By Miles Duncan

Posted November 13, 2007

Each summer it's common to see a migration of high school and college students to Latin America, hoping to enjoy the sunshine, culture and freedom the land has to offer.

While some are simply traveling for pleasure, more than 500 of these students are volunteering up to two months of their summers for service projects through Amigos de las Américas.

The Sacramento-Davis chapter, one of 31 chapters in the United States, recently saw the return of 19 teenagers from Latin America.

Katie Gallinger, a first-year international relations major and associate training director for the local Amigos program, volunteered this past summer in Nicaragua, as well as in Uruguay in 2006.

Like many other Amigos volunteers, Gallinger was inspired to get involved in the program after a group of past volunteers gave a heartfelt presentation to her Spanish class in high school, she said.

"There was something about it that attracted me," she said. "I think it was mostly the fact that you could experience the culture, living the way that they do. It's a great chance to improve [your] Spanish, and it's a great chance to improve leadership skills."

As a prerequisite for applying, students must be at least 16 years old and have a minimum two years of high school Spanish, said Linda Cloud, president of the Sacramento-Davis Chapter.

Students are usually sent to one of eight Latin American countries including Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Panama or Paraguay. Though the trip comes with a $2,000 charge, the local chapter does fundraising to make sure everyone can afford to go, Cloud said.

Before students are accepted into the program, they must complete a thorough interview process, followed by eight months of intense training, which can be completed in person or through an online correspondence program.

Volunteers are prepared to teach classes in their foreign country and receive more training specific to their project during their first three days in Latin America.

The service projects are varied and community specific, but may include building a playground and working in a health clinic in Nicaragua and building volleyball and soccer fields in Uruguay, Gallinger said.

Among other unique experiences, volunteers live with a host family in their rural communities, often in houses barely resembling more than shacks, she added.

"You live with them, you eat their food, you basically are totally immersed in their culture and language," Gallinger said. "It separates it a lot from other kinds of volunteer programs where you stay in a hotel with groups of other North Americans."

First-year UC Davis economics major Siddartha Aradhya traveled to Mexico in 2006 and was impressed by his host family and the rest of the community, he said.

"It was eye-opening because even though they weren't monetarily rich, they were very rich in spirit," Aradhya said. "They were very happy to be alive and very happy for each day to have a meal and they shared that with us even though they had nothing. They gave it to us to make us feel welcome."

Though communicating in Spanish is one of the larger challenges of the project, Aradhya said he was able to improve his teamwork skills not only by working with his host family and the community, but also with his North American partner who accompanied him.

The most rewarding part of Aradhya's trip was organizing a trash pickup in his community, he said.

"To see how happy they were to have completed the project, and seeing everybody participate in cleaning up the streets, it was very fulfilling," he said. "It was a tangible piece of evidence that I had actually done something."

Gallinger also found both her trips very rewarding, and after returning home had a sense that she could do anything she put her mind to, she said.

"It's definitely the thing in my life that I'm most proud of and I'd recommend it to anybody," she said.