I am taking a break from work- a seven week break, as a matter of fact.  I have always been interested in volunteering abroad and the planets aligned enough last fall to allow me to identify February and March 2012 as a good time to get away with minimum disruption.  I have been considering the idea of doing some kind of volunteer abroad activity for several years and have been researching what the possibilities are.  It turns out there are numerous international agencies, searchable on the internet, which specialize in hooking volunteers up with local organizations all over the world in need of help.  There are different levels of service that these international clearinghouses provide, from those that provide a full up bells and whistles cultural experience and excursions along with the volunteer placement to those that simply provide an introduction to the local agencies with no follow on support.  The price involved varies accordingly. There is a lot of information available and it can be overwhelming. (I have attached some links at the end of the blog for those who are interested in this kind of activity.)  But after lots of research and thought I identified a group called International Volunteer Headquarters (http://www.volunteerhq.org/ ) based out of New Zealand, as the group I wanted to work with.  They are reasonably priced and I liked their philosophy and how they approach their work.  Also they have connections in many other countries of interest to me potentially giving me an option to work with them in the future if the Peru experience turns out positive.

There are many different types of volunteer work available all over the world ranging from conservation, health issues, small business development, community development , environmental work, human rights work and general education needs, including teaching English.  As I was examining the variety of needs and skill sets requested for volunteers it was humbling to realize that even after decades of schooling, quite a lot of it advanced, in the physical sciences and engineering, I could not identify any directly transferrable skills which could be useful in helping people improve their daily lives. (Electrodynamics and quantum mechanics are not so useful on a daily basis, for example!)  So, I defaulted to teaching- I figured I could do that (I hope!).  For those of you that know me- I am not sure the ability to organize the “heck” out of something is directly useful, although maybe that particular skill could be indirectly useful someday- but since this is not a skill I learned in school I am not sure it counts towards my tally of useful educational-based knowledge anyway…..

During the planing stage when I was in the middle of all of the research not only did I have to find an organization to work with but also I had to identify where I wanted to go.  My travel list is long and it was tough to figure out how to narrow it down.  After all what do you do when you can go almost anywhere and there is no limit?  Weather played a big role as I did not want to go anywhere really cold. Originally I was juggling the merits of India, Nepal and Mongolia, all places that I would like to explore, and it crossed my mind that I have never visited the continent of South America.  I have been, once, to India and I knew that I would get back soon since I have friends living in New Delhi.  Hiking in Nepal and horseback riding in Mongolia are also on the list, but in general I had never made any concrete plans to visit straight south.  In the end I decided to fix that problem and do the volunteer stint in South America.  In addition I could learn Spanish at the same time which was also on my “to-do” list.  With still lots of places on that vast continent to consider I focussed on Peru.  I figured I could do volunteer work in Cusco as well as hike the Inca Trail and visit Machu Pichu and the Sacred Valley.

Map of Peru

So today I leave for my seven week adventure in Peru.  I am looking forward to it, not only because I will get to explore the country and have plenty of time to learn more about our neighbors to the south, but also because I will be stretching myself in a new and exciting way by putting myself in an entirely new environment.  New language, new type of work, new culture, new cuisine, new lifestyle– how will I react to the challenge?  What will I learn (besides Spanish, hopefully) about myself and life? What an adventure!!!!

The next seven weeks of blogs will be about my experiences in Peru.  I will have  a camera with me and hopefully will be posting a lot of pictures.  Stay tuned and share in my adventure!  Next entry will be when I get to Cusco.

A small list of places to look for international volunteer work follows. I am providing the list as a sample of what is available and not endorsing any one over the other. Some are expensive, others are not.  Actually simply typing in “international volunteering” in a search engine will bring up hundreds of organizations.  Another website to check in with is “idealist.org” for general information as well as volunteer opportunities.

International Volunteer HQ ((http://www.volunteerhq.org/ )

Global Citizen ( http://www.globalcitizen.us.com/ )

Care Corps  ( http://www.carecorps.org/ )

Volunteer for Peace  ( http://www.vfp.org/ )

ProWorld ( http://www.proworldvolunteers.org/ )

VSO (http://www.vsointernational.org/ )

United Planet ( http://www.unitedplanet.org/ )

i to i ( http://www.i-to-i.com/ )

Global Service Corps  (www.globalservicecorps.org/ )