"Mosquito bites? Pah! When I was on Raleigh lad, we had more ticks than hot dinners."
"Hot dinners eh? You were lucky. We had to cook on corrugated roof of local church, wash up with spit from stray cat and strain pondwater for our tea."
"Tea? Luxury! When I was on Raleigh, we didn't know meaning of tea. Our tea was sweat we'd scrape off our backs after fifty-mile trek through snake-infested jungle. We had to chew on our own shoelaces we was that hungry."
"We used to dream of shoelaces!"
"And you tell that to the parents back home and they won't believe you..."

A venturer puts his feet up after mountain trekking in Chile.

Recounting horror stories from the foreign bush courses through our British blood like the Charge of Light Brigade. Something in our genes programmes us to outdo one another with tales of hardships and brushes with death abroad. Britain probably has more voluntary organisations sending our youth to distant parts of the globe than any other nation. Like the public school regime and our inclement weather, we like to think suffering makes us into better people.

Raleigh International started life as a sailing ship which took a crew of young people on an adventure, teaching them how to sail and work as a team. Fifteen years later, the youth development charity has sent thousands of 18 to 25 year-olds to developing countries to work on community and environmental projects. Although regarded by many as a jolly hockey sticks, somewhat pseudo-military organisation, it is at pains to shake off its Volvo-family image and improve the cross-section of staff and venturers who raise up to £3,000 to join their expeditions. Their Youth Development Programme for example, aims to attract young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, while the number of international venturers increases all the time.

Volunteers at work on a community- based project in northern Belize.

Whether Raleigh will ever shed its overgrown scout image is doubtful, but the recipe of a sprinkling of suffering, a measure of altruism and a dash of teamwork and leadership skills certainly seems to go down well with venturers and future employers alike. Just don't mention the 'long-drop' toilet facilities.

Scattered to the four corners of Belize in Central America this spring, over a hundred young Raleigh venturers were hard at work on their horror stories. The hottest, dustiest, least picturesque and most tick-ridden project site on the Belize expedition was in the squatter town of Bella Vista. The closest thing to a "pretty view" was scrubland and the dust-choked Southern Highway. Over a three month period, the venturers built a three-classroom concrete-block primary school from scratch, topped with a shiny new roof and adorned with painted tropical fish.

Initially, a rumour circulated in the village that the foreigners were being paid for their work. None of the villagers came to help out. A public relations campaign soon put paid to the rumour, but then the locals simply thought the venturers were mad. As the opening day loomed, they worked from seven in the morning until seven at night in up to 40°C heat to complete the school. They camped in scraggy secondary forest on the edge of town, had to transport their water from a well a mile away in a wheelbarrow and were woken every morning at four by packs of dogs, followed by cockerels at six.

Trekkers in the Mayan jungle in Belize suffering happily...

Bella Vista was voted the best project site of the Belize expedition. Although its popularity was in fact due to the two project managers who ran the site, only Britishers would think such a place was in any way nice, and sing a song to the tune of 'Bear Necessities' about it afterwards.

Another, more subtle example of this very British tradition are the dive sites which Raleigh run. Belize is world-renowned for the barrier reef which lines the length of its Caribbean coastline. Raleigh has tapped the reef's potential to attract volunteers since its first expedition to the country in 1992. Two remote, turquoise-ringed, palm-peppered islands provide the bases for their dive sites. In their first week venturers are taught how to scuba dive by instructors. They're then set to work amassing baseline data on sedimentation levels caused by changing land use on the mainland. Days are spent diving, lolling about on cricket-white beaches, writing letters, snapping sunsets and watching frigate birds fish for their supper. Tans deepen, clothes are shed and the underwater world of wonders the venturers have discovered never ceases to amaze.

Sounds idyllic? Exactly. Far too Robinson Crusoe. What we need are slithery boa constrictors, hairy tarantulas, scrabbling nocturnal crabs, thorny, stinking mangroves, a measly litre a day to wash with and invisible sandflies with bites like Jaws. Oh, and an eight-foot high, fly infested Baywatch tower long-drop. It simply wouldn't be Raleigh without a plethora of nasties and gripes to write home about.

And then there's the food. Although the venturers showed a remarkable capacity to improvise on a theme, and even went so far as to build ovens to bake bread and pizza, there's only so much you can do with corned beef and dehydrated packets of Soya mince day after day. Even the weekly luxury of porridge à la raisins and condensed milk failed to inspire after a month or two. Much as the suffering wasn't silent, venturers still extracted some sick pleasure from counting how many weevils they could find in their morning mess tins. Seconds anyone?

Conversations in camps revolve around the perennial themes of food, sex, bowel movements, childhood television programmes and fantasies about hot baths and pints of bitter. Everyone knows your beeswax, your pet hates, your pets' names, the details and number of your amorous encounters and your all-important A-level grades. Hell is other venturers, Sartre might well have declared, had he been on Raleigh.

Venturers enjoying fireside chats on the shores of the Laguna San Rafael in Chilean Patagonia.

But without the bites, the runs and the absolutely essential ingredient of work not dissimilar to slave labour, no self-respecting Brit would even dream of joining a Raleigh International expedition. You couldn't face your friends down the pub without at least one close encounter with a boa to recount. Life-long friendships, unforgettable memories, edified characters?

Pah! Luxury!

Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our Central America Insiders page.