Coffee and Coca

Yesterday two more students from agronomy defended their research projects and graduated. The first was Pánfilo Montesinos. He tested two plant extracts as natural insecticides against coca loopers (Eloria sp.), insect larvae that can consume whole coca fields. He found that in the laboratory, these two plant extracts killed the pests in concentrations as small as 4 pounds of leaves used per acre.


Photo: New graduate Pánfilo harvesting leaves of one of his insecticidal plants, hualusa de monte.

Then Sonia Cordero defended her project. She compared different kinds and mixes of substrates in different sized pots for coffee seedling production, and found that a mix of 25% chicken manure with 75% soil in the largest available plastic pots was the best solution for our coffee farmers. Her experiment was very complex, and she struggled to finish, and we were all very proud of her fortitude and dedication.

Both students made special mention of Sister Damon and how she encouraged them throughout their time at the college. Though our foundress is not close in physical geography, she is very close in the geography of our hearts. Thank you, Sister Damon, for your vision and your love that helped these students' dreams become reality.

25 Year Anniversary

This weekend was the 25th year anniversary of the Diocesis of Coroico. It started Thursday night with the ordination of a new priest, Father Israel.


Photo: Sister Jean and Father Israel.

Friday night there was a procession.


Photo: Coroico's patron saints Pedro and Pablo are escorted around town.

Afterwards, young people from all over the diocese did traditional dances.


Photo: The "Balsero," a boat dance from the tropics.


Photo: The "Minero," a dance representing the local mining.

There was a beautiful mass on Saturday morning.


Photo: Bishop Juan Vargas celebrates mass with Archbishop Abastoflor from La Paz and a visiting bishop from Coro Coro and the priests of the diocese.

After mass, religious celebrated with a lunch at the Viejo Molino.


Photo: Sister Helen, Brother Iggy and a sister from Caranavi.

It was an incredible weekend.

(Thank you to Sisters Jean and Helen for the pictures. More in Sister Jean's Google Photo Cache.)

Guinea Pigs

Our student Reinaldo Mendoza defended his project today, about supplementing guinea pig feed with dried manure*, and showed the chicken manure mixed with wheat bran and fed to guinea pigs with forrages helps increase productivity and profitability.

Good job, Reinaldo!


Photo: Reinaldo with one of his animals.

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* Guinea pigs, a common food in the bolivian countryside, are strange creatures: they have a cecum, like a little rumen, where they "re-digest" their droppings, using bacteria to convert inorganic nitrogen like ammonia into amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Little known fact!

Better chickens

Martín Alejo took a detour from his studies: feeling lost after finishing his research project, he took up the offer of a friend and went to live in Brazil for a year. He worked in a textile sweatshop, sewing jeans and shirts at low pay. I took him to lunch a few weeks ago, and he spoke of the 18 hour days, 5 and a half days a week, eating right there at the sewing machines; of the fear of the police when leaving the factory on the Saturday afternoons and Sundays when they could leave; of the camraderie of the shop, but also the feeling of getting used, and used up. So he left.

Just as we were staring the Thesis Bootcamp, he wrote and said, "Help! I want to finish my research project and graduate!" Today he accomplished that dream. His project, looking at adding the amino acids methionine and lisine to chicken feed, makes the feed more nutricious and helps the chickens grow bigger -- without hormones or other growth promotors which can be questionable for human health.


Photo: Martín outside of the chicken coop where he did his research.

Martín is cheerful, funny, smart and outgoing, and has touched the lives of many visitors and volunteers. I know that many people will be glad to know of his success. Mucho éxito, Martín!