Volunteer Vacations

Earlier this year, George Rush, a travel writer with Condé Nast Traveler, traveled with Globe Aware for a volunteer vacation in Ghana. George was joined by his 10-year-old son  Eamon. The father/son team’s adventures are featured in a colorful 5,000 word essay in the September 2010 edition of Condé Nast Traveler:

Condé Nast Traveler: Globe Aware in Ghana

Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Condé Nast Traveler

My ten–year–old son, Eamon, and I had come to Ghana as volunteers to lend a hand in building a computer center. We were supposed to help connect a rural village to the World Wide Web, so that, one day, its benighted people might learn to Google, Wiki, and Twitter. But here I was in a Vodun ceremony, stripped down to a white sarong, whipping my head like a hypnotized chicken, as a fetish priest and his coven of drummers connected me to an older Ethernet.

Eamon shook his head in embarrassment. Isn’t it awful when your dad drags you to Africa and then gets lost in a spirit trance?

It had started as a lark. After a morning spent mixing mortar and lugging cinder blocks, our little band of volunteers figured a hike would be a good way to walk off lunch. We’d marched through the bush for less than an hour when we came to a clearing where a half–dozen thatched huts were protected by a stone talisman, a wax–covered little man with a knife in his head. This was the Mina Mavo Healing Center. People stayed here for days, looking for a cure for their physical and mental maladies. We hadn’t come with any complaints. And yet, to different degrees, all of us saw Ghana as a kind of healing center. Among our patients were a recent divorcée, a globe–trotting executive craving a reward beyond frequent–flier miles, and a young family simply looking for relief from the usual holiday, where the memory of the trip fades faster than the tan. We all wanted to sweat off some of our self–absorption. I’d been to thirty–five or so countries, but I often came home feeling that I’d just scratched the surface of the culture, leaving behind nothing more than a little baksheesh. I was looking for the deep–tissue massage you can get only by doing hard labor for a good cause. I also had this picture of working with my son, shoulder to shoulder, to conquer African poverty—even if I could barely get him to clean our cat’s litter box.

We weren’t the first to come to Ghana looking to be useful. The country’s political stability, its robust economy (it has one of the world’s best–performing stock markets), and the fact that its people speak English have made Ghana one of the most popular African destinations for anyone who ever considered joining the Peace Corps. Goodwill ambassador Louis Armstrong visited in 1956, the year before the citizens of the Gold Coast won their independence from Great Britain after a decade of civil disobedience. More than 100,000 fans turned out to hear Satchmo play at Accra’s Old Polo Ground.

“I came from here, way back,” he said, after spotting a woman who resembled his late mother. “Now I know this is my country too.”

Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali, Richard Wright, and Maya Angelou came later to see the first sub–Saharan nation to hand its colonial rulers their hats. Some of them saw Ghana as a refuge from American prejudice and were attracted to first president Kwame Nkrumah’s dream of Pan–African unity. Some seventy thousand Americans visited Ghana last year, and the country remains a pilgrimage destination for African–Americans—including Stevie Wonder, Will Smith, Danny Glover, Beyoncé, and Jay–Z—who come to see, among other historically significant sites, the continent’s largest repository of slave forts.

Ghana has not escaped coups and corruption. But its democratic progress has been impressive enough to earn visits from presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama (who chose to visit Ghana even over his father’s homeland, Kenya).

But Ghana isn’t only about tear¬stained remembrance and hernia–inducing acts of charity. A couple of taxi rides with Ghanaian drivers in New York City was enough to tip me off that these people were a lively bunch. Their enduring art forms include traveling comic operas called concert parties and highlife music, a swinging Africanized jazz percolating with social commentary. At least one sociologist has suggested that Ghanaians laugh too easily—to conform and to avoid confrontation. Is it any wonder that a Ghanaian, Kofi Annan, should win the Nobel Peace Prize? Or that the Ghanaian calendar should groan with celebrations? Looking it over, I saw that barely a week passes without some festival, saluting everything from the moon to the yam. There is an even greater abundance of wildlife in Ghana’s eighteen national parks and reserves. So I decided that, before we surrendered for community service, Eamon and I should see some of the country.

An eleven–hour flight from New York deposited us in the capital of Accra on a rainy morning. I’d mapped out an express–lane itinerary that had us circumnavigating the country (about the size of Michigan) in a week. We’d need to make good time. There at the airport to help us was our Land Tours guide, Ben Addo, a husky, genial man who’d driven Jesse Jackson a few times. Underscoring Ghana’s brotherhood with America, Ben made our first stop the former home of W.E.B. DuBois, the Massachusetts–born civil rights pioneer who spent his final years here. We also hit the memorial park honoring President Nkrumah, a graduate of Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University. A bronze statue of Nkrumah was missing its head and left arm (broken off during a 1966 coup). The city of about 4.5 million people takes its name from the Akan word for “ants,” because there were once many anthills here. Today they’ve been replaced by more than a dozen skyscrapers, but most of Accra still doesn’t climb above three stories. On our tour of the town, we saw at least a dozen remnants of the British realm, including the nineteenth–century Holy Trinity Cathedral, designed by Sir Aston Webb, architect of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The Soviets had clearly inspired Black Star Square, with its triumphal Independence Arch.

The Chinese had supplied the soaring modernist National Theatre, which claims the only classical symphony orchestra in West, Central, and East Africa, and the Danes had left behind the seventeenth–century Osu Castle. It had been home to every Ghanaian president until 2009, when members of President John Kufuor’s National Patriotic party decided he shouldn’t live in a former slave fort, borrowed thirty million dollars from India, and built a palace shaped like a Ghanaian chief’s throne stool. We had started our tour at Nkrumah’s mausoleum, and Ben thought it made perfect sense to end it at Accra’s coffin shops. Back in the 1950s, carpenter Kane Kwei knew a lady who dreamed of flying. When she died, he made her a casket shaped like an airplane, and that was when sepulchre sculpture really took off in Accra. Kwei’s twenty–five–year–old grandson, Eric, invited us into a showroom where we saw a giant chicken, a fishing boat, a beer bottle, and a satin–lined mango.

