Facts about Amigos de las Americas

1. Years in operation: 46

2. Volunteers fielded: 24,383

3. Vaccinations given: 7,917,580

4. Trees planted: 288,958

5. Countries served: 8 (Panama, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, Costa Rica, Mexico, Dominican Republic).

Source: Amigos de las Americas, http://www.amigoslink.org

Nicole Desideri’s first trip out of the country wasn’t a family trip to Europe or a semester abroad like many Davis teens might enjoy.

Rather, it was six weeks spent in a remote village in Paraguay, where she lived with a local family, taught school children and helped build brick ovens for several local households.

The town, Calle San Rafael, was little more than a single road lined with homes, most of which were no larger than two rooms, many without hot water, and certainly no television.

“It definitely made me realize how sheltered I am, how much I don’t get out of Davis,” said Desideri, now a senior at Davis High School.

It’s a realization a number of Davis teens have come to, thanks to their participation in the Amigos de las Americas program over the summer. Ten students from Davis and Da Vinci high schools traveled to Central and South America, where they lived with a host family and spent their time and energy on public health, education and environmental projects.

Amigos is a 46-year-old program that places high school and college students in Latin American countries every summer.

For teens who’ve grown up in the relative comfort of Davis, it makes for an eye-opening experience.

The first night with his host family, said Da Vinci senior Melecio Estrella, “was probably the hardest of my life.”

He was placed with a very poor family in a Honduran village, in a house with dirt floors and surrounded by barbed wire.

“I remember feeling really awkward and alone and wanting to be home,” Estrella said.

Desideri, too, recalled how hard it was “being away from home, not having my family and friends around me.”

“Speaking the language was also tough at first,” she said. “But it got better.”

So much better in fact, that both Desideri and Estrella found leaving their new-found family and friends to return to Davis was just as hard as the initial adjustment.

“I remember in the beginning thinking, ‘Wow, six weeks … I don’t know how I’m going to make it,’ ” said Estrella. “And then just like that, the end was here and I didn’t want to leave.

“I loved the people,” he added. “They were just so outgoing and nice and accepting.”

Desideri, too, had fallen in love with her host family and the many friends she met in Paraguay.

“My favorite memories are hanging out with my host family, shelling peanuts with my host dad, picking oranges with my host mom … it was really cool being a part of their family,” she said.

As for their language skills, like all Amigos volunteers, Desideri and Estrella both had several years of classroom Spanish under their belts, but returned from their Amigos experiences with a much greater grasp of the language.

Da Vinci senior Rebecca Rubin so enjoyed her first Amigos experience last year that she signed on again, this time ending up in Peru. As she did the previous year in Paraguay, Rubin helped built sogons — brick ovens — in the community.

Without the sogons, families essentially would cook on open fires in their homes and community kitchens, which led to a build-up of smoke. The sogons have chimneys that carry the smoke out of the house.

Desideri built sogons in Paraguay as well, while Estrella helped repair the local meeting hall in his community. With a partner and several volunteers from the community, Estrella helped repair the leaky roof and fix or replace a number of windows and doors.

In addition to a large community project, amigos are also expected to run a daily program for children, focusing on environmental and health themes while using games and activities.

“It was really fun,” Desideri said. “The kids were really easy to talk to.”

And when the language barrier proved too much — since some of the children spoke Guarani rather than Spanish — “we would just act stuff out,” she said.

All three Davis teens highly recommend the program.

“It was a very rewarding experience,” Estrella said. “It gave me a lot of insight into another part of the world and another culture. I also learned a lot of life skills.”

“I definitely recommend it to other students,” Desideri said.

In addition to Estrella, Desideri and Rubin, the other Davis teens who participated in the Amigos program over the summer are: Davis High students Claire Coleman, Emily Gao, Emily Talbot and Alex Marelich; and Da Vinci High students Owen Goodwin, Mallory Barnes and Lisa Bell.

For more information on the Amigos program, visit http://www.amigoslink.org or the Sacramento-Davis chapter at http://www.sac-davisamigos.org.

— Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at [email protected] or (530) 747-8051.

Students interested in learning more about Amigos de las Americas should consider attending one of three upcoming information nights:

Saturday, Sept. 24, at 5 p.m. at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Sacramento, Main Conference Hall, 2425 Stockton Blvd.

Saturday, Oct. 1, at 5 p.m. at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Sacramento, Main Conference Hall, 2425 Stockton Blved.

Sunday, Oct. 2, at 2 p.m. in the city of Davis Redwood Building, 1001 Anderson Road.

For more information, contact Todd Simmons at [email protected]

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