Indigenous Rights

Student Pamela Rocha wanted to do something different for her graduation project at the college. "I saw that logging in Bolivia was not only damaging to the environment, but that native populations were being taken advantage of."

Just outside of our diocese, in the tropical Alto Beni region of Bolivia, there is an amazon tribe called the Mosetén people. These people have lived from the forest for hundreds of years, and were given land by the government for their own uses.


Photo: A Mosetén village.

The tribe has special privledges as to how their land is used, including logging rights not available to most Bolivians. However, commercial loggers have been making special agreements with the Mosetén tribe to "help" them log amazonian hardwoods balsam (Myroxylon balsamun) and amburana (Amburana cearensis), paying them for the hard physical labor of extracting of the wood from the forest and little else.


Photo: Balsam tree cut in the forest.

Pamela researched the regrowth of these two tree species and found that the way the logger were cutting would quickly eliminate these species from the Mosetén forest. She recommends implementing a forest plan which includes leaving very old trees to grow to act as a natural source of seed (they have little commercial value due to cracked trunks); guide the felling to minimize damage to understory; and replant these two species in the forest to assure their continued success.


Photo: Pamela measured a tree growing in the clearing created by the cutting of a hardwood species.

She also worked with the tribe to help them develop a sustainable forest management plan for themselves, and encouraged them to get capital to be able to log the forest themselves. Power to the people!

Pamela mentioned how much Sister Damon meant to her as she spoke after her defense, how she didn't imagine how the love of a single person could touch so many people and change so many lives. I think we would all agree with that. Thank you, Sister Damon.

________________

Addendum (Aug. 29): When I told Pamela about a comment that long-time supporter and friend Catherine Quiroga left on the blog, Pamela wrote, "quería comentarte que, gracias a Dios, el proyecto en el que actualmente trabajo está apoyando a esta comunidad con el cultivo de cacao, poniendo este bajo un sistema agroforestal; de la misma forma la ONG ACDI/VOCA está ayudando con el manejo de sus cuencas hidrográficas -- estoy en constante contacto -- y Dios mediante el trabajo actual que realizó aun puedo saber como desarrolla este pueblo tan hermoso" ["I wanted to let you know that, thank God, the project where I am working now is helping the community plant cacao, using an agro-forestry system; and another NGO, ACDI/VOCA, is helping them manage their watersheds -- I am in constant contact with them -- and God willing, through the work that I do now, I can still keep tabs on how this beautiful little town is developing"].

Nursing graduate

Micaela Soliz, our most recent graduate, defended her research project today about the incidence of intestinal parasites in students at the college. She found a variety of parasites, including giardia, amoebas, hookworm, whipworm and roundworm. Three quarters of our student have some kind of parasite, and about one in ten has more than one parasite. This study helps us know what kinds of parasites exist in the area, and to develop strategies to treat them (the 200 students in the study received treatment). By treating them, students are better nourished as their parasite-free bodies take better advantage of the food they eat, and suffer less anemia (hookworms, roundworms and whipworms attack red blood cells).

Much success, Micaela!


Photo: Micaela signs her graduation document.

Gabriela

Though most students at the college are from our diocese, we do have a few from outside. Gabriela Mamani, interviewed here by volunteer Kate Cimini, came to us through conBoiliva, an organization of dedicated people based in La Paz and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

_________________

She’s wearing one of probably two pairs of pants she owns, and a grey button-down shirt, her school uniform. Her chestnut hair is long and straight, carefully brushed until it shines, and she has a gap between her two front teeth. Gabriela Mamani Almonte, 20 years old, comes up to my shoulder, maybe, and has a shy, sweet voice to match her smile. Her home on the Isla del Sol is a day’s journey away, and fairly expensive, so if she ever sees her family during the school year, she meets them about halfway in the city of La Paz.

Both of Gabriela’s parents work in farming, her mother with the animals and her father as an albañil, a mason. The biggest industries on the island are in farming and tourism, and rather than follow everyone’s lead and go directly into those careers, both of which are available at the college, Gabriela noticed a lack of both emergency and everyday health care on the Isla del Sol. The island has one health post that is open irregularly, and is not well-staffed. From her town, it is an hour-long hike to the health post, or a three-hour boat ride to the hospital in Copacabana, the largest town on Lake Titicaca. Gabriela wants to set up more health posts on the Isla del Sol, posts that are open regularly and have qualified nurses and doctors. She talks about how the elderly die on the island without access to regular medical care, and how pregnant women have a dangerously high mortality rate. How babies that are born with any problems have a difficult time surviving as well. Gabriela wants to change this, and make something just a little easier for people for whom everything is a battle.