Eric had just sold a Mercedes–Benz casket.

“It’s very popular among rich people,” he said.

My wiseacre son suggested that the gray snail in the corner might be good for his old dad.

“The snail is usually for a lawyer or a chief,” Eric explained, restoring my reputation. “They are very slow, but they usually get to their destination.” Next, we were off to Ada, a much smaller town about two hours east, on the Atlantic. (The late soul man Isaac Hayes had a home here.) On the way, we picked up Otor Plahar, an Ada–born government official who had offered to introduce me to local chiefs during the weeklong warrior festival of Asafotufiam.

Ghana has a British–begotten parliament and justice system, complete with white wigs. It also has a National House of Chiefs, which has no executive or legislative power but whose advice is respected on matters of tradition. While some of its hereditary leaders are wealthy and politically wired, others squeak by on what they make from humble day jobs. Arriving in Ada, Otor led us down a dirt alley to a modest one–story dwelling where chickens pecked outside. This was the court of our first chief, Nene Tsatsu Pediator IV. The seventy–five–year–old leader of the Kudzragbe clan (one of ten in Ada) wore a black headband decorated with gold moons and stars. One bare, bony shoulder stuck out of his toga, which was made of Ghana’s famous kente cloth. A sentry holding a nineteenth–century musket stood behind the chief as he chatted on his cell phone.

Custom forbade us from speaking directly to Nene Pediator, dictating that we direct all questions to his court linguist. But after a few awkward exchanges, the chief dispensed with formality. He explained that members of his clan sought his opinion on issues ranging from real estate to adultery.

“Marital disputes—we do a lot of those,” he said, flashing a gold tooth. “We give fines.”

We spoke for about half an hour, until it came time to give the chief his traditional present. Most chiefs accepted a “libation.” Otor whispered that this one, a retired accountant, would prefer cash.

“One hundred dollars U.S. would be fine,” he suggested.

I was stunned by the amount, but I didn’t want to breach protocol, especially while that guy with the musket was watching me. I slipped the bills to Otor.

We moved on to the gathering of Ada’s traditional military units, known as asafo companies. Once the warriors of the village, the companies are now dedicated to community service. But during this first week of August, their younger members commemorate Ada’s eighteenth– and nineteenth–century military victories with ram–like displays of testosterone. Stepping cautiously around an open field, we saw a strapping, shirtless teenager wearing antelope horns and brandishing an ancient sword. His friends fired flintlocks into the air. The young men had no bullets. But they’d had a bit of palm wine. At any moment, one of them might sneak up behind you and unload his musket near your ear. One guy stuffed gunpowder into a metal pipe pinched between his legs. Every few minutes, he’d ejaculate fire.

Overseeing this mock combat were the chiefs. Some of them wore capes of leaves. Their linguists gripped staffs carved with power symbols—the parrot, the frog, the egg. Eventually, everyone marched down the road to the Volta River, carrying on their heads their clan chiefs’ stools, as well as drums as long as five feet. The celebrants had sung Christian hymns earlier in the day, but that didn’t keep away the fetish priestesses—older ladies, dressed in white, who stayed in touch with the pre–missionary gods. One of the crones whirled around, clenching her fists as though she were boxing someone we couldn’t see.

The height of the festivities came the next day, when Ada’s paramount chief, Nene Abram Kabu Akuaku III, convened his durbar at a parade ground ringed by hundreds of people. Each of the clan chiefs arrived on a palanquin shouldered by his followers. The chiefs wore their finest kente and enough gold bling to humble an American rap star. Once they’d dismounted their litters, the clan leaders crossed the durbar—shaded by umbrella bearers and heralded by men blowing tusks—to swear their allegiance.

After each chief had recalled his clan’s role in historic battles, the paramount chief declared, “We are still at war—this war of development of our resources.” He mentioned threats to the local wetlands and boundary disputes. He also called upon attending political candidates to conduct their campaigns “in a manner devoid of insults . . . that would likely inflame passions.”

And this was a crowd with flammable passions. Hoisted into the air by their bearers, the chiefs danced on their litters and waved their ceremonial sabers. Jockeying for position in the royal convoy was Nene Buertey Okumko Obuapong IV, whose “war shirt” shimmered with mirrors that deflected the evil eye. The gun smoke of his clan’s musketeers mingled with the dust until the brawny chief appeared to be floating on a russet cloud. He seemed to be having a good time, bouncing up and down, but I sensed his heart fluttering. The day before he’d confided, “I pray to God they don’t drop me.”

I was thinking the same thing at six the next morning as we climbed into the clouds aboard a twin–engine Antrak Air palanquin, winging toward the Northern Region city of Tamale. Our wheelman, Ben, met us when we landed, having set out the day before on the eleven–hour drive from the coast. From Tamale, we headed west across dry red terrain relieved by fat baobab trees and stout thatch–and–clay huts. Stopping in Larabanga, we found that Allah, rather than Jesus, held sway, and learned that the villagers claim their mud–and–stick mosque is the oldest building in Ghana. The Northern Region’s biggest draw for us, though, was the country’s largest nature sanctuary.

Ghana might not have the sprawling game reserves of eastern and southern Africa, with their rhinos, zebras, and giraffes. But its 1.2 million–acre Mole National Park does have an estimated six hundred elephants, more than a thousand buffaloes, five types of primates, thirty–three kinds of reptiles, about three hundred bird species, and a dozen makes of antelope. Among its seventeen varieties of carnivores are just a couple of leopards and lions. With so few man–eaters on the prowl in Mole (pronounced mo–lay), you didn’t need to ride around in a Land Rover for protection. You could get intimate with the savanna and walk through the bush, as we did with our dry–humored ranger, D. K. Basig. He carried a vintage .375–caliber carbine but assured us, “I’ve never had to fire it.”

