An Adventure!

Eco-Volunteer UP has ton of different programs, and I participated in two of them. Basically, Maria is the coordinator/communicator. She has contacts all across the country, and she sends volunteers to whatever program interests them. Maria and Freddy picked me up from the airport and dropped me off with a host family in Conocoto, a suburb of Quito. I spent a week there taking Spanish lessons and volunteering in a daycare. Then Maria drove some other volunteers and I to a bus station to ride 10 hours away into Pastaza, another province, where we stayed with host families in an indigenous community called Shiwakucha. I was told there were different volunteer positions in the community- those working in the school, those working in the nursery, those working in the fields, and those in the forest. It turned out that we all worked together on whatever the community wanted to us accomplish that day, accompanied by a local who taught us what to do. On Tuesdays the entire community gets together and all works on the same project- it might be a new building, or a huge fishing trip. I loved my time in the community. Once I was there, I didn't really need anything from Maria and was on my own. While I was in Conocoto, Maria was very kind, available and flexible. I'd definitely recommend this program, especially if you can handle being very adventurous and self-driven. Ask Maria for the contact information of someone who did the programs you're interested in, because that will probably get you a lot more detail than the website or Maria herself, even.