Gabriela says all this without blinking, without looking away timidly, like she does with every other question I ask her. Every word about wanting to help the people she’s grown up with has a steel rod shot through it. This is a young woman it took me two weeks to track down because she’s so shy, who normally sits and shields half her face behind her hair. Yet talking about her vision for the future of her people, suddenly she becomes bolder than I would have thought. She shakes her hair out of her face, looks me straight in the eye and tells me that this is what she is going to do.

And with that drive about her, I have no doubts that she will do what she sets her mind to.

Better hog production

Volunteer Sam Clair interviewed a vet student about his project for graduation.

_________________
Mauro Walter Peralta is a twenty-eight year old veterinary student in his last year at the college. He is currently in the midst of a research project, working toward a solution to a real-world problem. Mauro’s goal is to find a better way to raise pigs, so that farmers with limited resources can still do a good job of raising his animals.


Photo: Mauro Peralta on Campus Manning.

Mauro’s background is similar to many Bolivians, but in his own family he is a bit of a maverick. As the first generation to go to college, Mauro is using education to improve the lives of his people. Having come from the high plains outside La Paz, in the rundown city of El Alto, Mauro knows firsthand what poverty means. Born to an urban family without college degrees or even land of their own, Mauro has made a giant leap by simply attending college. Fairly soon he will be graduating and spreading his veterinary skills to other parts of Bolivia. This is a great feat for anyone, but just imagine how proud Mauro’s family must be!

As a veterinary student and a recipient of a small stipend from conBolivia, Mauro has made great strides in his research. His work with pigs has allowed him to collaborate with other students from the school by experimenting with different types of feed and housing practices. Mauro is currently finding a way of feeding pigs more economically. His plan is to find feeding practices that would be more beneficial to farmers than what are currently used.

This research will be a great benefit to Bolivian farmers, but it has not been without hard work and sacrifice. Since Mauro has been in school instead of working these past four years, he has been unable to provide money for himself or his family. However, through scholarships he has been able to continue in his studies. With a quality education, he will not have to endure the same hardships his parents have suffered, and he will be able to improve the lives of others as well. In fact, Mauro is already planning to buy a farm in Yucumo, Bolivia. Through his skills learned at the college, Mauro can help the people of Yucumo in their search for a higher quality of life through better farming.

Take that, late blight!

Karina Vasquez talked to Ramón Puño this week about his graduation project.
___________________
Ramón Puño is a twenty-six year old agronomy student who is researching late blight, Phytophthora infestans, a common fungus that affects tomato and potato crops, and destroyed potato crops during the Irish Potato Famine. His interest in saving crops from diseases such as late blight comes from his humble upbringing. He was born in the community of Caranavi, a town composed of farmers dependent on their seasonal crops. His parents are coffee and citrus farmers. Like many children born in Caranavi, he would have become a subsistence farmer like his father, surviving on his crops. Yet, as he explained to me, "most times the money you get from your crops doesn't do much."


Photo: Ramón and lab coordinator Andrez Flores examine late blight in the microscope.

As the eldest of six children, he tries very hard to be a role model for his siblings. When speaking about his parents there is a great smile across his face, since they are very proud of him and his effort to help farmers like his family save more of their crops. He is the first to attend a university in his family. Following in his steps is his younger brother Gonzalo, also an agronomy student.

Ramón's research focuses on how late blight affects tomato crops in this area. This fungus can spoil or stunt the growth of the crop, causing the farmer to loose the crop on which he relies to feed his family. He is trying to figure out a way to eliminate the fungus that affects these crops without chemicals that can be very toxic for the environment and for the farmers themselves. His strategy involves using secondary metabolites produced by other fungi isolated from the soil. Ramón worked with a researcher in the national university's Instituto de Investigaciones Fármaco-Bioquímicas in La Paz to produce and test these fungal extracts against the late blight fungus, and he found one that suppressed the disease completely in the lab. His next step is to test the extract on a tomato crop he is planting in Carmen Pampa. Support from conBolivia is helping make that possible.


Photo: Ramón works in the biochemistry lab in La Paz.

Rámon wants to use his education at the UAC to help farmers, like his family to have a better life and produce healthier crops. Rámon would like to further his education, especially working in the lab trying to find solutions to several fungal diseases that effect local crops.

Orchid conservation at the college

Karina Vasquez interviewed student María Esther about her research project.

____________________
María Esther Gutierrez is an agronomy major specializing in orchid conservation. Her family originally comes from a town called Caranavi, part of the cloud forest region where the college is located. Though her family has resided in Carmen Pampa for more than seven years, she was born and raised along with her two sisters in La Paz. She never had the opportunity to meet her father. Maria Esther is thirty-one years old and just had her first son, an adorable thing only six months old. (María Esther's mother Francisca, known as Doña Pancha, is known and loved by many students at the college for her personality and her food: she runs one of the four food stalls on Campus Leahy.)