We followed him through a fragrant sea of lemongrass and shadowed a cortege of foraging elephants. Around noon, they ended up at a lagoon, where some of their buddies were already snorkeling, their trunks poking out of the water.

The next day, we headed south, past maize and cassava fields, to Kumasi, Ghana’s second–largest city. Founded in 1695, it was the capital of the gold–rich state of Ashanti, whose slave–trading people once controlled an empire probably larger than today’s Ghana.

One of the town’s few remnants of the British realm is Kumasi Fort. Its military museum chronicles the service of Ghanaian soldiers like Bukari Moshie, who even as a sergeant major was not entitled to wear shoes, and three Ghanaian World War II vets who were killed in 1948—not in battle but in a peaceful demonstration against Britain’s refusal to give them their promised pension. Their deaths helped ignite Ghana’s independence movement. A few examples of vernacular Ashanti architecture survive in ten sacred shrines designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One, known as Aduko Jachie, is tucked away at the end of a street lined with evangelical churches, whose ministers tell their congregations to stay away from the shrine. But people still come—secretly, according to its female caretaker, Akua Bedu. The shrine’s last fetish priest ran off years ago, but Akua still prunes the bush in its courtyard. “If you let it blossom,” she explained, “a prominent person in town will die.”

From Kumasi, we proceeded south to Assin Manso, where slaves would stop for inspection before being shipped to the coast. A sign near the riverbank commemorates their “last bath.” African–Americans sometimes bring home vessels of the river’s water and leave wreaths at the graves of two former slaves whose remains were flown here from the United States and Jamaica in 1998.

From Assin Manso it was on to the city of Cape Coast, where in 1653 the Swedes erected a fort on rocks overlooking the Atlantic. The British made the fort’s walls stronger and dungeons deeper, to hold tens of thousands of human beings who were shipped like cargo to the Americas. Descending into this cobblestone purgatory, we saw a line on the wall three feet high that marked the tide of feces, straw, and corpses that the dungeon once contained.

About five hundred women were stored in a separate hell, where the master had his pick. Those who survived their stay in the fort were led to the ships through the Door of No Return.

The following morning, we headed back to Accra to meet up with our fellow Globe Aware volunteers. We could spot one another by our white T–shirts proclaiming, have fun, help people. Founded in 2000, the Dallas–based nonprofit arranges “adventures in service” in fifteen countries. Eamon was pleased to meet a co–conspirator in another ten–year–old boy, Wyatt Keyser, who came with his father, Wayne, a park ranger from Nevada, and his vivacious mother, Jodee. Also on board were Scott Strazik, a General Electric executive; Julie Tortorici, a New York filmmaker shooting a documentary about rebuilding her life after a divorce; and Joe Amon, her laser–witted cameraman.

Each of us had paid thirteen hundred dollars for the privilege of breaking our asses. There to help us do that was Richard Kwashie Yinkah, the thirty–year–old founder of Disaster Volunteers of Ghana. In the last eight years, Richard and his team had built schools, staffed orphanages, and imported books, computers, and teachers from abroad. For all his dedication, Richard had a hip sense of humor—especially when he laid Ghana’s soul–brother handshake on me. First came the interlocking of fists, followed by some quick thumb play, then a slow tango of the middle fingers, all of which culminated in a resounding snap when the two parties pulled their hands apart. At least that was how it was supposed to go. Somehow my hand stayed glued to Richard’s. There was no snap.

“Keep practicing,” he said with a wink.

Richard’s thirty–two–year–old first lieutenant, Robert Tornu, helped wedge us into a beat–up passenger van. After driving northeast for two hours, we reached Ho, which would be our base. Ho boasts three hospitals, a cathedral, a museum, a prison, and several hotels and Internet cafés. But many people still think of it as a large village.

We arrived just as Ho’s paramount chief, Togbe Afede XIV, was honoring his predecessor, the late Togbe Afede Asor II, with a procession. Asafo warriors were firing muskets. Lithe, ocher–haired beauties were swiveling their hips. A barefoot fetish priestess who resembled Oprah Winfrey spun around in a trance. Dancers and drummers circled her whenever she plopped down in the middle of the street to blow her whistle.

“Some Christian ladies would be offended to see her here,” said Richard. “But tradition says she should have a place in the procession.”

We shared a catered dinner in the parking lot of Ho’s public bus terminal, then settled into the bricklike single beds of our dorm rooms at the Ghana National Teachers Association Hostel.

The next day was Sunday. Since almost sixty–nine percent of Ghanaians are Christian, working on their Sabbath was out. So we continued our cultural immersion, rumbling in our van through jade valleys for an hour till we reached the Agumatsa Wildlife Sanctuary on the border of Togo. There, we walked through a forest glittering with butterflies and across nine footbridges, until the birdsong was devoured by the roar of Wli Falls, said to be the tallest plunge of water in West Africa. Even before we saw it, the mist cooled our faces. Eamon and I had gone bodysurfing in the crashing Atlantic, but we’d stayed out of ponds for fear of the dreaded bilharzia parasites that dwell in still water. Here, the roiling pool at the bottom of the falls was safe. In fact, it was fantastic. We dove into its mighty clouds of joy like a bunch of Baptists. The next morning, we drove forty–five minutes to Tsyome Afedo, a village of well–kept mud–brick houses surrounded by verdant hills. As we got out of the van, a tipsy old man greeted us, banging a cowbell.

“My name is Teddy Bonfu,” he rasped. “But everybody calls me Teddy Bones.”

I tried to give him the Ghanaian handshake but again failed miserably. There was no snap.

