Work Work Work Work Work

“Do you even work?” or “what do you do for work” are probably the most frequent questions I get from friends and family back home. Yes, it’s hard to believe but I actually do work. I have been in Puerto Lopez for a year now which proves to be the time where most Peace Corps Volunteers have the busiest and most productive portion of their service (can this be my excuse for why I haven’t written?). It may seem like a long time, a year, before things really get started but bear with me and it will make sense.

Puerto Lopez is a highly attractive place for foreigners to come and do some type of “volunteerism”. What is volunteerism? All in all it is a way to travel and also give back. Most of these volunteerism stints last around a month long. 30 days, that’s all you have. Most volunteers come already with an idea of what they want to do in Puerto Lopez without even knowing the community. And if you don’t come with an idea of what you want to do, in 30 days you throw together a poorly planned project during your time here. After 30 days, they leave and a new volunteer comes. They haven’t left any notes for the previous volunteer because they are rushing to try to finish their project. The new volunteer comes to find a project nearly finished but too unfinished to understand its’ purpose. Therefore, that project is thrown in a garage, a folder, or just left there to stare at you without knowing what to do with it. And the people of Puerto Lopez are left with hundreds of unfinished, useless projects. This leads to about 10 percent sustainability in volunteerism projects.

Peace Corps volunteers are encouraged to get to know their community for at least three months before starting any single project. We spend this time doing surveys, talking with community members and leaders, and getting to know what the community thinks is important. From there we begin planning and implementing projects but it takes a lot of trial and error. For example, I started a youth group during summer vacation. It was splendidly, until summer vacation was over. Then no one showed up because a majority of the youth were in classes at the time our group was held. We changed the time to earlier in the day, but it was still during the school week. Only about three children started showing up. We found out it was because kids thought they had too much work during the week with school and couldn’t have time for the group during the week. So we moved the group to the weekend and we now have more participants than we did during summer vacation.

Working like this and for an extended period of time also increases sustainability. You partner with a community leader and really understand the community. Instead of giving the community what you THINK they need, you are doing what they have told you they need. Before coming to the Peace Corps I had zero experience in sexual education.  However, in my community teenage pregnancy is a serious problem and girls get pregnant as young as 12. My community expressed sexual education as a need. And so that is what I am working in. Obviously it took a lot more preparation on my end, but it was what the community wanted and needed. Because the community is invested in this and you have spent time planning, the project is more sustainable. This is a mentality very different from many other volunteerism projects.

So to answer your question, here are some examples of what I do here for work:

  • Facilitating a 10-week course in high school classrooms on gender, leadership, self-esteem, bullying, and values. The course has been completed in three classrooms and I am now working on three more.
  • Club LEAD is a new youth group for Clara Luna that focuses on leadership and youth involvement in their community. The Club has youth ages 14-18 and meets once a week.
  • GLOW Camp 2017; yes, planning is already in progress for our second GLOW camp in Manabi. This was my favorite thing I have done as a volunteer and cannot wait to get started again.
  • This past week I have worked on a family planning campaign where I am working in high school classrooms teaching family planning. The session tends to bring out a lot of giggles.

And sometimes work for a Peace Corps volunteer includes spending time with people. Getting to know Ecuadoreans. Sharing food or beers with friends. Dancing until I can’t feel my feet. Spending countless hours playing football in the street. And that is considered work, how lucky.

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