Volunteer Abroad Blog

I arrived in Costa Rica like any volunteer probably will - nervous and excited.  At the airport, I was relieved when I saw my new colleague, Meaw, holding a sign with my name on it.  She took me to my host family in San Ramon where I met my host mother, Dona Yolanda, and host sister, Montserrat.  Dona Yolanda was extremely friendly and I knew that with four children, this household would offer interesting insight into the Costa Rican version of my own family in the US.

The next day, I received an orientation like all new volunteers do when they arrive.   Meaw led me on a tour of downtown San Ramon, and for my first taste of Costa Rican coffee and pastel de yuca y carne - an amazing lasagna-looking mound of savory pie with bubbling cheese on top.   We did some window-shopping and visited the lush central park and main church – by far the biggest building in town.  You can quickly orient yourself no matter where you are by looking up to find the church or the tall trees of the park.   My host mother cooked me a delicious dinner – soup with plantains and salad with cilantro and avocado – and then we watched the finale of the Costa Rican version of American Idol together.  You will realize that, like many places in the world, talent competition shows are very popular in Costa Rica.

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Author: Sarah Hackman

The past few weeks have been a very busy and exciting time for uVolunteer. With new projects in countries around the world and the continued influx of volunteers to San Ramon, the staff has its hands full. In addition to the normal daily tasks, uVolunteer has moved its office to central San Ramon, in close proximity to the volunteer dorm and many of the volunteer projects. Volunteers and staff have been helping set up the new location, getting everything in order so that uVolunteer can continue to send volunteers to projects in need of assistance. In addition to a change in location, there have also been several staff changes in the past month. I have joined the uVolunteer staff as a part time Marketing Intern and Hannah Gregory, another current volunteer, is training to become the new Enrollment Officer. Run by and staffed with former volunteers, uVolunteer provides a personal volunteer experience. uVolunteer is continuing this objective in its new office with new and long time staff members. San Ramon remains uVolunteer’s most popular project location. Having the office in this location allows the staff and volunteers to have a personal relationship. With the combination of the staff, fellow volunteers, the volunteer projects and the San Ramon community as well as being in close proximity to some of the greatest places in Costa Rica, it is easy to see why volunteers who come to San Ramon have such a wonderful experience. As uVolunteer continues to expand, it has maintained this personal approach to volunteering in its projects offered around the world.

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uVolunteer celebrated its third birthday this past Saturday, November 7th! The anniversary party took place at the San Ramon volunteer house where twelve volunteers are currently living. Everyone helped prepare a delicious barbeque dinner for the event. uVolunteer staff members, including uVolunteer’s founder, Nathaniel Amponsah - Manu, were present for the celebration. The uVolunteer staff expressed its humble appreciation for all current and past volunteers and employees. Also present were two local volunteers, University of Costa Rica students who help with the community English classes project. The joint effort of the uVolunteer staff, volunteers and the San Ramon community has helped in the success of uVolunteer and its projects. In its three short years as a company, uVolunteer has grown tremendously. uVolunteer has come a long way since sending its first volunteer to Samara, Costa Rica. Now based in San Ramon, Costa Rica, the company offers projects in eleven countries and counting. As more projects are introduced in various countries around the world, uVolunteer has continued to keep its personal and affordable approach to volunteering. uVolunteer is excited to expand on what it has accomplished in the past three years and is looking forward continuing to help the communities in need around the world!

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My name is Sarah Hackman and I am currently volunteering in San Ramon, Costa Rica with uVolunteer.  I will be taking  Fei An’s spot in the UVolunteer office in San Ramon. Fei was such an important part of uVolunteer and we are all sad to see her go, but I am looking forward to picking up where she left off in the office, particularly with this blog! This week is my twelfth in Costa Rica. The days have been flying by! After graduating from the University of Virginia in May I decided to volunteer abroad for a year. After much research I decided on uVolunteer and Costa Rica, and it has been a perfect fit so far. I arrived in Costa Rica for the first time the third week of August and am scheduled to stay through May of 2010. I began my nine month journey in one of the local elementary schools teaching physical education classes. Sports have always been an important part of my life and I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my love for athletics with the children. I have also been teaching English classes to adults at night, which has been an extremely rewarding experience.  Besides sports, my other passion is marketing, and when uVolunteer needed someone to help fill Fei’s position, I decided that a volunteer project and promoting the company that has made my experience so great thus far would be a good combination. After three months of volunteering, I am excited to add something to my experience here in Costa Rica! During my stay I will also be working construction, two different conservation projects, and will be taking two trips out of the country. I will be blogging about these adventures, beginning with my ‘visa run’ to Panama in mid November. One is required to leave Costa Rica every ninety days for 72 hours and I will be sharing my experience of crossing the border and traveling in Panama. While schools are on summer/Christmas vacation I will  be building houses for Costa Rican families in San Ramon for the month of December, followed by six weeks of conservation projects. I will spend the first three weeks in Cabo Blanco National Park on the southern tip of the Nicyoa peninsula followed by another three weeks at the Camaronal turtle conservation project. It will then be time for my second ‘visa run’ for which I am planning on traveling to Nicaragua before I return to San Ramon in late February. When the new Costa Rica school year begins again I will return to teaching physical education and English. I will be sharing mine and other volunteers’ experiences with you through this blog. I hope to be able to convey, through my words and pictures, how wonderful the uVolunteer experience is for me in Costa Rica, and for others at projects around the world!

