Program Reviews

My time there was the most amazing/hardest experience I have ever encountered. I was probably homesick for the first day but than got very involved in my community and recovered fast. My community is called Ingenito and is located in the mountains of San Juan dela Maguana. I have never felt so safe and at peace than when I touched foot on this land. I recommend this program to any one and everyone because I believe everyone can benefit from it in some way or another. It helped me grow and become way more independent.

When I was 17, I had taken Spanish classes for at least 5 years, but nothing could have prepared me for that summer abroad in Ciudad Cortes, Costa Rica. It was my first time away from home for an extended period of time and I'd never experienced such difficulty in communicating or commuting before. Mostly, I never realized how much language shapes your personality and efficacy.

I was living in a small rural town with sporadic water and electricity which almost made it harder than never not having running water or electricity. The host family I stayed with didn't really seem to care about me, even when I got "calentura," or heat stroke, and fainted for the first time in my life. They seemed to be in it for the money from hosting, which was even more isolating and depressing. I was bitten so badly by mosquitoes that my joints wouldn't bend anymore and I had to go to the "hospital" for cortisone shots where the doctors and staff laughed at "la gringa estupida." I couldn't believe the "zancudos" (mosquitoes) could bite through jeans and thick socks!

The whole 2 months was an extreme culture shock despite the year of training and cultural sensitivity classes we'd taken. I dreamt of home frequently and couldn't sleep because it was so hot and humid, and we didn't have any air conditioning or anything. Every night I had to splay out all my limbs on my cot to try to stay cooler, making sure my hands didn't touch the greased up legs of the cot (done to prevent insects from crawling up it).

My first night there in my bedroom, I was astounded by an enormous cockroach about 3 to 3 1/2 inches on my pillow. I ran to tell my host mother in my broken Spanish and she called her son. He came into my room, looked at the beast of a cockroach, and silently retrieved a huge machete. He whacked the thing in half on my pillow, just leaving it there, and walked out of my room without a word. Welcome to Costa Rica!

I forget what I used to get the cockroach off my pillow, but immediately after that I noticed a strange insect that I've never seen anywhere since. It was on the wall next to the window with its menacing stinger, doing push-ups. I was bewildered and terrified despite trying to remain calm.

The only thing/person who saved me from going insane was my program partner, Amy, who was the only other person in town who spoke any English. We bonded very quickly to say the least. Unfortunately for me, she lived about 2 miles up the bumpy dirt road and my feet were my only means of transport. She and her host family, however, had air conditioning and a car!

A few weeks later while walking through town with Amy and her kind host mother, I saw a dead insect in the road the size of a softball. I pointed it out to them and they didn't believe it was an insect. Upon first glance, it did look like a rotting orange or trash, but it had antennae, wings, and legs! (20 years later, I've traveled to about 25 countries but have never seen the biodiversity and gnarliness of Costa Rica matched.)

During my 2 months in Costa Rica, in addition to endless insect bites, I developed coprophobia- the fear of solid excrement- and could no longer have a bowel movement. I gained 15 pounds, intestinal spasms, and parasites.

But despite all of the extreme hardship, that summer was by far the most important summer I've ever had. It taught me the meaning of gratitude, and gave me a deep appreciation for language and communication. I now have a lifelong compassion for foreigners and people who struggle with English or whatever the primary language is. Ciudad Cortes opened my eyes to how much we have and take for granted here in America, especially our advanced medicine and technology.

I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

The Yucatan is one of the most beautiful and interesting places. I think it makes it one of the most special AMIGOS projects. The Yucatan is highly influenced by the indigenous Mayan culture. Nearly everyone in Yucatan speaks both Mayan and Spanish, which is super cool to be able to work on both. The Mayan culture is extremely rich and prevalent which brings a unique learning opportunity to this particular program since you are experience tradition and a way of life.
In the Yucatan everyone sleeps in hammocks and mostly live in traditional palapas. The food is so good, but a lot of beans. It is very hot there, but nothing a quick deep in a local cenote can't fix! Cenotes are fresh water holes in caves, super cool!!!!!
AMIGOS is a real challenge but also a wonderful opportunity to spend an extended period of time making new friends, new family, and learning more than you can imagine about yourself and about another culture. It will transform you.