Richard and Robert guided us to a house where the chief, Togbega Tomadofodoe IV, had gathered with his council. All wore their best togas.

The chief’s linguist gave us a brief history of Tsyome Afedo. He recalled how the Ewe people had settled here in about 1795. Although Tsyome Afedo still isn’t on most maps, it now has a public phone booth and a bus stop. The village has about seven hundred people who farm small tracts, but the linguist said more and more of the young men and women have been getting on the bus to go to the city, to seek jobs and a modern education.

“If we had a computer center,” said the linguist, “we believe more people would stay. Our children could browse and learn.”

We followed Richard to the work site. So far, the computer center consisted of just three unfinished cinder block walls.

“Progress stops and starts because there is no full–time support,” Richard explained. “People have to stop their farming to work on it.”

But now the Yanks had come to get the job done! Provided someone pointed us in the right direction. Wyatt’s father, Wayne, and I headed off to a clearing where men were hand–sawing fourteen–foot boards from a felled kapok tree. Wayne and I hoisted a plank onto our shoulders. We hadn’t gotten far down the forest path before sweat was running into our eyes. As we stopped for breath, a barefoot granny whizzed by us with a larger board balanced on her head. I felt like a snail.

Someone asked me to fetch some cement. I loaded two fifty–pound bags into a wheelbarrow, which immediately tipped over. Eventually, I got them to the mortar–mixing slab, where I joined in the shoveling. But I couldn’t quite keep up with the seamless groove of the human cement mixers.

When the mortar was ready, we shoveled it into aluminum pans that the village women lifted onto their heads. After struggling to carry the heavy pans in our arms, we realized that the ladies were onto something. I hoisted a pan onto my head.

“Eamon, take my picture!” I said.

My camera–smile soon turned into a grimace as I felt the pan driving my baseball cap’s top button into my skull.

Noon’s pitiless sun made everyone call it a day. That night, at dinner, some of us questioned how much we were helping the people of Tsyome Afedo.

“I think we may just be comic relief for them,” I told Richard. “We’re funny to watch.”

“Your coming here wakes them up,” he insisted. “Too often, our people wait for a miracle. They go to these new evangelical churches that promise them the Lord will find a way. We can’t wait for God, or for the government, to build the school.

“You guys are part of the motivation for these people,” he went on. “They say, ‘If these Americans can travel three thousand miles to our village just to move concrete, why shouldn’t we do it?’ ”

We returned to the work site pumped up. When the masons called for mortar, we scrambled to get it. Eamon and Wyatt shoveled cement like a couple of Local 147 sandhogs.

There seemed to be more villagers on the site. Even their queen mother was carrying planks. Maybe Richard was right about our inspiring them. Only . . . we may have inspired them too much. Now they were hogging all the aluminum pans, leaving us to watch.

“They don’t want you to get tired,” explained Robert.

We needed more pans. The next morning, we stocked up at the hardware store in Ho and marched onto the work site like Spartans, flashing our gleaming shields. That day we showed our grit—covering ourselves, if not in glory, then in a lot of dirt.

We did get breaks. The village boys showed Eamon how to play the talking drums, and Eamon showed the boys how to throw an American football. One big Ghanaian kid was soon drilling perfect spirals into my gut. (Is it any wonder the country’s Black Stars soccer team booted us out of the World Cup?)

On our last day, more villagers showed up to work than we’d seen all week. The ladies were lined up like ballerinas with fifty–pound cinder blocks on their heads. In between loads, the women would lob taunts at the male masons about their productivity. The men growled back. But the bickering always ended in laughter—the Ghanaian rule.

Where did Eamon go? He’d been sawing iron rods—his greatest feat of independence—but now he’d disappeared. I found him in a school classroom. Three concentric circles of kids hovered around him, or rather around the glowing screen of his Nintendo. They’d never seen a computer you could hold in your palm. Introducing video games to the village made me feel a bit like a playground drug dealer. But maybe this was the shape of things to come, once their computer center opened. And Eamon’s eye candy did open a discussion. Watching the tiny Nintendo skateboarder, one boy asked, “What is skateboarding?”

“It’s like surfing, only on the street,” I said.

“What is surfing?” asked the boy.

After lunch and an impromptu international soccer match, Richard asked us if we wanted to visit a Vodun village.

We started down a path into the forest. Tagging along was our ever–present cowbell banger, Teddy Bones—lured no doubt by our offertory bottle of gin. Having forded a stream, we came to that group of thatched huts I mentioned at the beginning of this story—and that little stone man. “He defends the village from Christian enemies,” said Robert, who warned us not to touch the carved fetish.

The village seemed deserted. But Richard and Robert soon located Hunor Thomas Kwami–Ahli, fetish priest of the Mina Mavo (translation: “Free Me”) Healing Center. A handsome, bare–chested man in his thirties, the priest wiped his brow with an American flag handkerchief. He asked us to take off our shoes and shirts, and he gave us sarongs. Then he invited us to the “power house,” where we found his center’s patients—forty or so men, women, and children—gathered on a veranda. In one corner were several percussionists. With a wave of his hand, the priest beckoned the drummers to play. The faithful began to chant and sway and dance with precision. I’m not sure what they needed healed; their limbs seemed to work fine.

We were invited to take part. At first, I joined in just to be polite. But before I knew it, I’d slipped into rapture. The rhythm took me down a stream where Mami Wata, the python–handling water goddess, throttled me as if I were a garter snake. Thankfully, one of the priest’s acolytes guided me to my seat before my fellow volunteers could videotape too much of the spectacle.

Back in Tsyome Afedo, the chief invited us to the house where we’d met him at the week’s start. The queen mother and the council of elders were all there. The chief’s linguist acknowledged that the computer center was far from finished. “This is not the end of our work,” he said. Nor, he hoped, was it the end of our acquaintance. Two women tied a string with a trading bead around each of our wrists.

