”

No, they did not end up with a crooked voluntour operator. Their provider arranged exactly what was promised. So what went wrong? Nothing really. Except for the participants’ initial choice of work.

One aspect of voluntouring that few, if any at all, prospective volunteers consider is thinking long and hard about the type of work they want to, or can, do.

One aspect of voluntouring that few, if any at all, prospective volunteers consider is thinking long and hard about the type of work they want to, or can, do. Let’s face it, working with homeless slum children sounds like fun, but it’s not for everyone. You’d need loads of patience. You’d need to be immune to sometimes very painful sights of human misery. You’d need to be prepared psychologically to deal with the after-effects this type of work will have on you. Because trust me, it will affect you in ways you can’t
even imagine right now.

So, let’s say you want to work with animals. A monkey sanctuary sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Not if you wear eyeglasses. The animals are sweet and cute and all that, but some of them like to snatch things. And that includes glasses. So bring a few extra pairs and don’t complain later on if they go missing. Or switch to contact lenses.

Big cats sound like fun too, right? But to work with them you’d need to be a calm, patient quiet person. There is a difference between an animal sanctuary and a zoo, and oddly enough, many volunteers are surprised when they find that out.

Can you handle backbreaking, physical labor? No? Then maybe volunteering on an organic farm cooperative or signing up for a construction project is not a good idea. And it might be an especially bad idea if you have back or joint problems.

Many prospective volunteers are so focused on finding an opportunity within their budgets (most volunteer placement services are ridiculously expensive) or are so set on going to their dream destinations (it’s Kenya or bust) that they tend to forget about another very important part of the process – selecting the right type of work for THEM.

What might have been just perfect for your cousin Larry or best friend Yvonne might be less than ideal for you. Yvonne might have majored in Early Education and taken classes in Psychology, and cousin Larry might be an unfulfilled biologist. You, on the other hand, may have a totally different set of skills and interests. Yet those skills and interests frequently go ignored when it comes to choosing a volunteer placement.

Unfortunately ignoring your skills and interests, as well as your psychological strengths and weaknesses, can (and will) mean the difference between an enjoyable voluntour and a month of hell.

So, if you are seriously thinking about doing good deeds and volunteering, please equally seriously consider details other than just your budget.

© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2009. | Voluntourism: Choosing the Right Placement For You | 8 comments |
Post categories: Articles
Post tags: DIY voluntourism, volunteer work, volunteering, voluntourism

Find a need. Fill a need.

For many of us there comes a point in life, when you take pause, look around and realize we have it pretty good. It’s that moment when you discover that no matter how many points the Dow has dropped, or how high gas prices have become, we still live like kings and queens compared to a lot of people in the world. Then comes the wave of guilt, compassion, inspiration – whatever it is that moves a person to say: “ I want to do something. I, (insert full name here), want to make a difference.”

This is probably the biggest step: realizing that we can, even should, make a difference. But then, after that beautiful, humbling moment of self-realization where we decide YES (I am going to change the world!), comes the more complicated and often de-motivating, “how.” This step, as it turns out, is even more difficult than first.

After that beautiful, humbling moment of self-realization where we decide YES, comes the more complicated and often de-motivating, “how.”

Volunteering is a broad term. It can be as simple or complicated as you like. It can mean anything from picking up trash, to serving bread at a soup kitchen, to serving on the front lines for a country you love. You don’t have go anywhere to do it, but if you’re like me and would rather travel than stay home, the opportunities are endless.

From the first time I flew at the age of 3 and fell in love with my flight attendant, I have loved to travel, to see new places, and meet new people. However, the more I’ve traveled, the more I’ve been haunted by that motivating whisper to make a difference in this world. So one day, standing hip deep in the corporate world of sales and marketing, I decided the time had come. Despite a new promotion and other promising job offers, I quit. I left my job, and at the tender age of 30 years, joined an old college friend on 33’ sailboat adventure around the world.

I had never sailed a day in my life, but I had traveled, and I wanted this trip to be more than just vacation. So, days before I left, a friend and I designed a website. The idea was simple: I would raise money on my website-all of which would go towards needs I saw and projects I volunteered with along the way. Then through the website I would blog about everything. Through video, picture and word, I would raise awareness and hopefully money, and those giving could (literally) watch their dollars work.

It was sort of a pipe dream at the beginning, but contrary to many skeptics, it actually worked. And, a simple idea for grassroots humanitarian work has since moved past the bow of the boat. Money was raised and needs were met. Orphans were given clothing and supplies for school. Prisoners were given books to study and seeds to plant. We even raised enough money to buy one charming, less fortunate man a prosthetic leg and the doctor’s appointments to support it.

“Find a need. Fill a need.” Photo by Derek Turner.

Five tips to help you find volunteer opportunities

Still, how and where do you begin? There are needs everywhere, but it can be hard to know where to start. Fortunately, there is no one right answer, but I’ve learned a few things since I began:

1. Contact Before Contact: If you’ve never been to a place and would like to get involved, the best thing you can do is find someone who’s been. Ask around. Try to find a contact who is already plugged in. If you don’t mind letting someone else call the shots, there are a number of volunteer companies that can organize your entire trip. On occasion they’ll at least provide a name or email. Personally, I started with Facebook. Asking friends or friends of friends for advice, usually (or eventually) I found someone in the country I was headed for. Not only can they help you find a project, they can help find the bus station.

2. Watch and Learn: The more you know about a culture, the more you’ll understand their true needs. If you can, learn about the culture before you visit. Read about their history, their current situation. This will also help you relate to people you may not have much in common with. But even if you enter a country, without a contact or prior information, you’ll learn a lot just by watching.

3. Ask Around: As simple as it is, nothing has paid off for me more than this. It doesn’t take long to spot a malnourished boy or a girl with no shoes, but some problems are hidden. I knew there were children with needs in the Dominican Republic, I didn’t realize children had to meet certain uniform requirements to go to school. I also would have never learned about “Viejito” (the man without a leg), had I not simply asked around a community for people with need. Even the “Tourist Information” may be able to point you in the right direction.

4. Be Flexible (in action and idea): Even if you know the project beforehand, you may be asked to do something that to you seems unimportant. Be prepared to be insignificant. Not all jobs are glamorous and often times you will be behind the scenes where neither you nor your work are obvious… And that’s ok.

5. Be Cautious: Remember that in most places, especially those with heavy need, you will be viewed as wealthy. Compared to them, you are. There is a chance when you start offering help, you will be bombarded with requests. Use discretion. I always try to respectfully verify with a second or third, unrelated source.

You know that bumper sticker you see on the back of VW buses that says “Practice random acts of kindness”? Well I don’t have dreadlocks, and I’ve never lived in a commune, but I think it’s true. I’m convinced that most things in life are self-perpetuating, which is why when someone does something nice (or not nice) to us, we in turn are moved to also do something nice (…or not nice) to someone else. You might change the world. You might find and fill some need so vital it affects an entire culture. Or you might just hammer a nail that holds a humble home for someone who’s less fortunate. You might just buy a guy a sandwich. I’m not saying you quit your job, and live on a boat, not all of us can do that. But everyone can do something.

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2008. | How You Can Change the World Through Volunteer Work | 8 comments |
Post categories: Articles
Post tags: activisim, change the world, DIY voluntourism, volunteer work, volunteering, voluntourism

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2007. | Hope and Healing | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: Africa, couples, Liberia, medical volunteering, volunteer work, voluntourism