This past summer I have been on an internship
with AIESEC to Cochabamba, Bolivia. I was in Bolivia for about 7 weeks, from
3-7-2012 till 18-8-2012. In this period I worked for an NGO called Centro
Integral Warmi (Warmi), which supports underprivileged children with a safe and
healthy environment to become fully-fledged citizens. This story will elaborate
on my experiences in Bolivia and will include the culture, job, AIESEC, and the
impact it had on me.
Bolivia is a beautiful country with many sites
to see. A first thing, I noticed when I was in Bolivia was that the culture is
really warm. Whenever you tell anyone that you are from outside of Bolivia,
everyone is immediately interested and eager to talk to you. Furthermore,
everyone is extremely helpful, which enabled me to get used to the culture,
country, and city relatively quickly. I was quite surprised by this, since I
did not speak too much Spanish and could only understand about 80% per cent of
it. Initially, I thought that I would be able to manage with English, but the
majority of the country does not speak English. Secondly, Bolivians have a
really small personal space. Initially, I was really uncomfortable with the way
everyone greeted you, with a kiss on the cheek. Even worse were the trufis (a taxi
with a fixed route), which I had to take a work on a daily basis, since these
taxis would be filled until no space was left. Sometimes people almost sat on
your lap for like 15 minutes, really uncomfortable.
Working in Bolivia seems almost unreal. The mentality
and way of working is completely different than in the Netherlands. At Warmi I
was supposed to responsible for fundraising. However, from the first day
onwards I already noticed that the backbone in order to be able to fundraise
was missing and that number of essential documents and mechanisms were just
missing. After convincing, the organization of the fact that no organization
would ever donate money if these elements were not in place; I could focus on
these essentials. In my period at Warmi,
I together with other AIESEC-trainees updated the website, organized their
activities on social media, and created some essentials documents, like a
standardized letter.
Interestingly, Bolivian
organizations hardly care about administrative work. In many of my
conversations with other volunteers from different organizations, I heard that
organizational-wise the organizations they worked at were a mess, like mine.
Nevertheless, their organizations were all running as they were supposed to do,
which is really incredible, especially if you realize that an organization in
the Netherlands can only function if it has a decent organizational backbone.
Even though, I had some struggles with AIESEC both
in Bolivia and Tilburg before my departure, I really loved my AIESEC
internship. Due to the fact that I did have some special arrangements with
AIESEC Tilburg, I was more dependent on my coach, who was not great. Luckily, I
could change coach and was able to apply successfully for an internship in
Bolivia. The Bolivian mentality and responsiveness was terrible though, so it
took quite some time to get everything complete arranged. However, once I
arrived in Bolivia everything was great. I was picked up at the airport by
several people from AIESEC Cochabamba, who took me to my “house” and
immediately invited me to a party in the evening. AIESEC Cochabamba was really
active and arranged many activities for the interns, which was great since in
this way it was easy to meet Bolivians.
As in my opinion every experience abroad my
internship in Bolivia opened my eyes. I was extremely surprised by the fact
that an organization could be running without the organizational backbone. It
proved once again that there are more ways to Rome, and that the Western way is
not the only way. Nevertheless, I still believe that our way is still more
practical. Furthermore, I experienced how it is to work full-time for the first
time in my life, and it is exhausting. The attitude towards work is also
different in Bolivia, and made me more aware of my own attitude. Also, I have
improved my Spanish and realized that I want to learn Spanish. In addition, I
believe that I have grown as a person. Working in a completely different
environment pushes you to edge in some situations, sometimes you just have to
put your foot down in order to get things done, even when you are communicating
with the management.
In sum, I would say that my AIESEC internship has
been amazing. I have made friends for life and had an experience of a lifetime.
The internship has showed me aspects of the job that I would not have
experienced in any other setting and has made me a more open-minded person.
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