“We do this,” said the linguist, “so that you may go back safely and so people will see your connection to us.”

We offered a few words of our own gratitude. But the love–fest started to go awry. Teddy Bones, who’d had a few too many ceremonial libations, kept chiming in. Finally, someone dragged him outside.

When we came out of the chief’s house, Teddy was sobbing. Jodee gave him a hug, and I slipped him some beer money, which cheered him up immediately.

I was feeling a little misty myself as we drove back to our dorm. I felt like I’d known the people in the village and the people in this van for much longer than seven days. The previous week’s breakneck sightseeing had filled my memory card. But I’d had a deeper encounter—and, frankly, more fun—hauling cement and being humiliated by old ladies. Eamon had risen to the challenge. He’d griped every day about missing his pets and his mom, but even he had to admit, “This was a pretty good trip.”

When we got back to Ho, the people in the Vodun village called Richard to say that they’d found my BlackBerry, which I must have lost during my trance dance. I took it as a sign. Maybe I should be grateful to the fetish priest for ridding me of the wireless tumor–giver. Who wants to be buried in a cell phone?

“I can get it,” said Richard.

“Don’t,” I said. “I can buy another one.”

But, naturally, Richard wouldn’t hear of it. He got up early and fetched the infernal device, giving it back to me at the airport. I hugged him and, once again, tried to give him the Ghanaian soul–shake. The jets were roaring overhead but, so help me, I heard our fingers snap.

Laws of Life Essay
David Hauge – 6D
Nysmith School – April 15, 2010

If you are not part of the solution,you are part of the problem

“If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” My mom always says this quote to me. The quote was originally said by Eldridge Cleaver, a civil rights activist in the 1960’s. I believe that it is very true. For Spring Break every year since I was 10, my parents and I have gone to another country to volunteer in their communities. When I was 10 and 11, my family and I went to Vietnam, and it was amazing to see what the people live through every day. No electricity, no running water, no cars. We helped build a house for 2 days, and taught in a school for 2 days. It was a great experience. I would totally recommend it to anyone who would like to be part of the solution.

This year, my family and I went to Cuzco, Peru to help rebuild and play/teach kids ages 8-18. When we first got out of the airport, it was hot and humid. My parents and I met my dad’s identical twin, my uncle, outside. We then met our guide Rosio outside the airport. We left the airport in 2 taxis and started our ride to the albergue, where the kids stayed. When we were traveling through the streets, I saw a lot of broken down buildings that were being rebuilt. I saw many stray dogs, looking for something to eat. I saw many people in small business shops, trying to make a living.

When we arrived at the albergue, we were shown to our rooms. Inside were 4 bunk beds, 1 for each one of us. We settled in, because the kids were not coming until Sunday night, and today was Saturday.  All the kids were at their actual homes for the weekend, except 2. Christopher, an 8 year old, and Samwell, a 13 year old. That afternoon we visited an open-air market. We then got the materials for the project the kids were going to do that week, which was crochet slippers. After we got the materials, we headed back to the albergue and a long awaited good sleep.

The next day, at about 7:00 o’clock, we had a breakfast of bread and cornflakes (that is what I had). We then went to see the town square. Being Palm Sunday and the people in Peru are very Catholic, there were many people there. My family, Lucia, another guide, and I went to about 5 churches. We headed back to the albergue for lunch. The other volunteers arrived while we were in town. They were friends of ours from Virginia and it was fun to have friends on this trip. We all then had an hour-long nap.

After that, we headed to Tipon, a sacred place of the Incas, with some of the kids who had just arrived. It was a long car ride, especially on the dirt roads. When we got there, we started hiking. It was interesting to think that 500 years earlier, Incas stepped on the same stones and grass.

After dinner, we were introduced to the kids. We had them stand up, say where they were from, and one thing they liked to do. Almost all the girls said that they liked volleyball, and all of the boys said that they liked soccer. Being a soccer player, that was nice to hear. We then went to bed and thought of the long day ahead.

The next day we started our work projects, which included rebuilding the carpentry area. We started by moving all the pieces of scrap wood to the far end of the soccer court. Not field, court. Then moved all of the stones to a near by grass area. This is much harder said then done. We did work like this for the next 3 days. Until Wednesday, when things take a twist.

It starts out like any day in the morning, but it starts to rain. So we head inside. I really do not feel well. When my mom takes my temperature, it says 99.9, a low-grade fever. I ended up staying inside almost the whole day, reading. What else could I do? They had no medication, no hospital. I then realized how spoiled we are in this country. Our government is arguing about health care, but in some countries, there is no health care at all. “Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time.” Never take anything for granted. I could have easily gotten very sick and had a big problem.

On Thursday, we went drove for 2 hours by van to build a stove for the villagers up in the mountains. This required my friend Nikhil, 2 other teenage volunteers  from Florida, and me to stomp around in mud (I hope only mud) for a long time, while putting in pieces of grass. After we got home from that experience, we felt good about ourselves. We also all knew that we were going to Machu Picchu the next day, so we were psyched about that.

The next day we caught a 5:00 PM train to the town near Machu Picchu. We spent the night at a nice hotel, waiting the impending doom of waking up before sunrise to get there. When we got up at 4:45 AM, we had breakfast and met our tour guide Hector. We got in line for the bus at 5:15, and saw about 150 people ahead of us. We caught the 13th bus, and were on our way. Hector was a great tour guide. The sights were so beautiful, and the phrase “Memories last a lifetime” really kicks in here.

Overall, the trip was one of the best in my life, and one of the most fun too. I would recommend it to everybody. The organization is called Globe Aware / Adventures in Service. Their message is “Have fun. Help people.” I had fun, and I helped people. My last favorite quote is “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi. Things will not get better by themselves — we each need to be part of the solution.

