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. Post Raleigh expedition, Rebecca is travelling in South America. This is the sixth of her 'emails' back home reporting on her experiences. Check out her previous emails sent to us via remote South American Internet Cafes!

Rebecca post Chile: Potosi in Bolivia

1/05/2001

Hola
We are now in Potosi in Bolivia. We got here last night from Tupiza which was a magic place (SW Bolivia) where we did some riding in the red canyons, walking around town and drank lots of banana licuados, yummy milkshakes!

Potosi is very high up, 4000m. We felt dodgey last night, but are OK, if a bit out of breath today. We really like Bolivia, the women look great in their bowler hats!

Our rough plan is to stay here a few more days, as we have been doing a lot of travelling without much of a break. Hope to visit the silver (and more recently, tin mines) where you can see the miners still working in horrible conditions. You take them little presents of fags, food, coca leaves. It should be an education.

At the end of the week we will take a 3 hour bus ride to Sucre, which was the capital of Bolivia a long time ago. We want to fly to La Paz from there and then try to fly up to the Amazon Basin in the north because a bus will take ages. There is a strike pending in Bolivia and we have to wait and see when and where it happens and what it affects before we can make proper plans to go to places. We are assuming that it will take a while for planes to be affected so hope to be able to get around. Road blocks are planned for when the strike starts, so buses will be no-go. The strikes are a worry. I keep listening to my little SW radio, and can get the world service.

The strike is because the farmers want their income to be increased from $30-60 US per month to $120. The armed forces and police received a 100% pay rise this year, which isn't fair. On top of that is the constant threat from US to cut trade links with Bolivia unless all the coca crops are destroyed. In 1995 the Bolivian Government met the US deadline to destroy a certain area of crops by paying farmers per hectare to destroy it but it didn't resolve the problem. Coca has a high yield, keeps longer etc and has a place in the tradition and culture of the country, so it is not easy to eliminate. It's also a very good remedy for altitude sickness, and is the ingredient of many other medicines. The US should sort out the demand side of it at home, but that's not really possible either. What a mess.

I am loving speaking Spanish here, easier accent to understand than in Chile and the people really appreciate me speaking and say how good my Spanish is, so I'm getting a big head! Being here makes me want to go to Spain soon ...

The sun is setting over lovely cathedral, beautiful place this. I'm Looking forward to coming back in the summer, so I hope we get one this year.

Take care
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 Raleigh 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