The summer I went to Madriz I was a Supervisor in the program. Madriz is beautiful- lush green, mountains all around, open fields, and rivers. Nicaragua is pretty rural, but really beautiful. The weather was perfect too, tropical but not humidity that is unbearable. I LOVED THE FOOD!!! Gallo pinto which is a rice and bean dish is really good, and rosquillas which are a bread cracker they eat with coffee. Nicaraguans are super nice and understanding, they are easy to talk to and if your Spanish isn't perfect they are willing to slow down and repeat. I am going back this next summer because I loved the program so much. It truly gives the opportunity to be immersed. AMIGOS is really unlike any other program out there and focuses not just on the participants youth development (building leadership and facilitation skills, etc) but on leadership development for local youth too. Participants on this project were from the united states, from Nicaragua, and from the Dominican Republic. At the end of the project there were a few days to chill out all together where we all went to the beach and explored the city of Leon.
Super cool place!! Highly recommend!

I went to Azuero, Panama as a volunteer in 2011. It was truly life changing and has influenced every part of my life since then. Since being a participant with AMIGOS I have been on staff twice, going on third, my choice of study at university is Community and Regional Development, and I am planning on going into youth leadership, hopefully working abroad. It sparked something in me by allowing me to grow into the leader I am today.
My community was called Los Pintos, it was small about 200 people in the mountains. My host family was a huge challenge for me in the beginning, but it turned into such a beautiful part of my experience. I am a picky eater and have food restrictions which is a difficulty traveling and not wanting to offend anyone, especially when I was 17 and my spanish was not so great. It was hard to work through it but I became flexible and was able to try new things. My host family and I would cook together which is how we became close, they became my family and I became a part of theirs.
The opportunity to work with children and learn how to teach and develop lesson plans was really cool. Our project in our community was establishing a soccer team and we were able to fundraise with the local youth for supplies. Overall- AMAZING. And everyone should participate- knowing it will be one of the most challenging things you can do but also the most rewarding.

This past summer I was an Amigos participant in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was definitely nerve wracking to get on a plane and not truly know my destination (you aren't placed in a community until you arrive in country), but the few moments of fear were well worth it.

I was placed in the Valles Centrales region of Oaxaca, about 40 minutes from Oaxaca City. I imagine my community was the most urbanized out of all other placements as it was a small town with many little businesses and a daily market. The project staff actually chose to hold mid-term in my community because of the access to internet cafes.

Honestly, I cried almost every day for the first week because I so desperately wanted to be in the mountains. I suppose I thought there was little I could do to impact the people of my community. In fact, I still often wonder just how much impact my partners and I had on the people we met. But at the same time, I do think we successfully instilled the values of Amigos-- empowering youth to become leaders in their community.

The emphasis put on collaboration with locals is definitely a plus for the program; teenagers are not necessarily professionals in public health. The local nutritionists, however, do know a thing or two about healthy cooking with the native grain amaranth. Collaboration also allows participants to make friends and truly immerse themselves in the language and culture of their country. One of my favorite memories is the day my local vol took me to the market to try tejate, a drink made from cocoa. It quickly became a new favorite!

As a participant, you'll learn to expect the unexpected. I had a lot of curve balls thrown my way, but Amigos has established an incredible support system for helping participants deal with stress and other problems that arise while living in a new culture.

I don't think anyone had a perfect summer, but I think we all grew in unimaginable ways. I personally have a lot more confidence in both my problem-solving abilities and myself as a whole. Oaxaca will always hold a special place in my heart as it's where some of my strongest friendships were formed.

I was 17 when I did Amigos in Paraguay and it was hard.

Outside of urban areas (where all volunteers were in 1992 and I would assume most volunteers still are placed) people speak their local language..it's called guarani and it's unrelated to Spanish. Locals did not speak Spanish that well in my area; we often took a kid with us to translate (guarani to Spanish) when we worked..we were lucky to have a fairly fluent in Spanish, sweet and smart kid around.

It was deeply cool to learn a bit of guarani (the word for milk is camboo..it actually sounds like a cow mooing!) but over all this definitely made it harder. Since people spoke to us in Spanish, we weren't really immersed in either language. And let's be honest.. a big reason people do Amigos is to improve their Spanish. (In our training we had a training day where we named a goal and the first one was "learn some Spanish"..it was followed by audible groans and statements that "she took my goal".) I did improve somewhat in Spanish, but I also cried after spending one day with urban native Spanish speakers and realizing how much more I could have been improving.

I did Amigos again in Costa Rica and I came home very fluent; I still am very fluent. I did major in Spanish in college--so I was much more comfortable in Spanish at age 20 (after 2 years of being a Spanish major in college) than I did been in high school-- but real immersion also made a huge difference.

I have not been back since 1992, so perhaps the country is now a bit more modern. But in the rural areas--or at least my rural area-- there absolutely was nothing around for miles and miles. Besides the social isolation, the remoteness caused real practical problems.

