When we first discussed the idea of volunteering in South America, we focused on the Peace Corps. We both had been interested for some time and always had the idea in the back of our minds. However, after further investigation, we realized that the Peace Corps requires a 27-month commitment and we couldn't commit to that much time. With the vast number of volunteer opportunities throughout South America, we quickly realized that we could organize our own little Peace Corps while maintaining the flexibility to spend more or less time at each organization. After having done quite a bit of research on different volunteer opportunities throughout the continent, we were surprised at the astronomical cost of using a placement agency. Placement agencies typically charge $1,000-3,000 per month to set people up with an organization, provide basic transportation and coordinate communication. However, we quickly realized that there are countless volunteer organizations that charge little (or nothing), provided the volunteer takes care of all the finer details. The cost ranges from $150-400 per month if the volunteer organization provides room and board and is usually free if not! The huge difference in costs between using an agency and doing it on your own certainly don't outweigh the benefits and make it seem that these "agencies" are making quite a profit. To be fair-- some of them donate the profits back into the projects. However, it's difficult to ascertain which agencies actually do so. The only benefit we would find useful would be increased understanding of the project (level of organization, feedback from past volunteers, etc.). However, outside of our first volunteer site, we plan on seeing each project first hand and personally investigating it before committing. There are quite a few good links to "free" volunteer opportunities at Volunteer South America. We're planning on volunteering in at least three different places. Ideally, we'd like to spend some time working with animals and/or conservation efforts and some time working with disadvantaged or orphaned children. We spent five weeks at the Santa Martha Flor de la Amazonia in the Amazonian region. We worked with rehabilitated animals to release them into the wild. In addition, we worked with the local family to assist them with the development of sustainable income. We spent about six and a half weeks in Pisco, Peru volunteering with Hands On Disaster Response to help out after the mid-August earthquake that destroyed 80% of the city's homes. We spent our time knocking down unstable houses, moving rubble so that people could have a temporary shelter on their own land, in UNICEF-sponsored kids' play areas located within refugee camps, and getting a potable water system up and running for a small rural community. Though the workday was incredibly exhausting (we worked 6 days a week), the work was also incredibly rewarding. We spent the last week or so organizing, purchasing, stuffing and handing out backpacks for 120 kids in the refugee camps. We plan on spending another month or so volunteering in Bolivia. We're not sure yet what we'll be doing but we're keeping our eyes and ears open.

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