Volunteers here can stay as little as 4 weeks and some are here for a year! During our orientation with Adam, one of the admins, we learned that he’d only been here since December. Adam, though quite young himself, is gracious and skilled at asking others, especially the local staffers who have been here a long time, for their advice and opinions.
On the first day of work, we were being trained by some "20 somethings" who were in their second week. Honestly, there were so many new things to learn that I had difficulty doing the math - how would I have enough experience to train someone in 2 weeks? It’s now Saturday, our 6th day, and the new schedule has just come out. I’ll be training a new person on Tuesday! Wow! I am so grateful to my mentors (Mia, Zoltan, Virgile) who have taught me the animal care routines so well. And to our “experienced” guides (Christina, Mia and Phillip) who showed us how to lead tours of the animals.
Thinking back to February and our snowshoe trek- one of the expectations was to “ask for and accept help”. For many of us (me included), this is a difficult mindset and when pulling toboggans across frozen portages it proved to be both beneficial and necessary. Given our recent learning experiences in the jungle it has become even more clear to me that when working towards a common goal, a group with an “ask for and accept help” culture is more likely to achieve success.