Volunteer work at Chuchini

The work at Chuchini didn’t turn out to be quite as we anticipated… we’d diligently read the website before our arrival and thought we’d be spending most of our time outdoors… we imagined maintaining trails, helping out with the animals that were being rehabilitated, working in the garden etc…

In reality though, the majority of the volunteer work we did, fit into the catch-all category of every job description – yes, I’m talking about the ‘anything else that needs to be done’ category… that famous all encompassing category that means ‘and anything else that I can’t think of right now as I’m writing a list of tasks’… or else, ‘anything that the job includes but doesn’t really sound very glamorous and might put people off applying’…

At Chuchini we did get to be outside some of the time – In fact we spent a couple of VERY pleasant afternoons clearing trails – yes it was hot, thirsty work, and yes there were heaps of persistent mosquitoes lurking in the jungle wanting a taste of human blood… but we were in the jungle listening to the sounds of birds and catching glimpses of monkeys high up in the tree canopy 🙂 🙂 PB was enjoying himself so much he even decided to fix a handrail on a rickety bridge so visitors wouldn’t fall into a muddy dip 🙂

But, in reality most of our time was spent in a more hospitality style role… the flow of guests was constant during our time at Chuchini… and with overnight guests comes the need for Chuchini to serve three meals a day! The amount of work varied depending on the number of guests, but there was a group of about 24 young people from the U.S. for some of the time that we were there, so there was quite a lot to dok!!!

Our main tasks therefore focussed around meal times… we woke up bright and early to set up breakfast… we didn’t have to cook the food – only set the tables and carry out the food prepared by the cook – the guests were safe ;-), then after breakfast there was the clearing away and the washing and drying up…

Then we did it all again at lunch time and dinner time…

From time to time we also turned our hand to basic food preparation… PB made salsa golf, CC made llajwa and we both got to make the fruit juice on more than one occasion 🙂

In between meal times we helped with additional tasks…these were pretty varied and although we liked to try and guess the next days task we didn’t always succeed as no day was really that predictable…

During our 8 days at Chuchini we cleared cobwebs from ceilings… assisted the owners on their shopping trips into Trinidad… or else helped with the unloading of the car after they had been on a shopping trip in Trinidad…helped staff to clean the guest rooms – this was after a mass exodus of 24 Americans and the arrival of new guests the same day… and even ended up at Trinidad airport for a few hours to help a guest, who’d managed to end up with their leg in plaster after slipping while running..

I did say the tasks were varied and unpredictable!!!

It wasn’t all work though 🙂 As a volunteer at Chuchini we not only got one day off a week, but also a couple of afternoons…  birdwatching and trail walking time – yay!!!

Chuchini are also very keen to ensure volunteers have a really positive experience – which we did 🙂 – and therefore they like volunteers to take part in ALL the guest activities too 🙂 This is a really nice thing for them to do and we REALLY enjoyed all of the guest activities… more on that coming soon 🙂