A Bolivian Farewell....

So my time here has come to an end. With mixed emotions I have spent the last few days preparing to leave and saying good-byes. My time here as been amazing and I could not have asked for a better experience. I am very grateful for the friends I have made here and to the kids at Amistad who welcomed me and shared their lives with me. The kids had a very nice going away celebration for me on Friday morning. It was hard to say goodbye, but I hope I will be returning soon and will get to see them again. Here are a few updates on the bakery and other projects I have been working on.



The Bakery continues to grow and should be in good hands. Corey, the Peace Corps volunteer at the Villa is taking over the project and should do a great job. We have two new clients, the Peace Corps office in CBBA, and an carneceria in the city. Our first sale at the Peace Corps office was huge, we sold over 375 Bs. in cakes and other baked goods. They should be a great client for us in the future. We have also been refining our ordering process and have developed what should prove to be a highly efficient ordering process for our larger clients. The other exciting progress that we are making involves training the kids to run the enterprise. The past month, I had been taking two different kids from the boys youth house to the Institute with me, in hopes of teaching them how to sell the bread there. Last Friday, Raul and Alfredo did their first solo sale at the Institute. They did a great job and it was a big step towards getting the kids more involved. The ultimate goal of the project is to get the kids to take total responsibility and initiative for the project. We have hopefully developed a very usable and organized model for the kids to take over. While working on the project I have begun to appreciate the times it takes to train people effectively. This has by far been the biggest challenge that we have faced. It is not too difficult for us to find clients and sell tons of bread and baked goods, but as I have realized, the point is not for us to be able to start and run a successful business in Bolivia, but to train young people to do this. This is a completely different task, but ultimately much more important, because neither myself nor the other volunteers will be working at the Villa forever.

The compost pile and recycling program was an unintended casualty of the rapid growth and success of the bakery. I had not anticipated having to spend so much of my time working with the bakery and as a result I the recycling program did not get much past the drawing board. However, a solid and very executable plan is in place and work will begin on the compost pile this week. I am hoping that this will provide some education to the kids about conservation and how they can make an impact in the global environment. In my time here I have noticed that ecological education and environmental awareness are seriously lacking in Bolivia. This might be expected of a developing country on the global level, but I am of the opinion that this attitude towards the environment is unacceptable. Recycling plastic and organic matter are two of the easiest things anyone can do to make a difference in the world. Chris will be implementing our plan and I hope it will help to at least cut in half the about of trash and waste produced by the Villa.

The masses at the Villa have also continued in the last few weeks. My classmates have been very responsive to my requests of them to say mass for the kids on a weekly basis. We even had a special mass last Sunday for the kids of the youth houses separate from the mass for the younger kids at the Villa. This program is going strong and will be continuing hopefully in the weeks and months to come. I am hoping that this will become a fixture in both the institute and the Villa long after I am gone.

Now for a little on our weekend in La Paz.



World’s most dangerous road

On Friday I left Cochabamba on a bus headed for La Paz. After having two major problems with the national airline LAB, I decided to not risk a flight not taking off or some other mishap that is par for the course here. The trip is eight hours by bus and it was a nice chance to see more of the altiplano. La Paz is a fascinating city of about 1 million situated at over 13000 feet. Just up the mountain is the fastest growing city in Bolivia, El Alto. Another 1 million people inhabit El Alto and the contrast between the two cities is striking. La Paz is a more or less vibrant cultural and economic centre of Bolivia. In contrast, El Alto is one of the poorest and most densely populated places in all of the country.



On Saturday morning, Matt, Ted and Derek set out early to descend the world’s most dangerous road on bikes. This road is reported to have had the most number of deaths of any road in the world (outside of Bagdad). The road is completely dirt and rock with 1000 foot drop offs all the way down. Ten people have died cycling this road just in the last several years. Despite its reputation, with caution and proper respect for the mountain, descending the road can be a beautiful and exhilarating recreational experience. The views from various points on the mountain were simply breathtaking. We booked a tour with the Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking Company of La Paz. This was an excellent group and we had two excellent guides. The world’s most dangerous road goes from La Paz to Coroico. At 7 am they took us high in the mountains to around 16000 feet to begin our descent. The ride is over 50km and descends all the way down to 3000 feet. The change in climate zones was incredible. From the frigid heights of the cloud forest, to the lush tropical area of Coroico, our trip covered an incredible range of climate and vegetation zones. We rode very nice downhill bikes and every detail of the trip was provided for. The whole operation was very professional and exceeded my expectations at every point. We even had a buffet dinner and showers waiting for us at an animal sanctuary after the five hour ride. The experience was truly excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone who plans to be traveling in the area.



Thank you all again for reading. I am planning on spending the next few months digesting my experience and finalizing my law school plans. After such a unique experience I will surely need some time to process the thousand of influential experiences I have had over the last three months. I will continue to post throughout the summer probably every few weeks I am think of subjects worth writing about. There is also a possibility of a trip to South Africa for some more micro development work with the SLHC Children’s house in Durban. These plans are not finalized yet, but if I end up going, I will certainly be posting about my experiences there as well.

Thanks I hope you all have gotten something out of this blog. Stay tuned for more updates. Feel free to contact me with any comments or suggestions.