On July 8, 2010, Peter Sheehan, a 34-year-old software developer from Chicago IL., was officially made chief of Mafi-Wudukpo, a village in Ghana. Peter accepted the new moniker Torgbui Nubueke I (New Dawn) from Torgbui Torbo Dakpui III and an assortment of Ghanaian elders, welcoming him as a chief of the agrarian village located in south eastern Ghana.

Peter, and his wife Colleen Sheehan, 29, a senior associate producer at Oprah Winfrey Show, were in Ghana with Globe Aware (www.globeaware.org) on a one-week volunteer vacation, July 3-9, 2010. Colleen taught in the village while Peter helped construct sanitation facilities, including digging trenches, laying conduits, drainage, and mixing concrete.

On July 8 and the day before Peter and Colleen were to leave, their Globe Aware guide notified Peter that the chief had decided to make him a chief. A formal ceremony was held that day.

Peter was dressed in a traditional robe, provided special beads, special sandals and two girls were assigned to follow and fan Peter as he made a formal entrance before the entire village.

“I quickly realized that this was not simple gesture. This was no joke and this was real,” relates Peter.” I remember thinking to myself that I had better be attentive, very present in the moment and pay attention to every detail.”

“During the ceremony my translator was explaining that the chief felt that the fact two Americans came all this way to help his village marked a new era for the region, hence, ‘new dawn’ became my honorary name.” Adds Peter, “The chief explained that my wife would be crowned ‘Queen Mother’ on our next visit since tradition dictates both ceremonies cannot be held on the same day.”

Peter received a plot of land to build on and he also received a ram during the ceremony.

“Living in the village we were able to overcome the language barrier by communicating through active participation and working within their environment,” says Peter. “While I am proud of what were able to accomplish, we are now absolutely committed to ensure that this is just the very beginning of the work we will do for our new family in Mafi-Wudukpo.”

Great article in Northern California’s Times-Standard newspaper, explaining the origins and evolution of the “voluntourism” concept, how volunteer vacations have made their mark in California and the importance of working with reputable, established firms such as Globe Aware:

Voluntourism is an exhilarating and satisfying adventure that appeals to people of all ages; there are meaningful experiences out there for everyone,” writes Todd Metcalf, Volunteer Services Manager at the Volunteer Center of the Redwoods. “Typically, agencies such as “Globe Aware” and “Handsup Holidays” coordinate vacations, which are expertly planned and led by committed, knowledgeable professionals. Voluntourists are not required to have any special skills or speak a foreign language. The coordinating agencies prepare the destination prior to arrival and then accompany and work alongside voluntourists during their volunteer vacation.”

Metcalf goes on to explain the origins and importance of voluntourism to the Eureka, California community:

Good news on the North Coast — the rains have stopped and summer is officially here. And it’s not too late to plan a summer getaway. Even in these interesting economic times, vacation bargains can be found and they are in the form of something called “voluntourism.”

The first organization to introduce that term and concept was the Nevada Board of Tourism in 1998. The board was attempting to attract local residents to volunteering in support of the development of rural tourism in remote locations of Nevada. Although this is quite different from what the term is currently being used to describe, it is an interesting bit of trivia nonetheless.

As the word implies, voluntourism combines the best intentions of the nonprofit sector with the excitement of a tourist’s experience to create stimulating, service-oriented vacations that are becoming popular vacation options. A Travelocity poll taken in December 2008 found that 38 percent of the 1,000 respondents had added volunteering to their 2007 vacation planning options. Meanwhile, Travel Industry of America statistics indicate that 55 million people had volunteered during a trip with more than twice that number making plans to do so in the near future.

The idea of combining voluntary service with travel is not a new concept. It can be traced back for many thousands of years in various cultures and religious orders throughout the world. Missionaries, healers and medical practitioners, sailors, explorers and countless others have rendered service in conjunction with their travels.

But what about modern-day voluntourism? In its current form, voluntourism received a big boost from the founding of Volunteer Service Overseas in 1958 by Alec and Mora Dickson, and from the creation of the U.S. Peace Corps, established in 1961 during the John F. Kennedy administration. Subsequent opportunities include Service Learning, established in 1965; Study Abroad Programs, formed in the 1970s; the ecotourism vacations that became popular in the 1980s; and the Volunteer Vacations program developed in the 1990s.

Voluntouring can take you almost anywhere. You can:
* Repair trails and roads in Nepal;
* Build hospitals in Eastern Europe;
* Work on irrigation projects in Southeast Asia;
* Construct efficient ovens in Central America; or
* Build schools in the Andes mountains.

For those a little less adventurous, here are some opportunities closer to home:
* Friends of the Dunes in Manila are always seeking volunteers.
* Serve as a mentor and counsellor for girls at North Star Quest Camp on the beautiful Mattole River.
* Attend Humboldt “trail stewards” training for Hammond Trail and Cooper Gulch (volunteers help with trail maintenance, repair and construction).

We recently returned from our wonderful experience Globe Aware Volunteer Vacation in El Sur.  It was absolutely amazing and such a great trip.  I can’t wait to take my next volunteer vacation.

I put together a video of our time in Costa Rica.

Please feel free to share it.  Enjoy!

Evelyn Barnes

Kimberly Haley-Coleman, Executive Director, Globe Aware was recently featured in a continuing profile series at WorldNomads.com, a popular web-resource with a focus on keeping travelers traveling safely:

1. Who are you?  Brief description of trips you offer

Globe Aware is a nonprofit that organizes one week volunteer programs in communities all around the world. Our focus is to promote cultural awareness and sustainability. For us, the concept of sustainability is to help others stand on their own two feet; to teach skills rather than reliance. For example, we build schools in Ghana, homes in Vietnam, assemble wheelchairs for landmine victims in Cambodia.

