A Gamble Not Worth Taking

I found EOD through Teach Away Incorporated, who support a variety of different volunteer teaching programs abroad.

I did unfortunately get the short end of the stick
as far as the program goes. I'm going to be completely honest (don't be scared): the program is unorganized and very slow with getting things done (example: each volunteer is supposed to be given a box of school supplies; this box is sent from the main office in Santiago to wherever the volunteers are-- as they told us in our orientation week, it is not uncommon for a volunteer to receive the box with a week left of teaching or not receive it at all). Though in theory I think the program is a great idea, there is a lot of miscommunication and still a lot of issues to work out.

Each city or pueblo a volunteer is placed in has a regional representative-- someone who is your direct contact person and is sort of your middle man with the office in Santiago. The regional representative is in charge of checking out potential host families for suitability. As far as I can tell, there is no standard the houses or the families are held to. Of course no one is expecting a mansion or anything, but in my opinion, there needs to be a standard of cleanliness. I'm no stranger to South American travel, however, this program works directly with unpaid gringos who are here voluntarily... they should place them with the thought in mind that they are indeed here voluntarily and don't have to put up with ridiculousness; the house I was placed in was overrun with cockroaches. I kid you not, I had roaches crawl over my hand while I used my laptop, I had roaches fall on me when I opened doors in the house, they were in my room, they were in my food. I let my regional rep know about this and she delayed for 2 months finding me a replacement family, all the while blaming the delay on the office in Santiago (which I know from the experiences of other volunteers in my region was not the actual reason for the delay-- this woman hung onto some of the other volunteers' passports for 2 months while "helping" them process their visas. When the volunteers emailed Santiago to ask them why it was taking so long, they were informed that the passports had never arrived in Santiago... they'd been sitting on the regional rep's desk the entire time.). Ultimately, she didn't even find me a new host family and I ended up moving in with a teacher who worked at my school.

And this segues into another sore subject: the school. I don't know who exactly is in charge of explaining the goals and teaching model of the program to the school-- the regional rep or the program itself? Either way, my school never fully understood the aim of the program, so needless to say, they didn't really understand my purpose either... no matter how many times I explained it to them and showed them excerpts from the program manual. I spent a lot of time sitting around feeling completely useless and frustrated. I stuck it out for
as long as I could because I loved the kids so much but ultimately I was sacrificing my sanity, dignity, etc. etc. and had to leave the program. I remained in Chile and found paid teaching work elsewhere so I did ride out my stay there as planned, just not with the program.

Now, I'm not trying to be super intense or bitter or anything (believe it or not, this the condensed version of my rant), because, hey, I got to be in Chile, and that's awesome. I know some other volunteers who had
problems like mine, or different but still enough to make them leave the program (I had a friend who arrived at his host family's house and they decided they didn't want to host anymore. The program set him up in a boarding house filled with Chilean sailors and he didn't have a lock on his door). On the other hand, I have friends who had a completely different experience-- wonderful host families, competent and enthusiastic co-teachers, the works, really. One of the former volunteers in my region even went on to work for the main office in Santiago.

In closing, this program is a complete gamble, personally one I would not recommend. I'm sure you can find a similar program that maybe has been around for a bit longer and has some more of its kinks worked out.