The title of this submission is inspired by a true quote.
At about the second or third week of your internship you will notice you no longer LOVE everything and everyone around you. This is the fall, the post honey-moon phase. You begin questioning why you went in the first place, and basically hate on life. One of my roommates, and fellow Youth Challenge International volunteers was caught saying, " I hate this, it isn’t like vacation at all!" This was upon her realization that going to volunteer was not just some exotic vacation with some legitimizing activity. Something that really bothers me, upon returning is when you run into people whom you do not speak to often and they ask, “How was your trip," or “How was Africa". Those are hard questions to answer because for you it will feel like they are diminishing on what you set out to do. Going volunteering abroad or embarking on an internship will feel anything like a trip. Someone asking how Africa was will also feel quite insulting when you return from your work, and for me that entailed many emotionally challenging things.
Yes, you start out with jetting off to some exotic location, and yes you read all the travel books and language aids, but once you are settled in it becomes far less romantic. My fellow volunteering friend had never gone anywhere abroad before unless it was on vacation, and so she was struggling coming on the third week, when she had realized our 2 month prose would not involve drinking on a beach or exploring historic sites. When she had been complaining about this to me, all I could think in my head was, “What the hell did you think volunteering with a non-profit AIDS organization would be like?" I also began questioning the morals of my group members, perhaps unfairly after reading a piece by Ivan Illich which illicit the idea that North American volunteers are 'do-gooders' and that volunteering in a third world country was the 'in-trip' for college students. I had also hoped I did not fall into that category, but sometimes felt as though maybe I was cheating when on weekend excursions I would do touristy things like go on Safari or hike up the nearby mountains.
There will be times in your internship when you do feel like you are there to travel- your free time. But you need to install it in your head that you are not going there for that purpose. You need to re-set your mindset from the prescription that most of us have that flying away somewhere involves vacationing. Times will be hard; you will get up early and work late. You will exhaust yourself. Some days are so far away from glamorous it will sicken you. The truth is, as exotic as it sounds; volunteering at an orphanage isn’t as 'fun' as it sounds. For whatever reasons you may choose to do this, as I did myself, it is not as appealing as it sounds. You will go in early in the morning and witness debauchery. Crying children who have nobody left in the world, puking, pissing and shitting on you. It is not only physically challenging, it is very emotionally draining when you go in for lets say 8 hours thinking you are going to 'make a difference' and are caught trying to comfort a crying 2 year old, thinking why are you so upset little fella, its not a big deal that your bottle spilled. Then you leave and realize, they actually have a reason to cry. They are so lost in this messy world, and you found it hard living one day in that mess? They will live it for the rest of their lives and you get to walk away and go back to your sweet life. The point is. While volunteering abroad can seem very alluring- change your mindset that it’s a travel vacation. You are going there to get an experience in anarchy- like conditions. You will be challenged to the brink, in ways that you haven't been before in your life. Yes, sure the weekends can be glamorous, but that’s not what you are going there for. It really is not like vacation at all, but it is a hell of a lot more worth it in the end!