It was hard to be sick! I 17 I had frequent and severe migraines and there was no way to get any medical care. My partner needed medication badly (for an issue she developed there, so she couldn't bring it from home), but my route leader could only come once a week and the week he came he didn't have it. I 100% "get" that locals live that way their whole lives and we are lucky! But that didn't make it easier when both I and my partner were sick and couldn't get what we needed.

At 17 I just didn't think about what would happen if I had a true emergency.. but now at 40 I think of these things :) and it could be very very dangerous to be so isolated if you did break a bone or (heaven forbid) get sexually assaulted.

It was very hard for us to manage our project since so many of our families lived so far from us. We had no personal relationship to the families we helped, nor did they know gringos were in the area with materials for them to make latrines they could use without running water. If families weren't home it was very hard to "just come back later" and some families either could not understand why we were there (obviously this is a language issue as well as a location issue) or were wary of foreigners and would not talk to us. Once we even felt like we were in danger when we were at the door of a hostile family.

Over all I felt we didn't make much of an impact on our community..and now I question why I was even needed there. I think that it would have been more effective to just donate the supplies we had to a local agency and let the agency distribute them rather than placing volunteers in such a remote area to do losa (the cement blocks we had to give out for people to use to build latrines) distribution.

It would be even harder for teens now, because--for better or for worse!-- we are all used to being able to communicate with friends and family via social media and/or skype. (No one had facebook in 1992.) Even I at 40 enjoy posting about my travels on facebook as events happen and if I was traveling without having any facebook access I would miss it. We are also used to being "linked in" to the news now.. Obviously getting away from all of that for a few months has advantages as well, but I think it would be extremely difficult for a north American teen to be in Paraguay for 8 weeks.

I should mention that we did not bond that deeply with our family. They weren't hostile to us (or generally azzholes/hard to be around), but--for whatever reason-- my partners and this family just didn't bond that much. I had two partners and we all three felt jealous when we visited other volunteers who clearly were closer to their families than we were. So perhaps I had bad luck and if you were luckier with your family it would be a much better experience. (But then again..you might not get lucky with your host family just like I didn't.)

I am glad that I went! I learned a lot (about their culture and myself) and hey..where else can you learn guarani and ride around in an ox cart? And I didn't hate it by any means! It was beautiful and peaceful and I still remember the night time stars and the times sitting and drinking mate (the local tea) fondly. Plus it was good to be pushed out of my comfort zone at aged 17--and my transition to college was easier for me since I had done Amigos.

But if you want to go, I think that other countries might be better choices. I should mention a BUT (and a big but!), however. I went in 1992! Now Amigos does focus more on whole community help--rather than just the "pass out the losas..and do dental charlas as a secondary project" mentality they had then; that's great! I am sure that if I had actually been planting trees and helping with garbage pick up--although we were so remote trash everywhere wasn't a major issue-- I would have gotten much more out of Amigos.

Disclaimer: My Amigos experience isn't recent!

I am tired of reading endless reviews that Amigos is perfect..it's not! I 100% support Amigos, am I very glad I did it twice and I recommend it. But it's not perfect.

First, Amigos has real weaknesses. Poor families aren't paid to feed us, and in rural Paraguay people can not speak much Spanish--so communication is very hard. Communities do not understand the rules Amigos sets for us; people try to just take project supplies.

More importantly, the word on chatboards is that every family who hosts an Amigos volunteer is perfect; that's not true! If you had a perfect experience with your family of course that's wonderful-- but NOT EVERY VOLUNTEER WILL! That should be both obvious and okay, but Amigos is so into "positive thinking" that negativity isn't allowed-- even with a "negative view of things" is actually a realistic view of things.

I had real problems with my host family. The mother abused her child and screamed at both her children and me constantly. I was left completely alone for 24 hours, and my host mother threw a fit that I--not knowing what else to do-- asked neighbors to feed me. I was told to grow up and be culturally sensitive..even when my family planned a weekend trip and didn't even tell me. But Amigos won't let us leave our area without permission and I was to go 7 hours from my town for a weekend; we were leaving 20 minutes after they told me about this trip!

I moved; Amigos wasn't happy that I made that choice. My route leader (project helper for volunteers) did (with words) say that she'd support me, but she also told me that "this WILL be discussed in Amigos in the future" and that I would be labeled as a bad volunteer.

