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Published: June 16th 2007
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So the bus drops us off at 2 in the morning, and we stand on a dark, deserted road, clouded in bitingly cold fog, surrounded by trees, toliets, bags etc. What do we do? Apparently there was supposed to be a car to pick us up. The student who´s home this is, Betsabe (i think that is how you spell her name, if not apologises), runs off into the night to look for someone to take us to her house. Betsabe is actually a former student. When she was at the school, she met Pablo, another student, and they are now married. They live in Pablo´s family home, despite the difficulties of Pablo being Quechua amd Betsabe Aymara.
After a wait that seems like forever, Betsabe comes back with bad news that there is noone to drive us, presumably they are all too drunk in the chicha bar next door. So, we walk. Cold, tired, tents, rucksacks, toliets and all, we walk through the foggy, eerily beautiful mountains for half an hour. Finally we reach their house, which i am too tired to even look at. The 12 students (plus teacher) cram into one room with 3 beds, whilst L,G
Cheerful poo collection
Our western concerns disappeared after the fifth sack, the spades were discarded and down on our hands and knees we went. and I go off looking for somewhere to pitch our tents. The pickings are pretty slim, I settle on a muddy spot underneath a tree (spider heaven some might say), with a huge white flower on the threshold. When I wake up and find a huuuuge spider on my tent, after having spent the night falling into a hole to my left, I deside that a move is necessary, despite the pretty foliage. Anway, otherwise my first night in my tent is quite cosy, and I am woken up at about 6 by the sun shining though my front window and the birds singing. I look out and the world is coated in fog. It is freezing! So I put on all my layers and walk up to the house. Made of adobe, there are two rooms, no kitchen, their drinking water is brought from a pond that has fish in, it is pretty depressing in the fog. They grow strawberries, so common that they make, in season and on a good week, 100 Bolivianos (the equivalent of less than 7 pounds). Thats it. Over the course of our 4 days there, L and G try to convince them to
grow something like brocolli, which is a lot less common and they can charge more for it. Not sure if they will, but who knows. Anyway, my first impressions of the place are not great. It seems depressing, there is a lot of work to do, and my stomach churns at the dirt that is ingrained on the breakfast dishes. I think that it will be a miracle if i survive this without chronic food poisoning. There is no soap, as Lisa says in most of the places she has been to, it is she who brings the soap. But, what will be will be right? It actually turns out fine. I dont get food poisoning, the food is actually pretty decent despite the dirt. Seeing the conditions makes you shudder, but as long as you dont think about it its fine. And the woman who is cooking for us (Pablo´s sister in law), is so wonderful that all is forgiven. She is called Hilaria, and is always laughing. She has the most wonderful smile. What we eat is mainly yellow, corn, rice, papas fritas, fried chicken, potatoes, fried eggs, largely all at the same time. But its tastes ok,
actually pretty good, and there is more veg than expected. And there are occasional treats, like bowls of wild honey, filled with delicious, chewy chunks of black pollen. Thankfully, since the snacks that L, G and I brought were saturated by olive juice on the journey, and chocolate thats smells of olives is not such a satisfying treat (I managed to convince L and G to keep the stinky bag in their tent not mine, he he!)
There is alot of work to do. The first point of call is to capture the spring, to bring them fresh water. This works out really well, and we end up bringing water to not only their house, but the house of Pablo´s brother and mother. The next thing is to build them a kitchen. In their one big room, the students built a sink and an oven out of adobe (mud). Its quite incredible what can be done with a pot of slimy mud. They already have a composting toilet (having both taken classes on how to teach people how and why composting toilets should be used), so we dont need to build them a toilet, but we do need to plant
the 90 trees amongst their strawberries, to try and bring some goodness to the soil, and to teach them how to use a drip irrigation system. Phew, a lot of work. I mainly potter around taking pictures, since as we all know im not very hardy (!), but I do plant a lot of trees, which will hopefully do something towards my air miles to get here!
When the fog clears up it is possible to see what a wonderful spot they live in. Surrounded by mountains, although tough, to be able to wake up every morning to a view like that, and go out and pick your own strawberries...wow. One morning I get up early, and go and sit down to breakfast with all the students. Suddenly everyone gets up and after a lot of chatter they start walking up the hill behind the house. They beckon to me to follow them, and grudgingly i go, not sure how to say in spanish "im tired and only want to curl up in my tent". We walk for about 20 mins up a steeeep hill, I dont know what we are doing, I cant breathe, the only word I catch
Planting trees
Helping the soil and balancing out our air miles! is frutillas (strawberries). Finally, we get to a field, perched on a slope that overlooks the whole valley. And as I get my breathe back I watch as everyone spreads out across the field. I follow, and bending down see the most wonderfully looking strawberries. Tiny, but red and ripe and wonderful, and over the next half hour we relax in the field, picking and eating our fill of wild strawberries.
They are a wonderful family, and that makes the experinece all the more pleasurable. They are so grateful to L and G for allowing them to live with what we take for granted, things that they could never have achieved on their own. One night, all huddled up in their new kitchen, Lisa asks everyone to share one of their dreams. When it is Pablo´s turn, he starts to cry, and even I with my terrible understanding of spanish can see what he is trying to say, how hard their life is, how grateful he is, not just for what we have given him and his wife, but his whole family. What is so positive about Lisa and Galen´s work, is that it is about cooperation and compromise, they
View from above...
...to quietly watch the hard work! give half and the family, or the villiage, gives half (be this in money, time, or effort). Pablo and Betsabe could not have done what we helped them to do by themselves, but with a kick start from Lisa and Galen, and from the school in Cochabamba, they lives have been altered forever.
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