Volunteer vacations

I'd been in Mexico for just a day and a half when our team leader announced that he had to leave.

"Who's going to be our leader, then?" asked Elena Ribezzo, one of two Italian sociologists who, like me, had signed up for a volunteer trip to La Piedad, a village a few hours from Guadalajara in the state of Michoacan.

Rodrigo pointed to me. "You are," he said.

That's when I knew we were in trouble.

Four days later we were at a one-room rural schoolhouse, painting an exterior wall, when the teacher came up with the idea of having his nine students decorate it with their handprints. He brought us a can of blue paint, and the children spent the next half-hour happily pressing their palms all over the wall. Then we went to wash our hands — and the paint wouldn't come off. The teacher had given us a can of oil-based paint, not easily washable latex. It took more than an hour to scrub the paint off the children's hands and our own.

This just isn't working out, I thought as I scrubbed. Nothing was what I'd expected. Not only had our team leader deserted us, but our housing situation was not as advertised, our schedule was flimsy, and now we'd slathered these children with paint we couldn't get off. We'd come to Mexico to help, but were we doing more harm than good? I just hoped the kids wouldn't get sick.

Like Elena and the other Italian, Azzurra Paguni, I had traveled to La Piedad with visions of renovating schools and monuments, reforesting parks and helping disabled children. I'd expected our Mexican hosts to put us to work right away, and every day (I'd been told to bring work gloves and shoes, after all). Instead, from the moment we arrived, they seemed confused by our eager offers of assistance. Why didn't they realize that they could use our help?

This was my introduction to voluntourism, a highly popular trend mixing travel with volunteer work in the United States and abroad that attracts many people like me and my Italian companions, people who want to make a difference in communities less well-off than our own.

The number of U.S. voluntourists who served more than 120 miles from home but within the United States exceeded 3.4 million last year. More than 1 million volunteered overseas, according to a report called "Volunteering in America," released by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

And the economic crisis hasn't dampened people's desire for volunteer travel. "In hard times, people want to do something; they want to help," said David Krantz, a manager for the Center for Responsible Travel.

But that desire to help can go to waste — or misfire — if culture clashes arise. Many volunteers travel from developed countries to Third World nations, hoping to make a difference in a short period. Yet sometimes their hosts don't know what to do with these outsiders.

The two Italians and I had the best intentions when we signed up to work for Vive Mexico, the organization that spearheaded our trip. I had been linked to it through the well-regarded Volunteers for Peace, based in Vermont. The Italians found Vive Mexico through a similar Italian organization that had previously sent Elena on four successful volunteer trips.

"I want to work with kids, and I thought this trip could show me if I can do it," Azzurra told me as we walked through the main plaza of La Piedad one afternoon.

As for Elena, "I don't like to take traditional vacations," she told me. "I like to be doing things."

Days of rest

"Tomorrow is a day of rest," Marco Duran, a director at La Piedad's Institute of Youth, which Vive Mexico had charged with arranging our housing and activities, told me and Elena the Wednesday we arrived. Because Azzurra wasn't due to arrive until the next day, Marco figured we should wait for her. He also expected that we'd be tired after the taxing voyage to this out-of-the-way town. But we wanted to get started with the volunteering.

"I came here to work, not to take a vacation," I protested. After all, La Piedad wasn't exactly a tourism hot spot. About 240 miles from Mexico City, this town of 80,000 was once the center of the country's pork industry. Now it's better known for the colorful shawls its artisans make and sell on the streets. The main tourist attractions are the Cavadas Bridge, a national monument, and the Señor de la Piedad church, which boasts one of the largest domes in the country.

I realized that Marco wasn't used to dealing with pushy Americans (though by American standards, I'm not that pushy). But to appease Elena and me, he organized a tour of two local schools that receive food from the city.

It wasn't an especially satisfying start to our high-minded working vacation. Coming from the U.S., I'm used to being overscheduled. In Mexico, I found myself feeling antsy because our calendar wasn't jampacked and rigid. And I did not understand why our hosts didn't seem ready for us. We'd been promised a private house, but it wouldn't be ready for another four days.

One day into my one-week trip, I was starting to wonder what I'd gotten myself into.

Amy Bannon, director and head of outgoing placement at Volunteers for Peace, said that the organization places about 650 volunteers abroad each year and that 1.5 percent or fewer report negative experiences. Sometimes the cause is poor planning and execution on the part of the project hosts, she told me. Other times, though, the volunteers cause problems.

"Many volunteers from the U.S. are the very demanding super-achiever types, and have very high expectations and standards for themselves, and will arrive to a project chock-full of motivation, which is a good thing, but then are confronted with issues," she wrote to me in an e-mail. "They develop a demanding rather than cooperative attitude."

Were the Italians and I too demanding? We didn't mean to be. We just wanted to feel useful.

On Friday morning, we went to Paulo Freire, a private school with 550 students from kindergarten to junior high. We were each asked to lead a group of students around the neighborhood to sell raffle tickets for the benefit of homeless children. My group of eight nominated 13-year-old Jessica Ortega as our spokeswoman, and we walked from house to house.

"I'm sorry; we're poor," one woman said as she turned us away.

"I'm sorry; I don't have that much on me," another said.

I proposed a change in strategy, suggesting that we hit up businesses instead. Jessica, our clever leader, decided to mention that she had an American in tow. It worked. Maybe the business owners wanted to impress the foreigner, but I didn't mind being exploited for the good of the mission. And I enjoyed spending time with the kids.

But once again, I ended my day wondering how much good I was actually doing.

Working holiday

Work (such as it was) resumed on Monday, even though it was a national holiday. Our hosts were shocked that we wanted to work. Mexicans take their holidays seriously.

But Marco arranged for us to go to a home for the elderly, then help clean up a town park. At the rest home, about a dozen elderly residents sat quietly in chairs lining the walls of a room.

We were happy to entertain the old folks for a couple of hours. They seemed delighted to have us sit with them, holding their hands and listening to them complain about their ailments or talk about their families.

A late welcome

The next morning, we headed to our welcome ceremony (six days after we'd arrived). A podium had been set up at the Institute of Youth. But we weren't in the mood for a ceremony. We asked to talk to Alberto Garcia, the director of Vive Mexico, instead. It was time he heard our concerns.

When we reached him by phone, Alberto said we shouldn't have expected a rigid schedule. We had to adapt, he said.

"The most important part of our camp is the interchange, making relationships with people from other cultures," he said. "Sometimes we have volunteers with the wrong expectations. They think they're going to save the place. They come to Mexico. They think they can change it into Germany."

But, Azzurra told Alberto, "I'm here for 15 days, and I want to do something, not to wait for five days."

After more discussions, we came up with a firm schedule of activities. Our Mexican hosts assured us that they were there to help us.

Funny, I thought: Weren't we there to help them?

That afternoon, we went to a school in San Cristóbal, on the outskirts of La Piedad. Elena and Azzurra took over the class. They had the kids write their names on the board, then pulled out a map and showed them Italy. I stood back and talked to the kids, who ranged in age from 6 to 12. Things were going well, I thought.

And then we painted them blue.