As I searched the Workaway site for exchanges, I came across an volunteer opportunity to care for dogs at a rescue facility in Puerto Vallarta. A work exchange is a trade where you volunteer to help out in some capacity and, in return, the host offers you a free place to stay and sometimes even meals or pay. What’s not to pursue? I love Puerto Vallarta and thought it would be an ideal place to live for free.
The posting was a little odd in that it specified that they were looking for people in their twenties and thirties. While that kind of discrimination is fairly normal in Mexico (I’ve seen adds for a secretary that specified desired age, gender, and weight), I was surprised to see it in a Workaway posting. I wondered whether the hosts were looking for date worthy volunteers or if older people had historically not been able to do the work.
When I first signed up for Workaway, I purposely transposed my age as I know that age discrimination is widely practiced in the cultures of the countries in which I wanted to volunteer. With my physical condition, I figured I could do the work of a 35 year old even though I am 53. I get that from some people’s perspective, they don’t want a doddering old fool slowing things down, but in my case, I’m usually wondering why people half my age can’t keep up.
Regardless of the suggested age requirement, the host responded, indicating that they had all the volunteers they needed through December. He suggested that I foster a dog during my visit or contact the local animal shelter in Puerto Vallarta as they always needed volunteers.
In the meantime, I had found an opportunity to work at a dog care and rescue facility in Guadalajara, so I shortened my stay in Puerto Vallarta and informed the Workaway host there that I would not be around long enough to foster a dog. I did, however, take his advice and contacted the local animal shelter in Puerto Vallarta when I arrived.
I was told that volunteer days were Wednesdays and Saturdays, so I communicated to them that I would come in at the first available opportunity. As you can imagine, my head filled with visions of walking and playing with otherwise neglected dogs, and I couldn’t wait for Saturday.
I got up early as I had no idea how much time it would catch the bus to the remote area in Puerto Vallarta in which the shelter was located. I researched the bus route the night before using local forums as well as Google maps. Unfortunately, the advice given by the two was completely contradictory so I decided an early departure was essential.
One of my greatest joys when traveling is getting to know the locals as I piece together the puzzle of getting to my destination. It only took two inquiries in this case to get on the right bus to the shelter. Fortunately, I knew the name of the neighborhood the shelter was located in so when I saw it, hand lettered on the front of the bus, I had every confidence I would get there.
The trip in the U.S. would be called the milk run, meaning the driver took every effort to go the least direct route possible to get me to the neighborhood in which the shelter was located. There were several times I pulled out my phone just to make sure we were generally headed in the right direction, and frequently we were not. Still, I had faith and enjoyed the tour of Puerto Vallarta’s less touristic neighborhoods, even noting a couple places I wanted to come back to like a Saturday flea market.
When we got fairly close to where I saw the shelter was on my map, I walked to the front of the bus and told the driver that I wanted to go to the shelter. He told me to get off before the next turn and pointed in the direction I should walk. After about a block I saw a small sign that had a graphic that looked like an animal with an arrow pointing straight ahead so I felt reassured with a sense of confidence.
I arrived earlier than the volunteer start time, but a man indicated I should go inside and speak to the supervisor of the facility. Though the communication online had been in English, no one at the facility at present spoke English so through my limited Spanish and a bit of pantomime, I was assigned my tasks. You see I am pretty fluent at Spanish when it comes to going out to eat or traveling from place to place, but I had no vocabulary whatsoever for working at an animal shelter.
My hopes for playing in an open field with a bunch of puppies were quickly dashed when the supervisor handed me a bucket filled with soapy water and indicated that I should clean out the cages for the smaller dogs. I didn’t even get to handle them, as he moved them to the larger holding pen himself. I realized that made sense since the dogs would be familiar with him, and he didn’t want to risk a new volunteer getting bitten.
After cleaning the cages for the small dogs, I asked what I could do next. In the meantime, other volunteers, apparently more senior than I was, had shown up and were taking the bigger dogs out to walk. I was asked to clean up the cages while those dogs were out. The thing about bigger dogs is that they have bigger poops and pretty much bigger everything when it comes to making a mess of their cages.
Accepting my position at the bottom of the volunteer ladder, I continued to clean cages for the next two hours as the other volunteers took the dogs out for their walks. In addition to cleaning the cages, I had to clean all of the food and water bowls and let them dry in the sun before refilling them and putting them back before the dogs were returned.
My dreams of the experience I would have for the next two months in Guadalajara was quickly disintegrating, and I had to succumb to the realization that no one gives you shelter in exchange for playing with dogs. By the time I had finished all my tasks, all the dogs had been walked and returned to their cages. While I had no problem with the volunteering, I thought it would have been nice of them to throw me a bone, so to speak, by letting me hang out with or at least walk one dog.
I decided I would probably not make the one and a half hour round trip for the next volunteer day, especially during a time of increased Covid cases in the city, just to clean up dog shit. I’m still excited, however, about my upcoming work exchange in Guadalajara as there is a greater likelihood I will get my dog fix over the two months I have committed to being there, plus I won’t have to commute since they will be providing me with a bed to sleep in as part of the exchange.