The Real Amazon Enrichment, a Volunteer's Experience

They say time is relative and for our kind volunteer Laura, it flew by! She arrived at our center hoping to contribute in any way she could to help the Amazon and the people living in it. And she sure did! Laura became the leader of the nursery project. Along with Eder, a local staff member of Chaikuni, they managed to build one from scratch. Together, they reached and surpassed our goal of growing and transplanting oranges, grapefruits and cacao. These have now been distributed among the members of the nearby communities so they could plant them in their own fields and benefit from their fruits.

We thank Laura for her invaluable effort want and welcome her back any time!

A life far away from city noise and pollution sounded good to me. I swapped the sound of motors for going to bed to the sound of ribbeting frogs, howling monkeys and shaking branches.

Before arriving I was asked what I hoped to gain from coming to volunteer at Chaikuni. I listed joy from giving, immersion, sharing knowledge, learning new skills and spiritual growth. Whilst volunteering I focused on developing a tree nursery from scratch, working closely with on local who possessed much knowledge of the jungle. We sowed, grew, transplanted and prepared over 2000 trees to give out to people in the local community.

At the end of my 3 months of immersion in the jungle, I actually couldn’t leave. I stayed longer and cancelled some of my travel plans around the country. I can comfortably sayI gained all I had hoped for and so much more.

During my time in the jungle with surroundings that cleared the mind of stress and worry and encouraged creativity, I felt compelled to write a book about my experiences. I thought of a title “Finding Happy in Simple”. As the time went on I realized this wasn’t strong enough to credit the life changing experiences I’d encountered in the jungle, living with such humble, hardworking, loving people and the riches ecosystem on Earth. Maybe a more appropriate title would be “The Real Amazon Enrichment”.