All of our volunteer programs are designed to be safe, culturally interesting, genuinely beneficial to a needy community, and involve significant interaction with the host community. Globe Aware is not a foundation that focuses on giving out charity, but rather an organization which focuses on creating self reliance.

2.  How do you define Responsible Travel?

Responsible travel, for us, means ensuring that volunteers are engaged in empowering the host communities and ensuring they are involved in project implementation so that they know how to do them.  It also means letting the local community identify where they think they need help and what kind of solution they want. While Globe Aware’s direct, financial assistance benefits the community economically, it is the the actual involvement and collaboration between the volunteers and the community that is of the greatest mutual benefit.

Responsible travel also means respecting the culture and heritage of the community in which you are traveling. A volunteer’s goal should not be to change the host community, but rather to work side by side on projects the community finds meaningful.

3.  What does your company do to make sure it travels responsibly?

We promote responsible travel by ensuring that the communities in which we work are the ones choosing which projects and initiatives our volunteer work on. We do have set requirements for potential projects – that they be safe, culturally interesting, and genuinely beneficial, but beyond that we let the host communities, the experts on their own culture and needs, tell us how we can help them.

Additionally, Globe Aware offsets its carbon emissions with Carbonfund.org, the country’s leading carbon offset organization. Our carbon footprint is estimated at less than 70 tons annually, and we have chosen to support carbon-reducing projects in renewable energy to offset the CO2 that is produced in running our offices worldwide, from powering our offices to the transportation used to get to and from our work sites. This commitment places Globe Aware as an environmental leader in the volunteer abroad community and demonstrates proactive steps being taken in the fight against global climate change.

4.    Tell us about a successful initiative.  And an unsuccessful one – what did you learn?

A few of our most recent successful initiatives have been the construction of school buildings in rural Ghana. These children in this community did not have good access to education because of lack of facilities. These school buildings have changed that and now these kids are poised to pursue an education and work skills and break free from the cycle of poverty.

Less successful has been promoting projects in communities that are more than 6 hours from the airport of entry. Our primary volunteers tend to be working professionals and they normally only have about a week to take off to participate in a program. Our experience has been that project sites that are too far from the airport of entry tend to be harder to promote to short term volunteers, even if it is a really great project in a needy community.

5.   What’s some advice you can offer to travelers wanting to travel responsibly?

Travelers wanting to travel responsibly should learn about the culture of the community they are going to visit before they set off for the airport. When contemplating bringing additional donations, think about just bringing some extra funds with you and buying supplies at a local shop. This helps the community in a number of ways – they get needed supplies and local businesses are generating revenue.

Another thing to consider is watching your waste. Use a refillable water bottle and the like. Trash has to go somewhere and in developing communities there is a lack of sanitation services to responsibly remove waste. Outside of volunteering, travelers should opt to stay at locally run hotels and eat at locally owned restaurants. By helping locally owned businesses you are directly supporting the community and not large international conglomerates that overrun popular tourist destinations. In essence, put your bucks where they count. However, avoid handing out direct monetary donations. You don’t want to create dependency or reliance on handouts.

Globe Aware is cataloging small-scale “Green” projects for use in the local communities in which we operate.

These simple videos, along with other training materials, will be used in coming up with project ideas!

A solar oven cooks with the power of the sun and is an easy and inexpensive way to make cooking a lot greener!

This video is part of a series prepared by a team featuring our 2009 ExxonMobil Green Team Interns.

Honestly, a huge part of me wanting to take part in Globe Aware is the travel aspect. I have always loved to travel and I love experiencing new cultures.

But, after traveling to Costa Rica with Globe Aware, my views on travel changed a bit. I can’t begin to say how much I annoyed my mom by telling her that I was done traveling to luxury hotels (she likes that) and sitting on the beach! Yes, that’s nice, but, it’s fantastic to do something real with a vacation. It’s the most amazing experience in the world to go to a different country, see what it’s like beyond the tourist aspect, and help people there.

Kimmy Trauner, past Costa Rica volunteer, going to Cambodia in July 2010

Our volunteer vacation experience to Laos was absolutely a highlight of our trip around the world. I am completely enchanted with Laos. If any of your future volunteers have questions about Laos I would be happy to answer them. I thought maybe you would like to see the article I wrote about our experience in Laos for Garden State Woman magazine:

Volunteering in Laos

Our final volunteer activity for the week was perhaps my favorite, sponsoring a reading and literacy event at a village. The event, called a book party, is a concept created by an organization, Big Brother Mouse (www.bigbrothermouse.org), dedicated to providing books to children in the country’s often remote villages. The company writes and illustrates children’s books in English and Lao and with the help of donations organizes a party complete with games, songs and storytelling, culminating with a gift of one book to each child and a surplus to the village to start a library.

The village we visited was not that remote by Lao standards, but still could only be reached by boat, even after an hour long drive through the jungle on a bumpy dirt road. After a twenty minute row on the Mekong in baking hot sun, we arrived, welcomed by a rambunctious group of children waving to us on the river bank. They grabbed everything we carried, including a heavy cooler and piles of books, and we followed them up a set of steep stairs to their village where everyone in the small town gathered to watch the event.

Within minutes, our book party leaders, themselves three very rambunctious college students, had the village children drawing and then singing, laughing and playing games. Everything was proceeding like clockwork when, suddenly, Kelvin told us it was time for me and Ken to teach the kids some English. I was not at all prepared, but in the spirit of the day dove into a warbly rendition of the alphabet song while Ken, suffering stage fright, hid behind the video camera. The kids did their best to repeat after me, but I doubt they will remember much past ABCD. When you’re up in front of a crowd singing, you realize how ridiculous LMNOP sounds–not like separate letters at all. After my moment in the spotlight, it was time for snack distribution – always a hit – and for our Big Brother Mouse leaders to read the children a story. We then distributed books to our happy attendees.

