I am pursuing something almost invisible to human observation.

I buy a coffee for five Bolivianos and set a fifty, the equivalent of 6 $CDN, on the coffeeshop counter. I apologize for not having anything smaller. The girl working there runs next door to get change. Change is always a problem in Bolivia.

I think I’m here to make change. Here where I am now and here in general. There are times when this inspires me, and there are times when I wonder where the change is and whether it actually has anything to do with me.

I walk to work, passing women on the streets with hordes of dirty kids. Well trained kids; the mother gives a sign and a three year old follows me asking for change. Smart kids; after all, as a foreigner I’ve got more spare change than most people do. If I wanted money I’d also be asking someone I considered to be rich. If it’s not too far buried in the bottom of my purse I give them some.

I walk alongside indigenous women, shorter than me, fancy skirts and tops and men’s dress hats, two long swinging braids. An indigenous lady watches me pass as she leans against a wall and spins wool, by hand, in a way that looks automatic and almost idle. I pass very old ladies, occasionally very old men, who sit on the sidewalk and ask for change. I can see their cataracts, sparse teeth.

On my way through the central plaza, Edwin catches me. He sells gum. He’s probably seven or eight. I’ve already got a couple of half-finished packs of gum floating around my purse. I tell him, “Lo siento, chico, no neccesito… proxima vez..” He skips along beside me for three blocks, smiling, telling me the capital city of every country he knows. I ask him about Canada, but he doesn’t know that one yet. He finds out I speak French (mas o menos) and tells me everything he knows how to say in French. Finally, he asks if I know about the swimming pool, and that it’s only five bolivianos an hour. “Cinco, no es mucho!” I say. He says in the most genuine way that he really wants to go. I laugh and finally buy some more gum. I’m impressed by his smoothness, but also sorry in a way that he’s had to become such a good salesman at his age.

I feel like giving people spare change is a band-aid solution for a problem that needs more serious attention. There should be more social aid. There should be old age pension. But big solutions take time, and in the meantime the little ones can help.

I work in an office. I work, as a volunteer, with computers. I’m here because I want to somehow improve people’s quality of life, or their rights, or their education or skills, or something, but what I actually do is build websites and do graphic design. On a good day. On a bad day I help the boss reinstall her msn messenger, or listen to the office assistant play online games, or do nothing at all because the internet connection’s down.

Hopefully the websites will attract more volunteers and funding, which will help the organization offer medical services to people who can’t afford them. Last year they did about twenty pacemaker implants, for free. This is something that usually costs something like a thousand US dollars here.

So I’m not doing nothing, but I also feel like I’m not doing anything very direct.

On fridays there’s dinners at Ñanta, my roommate’s org, a resource center for kids like Edwin who work on the streets. The outside gate is locked after six, and while we wait for someone to come and unlock it kids accumulate on the other side like an ocean. They crash off the gate, laughing, chasing each other, playing soccer with something that doesn’t sound like a ball. A can, maybe. Finally Vayu, a volunteer from Argentina comes and unlocks the gate from the inside. The noise level increases even more. The gate explodes open and a crowd of kids whirls out after Vayu, laughing, he’s laughing, he kisses our cheeks and runs off ahead of them. We’re laughing, we close the gate and go up the stairs to the center.

There are kids everywhere. I find it somehow reassuring that the kid personality types are the same here as anywhere else: you get the bad-asses that you have to keep an eye on, but that secretly want your attention, the eager helpful ones, the curious ones, the shy ones that will smile beautifully if you make faces at them. They all want to know your name. They all want to know where you’re from.

Evie, who’s older, maybe fifteen, offers me a platano. I split it with him. He wants to know what I have on my mp3 player so I show him how to work it and leave it with him for the evening. The kids have cooked supper; an American guy who volunteers at Ñanta is teaching cooking classes. There’s just enough food for everyone. I’ve already eaten, so I don’t take much. Several kids see that I don’t have much food and offer me some of theirs. While we eat, the boss and another guy are swarming around with cameras like proud mothers. They joke around with us, tease us good naturedly about anything they can, laugh at everything.

The noise at the center is constant. The kids are always excited to an extreme. The mess is undefeatable. The kitchen smells terrible. The walls are grimy. The windows are broken. We wash dishes. There’s water, actually mud, all over the floor. We look under the sink and see that there’s a piece of the pipe missing. Most of the water from the sink is falling into where the pipe reappears, the rest is leaking out onto the floor. We play with it a bit to try and fix it, but it seems like it’s been like that for a while. We go back to washing, squeegee the floor like usual when we’re done.

Despite the chaos, I feel like Ñanta is a beautiful, reassuring place. I’m not exactly sure why but I feel more like I’m being involved in positive change at Ñanta than at my own org. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I learn a lot by hanging out with those kids, and that the people that work there are really positive. You know that thing people always say about needing to get yourself sorted before you can help other people. And all the international cooperation rhetoric about volunteering being a learning exchange. (not just the north telling the south how to do things.) Maybe it’s also because I’m spending time with the people who benefit from that org, as opposed to spending time with a computer.

But the thing with change is you never really know for sure when you’re making it. It takes the combination of you and so many other people, and it takes time, and chances are that you won’t even be there when your efforts come to fruition.

So I think what this means is that you´ve got to do everything, really absolutely everything, the best you can because you’re not going to know what’s going to have an effect and what’s not. Right down to smiling at strangers and just generally being nice… people are sometimes strongly affected by the simplest things.

Also, you’ve gotta do these things in good faith. You can’t expect to be rewarded with seeing the results. You really have to do good things out of a simple desire to do good things, and with no desire for recognition.

So I guess I’ll keep doing all the small things I can, big things if I get the chance, and keep learning as much as I can about everything here. My approach in Canada is the same as it is in Bolivia. I don’t really know for sure, but I think this is a path to positive change.