God Bless.

Gray
grayskinner@hotmail.com

Mountain climbing...

Hello again from Cochabamba. The last few weeks have been quite hectic as I have been trying to squeeze as many projects and activities into my last few weeks as possible. Classes have continued to go well, however they have been a little repetitive and frustrating since I am at a point now that the main thing I need is practice, and at times going to a class for four hours a day is a rather rigid form of practicing. However, the classes are getting more interesting as I am able to better express myself and talk about more complicated issues. I will finish with classes this Friday. They have been an amazing help in my learning Spanish. While rather intense at times, the classes were exactly what I needed to begin learning the language in a short period of time.

Last Sunday, I made an attempt on Tunari, the largest mountain in the area. At over 16000 feet, it is a monster that is clearly visible from anywhere in the city. I began the adventure with two friends from the Institute around 6am on Sunday morning. We took a trufi west to Quillicollo, and from there another to the Parque Tunari. We began climbing around 8am and had decided to attempt the journey without a guide. Not using a guide was probably a mistake especially since we spent the first two hours bushwhacking and trailblazing through river beds and thick ground cover. After a while as we got into the higher altitudes, the plant growth thinned out a bit and we were able to proceed much easier. Despite keeping a relentless pace, we definitely underestimated the distance however, and my two in the afternoon, had just reached the base of the cliffs that go up to the summit. This was a bit disappointing, but if we wanted to attempt a summit in one day, we should have hired transportation to get up a little higher up the mountain. The views were spectacular and it was a great experience. Next time I am here I am going to have to try again.

Thanks again for reading. I will write more soon.
Gray
grayskinner@hotmail.com

Holy Week…(with lots of pictures)

Faithful readers, I apologize for the delay. With so much going on down here, it is often hard to find time to put together a blog entry. During The last two weeks, I have continued my work with the bakery and other projects here at the Villa. I will detail a few highlights of the last few weeks.

Bakery:
We continue to sell our bread at the language institute and the sales are going very well. We are improving our production process and continue to look for new markets. This past week we reached another milestone when we acquired our second and third ovens. One we received as a gift from a Peace Corps volunteer here in Cochabamba. The other is a brand new and very nice oven (see picture, large grey oven on the left) that we were able to acquire with the past month’s successes. This new oven will allow us to speed production and venture into new varieties of baked goods such as French bread and bagels. We are also beginning to get the kids more directly involved in the production and selling process. This past week one of the boys from the youth house accompanied me to the Institute to learn the selling and ordering process. In the end this is really the most important part of the whole project. A couple of gringos can work really hard and set up a business in Bolivia etc. But none of it matters if we are not able to capacitate the kids here and have them take over the operation completely. We are making progress in this direction and it is encouraging.

Jesuit Missions:
The past week we have had a break from classes for Holy week. On Saturday I went with about thirty of my fellow students on a trip organized by the language school to Santa Cruz and the surrounding mission towns. Before coming here, I knew very little about the Jesuit presence in Latin America, save what I had seen in the film “The Mission”. So we flew to Santa Cruz and loaded on a bus for the four hour drive east to the mission towns of Conception, San Ignacio, San Javier, San Rafael, Santa Ana, and San Miguel. These towns were all constructed in the early part of the 18th century by the Jesuits. The communities and towns were modeled after the utopian vision of Thomas More. The communities are all meticulously planned and each one is made around a central plaza, the main feature of which is a beautiful church (see below). The Jesuits were able to gain the favor of the locals through music. This is a fascinating part of these towns as the tradition of Baroque music remains in these towns even after the abrupt Jesuit expulsion from Latin America around 1760. We were treated to three concerts in these churches by the youth of the towns who had mastered classical singing as well as violin and cello. Their ability was phenomenal and it was even more remarkable that these traditions had been preserved and valued for almost 250 years! Leaving the Altiplano for the lowlands of eastern Bolivia, the enormous biodiversity of the country was another thing that struck me about the mission towns. It felt like we had entered another country when we were driving through the semi-tropical terrain. Gone was the dry and mild climate of CBBA, replaced by intense humidity and stifling heat. Visiting these mission towns was a fascinating and impressionable experience.

Good Friday Pilgrimage:
This morning, I went with about 25 of the older kids on a pilgrimage to the Cristo statue in remembrance of Good Friday. We set out from the Villa at 2:30 am in the rain, which worsened throughout the trip. The walk is more than 12km from the Villa, and then you have to climb the seemingly interminable steps up to the statue that looks over the city to the west. We arrived soaking wet after three hours of walking in the rain. We watched the dawn break over the city and despite the clouds, were treated to a nice sunrise. We were joined by hundred of other Cochabambinos who had also made the trek up to the statue. The kids had a really good time in spite of the conditions. The return trip was tougher because of the lack of incentive. It was a wonderful way to observe Good Friday and a very memorable experience. Below are some pictures of the journey.


That’s about all for now, it just hit me recently that my time here is coming to a close. I will begin my last two week term of classes this week. I can’t believe the time has gone so quickly. I am all out of reflection and profound statements about my experience after that 15+ mile hike this morning. Thank you all for reading. God Bless and Happy Easter.

Gray
grayskinner@hotmail.com