When I came to Huanchaco I was initially surprised how calm and quiet it was. I soon learned that words like ‘tranquilo’ and ‘poco a poco’ meaning peaceful and little by little, defined the culture here.
Arriving in late September I was able to see a drastic change in the town leading into the summer months. The coming of spring celebration started with a parade in Trujillo and the Peruvian culture and pride were vibrantly displayed. In November things started to vary. Every weekend more and more people crowded the beaches. Every day a new restaurant opened inside someone’s house. Staying in a pseudo home stay my neighbors were some of my closest friends. Playing zappo, a traditional Peruvian drinking game, every Sunday was some of my best Spanish practice with the locals. The people in Huanchaco are some of the nicest I’d ever met. At a bar in the States when a foreigner sits down and attempts to speak broken English with someone, that person wouldn’t talk to him very much. The average American certainly would not share their beer with this person. In Huanchaco the opposite is true. They want to hear your broken Spanish and to share with you. This characteristic of the pueblo was my favorite, and also the one I will take away with me.
Volunteering in the office, I was able to see the inner workings of a non-governmental organization. Over the course of my three months I was given a variety of tasks. These ranged from specific paperwork, to more open ended input into the marketing approach of the company, to traveling to the specific projects to gather information. Although I recommend that the future office volunteer has more skills with html I was able to make it work without much knowledge of the language. The deadline and timetables were kept in Peruvian time, a little bit slower than the rest of the world, but I was eventually able to find my focus and complete the task work.
As the office volunteer I was able to view all of the volunteer opportunities that Otra Cosa Network offers. This allowed me to choose where I wanted to give extra support by picking the projects that appealed to me. I started with Juan Carlos at the skate ramp project in El Cerrito. Being one of the poorest neighborhoods in Huanchaco there is very little for the kids there to do. We built the floor for a future classroom and opened the half pipe for the kids to come play on. I also became the janitor/handyman at the CEP school. Local workers and volunteers built the school. They left all the building materials and tools scattered all over the place, not a safe environment for a school with almost 300 kids. There was loads of trash lining the walls of the school as well. After about a month the place was a lot cleaner. I also got to play with the three and four year olds a bunch. Daniel- David with the mullet was my favorite little punk. Being the office volunteer allows you to spread your time out at other projects as part time work as well. I liked this aspect of my position tremendously and found it liberating.
Overall my stay in Huanchaco was amazing. The friends made and good times had I will remember forever. The food, the cake, and the surf to quote the menuland chef ‘que rico’. Return to Huanchaco? Definitely. Work more with non-profits? Puede ser. Did I learn a lot? Every day.
- Find out more about how you can volunteer in the Otra Cosa office.
- Learn more about all of volunteer opportunities in Peru with Otra Cosa Network
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