My third volunteer experience in Uruguay was with another non-profit called Servi tu Ciudad. This was a week-long service where, upon completing my classes every night, I traveled to la ciudad vieja to meet up with other volunteers to work in projects targeted at servicing the city in whatever ways we could.
Starting on a Sunday, I took a taxi and then a friend picked me up to get over to the far northern end of Montevideo where we stopped at a day care center. This project involved painting the day care center’s interior and exterior walls, enhancing the color and vibrancy of the otherwise grey space. We worked in teams throughout the biting cold to paint the entirety of one room blue. Then we switched to a low retaining wall outside and, after painting the entire thing white with whitewash, we added a swooping orange line to complete the design. These may sound like minor changes but effect on the space was instant. Feeling like kids again, we climbed a play structure and posed for some pictures.
The rest of the week’s plan for volunteer projects included delivering coats to those living on the streets who needed them, handing out free, hot coffee, starting a campaign to share free hugs and happiness with those who passed by, and a few others that I didn’t get the chance to participate in. There is a unique stillness that defines an evening shared with volunteers and the general public. While handing out coats, I discovered that, much more warmth the clothing would provide, we were communicating with the homeless about things they needed. The people we found on the streets that night explained their pasts: one even told his entire history, starting with his humble days as a firefighter up until the day he blew out his leg and he was left stranded and without benefits. Throw a few foreign exchange students into the group and you can receive a few lingering stares. During our free hug campaign, I around a high-traffic plaza with a sign, bellowing out “Abrazos Gratis,” (Free Hugs) with an exuberance that served to scare off any would-takers. Turning toward a Uruguayan friend, she repeated the phrase “Abrazos Gratis” in the same incorrect intonation I used … we paused before bursting into laughter. That was what those nights of volunteer work were all about: spreading a few smiles along with the coffee, hugs, and coats.
The final volunteer experience I had in Uruguay was a project funded by my university called “Trabajos del invierno,” or Winter work. As the name suggestions, the job, and it did indeed turn out to be something very close to a job, was to assist low-to mid income families with building an entirely new neighborhood of pristine, concrete houses. These houses were nothing like what I helped build with “Un techo para mi pais.” Instead of the thin wood serving as protection, these homes were built with brick, concrete, glass window panes, and other industrial resources. They included a fireplace, and closet, and around 3 to 4 rooms. Of course building around 70 – 80 houses of these quality is no easy task.
The other volunteers were all students from my university and, even better, they were all Uruguayans. As one of the last things I did before coming home to the states, this volunteer opportunity tested me more than my final examinations combined. Sitting down and talking to any one of these intelligent individuals made a world of difference on enhancing my vocabulary and broadening my understanding of the world. There were around 11 people total and two, including me, were men.
Sadly, I arrived in Casupa, a small, un-traveled bit of Uruguay that lies around 3 hours bus travel to the east of Montevideo, a day later than the project’s start-up. After having spent a week traveling, a friend and I had failed in arriving in time to take a boat from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Colonia, Uruguay. Despite my tardiness, the group of volunteers readily assisted my adventure to Casupa telephonically and later accepted me into their group as another life-and-soul-seaking individual.
The rest of the group appeared exhausted on the first day I say them. They were dressed in sweat pants, sweatshirts, and motley coats accentuating dark stains of paint. They were smiling but they were tired. Picking me up from the bus stop, they led me toward a plaza-facing church nearby and collapsed into a heap of fatigue the moment they could find the chairs. I was filled in: painting, a harmless exercise in low doses, can wrack one’s back with pain when one is forced to stretch his or her entire body to paint far-reaching corners for 4-5 hours at a time. Vowing not to mention my child care center painting experiences, I quickly unpacked my sleeping back and changed into some clothes I didn’t mind getting dirty.
When we got to the construction site a short while later, each of us was presented with a blue hard hat – blue being a marker for the lowest tier in the construction worker hierarchy. Next up were the captains, sporting yellow hard hats. And the head honcho of the project, the cachafaz himself, wore white. I should note: this my friends, is a story about how I, a foreign exchange student, elevated myself from lowly blue to yellow and yes, finally to white. The cachafaz stepped out from the headquarters (a broad white shack with a huge, opened door) and gazed over the lines of workers: women separated to one side and men on the other. Then, he chose his teams.
A minute groan sounded from the other side. The female volunteers from my university were all chosen to paint again. They passed me smiling but irked. I was selected to join two others; both with yellow hats. Obviously they had the authority. I carried the bag of cement.
We were making concrete steps leading up to the houses. However minor this may sound, working with concrete can be a finicky process and the task was not easy. Flitting between mixing the cement, lining up the molding squares, carefully splatting buckets of the grey goo into the molds, and smoothing out every completed step, I quickly began to enjoy the task at hand. And I told my fellow volunteers the same when we all returned to the church for some rest. They groaned and pitied my energy.
By the next day, my friends were done pitying my energy. I woke first and sang a short ditty in Spanish, imitating the alarm clock set to wake us all up. Between the rapid verbal abuse, I understood their chiding remarks to be cues for my exit. That next day, and even the next, I continued working on concrete while the majority of the others kept on painting duties. A few of them had branched out into other jobs and they relished them like sweet splashes of beach water. (I should note: the beach is the epitome of leisure to many Uruguayans).
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