Thinking we were finished, Ken and I started to pack up, when Kelvin again had a surprise for us. As a thank you, the adults of the village asked us to stay for a Baasii ceremony, a traditional rite performed to invoke spirits of protection and good health. The villagers first chanted a blessing around a centerpiece of flowers and fruit. Next they each tied a piece of string around our wrists, I believe to represent the spirits of protection. Then they presented us with a meal. The menu – fried pig’s skin, omelet, papaya salad, sticky rice and homemade whisky to wash it all down – was not what I typically would order in a restaurant, but when an entire village cooks for you and performs a ceremony in your honor, it is unthinkable to refuse their hospitality. We all dug in, even Ken who is a very picky eater, and everything was delicious, although the papaya salad was so spicy that I could not take more than a mouthful without crying.

Luckily, it was acceptable to eat just some of the food, but Kelvin advised it was customary to drink all of the whiskey offered. In this village where very little, if any, English is spoken, cries of “WhiskeyLao!” filled the air as the villagers toasted us and offered us shots to drink, always in pairs!

The mood was celebratory, and we happily partook, touched to be honored by the village in this manner. When the feast was complete, we stepped down the stairs to our boat, followed by the village children, who dove into the Mekong and splashed and swam after us as we departed down the river for our long drive home.

And just like that, in the blink of an eye it seemed, our week volunteering in Laos was drawing to a close. As we rowed down the Mekong, amongst sheer cliffs, past lounging water buffalo, in this country we came close to not visiting, I counted my lucky stars and thanked my map of the world for bringing me to Laos, a place where the residents are so open-hearted that at the end of a week of volunteering Ken and I felt we had received so much more than we had given. But then again, isn’t that always the case when you volunteer?

This is part three of Krysten Kimmett‘s story of adventure and discovery while on a Globe Aware volunteer vacation to Laos. For part one, click here. For part two, click here. For more volunteer vacation stories, information and travel opportunities, be sure to check back or, even better, subscribe to Globe Aware’s RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed by entering your email address in the Volunteer Vacations RSS Feed form in the right column.

Our volunteer vacation experience to Laos was absolutely a highlight of our trip around the world. I am completely enchanted with Laos. If any of your future volunteers have questions about Laos I would be happy to answer them. I thought maybe you would like to see the article I wrote about our experience in Laos for Garden State Woman magazine:

Volunteering in Laos

We first shopped at a bookstore in town and then headed out of Luang Prabang to donate our purchases to a nearby school. As we drove through lush green countryside in Kelvin’s jeep we encountered a traffic jam of sorts when three buffalo lumbered slowly across our path. In the midst of farms and forest, geese, ducklings and goats, we pulled up a small dirt road and came upon three simple cement buildings, our destination. The school facilities did not have running water, and as I used the outhouse and tried my best to ignore the multitude of spiders crawling on a nearby windowsill, I thought back to my own grade-school classrooms. How comfortable they seemed to me now! The school served fifteen different villages and enrolled students in six grades. Because of its rural location, many children walk more than two hours to attend classes. Although school was not in session, we met with the principal and presented him with our donation. He in turn showed us the groundwork of a future Globe Aware project. At the time of our visit just four posts and a thatched roof stood, but the structure would eventually become the school’s first library.

After this meeting, I realized that as Globe Aware volunteers, we were part of an ongoing, gradual, step-by-step improvement of the local community. We saw this first hand the following day when we began work on our next project, building a gate for Luang Prabang’s local orphanage, which is also a school. Past Globe Aware volunteers at the orphanage built sinks with running water outside the dormitories, replaced doors and windows and installed a basketball hoop, no easy feat in such a remote location. Although remoteness is part of Laos’s charm, it also means there is no Home Depot nearby and we would build our gate completely from scratch. We would do everything – buy lumber, cut boards (sometimes with a machete), sand, paint and nail everything together by hand. I do, however, use the term “we” loosely, because Ken, Kelvin and I had so much help from the resident children. Every day as soon as we pulled up in Kelvin’s jeep, ten to twenty incredibly well-behaved teenagers magically appeared from the woodwork, ready to wield a hammer or paintbrush.

As a result of the enthusiastic assistance of the students we were supposedly volunteering to help, I spent little time doing manual labor, which was probably best because it turns out that I am terrible at hammering a nail straight. Fortunately for me, I found an area in which I could be useful: talking. One of the fifteen-year-old girls who had commandeered all the paintbrushes wanted to practice her English. We hit it off well, although when I told her my age (33), she was surprised and said “you don’t look old but you are,” which made me laugh. I decided to focus on the first part of the sentence. Talking with her gave me some insight into the situation of the students at the orphanage-school. She, like many of her classmates, is not an orphan, but when her father was killed in a motorbike accident seven years ago, she was sent to the school. She has brothers and sisters that remain with her mother at home in her small village. She told me she was happy living where she had many friends and could focus on school and studying. Kelvin told us later that many children are sent to the orphanage from rural, single parent families to get an education and are better off than at home where they would be needed to farm to help support their families. The students are well cared for at the orphanage, although it is a struggle: the school relies heavily on donations because the Laos government is only able to provide the orphanage with 1,000 kip, or about 11 cents, per student per day.

After three days of work in brutal Southeast Asian heat and humidity and interruptions due to monsoon-like downpours and losses of electricity, our gate went up at the orphanage. Unfortunately, we could not quite figure out how to hang it straight, but we left secure in the knowledge that Kelvin and a future volunteer group would put the final finishing touches on our work.

This is part two of Krysten Kimmett‘s story of adventure and discovery while on a Globe Aware volunteer vacation to Laos. For part one, click here. For part three and for more volunteer vacation stories, information and travel opportunities, be sure to check back or, even better, subscribe to Globe Aware’s RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed by entering your email address in the Volunteer Vacations RSS Feed form in the right column.