Estefano Temple, Bachelors in Conflict Studies and Human Rights
Host country : Bolivia
Canadian NGO : Centre for International Studies and Cooperation(CECI)
Local NGO : Comunidad en Acción/Plataforma Boliviana frente al Cambio Climático
I did my internship through CECI, a Canadian NGO that placed me with their local partner APCOB, an NGO that works to empower the eastern Bolivian indigenous peoples of the country. My mandate was in a small town called Concepcion and it lasted 3 months during which I have closely been working with local indigenous communities on various themes. The team works on several areas of action to help the communities become more independent and sustainable. They do so by giving out economics, social & gender, and administrative workshops, among other themes. I have accompanied my colleagues several times to these workshops, and it is always a very rewarding experience that has taught me about the close connection between the communities and their land. When doing so, we usually wake up early as we tend to leave by 7 am, and we come back after lunch since most of the communities live far away. Although I haven’t gotten to give a workshop yet, assisting them and observing the impact that they provide is always a rewarding experience, as well as meeting the community members. There is also a feeling of reciprocity that is created during these workshops as we tend to bring food to the settlements and the residents cook it for everyone for lunch.
That being said, we also have had unexpected situations that truly got me out of my comfort zone. For instance, we once went to a community that was located 4 hours away from town on a hot day. We gave a workshop, ate, and left by around 1 or 2 pm, but on the way back our car stopped working in the middle of the forest, where no one had signal. We thought it was just the battery so we tried pushing the car (in the heat) as fast as we could to restart it. Nothing, so we waited for another car to pass by and restart our battery, it turned out that the battery wasn’t the issue. I’m not good at cars so I have no idea what caused the incident, but between the car stopping, and waiting for someone from town to get us back, around 12 hours had passed by and I ended up going home at 2 am. I will say, however, despite the wait, the heat, and the mosquito bites, it was an unforgettable experience as you can’t help but be in awe of nature in those kinds of moments…and I got to take beautiful pictures!
Nonetheless, not all experiences are thrilling or practical, but they can be as rewarding. For a considerable part of my internship, I have been working on writing down and editing a memoir of a Q&A my NGO had with Indigenous leaders. I had to transcribe several hours of speech, and I didn’t have the ear to just do it as they spoke, so I had to use a software. Despite it helping me tremendously, I still had a great deal of editing to do. It was a struggle at first, but I got support from coworkers who helped me understand the local accents from the recordings, and the meaning of certain words, which made the task a lot more manageable. Although I was overwhelmed at first, I ended up getting much more comfortable with local Spanish, both written and oral. I also learned so much history doing this task that I started seeing it as a privilege. The memoir summarizes the fight that the Indigenous peoples of the region had to go through to reclaim their land, which had been a tedious challenge marked by violence and grief, with some of the events sounding like they came right out of an action movie. At the start of the internship, I only knew the tip of the iceberg surrounding the land claims despite my coworkers explaining historical events. However, hearing about those struggles from people who went through it all helped me understand the depth of the inequalities that indigenous Bolivians experienced only a few decades ago.
All things considered, I could not have wished for a better support system, from both my family and friends, and from my NGO as I was looked after every step of the way. Despite my Canadian NGO (CECI) being located at the other end of the country, there was always an effort to keep in touch. This was not only to keep updates on my work progress but also to make sure I was doing OK on a more personal level. Overall, my experience has been truly rewarding so far, thanks to both unexpected adventures and the routine tasks that have taught me so much about my environment.