Of course Amigos can't ensure that "your family is perfect..or your money back! :)" but it is clear that there is an "Amigos culture".. if you don't think your host family (and everything else about your summer) was "absolutely perfect" it's your own fault; you weren't being culturally sensitive. Not every person who I actually encountered while doing Amigos bought into that--my route leader in Paraguay definitely did not-- but that is what most volunteers who post reviews seem to believe.

I also dislike the fact that Amigos denies another reality: poverty is awful! Amigos volunteers often gush about how amazing their summer was because "the culture is so different". That is fine up to a point, but just because the families we live with eat food we don't eat and do things in ways we have never seen-- my family hooked up a TV battery to a TV and watched TV by candlelight!-- doesn't mean their lives are amazing. They are in awful situations. I found it very hard to see extreme poverty--among people I grew to care for-- and I couldn't just "make it all positive"..nor would I want to. Amigos doesn't encourage--and in fact discourages-- volunteers from experiencing negative feelings about poverty. Of course we are there to help and we do--and that's good-- but the Amigos philosophy actively denies that poverty is really a problem. Finding your experience to be upsetting only means you "need to push yourself to your limits"..and (reviews claim) everyone does that and learns "to be a leader" and that "I can do anything I want to".

I didn't experience that. I came home very grateful for what I have, but also overwhelmed at the realization that my Paraguayan family will likely never be able to get out of poverty-- and my Costa Rican family won't ever be too well off, either. I have always felt like most volunteers fail to accept my feelings about my Amigos summers as valid. Amigos claims that they greatly respect every volunteer's deeply personal experience, but people who aren't relentlessly positive are snubbed. Amigos would also deny that (globally) most people born poor will stay poor. Of course we do Amigos to try to do our part to reverse that trend, but we are led to believe "anything is possible" at the expense of actually seeing reality.

-- Program Cost --

When I went in 1992 and 1995 eight weeks cost about 3000 and we had the option to fund raise. Of course prices go up in twenty plus years and yes the gap year program is nine months versus two. But paying 24900 plus (I assume since visas weren't mentioned) at least 300 for visa fees..and then having no stipend at all of 9 months? You shouldn't have to be rich to volunteer! Gap year volunteers are already giving a chance to work or go to school for a year..and living in communities without basics we take for granted. Amigos could do a great deal to lower the costs. Kill all touristy stuff.. Maybe just have one weekend where volunteers could all meet up but stay in hostels. They could only charge us the costs of families taking care of us and our project supplies..we don't need to agree to give amigos seed money to go. It sounds like gap year but volunteers are on the move..so ask communities to feed and house the volunteer that comes at their expense. They could even get corporate donors to give Amigos funding to fund projects or give us supplies for free so we can pay less. Another issue is the visa. Amigos needs to at least mention who pays! Getting visas is a huge pain; not even mentioning them in the information is a red flag that Amigos isn't really supporting a volunteers as well as they say they are.

I recommend Amigos!! I really do :). It is a very eye opening experience and it's the best way to learn Spanish. I am just tired of the endless mantra that it's perfect and that only whiners disagree with that.

There are a lot of gap year travel volunteer programs out there, and I remember what it was like sifting through all of them to find the right fit for me. Therefore, I hope this review will be helpful in giving you an honest picture of what it is like volunteering with Amigos!

There were several reasons why I decided to go with Amigos over other programs:

1. I was looking for something that would allow me to be as independent as possible, because originally I had wanted to go backpacking on my own. Well, it didn't really go over so well with the mom and the worried grandparents, so I sought out a program that would allow me time to explore and decide my own schedule (I did not want the type of program where you constantly travel around with a group) while reassuring my family that I was still alive and well.

Amigos fulfilled these two areas! You are left to your own devices most of the time and can decide to spend your free time the way you want to. There is a 20 hour/week minimum for your internship work (it can be a lot more than that, depending upon your agency, how much time your project needs/you are willing to dedicate, and the agreement you set with your supervisor/how well you communicate your schedule). For me, I worked from 8am-12pm, walked home for lunch (my work was a 10 minute walk from home, which was really nice), and went back to work from 2pm-5pm. This comes out to about 35 hours/week, not counting the hours I spent working on some weekends, especially when my project began to heat up with extra events and workshops. However, it varies depending on your internship agency, with some requiring much less time than others.

Even so, I had a lot of free time in the evenings, on weekends, and on holidays/days when work was cancelled. This gave me the opportunity to come across an art school in my neighborhood, where I ended up spending almost all of my free time volunteering at because I loved it so much. I would help with an English class, learn how to paint, accompanied the rock band on the keyboard, learned to play piccolo, and most of all, made some incredible friends with all the teachers.

