So we´re now about to start our fourth week. Wow. Time has begun to go by faster, as most people said it would. The past two weeks were pretty busy with language, technical, and culture classes. This week is Carnival, so we have Mon and Tues off, classes start again on Wednesday 2/21.
We´ve been much more active with our tech classes -- learning skills we will be using for the next two years. Our group of Environmental Education (EE) is 9 people, with two trainers. I am very happy with my group and we are all getting along well. We believe we have the best trainers -- Armando and César -- although I´m sure the other groups would say the same about their trainers. We´ve visited a cross section of some really horrible environmental problems in Cochabamba and some places where they have begun to turn things around. Last week we visited the first watershed conservation projects in the city. They were started about 20 years ago to protect the city from flooding. We went up into the mountains to see the work and hear how they have managed the labor, costs, and various government bureaucracies. At the end of the visit we went up to the ridge, at almost 11,000 feet, and saw our first llamas. We were all excited, trainers included, to see such beautiful animals in the natural setting.
Later in the week we continued a project with a local school. I am in a group of three working with a 4th grade class. We talked with the teacher and decided to work on trash themes. We presented ourselves to the class, answered some of their questions about us, and had a short discussion about their trash practices. Trash is a major problem in Bolivia. Many smaller towns do not have regular garbage service, so families do the best they can to deal with their trash. Burning and dumping seem to be the main strategies. We had the students make drawings about how their families deal with their garbage. The students were great -- a bit hesitant at first to share their thoughts, but they warmed up quickly. Our group is going to return in two weeks to discuss their drawings and to teach them how to recognize and separate organic from non-organic garbage.
Finally, this past weekend EE spent two days together learning more techniques for schools and presentations and all day Saturday working in a nursery. We camped on Friday night and had a great time. Armando and César prepared a huge parillada (BBQ), we enjoyed some cerveza, and played guitar around the campfire. It was a great change from the city and more formal class sessions. (Cesér and I on left, Armando on right)
Saturday was spent learning techniques for planting, transplanting, grafting, and cloning different types of plants. The nursery was beautiful and was the first in Cochabamba, started by a German man before WWII. We learned from the second and third generation Bolivians/Germans who lived and worked at the nursery. They showed us how to manage small plots and also techniques for reforesting large plots of land. This was also a nice change for me from the school setting as everything was new and I felt like I was really learning.
In another week and a half we will leave for a 10 day technical training. We are going to southern Bolivia to visit some current volunteers and learn from them. On the agenda are more time with schools, an environmental fair, more nursery techniques, and maybe most exciting, we are supposed to produce a short radio and TV spot. We will be close to Argentina by the end of the trip, so Armando has promised an even better parillada. It should be great.
I´ll finish with this goofy picture. There is a university group that is concerned with how many cars, mostly taxis I think, do not stop and allow pedestrians to safely cross the streets. They stand in the intersections, dressed as farm animals, and shout at the passing cars. When a car stops in the crosswalk, they all come out, surround the car and begin dancing and singing. The driver is usually embarrassed and the donkey insinuates that the driver is also a jack-ass. Ahh, Bolivia.
Hasta lluego,
Marcos
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