Follow the Journey

Hola, Buenos Tardes from Guayabillas, Ibarra, Ecuador!!! Just a quick update from Regina Huston, from Indianapolis, IN! Guayabillas is a resue center for many wild animals. They take in animals that have been kept in horrible conditions, injured, or simply need a new and better home. Without government funding, they function soley off of donations from multiple people and organizations, which also includes volunteer donations.  Volunteers stay either with a… Read More

Life has become a smorgasbord of inconsistencies of late.  I get up early and talk to my homestay family, meet up with the other volunteers, and take a rickety bus through the south side of Quito to one of twelve markets where we work with the organization UBECI – United to Benefit Ecuadorian Children.   The markets are loud and hot and it’s not surprising to see dead animals, live… Read More

I am writing from gorgeous, beautiful, sunny, amazing Monteverde. When I arrived from San Jose it was the most beautiful drive up the mountain to Monteverde. Let me start at the beginning, when I flew into San Jose I was fairly jet-lagged from flying in from Germany and hadn’t made any arrangements for transportation up the mountain to Monteverde or a place to stay in San Jose. Needless to say… Read More

Upon landing in the Bologna International Airport, I was greeted by my advisor, Monica, for my placement at Experience Plus! Cycling, in Forli’. The sun had just set and I felt as though I was walking right into the unknown wonders of Italy. Peculiar alleys, farms and towns zoomed past me while on the auto strada (highway). In the long stretch from Bologna to Forli’, I finally arrived. Even then,… Read More

I sit in the weathered rocking chair resting on the front porch of my Mellow Yellow Nicaraguan abode, gleaming at the brightly colored flowers and trees that reside in the garden. My attempts of wrapping my head around the fact that it has already been a month here runs parallel with my attempts at wrapping tamales. A place that was once new and foreign so quickly transformed into my home… Read More

Lily here- writing from sunny beautiful Troncones Mexico. Troncones is a small beach town in the state of Guerrero Mexico situated on the Pacific Coast. I am living in an apartment and working with the community in anything I can get involved in. My contact here in Troncones in Present Moment Retreat- a yoga and meditation retreat center. My learning here started immediately in the schooling of Mexican Time; a… Read More

Bonjour! I’m currently living in Saint Louis; a small town located in northern Senegal. I have been here for two weeks and already feel at home. I have fallen in love with my host family. I’m living with my mom, dad, brother and sister (who are both in there upper 20’s), two young cousins, and housekeeper. As I first arrived it was difficult to determine who was actually a part… Read More

Kendall made this little video and it has already received more than 2500 views and a tv station wrote wanting to show the video and donate money to the project. Here is the video:   Living Positive Kenya Harlem Shake… Read More

So I’ve been here for a little over two weeks and wow, talk about a culture shock. It’s hard to see, but feels amazing to be able to help out here. I live 4 hours out of Accra, the capital of Ghana, in a village called Atorkor. Don’t bother looking it up on Google Maps because it isn’t there. My little village sits on the coast and I can literally… Read More

Hey everyone! I am currently in Ngong, Kenya. Ngong is a small working class community, 30 minutes outside of the capital, Nairobi. It’s still hard to believe that I am actually in Africa. Six months ago, I made the extremely tough decision to take a gap year. Like all Carpe Diem students I had mixed emotions. I was super excited, nervous, and had no idea what to really expect. I… Read More

It is now February 11th and I arrived at the Rio Muchacho Organic Farm on the coast of Ecuador one month ago.  I have learned a ton, experienced things I never could have imagined, met incredible people, got soaked through torrential downpours of rain and sweated through the powerful heat of the sun so close to the equator.         Each morning I wake up at 615 AM and help with the… Read More

I’m on my second day at the Baan Yuu Suk Shelter and I love it so, so much!! The people here are so wonderful–there are two American staff members and one British woman, and all the volunteers are American save for one Canadian. The rest of the staff, including the founder of COSA, Mickey, are Thai. They were so welcoming and amazingly nice. Meeting the girls was also incredible–they are… Read More

Hello all! I am in Cusco, Peru working and living at a Healing House. I spent about a week and a half in Lima staying at the sister house of the Healing House, which is Art House Lima.  I was staying with a fantastic Peruvian family very near the ocean.  I got to see some local music, a water and light show, go to a BioFeria, and partake in fire… Read More

The first 7 of our cohort of 25 Latitudes students have already begun their placements in the far off corners of the earth!  So far we have students in Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Kenya, Mexico, and Uganda….doing different projects ranging from farming to yoga to working with kids in the slums of Kenya.  Pretty amazing opportunities that these students have taken on. And though the skies here in Portland are… Read More

Take the twelve hour bus ride from Cusco to the small city of Puerto Maldonado, a semblance of concrete and shades of green — a town founded during the early 20th century Amazonian rubber boom, now in crescendo to industrialization and a rise in eco-tourism. Settled at the convergence of the Madre de Dios and Tambopata rivers, streets full of bustling motorcycles and loudspeakers selling bread and aguaje are the… Read More

((para ver mas fotos, scroll down!)) ¡Hola comunidad Carpe Diem! It´s Megan (SAM Fall 2011) blogging from Cochabamba, Bolivia, my home for the past casi dos meses y me voy a quedar para dos meses mas 🙂 I am volunteering through Sustainable Bolivia (http://www.sustainablebolivia.org/) with Centro de Apoyo Integral Carcelario y Comunitario (CAICC). According to SB´s website (http://www.sustainablebolivia.org/CAICC.html)… CAICC serves children and adolescents whose parents are… Read More

Whats up Carpe Diem, family, friends and prospective students?! Cecilia and Josie here writing from The Meeting Place Cafe in Cuzco, Peru. Life has been really excellent so far. We’re both currently living in the healing house which is why we are writing this together. Literally, we are each using one hand to type this…. We do yoga everyday, en la manana, and then spend our afternoons chillin, talk to… Read More

Hey Guys! Its Andy Piper here from Cusco Peru!! I am currently into my second placement in Latitudes and am loving it. But first a description of what exactly I have been doing. Villa Tunari, Bolivia From early January to early February I was in Bolivia, at Inti Wara Yassi a wildlife refuge center for monkeys, pumas, other jungle creatures. I worked from 700-1800 everyday. It was hard work but… Read More

Okay, well I guess I'll be the first Latitudes student to upload a post, so here it goes. I chose for my volunteer placement to help out in a locally owned and operated Bed and Breakfast, Landhotel Bierhausle, in the VERY small "town" of Altglashutten. It is situated in the heart of the Schwarzwald (The Black Forest) very close to the borders with France and Switzerland. I arrived here at… Read More