María Esther's project is about the cultivation in vitro ("in glass," in the laboratory in test tubes) of orchid seeds. She hopes to preserve rare orchids by cultivating them from their dust-like seeds. One of the major problems facing orchids is their natural beauty, which causes many onlookers, such as local farmers or tourists, to rip them from trees or out of the ground without understanding the detrimental effects on the ecosystem. By cultivating these orchids, she will help ensure the balance of the ecosystem in the Yungas by providing orchids for legal sale to discourage their removal from the forest, and to repopulate the forest if necessary.


Photo: María Esther poses with an orchid on campus.

Her thesis is one of the first of its kind at the college. This is a challenge for Maria Esther who has a passion for lab work but must deal with the fact that the college is ill equipped for this research. With funds from conBolivia she will be able to purchase some of the most important materials.

She hopes to continue her education by obtaining her masters in the United States specializing in conservation-oriented in vitro production, then come back as a professor and work at the college. We hope to have her one day on the staff at the college.

Spinach

Volunteer Kate Cimini interviewed Judit Mamani about her graduation project.

__________________
I'm an hour early for our meeting when I run into Judit. She spots me as I wander past the cancha, the hardtop basketball court, however, and chases me down. She's a little bit of a thing, and I'd be surprised if she topped five feet or pushed one hundred pounds. She's never without a smile trapped in the corners of her mouth, and everyone who mentions her uniformly agrees that she's hermosa, a lovely person. Despite being one of the sunniest people to occupy this earth, she keeps an astute brain behind her eyes. Judit takes me down to the huerta where she both works and has her research project and as I follow her, Judit fills me in on her background.

Judit is the oldest of seven children. Her sister Adelina, too, is at the college. Judit comes from a family without much money, like many of the students here, so once she graduated from the Franciscan high school in Carmen Pampa (the same one that another of her sisters Guadalupe is attending), her father told her that if she wanted to continue her education she would have to find the means to pay for it herself. She understands completely, she adds, because with her father's salary as a miner it is difficult enough to support nine people, let alone pay for college. Judit continues that she found help in her high school English teacher, former volunteer Julie Balsman, who has helped supported Judit throughout her time at the college. However, in her final year as a thesis student at the UAC, and as a wife and mother as well as a student, Judit has been struggling to pay for both her thesis fieldwork and the rest of her bills.

We go over some of this information in the walk down to the huerta, and begin to segue into her thesis project. Judit first shows us what she calls her pre-ensayo, or her field test: these spinach plants are essentially practice plants, and what she does with them now will be used to inform how she deals with her actual research fieldwork.


Photo: Judit shows Kate her spinach plot.

She tells us her thesis topic is quite neatly summed up in her title, "Producción de espinaca con y sin carpa solar de tipo túnel con la aplicación de gallinaza y compost en la comunidad de Carmen Pampa" – Spinach production with a portable greenhouse and the application of chicken manure and compost in the community of Carmen Pampa. The type of spinach she is using for her thesis is Viroflay, a tall spinach whose leaves can be harvested multiple times. This plant that is rich in iron, calcium, and vitamins A, K, D and E, spinach is a plant that interested Judit very much. Should her research prove as valuable as she thinks, and should the community members include spinach into their diet, Bolivia could see a serious increase in its spinach production in the next few decades.

Many people in the Bolivia suffer from malnutrition, a condition that springs from a popular diet of starches, only occasionally meat, and not much for vegetables. Judit's bid to save her part of the world is wrapped up in the proper nutrition of the people around her. With her research, she is hoping to make it easier and less expensive to produce organic spinach, a crop that is frequently ignored around here. In addition to nutritional value, Judit tells us that in traditional medicine spinach is quite valuable as well, used to treat various maladies. Spinach is a very popular food to eat among the many tourists that visit Bolivia and La Paz, and is sold for a 15 bolivianos – about $2 – per pound in nearby Coroico. The biggest buyers of spinach in the area are hotels and restaurants that cater to relatively wealthy foreigners. If Judit can make spinach both easier and cheaper to produce, it will no longer be just the wealthy tourists eating spinach and reaping the benefits, but the whole country.

We wrap the interview with a tour of the college's organic garden, with our last stop at the plot that has been given to her for use in her research project. Thanks to a small grant from conBolivia, she will be able to buy the supplies she needs for her project. Her plot is rocky and untilled, piled high with weeds and spotted with bare patches, but it looks out over the community of Carmen Pampa and the cloud forest on the mountains beyond, and you can see the possibilities in Judit's eyes as she looks out toward the future.

Producing our own feed

Interview by Catherine Moriarty.