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Author: Fei An Tjan

Mañana Mañana finally became today! Although we had some delays in launching the new website, we finally managed to get our new site online.

Offering 9 new countries is not a small thing! Next to Costa Rica and Bolivia, uVolunteer now expanded to Asia and Africa as well and we added Argentina, Nicaragua and Peru to our Latin American collection. At the office, we are all very excited to see how this will all turn out and any feedback on our new site is more than welcome! To make things even more excited, Nat made us all ´buy´ a country for 500 Colones - I know, it sounds like a fortune, but he´s really not that cruel. $1 already sounds a lot less intimidating right? If someone applies for your country first, you get to keep the lot! so… Sign up for Kenya and help me win the lottery!!!! : )

But seriously, it´s worth a look! A new lay out, and many new exciting programs where we are very very proud of! Let us know what you think and we´d be more than happy to host you in one of our brand new projects.

Volunteer Travel Abroad with uVolunteer! 

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Author: Fei An Tjan
Date: 24-06-2009

Traveling and volunteering abroad can cause quite a shift in people’s lives; most are positive, some of them, unfortunately, negative. When our volunteers finish their projects, we always ask them to write down some tips for future volunteers. I listed the top five tips here and I hope you will take advantage of it!

1. Learn the local language

Learning the language of the country where you’re volunteering in will open up a whole new world! Although in many cases this is not a requirement for applying to a project, it will in most cases make your stay more pleasant. Many people in developing countries don’t speak English and very much appreciate you making the effort in trying to speak their language. They will often be more than happy to help you out and in reverse, you are getting to know the culture much better and are more likely to get things done.

2. Be open minded

Although this one might sound obvious, I believe it can’t be said enough! It’s important to realize that you’re not in the USA, Canada or in Europe and that things often go a little different in undeveloped countries: buses might not show up on time, schedules change last minute and water might not be running all day. The only thing you can do in situations like this is IMPROVISE! Don’t get upset when things like these happen, but try to see it as another being-away-from-home experience and go with the flow. There will be another bus, try to explore more of the country when your schedule gets canceled and the water will be there again eventually, in most cases, you can get bottled water from the supermarket. Getting frustrated won’t get you anywhere.

3. Try to immerse in the culture.

The best way to get to know a country is to think like the locals do. Speak with the people from your placement, your neighbors and accept invitations when offered. Try the local food, beverages and take notice of dress codes. In short, push yourself out of your comfort zone to really experience your new home. Staying in a host family during your time abroad will be the best way to learn about a culture and on top of that, you will learn the language much faster!

4. Bring enough money

Although you probably already paid for (part of) your stay, take in account that you will want to travel in your free time and spend more money than you expect. Unfortunately, traveling and doing fun activities cost money.

5. Write a journal

Keeping a journal will be very valuable after you come back from volunteering abroad! During your time away there will be so many new impressions that it’s hard to keep track of all of them. Write down places that you visited, people that you met, food that you tried or just random happenings and feelings. Writing a journal will help you save all those memorable moments and I promise you, you will be happy that you did!

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A personal blog for ‘y’all’ to read, as my new colleagues Lindsey and Christina would say…

That’s right, I exchanged the weekly Bolivia blog for a more insider’s Costa Rica one. After many bus rides, boat rides and plane rides, I finally arrived in Costa Rica being a real uVolunteer officer and luckily, I quite like that! As a hardcore Internet junkie, one can only dream of making Facebooking, Twittering and MySpacing your actual job right? And believe it or not, I’m getting a little bit smarter every day! Did you for example know there was a difference between Facebook groups and Facebook pages? And that MySpace doesn’t let you create a group unless your account is over seven days old? no? Well, neither did I…

But next to that, what most shocked me in the short time that I’m here, is how motivated everybody is to make this company work! I surely didn’t expect to see that before arriving here.

In the next months I will get back to you regularly with some office news and volunteering news in general. Keep following me here, or more directly on one of the social networks I mentioned earlier.

Hope to speak soon!

Fei An
uVolunteer

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