Raleigh International gives young people between 17 and 25 years old and volunteer staff over 25 years old the chance to live and work on expeditions abroad. Not only do they develop personally and contribute to the country they are working in but they learn to work together with people from different cultures.

Rebecca Riddy signed up as an expedition translator on a Raleigh International expedition in Chile for 3 months. This is the first of her 'emails' back home reporting on her experiences. We will post further details of her exploits as she emails via remote South American Internet Cafes!

Rebecca in Chile: Raleigh International expedition translator
The Beginnings

10/01/2001

Hola,
I'm in Chile! I've been here 5 days now. The journey was very long, about 30 hours all in all with a little plane taking us south down to Balmacena (1.5 hrs from Coyhaique where I am) from Santiago with fab scenery, flying over the Andes!

It is very fresh here, summer hasn't really started I don't think and as we are outside or in unheated building all the time it's pretty chilly (get it!!). Coyhaique is surrounded by huge snow-capped mountains and is called a city but isn't by our standards though you can get most things here.

We have been very busy since we arrived, getting things set up for the start of the expedition. I have been thrown in with phoning up transport companies to work out how to transport project groups out in to the field when the venturers arrive at the end of Jan, and plotting all the info on a big map of the region. I have also interpreted at a meeting we had the other day with 2 women who are helping us organise a couple of community projects, building a herb drying facility and a women's handicraft group which was interesting. Other than that, I have done a translation about a project which we will be doing with some marine scientists far down south and lots of answering of the phone. The accent is very different and everyone says I have a Spanish accent from Spain, which of course I have. It will take some time to get used to it, but I will.

There are 10 of us staff here at the moment with the other 50 arriving tonight which will seem odd. We have been sleeping in bunks in a converted barn but will have to move out into tents tonight and it isn't that warm! We had a good BBQ last night and went to the fire-station for a meal the other night. Every town nearly has a fire station and they have a restaurant open to the public. It was good. Nice people here.

We are all having chats with Malcolm, the project leader, about what we would like to do, but I won't know what I have been allotted for another week or so. Instead of being in the office all the time I hope to do some kayaking and either trekking or a community project, but will have to wait and see what the other interpreters want to do. I am hoping to be able to use email fairly regularly to keep in touch. The next 2 weeks are chocka with the staff training programme from about 8.00am to 9.30pm. This includes camping, a swimming test in the river (brrr), teaching the staff Spanish, learning how to use the radio (got one with me now and have just had to answer a query from base camp – feels like I'm in the army!).

Rebecca

Further information

Raleigh International currently runs eleven expeditions a year. In 2000-2001 expeditions are going to Belize, Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Ghana, Mongolia and Namibia. The three-month expedition is part of a longer programme involving training weekends and workshops. These workshops concentrate on personal development and global awareness. After an expedition, there is the chance to join Raleigh International support groups all over the world, to continue the Raleigh experience and to help others take part.

You can see updates about this and other projects on the Raleigh International website.

© travel-quest.co.uk 2001

Links:
Follow these links for other organisations offering volunteer work,
or if you are interested in expeditions or expedition training.
For Raleigh International: http://www.raleigh.org.uk