the boys

Next weekend, when I return home from my visits to the households and workplaces of UAC-CP students and grads, I'm going to find the Volunteer House a little bit quieter. Volunteers Andy Engel and Sam Clair are leaving Carmen Pampa this week--they've finished one year of service at the College.

Sam and Andy inside the little hut we stayed in during our 3-day Choro Trail Inca Hike in April.

Andy and Sam (or "The Boys," as I've taken to calling them), both graduates of University of Wisconsin-River Falls, arrived in Carmen Pampa last July. By the time I got here a month later they were already well-invested in their work. While they mostly lent their efforts to teaching English in the Ecotourism Department, they also found their niche in other areas. Specifically, Andy helped me with CPF development work and Sam managed one of the student Agronomy learning labs in the College's vegetable garden.

Of course we have all appreciated their ability to be responsible and reliable. They are hard workers and we're grateful for their service to the College. But, it is their energy that I will miss most--their good natured, easy-going and youthful spirits that will leave a hole in our volunteer community.

Andy (back in his clean-shaven, short hair days) with Agronomy student Bryan Gonzales at the College's Intercarreras Festival in October '08.

Life in Carmen Pampa is not for everyone.* It takes what some may consider to be obscene amounts of patience, creativity, and understanding. It takes an extra special sense of adventure and a sense of humor--to laugh at both yourself and situations. It takes the ability to make lemonade out of lemons, as they say....or, as Sam showed us, to transform a peach pie recipe into a delicious mango pie-esque dessert.

We have lots of short-term volunteers who come and go throughout the year, and it's usually never easy to say goodbye (like, Smith College math instructor Mary Murphy is leaving this week, too, and we´re gonna miss her motherly touch--for both our students AND the gringo community). But considering that I've been sharing the same living space with The Boys' tranquilo dispositions for the past year, it will be a particularly more difficult farewell.

Clearly, I will really miss them. I will miss Andy's fresh baked bread and Sam's homemade sauerkraut. I will miss being greeted each morning in the kitchen with ready-made coffee and the Smoky '08 "Airplane Song." I will miss their random mid-afternoon visits to my office, our spontaneous Jackson Five and Boney M dance parties, and our "nights out" for chicharron. And, of course, I will miss the ongoing conversations (and conspiracy theories!) about all those infamous Bolivian tubers.

Sam shakes the tambourine at an all-staff retreat.

But more than anything, I will miss their energy, their enthusiasm. I will miss their willingness to challenge themselves, to try new things. They are both gifted in their ability to approach people and situations with an open mind and to process experiences with curiosity, humor, and appreciation. I will miss that.

Whether they know it or not, they've made my time here so much richer...more laugh-out-loud hysterical. I wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors (Andy is going to travel for a while and Sam, inspired by his work with our Agronomy Department, is going back to college to study horticulture).

Q' les vaya bien, chicos. Obviously.

..........................

*Sam's mom Carol will back me up on this, I know! Right, Carol?

good start to the day

So much of a good day seems to be highly dependent on how it starts out.  Yesterday, for example. I should've known it was going to be a good day when I came down to the kitchen to find a plate stacked with pancakes waiting for me (compliments of Hugh).  

In addition to pancakes, I started the day with a couple of my favorite people--if I dare attempt to publicize favorites! 

For starters, sitting at our breakfast table was UAC-CP graduate Andrez Flores. Andrez, who I've blogged about before, started the award-winning organic, bio-pesticides business SIEMPRE-FORJA with two of his fellow Agronomy graduates. Committed to production, research, and education, Andrez came to Carmen Pampa on official business on Wednesday to meet with people about current UAC-CP thesis students who are doing research projects with him and his crew in the Alto Beni.  For me, Andrez is always a welcome visitor. I find his insight and outlook on life to be inspiring and refreshing.

With no place to stay the night the night before, we invited Andrez to stay in the Volunteer House before making the 6+ hour journey back to his home in the Brecha B.  So, after breakfast he and Mary Murphy and I started walking up to Campus Leahy where he would wait for transport to Coroico, I would go to my office, and Mary would venture off to the garden in search of fresh veggies.

Carmen Pampa community member Don Emilio starts his morning by emptying bags of coffee to be dried in the sun. I love his smile!

