It's not perfect..

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.