Another group that uses volunteer manpower to construct buildings for the needy is Amizade, a six-year-old nonprofit that joins forces with existing community-based organizations to work on a series of international projects. The site of its earliest undertaking, Santarém, Brazil, continues to be the focus of some of its work, but Amizade has is also involved in other sites, notably in Cochabamba (Bolivia) and in an Aboriginal community in Queensland, Australia. For the summer of 2002, programs were scheduled to build classrooms and renovate a health clinic in Brazil, add rooms to an orphanage in Bolivia, construct a community center in Australia, and do general cleanup and restoration work at a remote dude ranch in Montana. Amizade volunteers are always joined by an equal or greater number of locals when they work on service projects, a ratio which contributes to interaction between the two groups. Also, Amizade emphasizes making each trip a cultural and educational experience, so a number of recreational activities are available in each location and experts provide language assistance and organize discussions.

Prices, duration, and accommodations vary between projects. Two-week programs in Satarem, Brazil start at a cost of $1,350. That fee covers room, board, a range of activities, and project materials; volunteers are expected to provide their own travel arrangements. Helping out in the U.S. is often a cheaper option. Renovating the first dude ranch in Montana for a week costs $530 a week. No special skills are necessary for any of Amizade's programs; local masons quickly teach volunteers all they need to know. Amizade will also customize volunteer trips for groups of between six and 60 people for a specified length of time-anywhere between one week and three months. Contact Amizade, Ltd., P.O. Box 110107, Pittsburgh, PA 15232 (phone 888/973-4443, e-mail volunteer@amizade.org, Web site: amizade.org/).

Excavation, archaeology, academia: Two hundred holiday digs

All over the world, but at home as well, archeological excavations use volunteer labor by adults with no previous experience in the art. In many cases the projects pick up all expenses of your stay (other than transportation to the site); in some instances they also pay you a small salary; in most, they charge a fairly nominal fee for your Spartan room and board.

And though the work is often limited to the painfully slow removal of earth from fragile fossils--with a toothbrush, no less, delicately, as you crouch over a slit trench in the baking summer sun--it leaves you full of fatigue, drenched with sweat, and pounds lighter, at the end of each day's stint. Who needs the Golden Door?

Minimum stays range from three days to the entire summer. Examples (some from past programs): In Arizona, California, and Oregon, in the warm-weather months, a government-sponsored archeological survey has used summer-long volunteers to "Identify and record prehistoric and historic sites ... in rough terrain....Volunteers received partial insurance coverage, on-the-job transportation, training, room, and board." Opportunities abroad also change every year, but here are some examples of trips scheduled in the past: At the east Karnak site of Luxor, Egypt, volunteers for six weeks unearthing building blocks used for the sun temples of the Pharaoh Akhenaten; "lodging and meals on site are provided without charge, except on Fridays (the day off)." On the Isle of Man, volunteers throughout the summer paid $120 a week for the expense of participating for as little or long as they like in excavating Neolithic and Bronze Age sites. Near the Black Sea Coast, Russia, two-week volunteers excavated and restored prehistoric monuments, and paid $200 a week for room and board.

The chief source of information is the 300-entry Archeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin, listing more than 200 domestic and foreign "digs," issued each January by the Archeological Institute of America (AIA). (Some listings, you should be warned, are of "field schools" rather than "fieldwork," and involve substantial tuition charges.) To order a copy, contact The David Brown Book Company (P.O. Box 511, Oakville CT 06779, Phone 800/791-9354) or visit www.oxbowbooks.com. Non-members pay $16.95; members of the AIA pay $12.95. Contact the AIA at Boston University, 656 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02215-2006, (Phone 617/353-6550) or log onto archaeological.org.

Archaeological projects closer to homeTravelers need not travel to exotic lands (and pay the hefty prices to get there) to join in on an archaeological project. Passport in Time (PIT), an archeological, preservation, and environmental program run by the USDA Forest Service, offers dozens of volunteer projects throughout the U.S. each year (usually from June to November). Past programs included exploring and excavating old mining sites in Idaho, researching and documenting the history of a freed slave African American community in Illinois, preserving a historically significant barn in Montana, and excavating Native American artifacts in New Mexico. A positive aspect to PIT: there is no fee to join in and lend a helping hand. Volunteers pay for their own transportation, lodging, and food, however. The deadline for applying for a summer PIT project is usually April 15. Another nice touch: many programs accept children in their pre-teens as volunteers. Note that for some projects, volunteers must be able to commit to the duration of the program to be accepted (and they sometimes last a few weeks). To find out more, visit the Passport in Time Web site (passportintime.com/), call 520/722-2716 or 800/281-9176, e-mail pit@sricrm.com, or write to Passport in Time Clearinghouse, P.O. Box 31315, Tucson, AZ 85751-1315.

Unearthing ancient lands

If the idea of traveling to Israel or Turkey to unearth ancient civilizations sounds intriguing, you may want to take a look at the most recent issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review. The Review contains a complete annual listing of Israeli archeological digs that make heavy use of volunteers of all ages from around the world, and are often sponsored by institutions and universities worldwide. In exchange for their work, volunteers receive inexpensive room and board (from $30/day up) for accommodations, meals, and occasional extras, such field trips and lectures. Conditions for each dig are different; though many take place in the warm summer months (when professors are able to supervise), there are those that run at other times of the year.

A dig in Bethsaida, near the sea of Galilee, will cost $460 for one week in a dorm. In Dor, south of Haifa, a three-week dig will cost $2,995.

A copy of the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) costs $4.50; to order the Jan/Feb issue, call 800/678-5555. BAR's Web site (bib-arch.org) also lists most of the information about the digs.