In addition, we were able to travel on our own, so long as we let our Amigos supervisors know the details. Day trips to the beach were fun and easy. You also have the option of longer trips, but there's a form you have to fill out detailing where you'll stay, contact info, etc. for safety.

You get together with the other volunteers and the Amigos supervisors for workshops about once a month, your supervisor meets with you about every two weeks to see how you are doing (there is paperwork to be filled out for these meetings, but it's nothing complicated, just questions about your needs being met and how your project is doing), and the group goes on two excursions per semester, each one being about 3 days long. Therefore, most of your time is spent living in your community on your own, with your host family and any other friends you make on your own. I thought this was fantastic - it was a good balance, not too much of volunteer program-y things, but just enough so that you had support. The excursions are really fun too, and a great way to see other parts of the country with the comfort of not having to plan the itinerary (the schedule usually wasn't too rigid though - our supervisor changed things up as we went and always asked what we wanted to do.)

2. This program is really great for improving your Spanish. Since you are working at a local non-profit agency, you are forced to learn how to communicate effectively with your coworkers in another language. Also, staying with a host family and living in a community allows you to form deeper relationships with locals, which is invaluable when it comes to becoming fluent in another language - the desire to express yourself, to crack jokes, and to simply communicate with your friends and family serves as an incredible motivator.

3. I wanted to stay in one place and get to know that place really well, to form close friends and feel the rhythm of day to day life.... versus seeing glamorous snapshots of a million different cities on a whirlwind tour or doing very short term volunteer work that feels more like an attraction and less like a long term relationship with the community you are working with.

The Amigos program stresses cultural immersion from the standpoint of living and working with the community. Part of their philosophy is that the volunteer should act as a catalyst for community initiative, the end goal being that the community can sustain and grow the project even when the volunteer is gone.

Overall, I would say that my experience living and volunteering in Nicaragua with Amigos was one of the best things I've ever done, and I can tell you with utmost honestly, those three months presented some of the most beautiful, challenging, and spontaneous moments in my life. I really had no idea what I was in for back when I first applied for this program and packed my bags to go to another country for three months, because the interesting thing about traveling is that you think you are preparing for the changes in environment, like new foods, strange sounds, different culture...when really, what changes is something you cannot prepare for - yourself. You learn things about yourself that you were never aware of before, usually through the difficulties you face, things such as how you react to stress, the ways in which you choose to spend your time, your self-awareness of your own cultural background, your tolerance for ambiguity, your adaptability, to name a few. And to me, this heightened sense of self-awareness, and the knowledge you gain about yourself, are some of the most valuable outcomes of an experience like this.

I think these are things you can gain from any kind of experience living abroad, whether it is with a volunteer program or not. However, what is different about doing this with Amigos is that you are given the the tools and the framework for integrating into the community, and unlike traveling on your own or with a group-tour type program, by being a part of this program, you already have a relationship with the community. The supervisors for Nicaragua, Mateo and Vanessa, both live in the communities they work in and know people that can help you with your project or local youth that you can hang out with. The family you are placed with has a relationship with Amigos, so there is an element of trust and understanding that is established from day one.

So if you're thinking about doing it....

DO IT!

It will be one of the biggest adventures of your life, and it will very likely be the catalyst that sparks something inside of you that you didn't know existed before....

I kept a detailed blog during my experience, so please check it out if you would like to see photos and read stories about our Amigos excursions, my experience living with my host family, my CBI (community based initiative) project focused upon fighting street harassment and promoting respect for women, and a surprising incident with an iguana.

thestinkygirltravels.blogspot.com

As a member of project staff in San Pedro, Paraguay, in 2011, I got to know several beautiful communities and work with young people from throughout the United States and Paraguay to achieve concrete results. This organization challenges you to do what you never imagined, but supports you so that you can succeed. For example, I spent six weeks traveling among four different communities; addressing the health, safety, and mental health needs of eight teenagers; supervising them as they ran educational activities and worked with community leaders; coordinating implementation of community-led projects through material selection and purchase; working with the rest of project staff to review participant issues, organize collective events, and write a weekly newsletter; and hiking the cheerful hills of the San Pedro countryside. While this was very difficult and demanding work, I never felt that I was not able to fulfill my duties because of the support structure of the organization. Constant communication among community members, participants, and senior staff meant that my summer as a supervisor with AMIGOS was the most fulfilling one I've had - and it's been four years already.

Note: Paraguayans speak Guarani as their first language, and Spanish as their second. This makes their Spanish much easier to understand, as they don't talk as quickly as people from other countries.