_____________________
Rolando Condori is a 23-year-old veterinary student living at the college while working on his research project. He was born in La Paz and has one older brother named Herminio. When Rolando was only ten years old his father died, leaving his mother, aunt, and grandmother struggling to raise the two brothers. By the time he was twelve the family no longer had the resources to take care of them and so Rolando went to an orphanage called Ciudad de Niño Jesús. His older brother went straight to work. Through the Ciudad de Niño and Sister Damon, Rolando obtained a scholarship to attend the college where he has finished all course work and is now working on his research project. Whenever possible Rolando goes to La Paz to visit his mother, Damiana Chinahuanca, with whom he maintains a close relationship.

Rolando’s project is to design a feed processing plant at the college to produce feed for the college’s animals as well as the farmers of the Yungas region. Currently, the college and the local farmers buy feed from large companies in La Paz who in turn buy their grains from Santa Cruz and eastern Bolivia. Implementing a feed processing plant at the college would be more cost effective for the UAC and the region’s farmers because it would remove the middle man and shift the locus of control from a company in La Paz to the college. It would also provide incentives for the production of grain by local farmers, which in turn would make the costs even lower. His project received support from the NGO conBolivia.

Rolando’s project will not only serve the college but also the local farmers. Ultimately the plant would not only save the UAC and local farmers’ money but also be a source of revenue. In Rolando’s own words, “The idea is to help others as we help ourselves.” Rolando’s long-term goals include one day owning his own farm and a small food business in La Paz, which would serve food to those who work hard or study hard, and don’t have the means to feed themselves.


Photo: Rolando Condori

Victor Hugo's Coffee Beans

Andy Engel talked to student Victor Hugo about his research project.

_______________
UAC-Carmen Pampa has an extensive history of combining academic research with progressive agriculture techniques. The latest chapter in this story is Victor Hugo Belmonte, a 28 year old thesis student working with coffee production. His research focuses on drying coffee beans, a long and labor-intensive process. Traditionally, after coffee beans are washed they are left outside in the sun to dry for a period of between 8 to 15 days, depending on weather conditions. The beans must be moved regularly to avoid rain and also must be covered at night to prevent dew collection. All this must be done by hand and can be very time consuming.

Photo: Victor Hugo measures a bean for shrinkage.

Victor believes that through the use of simple, affordable greenhouses coffee can be dried with a fraction of the time and energy. The greenhouse that Victor built cost between 4000 and 5000 bolivanos or around $600, with funds from conBolivia and some materials donated by the college. Victor predicts the coffee can be dried up to 45% faster, in as few as 7 days, without the need to move the beans after they are placed in the greenhouse. The savings in human labor would be infinitely valuable in a place where there is always more work than there is time.

Photo: Victor Hugo's coffee drying greenhouse.

Victor, the youngest of three was born in the town of Colquiri in western Bolivia. There, his mother taught him a love of plants and agriculture that continues to inspire him today. A non-traditional student by American standards, Victor lived in Spain for two years, working illegally on a farm to pay for his education and support his wife and son in Bolivia. He also spent a significant amount of time working in factories and on construction sites. Today he is nearing the completion of his research project; he hopes to finish it by the end of the year. He has been happy in Carmen Pampa, which drew him in both because of its economic feasibility and its atmosphere of academics he couldn’t find in other areas. After his time at the college Victor plans to continue to work in agriculture, where he hopes to help alleviate poverty in rural areas.

Photo: Victor Hugo talk about his project.

Goodbye, Ana

Volunteer Ana is leaving us this week after a year of service. She taught English, tutored and helped with orienting visitors and volunteers, and was a great friend to all of us. She will be terribly missed!


Photo: Ana and Sister Helen at the 2 de agosto fiesta.

Día del Campesino

Today is the Día del Campesino, the fiesta celebrating indigenous pride, on the founding day of Warisata, the first higher education school founded specifically on Aymara values.

The day started with a mass from Father Freddy at the high school.


Photo: Father Freddy celebrates mass.

After mass was a program of speeches and poetry recitation.


Photo: New Ecotourism director José Luis Pinto and his students listen to the acto cívico.


Photo: Elementary school's best students (foreground) and a student reciting a patriotic poem (background).

This was follows by a parade by the students from the schools in Carmen Pampa, San Pedro and San Juan de la Miel plus the students from the college.


Photo: Parents lead the march into the schoolyard.


Photo: An elementary school class marches.



Photo: The college's top students carry the school's banner.

After that was the aptapi, a huge potluck spread out on aguayos in the schoolyard, then dances all afternoon by the students from the elementary and high schools.

Here young students dance the morenada:






Students here dance the tobas:






The youngest students dance the waca waca:










Here older students dance the tobas:





Student dance the colcheño:




This is the llamerada:




Here high school students line up to dance the caporales:




The 11th graders danced the morenada:




The seniors danced the waca waca:




Here volunteers Kate and Andy are invited to dance.


Visiting scholar Brooke is also invited.



And the parents get into the act: here a group of men from the nearby community of San Pedro de la Loma play the zampoña to show their joy: