Villa Paraiso and Urubichá

---

to break up the monotony of my 3 week binge in santa cruz, we took a trip up to villa paraiso (jason´s site) and urubichá, a volunteer named gerid´s site.

our trip to villa paraiso was relatively uneventful. it was hot, dusty and quiet. his project partner seemed to me a bit cold and demanding; in all it didn´t seem like a place i would want to spend 2 years as a peace corps volunteer. that explains why jason spends lots of time out of his site: it is not cool.

later we got a ride in the peace corps land cruiser (much nicer than the shitty ford explorers we had in peace corps DR) up to the edge of the amazon jungle in a town called urubichá. this is a very quaint medio-campo town of 4000 people who are all members of an indigenous group called the guarayos. they speak their own language, guarayo, that only 16,000 people in the world speak. most of them also speak spanish. its a veyr interesting place. anyhow, we were there to dig a well.

during the days (we were there for 4), we set up this campesino style drilling rig and fetched water to help work it. i will do my best to explain how the rig works. at the bottom of it is a arrow shaped metal spike that is attached to a valve. the idea is to bang this spike into the dirt and as you do so, the valve opens and closes, gradually sucking up the water and dirt that is loosened by the spike. the entire thing has to be constantly submerged in water. so you bang this thing into the ground, and up these pvc tubes comes muddy water. you continue to bang the ground for days and eventually you should reach water. or at least thats the theory.

so during the days we tugged on this rope that banged the rig into the ground.

after those tiring days of constant rope tugging in the hot sun, we went back to gerid´s house for some food, beers, euchre and talking. gerid has a pet spider monkey. i´m not kidding. apparently he went out with some of his campesinos one day and they shot a spider monkey which turned out to be a mother. the baby was unharmed. so, naturallyu, theyu took the mama monkey home and ate it, and gerid kept the baby as his pet. its pretty weird, but at the same time pretty cool. the monkey makes these clicking noises and spends most of his time wrapped around gerid´s neck. he also likes to shit and piss on people, which he did to me one night when i had him on my neck while playing euchre. another weird thing is that the animal has this strange pink thing hanging between his crotch that doesn´t look like a penis, and gerid swears that it is a 2 inch long clitoris. either way, its really gross that this 2 inch long thing is being dragged all over your neck as the animal is hugging you.

tired, we usually passed out early, around 10pm, and curled up in the tent we had pitched outside gerid´s house.

eventually in the drilling we reached a depth of 23 meters and began hitting solid rock. judging by the bits of rock being spit out by the rig, it looked like granite. this rig was not made to drill through granite, so we decided to ¨case¨ the well (that is, put tubing into it and attach the pump on top). well, jason and i left for santa cruz as the well was being cased, but unfortunately, we just heard that the well had not reached water and that the well drilling was not a success. it is pretty frustrating to have done 4 days of hard work, not to mention spending several hundred dollars (donated by the rotary club) without seeing success. but, that is how well drilling is, and we all certainly learned a lot from it.

---

Photos

Jason´s Room in Villa Paraiso
Villa Paraiso isn´t quite the paradise its name implies. In fact, I would venture to say that it is quite shitty. Thus, Jason and I spent the bulk of our time not exploring the town, but chilling alone in his room.

¨Smile, Your Woman Loves Me¨
A wonderful message seen on the back of a bus in San Julian, as we waited for the Peace Corps LandCruiser to pick us up to take us to the Urubichá, where we would be digging the well.

Coffee Before the First Day of Digging
A poor night´s sleep didn´t give me the energy I needed to do hard work on the well. So, I resorted to chemical energy, caffeine.

Walking through the Streets of Urubichá Toward the Digging Site
This campo town of 3,000 or so is really beautiful. It had the tranquiloness of a small campo, but with the amenities of a smaller pueblo. And the people, for the most part, were extremely friendly.

Lugging Wood to the Dig Site
As you will see, we used these long pieces of wood to form the ¨arco¨ which would hold the pulley for the drill rig.

Campesino Chopping the Wood
God knows that us gringos have no idea how to chop wood. The campesinos would have laughed at us.

The Drill Bit
This arrow shaped thing smashes into the dirt, breaking it up while simultaneously opening and closing a valve in the pipe. This mechanism creates suction, which, when the hole is filled with water, will spit out muddy water and slowly but surely dig the hole deeper.

Muddy Stuff the Rig Spits Out
At our fastest moments, we could dig a meter in about 15 minutes. In the slow times it took an entire day of digging to advance that same distance.

Bentonite
You mix this white powder with water to create this really thick, mudlike substance. This supposedly makes the rig able to dig more effectively. I still really don´t understand the physics of how all of it works.

Fetching Water
A big part of this digging involves pouring more and more water into the hole the rig is digging. We were constantly driving the truck down to the river to fech more barrels full of water.

Pulling the Rig
The hardest work of digging is done by the people who pull on the rope to make the rig smash up and down into the ground. We worked in shifts with Bolivians from Urubichá. It was exhausting work.

Buck and His Monkey
This PCV, Gerid Buckshire (Buck), went out and caught this baby spider monkey with some of his campesinos. Its still not house trained, as evidenced by the urine trail it left while wrapped around my neck later in the night.

The Monkey and Me
This was before he peed on me.

Scaring Children
Its what I do best.

Getting Schooled by a Child in Basketball
I have no skills.

Water Tower in Urubichá
I was shaking like a little baby as I climbed this thing. That sort of thing really scares me, but I did it anyway.

Me, Atop the Water Tower
I was still shaking, but it was a beautiful view.

Dogs Stuck Together After Getting Theirs
One of the more marvelous sights that Latin America has to offer. Who knew that they got stuck together?

Church in Urubichá
Can anyone remember a church this nice in a town of 3,000 people in the DR? Las Gordas was about that size and our church looked more like a shack than anything else.

Musicians of Urubichá
This town is famous for its orchestra, which, they say, has travelled around the world. When I walked through the music school there it was apparent that these kids had talent. It amazed me that such a small town would have children playing classical music, and doing it well to boot.

Fixing a ripped bill with scotch tape
This ghetto practice is standard in Bolivia. Its way better than in Peru, where theyll tell you that your bill is counterfeit (sp?) or that they won´t accept anything with a tear in it.