A budget philanthropist gets more than she bargained for.

It was an incongruous and startling sight to behold: normally placid native Bolivian women, colourfully dressed in traditional garb, shouting angrily at a “gringo” attempting to address them.

“Fuera Marroquin, Fuera Chapare Marroquin!”
 
“Get out, get out of the Chapare, Marroquin,” they yelled, brandishing homemade signs.

Bargain hunting

That community meeting took place in February 2008, about 10 weeks after I’d arrived in the picturesque but impoverished jungle region. I was there as a volunteer, working with a quasi-independent arm of the charity, simply known as “the volunteer project.” Run by and for foreign volunteers, it supported the work of the foundation but looked after its own finances so as not to drain the charity’s funding, which came from a church in Texas.
 
In hindsight, it was a bit of a madcap expedition. It was planned on a whim and a shoestring by a 27-year-old already tired of the rat race. Researching options online, I was shocked at how much a volunteering trip could cost. I was offering up my blood sweat and tears, and in return they wanted how much? With just £2,000 to play with, I was a budget philanthropist.
 
When I saw a fellow countryman (Irish) blogging about a project that cost only $50 a week, I jumped at it.

The penny drops

Less than a month later I found myself on a bus, alone, and with a very limited Spanish vocabulary, careening wildly through the Bolivian countryside to a tiny town, Villa Tunari, in the middle of nowhere.
 
What had I done? It certainly wasn't the last time I asked myself that question in the following months.

I was viewed with suspicion by the foundation's staff. I was a white woman, with bad Spanish and limited experience in such matters, controlling the finances.

Upon arrival at El Castillo, the accommodation for volunteers, a dilapidated former hotel, I was greeted by a gaggle of travellers from all corners of the globe. Despite the somewhat primitive living conditions, which I’d expected, everything else seemed as it should.
 
After dinner I was hit with the bombshell: Earlier in the year (2007) the foundation’s director, Marroquin, had been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and child trafficking. Volunteers had reported him to an international child protection agency. He had been arrested and was in prison awaiting trial.

I was shown an article, published in the Austin Chronicle a few months earlier. According to the report, the foundation’s U.S. board of directors had begun to receive reports from workers and volunteers in Chapare, describing "increasingly irrational conduct" by Marroquin. The board asked him to leave and soon afterwards he was arrested and jailed by the Bolivian authorities.

Meet the new director

Given that the Catholic Diocese of Austin, Texas—which had reportedly sent up to $9,000 per month to the foundation—had pulled its funding, it was clear that now more than ever, the community needed help.
 
I took heart from the fact that it was volunteers who had blown the whistle on Marroquin in the first place and decided to stay. There was much work to be done: painting and mending chairs and tables, getting ready for the children to come back to school, and assisting with a latrine project for local communities with no plumbing.

About two weeks later, the Argentinean couple running the volunteer project called me aside and said they had to leave unexpectedly. Their young baby was sick and they were understandably worried in an area where infant mortality rates were high. They asked if I would take over the role as volunteer director, for which I would get free bed and board. I was planning to stay for a couple of months anyway, so couldn’t think of a good reason why not.

Turns out there were several. Not least of which was the fact that I was viewed with suspicion by the foundation’s staff, all Bolivian. With funding from the U.S. halted, the volunteer project was the only source of income for the charity. Now all of a sudden here was a white woman, with bad Spanish and limited experience in such matters, controlling the finances.

Empowerment

There was a reason for holding on to the purse strings though. The foundation was in chaos and had a history of not accounting for its finances. Volunteers were not willing to see their money disappear into a black hole and collectively decided to resist a take-over of the volunteer project by the foundation staff.
 
As all this went on, the spectre of Marroquin, soon to be released on house arrest, loomed large and no one knew what would happen once he was out.
 
But, in the end, that volatile community meeting in February 2008 was the first and last time I saw him. Arriving under police escort to explain himself, he didn’t even make it to the stage before the crowd turned on him. Tellingly, that day it was the women who led the charge against him.
 
For me, it was gratifying to see the community come together, empowered and taking action against him. I’d been concerned that his status as a white man with money and influence might protect him.
 
Despite everything that was going on, there were good times in Villa Tunari. Our extended family at El Castillo changed weekly and I felt fortunate to be meeting such a variety of great people, all of whom wanted to help, despite the extenuating circumstances. I attended community meetings with elders and lived in close quarters with a Bolivian family to whom I had become close. I visited their family’s coca farm and was a guest in their home, a rustic dwelling in the country.
 
I’d also learned how to run a volunteer project from the bottom up and had mastered my Español. I sadly realized that sometimes outsiders can cause more harm than good if they don’t respect and consult the people they are trying to help.
 
I could see some of the educated Bolivian staff resented me and didn’t blame them. Ultimately, the issues at the ailing foundation were bigger than me or any volunteer and without the money being funnelled from the U.S. there was no way to keep the charity going.

A few months after I left, both it and the volunteer project were shuttered.
 
But what of Marroquin? According to a Bolivian newspaper, Los Tiempos, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being guilty of child molestation and human trafficking. But justice in Bolivia is cheap, grossly corrupt and inadequate. Enquires made to a wide range of sources have not managed to verify where Marroquin is at present.
 
As for me, today I look back on it as a great life experience that taught me that I can face just about anything. It was also a sound lesson that perhaps the cheapest option isn’t always the best value.