In this short and personal blog post I want to share my experiences from volunteering work at Turtles Conservation and Education Center in Serangan and my work at Vision House, an orphanage for boys.
To be honest, I would never go with an organization again.
Originally I planned to search my own volunteering and work place in Bali, but because I wasn’t confident enough, I relied for everything on an organisation who would help me to find a volunteering place, organize an accommodation and provide me advice.
Retrospectively it was a silly idea. You spent too much money to give yourself an illusion of safety and protection.
But trust me, you are smart and confident enough to do it all by yourself.
Hindsight is easier than foresight.
They skype with me one time to let me know which kind of vaccinations I need and which visa to get at the embassy
(everything I could actually do on my own).
Once per month a weekly meeting??, where all volunteers came together. More or less, that’s it.
Is it worth it for a certification? – Definitely not for me.
But independently, I still met great co-workers through my work at the Turtle Conservation in Serangan and this experiences I don’t want to miss in my life. They actually always need volunteers, you can check their Facebook website and they will help you with picking up from the airport, accomodations and so on.
Later on, I got more self-confidence and now most of the time I am volunteering through workaway, more information about it I’ll provide in another blog post.
My work was the maintenance of the conservation, guiding tours for international and national groups, examine the sea turtle’s health condition and monitoring the eggs in the hatching nest,
release sea turtles, help cleaning the cages or filtered the sand.
Provide the food to the turtles and tortoises (most of the time you cut sea grass, fish or anything else)- after preparing the food you have the chance to feed them. Monotoring is your main task, you help to document the status of the turtle hatches and the babies.
I learned a lot about these endangered species and have a great time volunteering in Serangan (good surfing spot) with great co-workers and comfortable work climate. I can recommend it to everyone!
My second work was at an orphanage for boys in Denpasar called
‘Vision House’. I love children, so I enjoyed it to work there as a teacher for English and Maths. Sometimes it is a big challenge to deal with them once they are in a bad mood. But nevertheless, I took them to my heart a long time ago and never ever I would change this experience for all the money in the world. And it was one of the best work I had so far.
I work independently. And sometimes you have to be very persistent in getting the children’s attention. High motivation is demanded in this job, but I guess any teachers know what I’m talking about.
Last bus not least: I want to thank all the beautiful people and souls I have met in Bali.
You guys made my stay unforgettable and made it better than I could ever dreamed about. Especially friends I made at Beach Breeze became one of my closest teman (friend in Indonesian) in my life. Not only my work, or the activities I did in Bali are so special to me.
It’s not about the destination, but people you meet in your life who will change your trip to a memorable life time experience.
A house, phone or a car will never be as valuable as your life experiences.
Just do it and make it work. Your life, your decisions.
This was just the beginning of Bali, I will come back!
Terima kasih dan sampai jumpa lagi.