Barely five minutes into our ascent, we ran into one of my other favorite people: Don Emilio. The long-time Carmen Pampa community member, who is probably much younger than I think him to be, has one of the cheeriest dispositions of anyone I know--despite the fact that I also know he suffers from severe back pain.  This morning, we found Don Emilio outside his home unloading bags of coffee beans to be dried in the sun.

"Señorita y Señora!" he called out to Mary and me. "Buenos días!" And then he called out to Andrez:  "Joven, buenos días!" Good morning, young man.

Andrez and Don Emilio greet each other. "It's so good to have you back for a visit," Don Emilio told Andrez.

"Señorita," he asked me after we exchanged a few pleasantries, "do you know this young man?" In fact, I explained, I know Andrez quite well--he served as my chief advisor and confident in the years I served as the coordinator of the food cooperatives and he served as president.

 

Somewhat to my surprise, Don Emilio said he also knows Andrez quite well. Apparently, Andrez explained, as a student at the UAC-CP he did a research project in Don Emilio's coffee field. The project studied the effect of broca on coffee--a small beetle that reaps havoc on the crop that, for some, is their livelihood.  

"So good to see you!" Don Emilio told Andrez. "This is a great young person," he told Mary and me with his signature smile flashing across his face. 

Andrez and Don Emilio humored me by posing for this photo.

I admit, I was loving this moment. Two of my favorite people from relatively random parts of my Carmen Pampa life know each other, I thought, and have the same great mutual respect for one another. I needed a picture!

After Don Emilio's photo shoot, we continued our climb to Campus Leahy. "What a great man, no?" I asked Andrez. He concurred.  "I love starting me day like this," I added.  "Sí, no?" he again concurred.

........................................

On last Sunday's ride into Coroico on public mobi, I introduced Don Emilio to my iPod. He loved it!

tunki y mariposa huntin'

This past Sunday several members of our UAC-CP gringo community set out for an all-day adventure to "hunt" down some of the natural wonders of our beloved Yungas. In particular, we really wanted to see: butterflies and a tunki (or Cocks-of-the-Rock, as they're called in English).

After catching the first public mini-bus out of Carmen Pampa at 7am, we contracted a ride from Coroico to Chairo. The small village, home to a couple UAC-CP students, is snuggled in a little corner of the Yungas mountains along a river.  Chairo is best known as the end (or stop along the way, depending) of the Choro/Inca Trail.

UAC-CP volunteers Mary Murphy (Smith College) and Lee Lechtenberg (Franciscan Mission Service) listen as our guide shows different types of butterfly species found in Chairo.

For about three years, the community of Chairo has been working to implement an economically sustainable project that, simultaneously, protects and preserves the environment. With help of outside experts and funding, they developed Nayriri -- a butterfly house and orchid sanctuary.  

Led by two 20-something Chairo natives, we first visited the laboratory where they grow and harvest butterflies. We later saw the greenhouse where they plant and cultivate orchids.  Our final stop was inside the net-covered butterfly garden. Unfortunately, we didn't see many butterflies. But we did get a better idea of how the community project functions -- the future goals it has for tourism, land restoration and preservation, and butterfly exportation.

Sign outside the ranger station at Cotapata National Park.

From Chairo, our 6-member contingent backtracked toward Coroico and stopped off at the ranger station for Bolivia's Cotapata National Park.  After a brief peanut butter and bread lunch, we hiked up the river bed in search of the electric-orange-colored tunki.

Butterflies congregate along the riverbed.

While it was gorgeous day to be out and about, the Tunki was nowhere to be seen. The emblematic bird of the Municipality of Coroico escaped us. But our trip wasn't in vain. We saw giant, colorful orchids in bloom and a variety of butterfly and bird species. Trudging in and out of the river, we also saw animal tracks. At one point, I sat and watched a small school of fish zip around a shallow pool of water.

Back at the ranger's station, the national park employee wasn't at all surprised to hear that we didn't see a Tunki.  I need to come back in the madrugada, he said.  Considering transportation and distance, I think the only way to place me there in the early morning is if I return for an overnight camping trip. Which, I'd welcome.  ...Anything to see a tunki!