An exciting week

Last week was a doozie! Sue Wheeler and Joel Mugge were here from the Carmen Pampa Fund, along with Ann Leahy from the Carmen Pampa Fund board, we had a new graduate, and a UAC grad came back to help our students start businesses.


Last week was a series of meetings about how to better coordinate fundraising at the college. The Carmen Pampd Fund, representatives from the college and some other college supporters met to talk about where we want to be and how to get there. It was an intense week, developing strategies about how to make our work known so that people will support our work.



Photo: (front) Obispo of Coroico Msgr. Juan Vargas, Vice Director Hugh Smeltekop, Former Bolivian Ambassador to the U.S. Jorge Crespo, college Director Father Freddy del Villar, CPF Grant Coordinator Joel Mugge; (back) Sister Jean Morrissey m.f.i.c., CPF Exec. Director Sue Wheeler, CPF Board President Ann Leahy, college representative and Education Department Director Andrés Pardo, CPF Liaison Sarah Mechtenberg.


Mid-week, Danitza Ramos, an agronomy student, defended her research project about pollinators of cacao flowers, discovering a relationship between the presence of 2 tiny flies and cacao pod development. The more of these two species of flies present, the more developed pod on the tree -- and the higher the yield of chocolate beans for the farmer. She is recommending to farmers that they keep decaying banana trunks in their fields, where the flies spend part of their life cycle.

Photo: Danitza stands with Ann Leahy and Sue Wheeler after her successful defense (she got a 96%, the second student to graduate with high honors this year!)


Later the same week, Dr. Miguel Quisbert came to talk to students about starting businesses. Miguel graduated last year, and now works for a company called Nueva Economía that helps people develop business plans. The company works mostly with small farmers who become the generators of economic development in the countryside, and help end poverty that way. He is now helping students at the college to develop business plans and be part of this movement; at the same time, students in the agronomy, veterinary science and tourism departments can use their business plans to graduate as an alternative to the research project requirement.



Photo: Miguel speaks to a group of students at the college interested in starting a business.


Another great week at the college. Thank you to all who make our work possible.

On the radio

When I was home recently, Carmen Pampa Fund Executive Director Sue Wheeler and I were interviewed on a radio show called It Takes A Village, hosted my Carla Kjellberg. And the interview is on line! If you go to http://www.villagetalkradio.com/archived_shows.htm and scroll down to 10/11/08, there we are. Have a listen!

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P.S. I was home for a few days in September for the wedding of Matt Thibodeau, a good friend, a volunteer at the college in 1999, and founder of the Dream Fund that gives bolivian orphans college scholarships (one is here at the college). Pix of that and other adventures like the cross-country trip with mom, a visit to grandma's, and a trip to the Twin Cities here.



Photo: Matt and new wife Mia kiss in the open field where they were married in northern Minnesota.

Fifteenth Year Anniversary

This weekend marks 15 years since the college was founded by the Franciscan Sister Damon Nolan and Dick Leahy. It is also the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi and the college interdepartmental games called the Intercarreras. There is a lot to share, but I will highlight some of the best moments (imho).

During the day on Thursday and Friday were sports -- basketball, soccer, mini-soccer, races, volleyball -- from 7:00 a.m. until sunset. Here are some photos of the basketball excitement:






Sadly, Friday afternoon we learned of the accidental death of a recent graduate of the agronomy program, Nelva Guzmán. Her life was honored with moments of silence throughout the weekend, and at mass on Saturday.

Nelva got her degree in April, and went through the graduation ceremony in August (photo of Nelva receiving diploma from Father Freddy).

Friday evening was the tránsito, the celebration of the migration of St. Francis's soul to Heaven. In honor, Sister Jean Morrissey helped students in the pre-university program to do a reenactment of the life of Francis.



Saturday morning was a first communion and confirmation mass for over fifty students.










Saturday afternoon was a BBQ, prepared by the university administrators, for all.






This was followed by the clásico, a soccer game between agronomy and vet science graduates, many who were from the first class of students at the college (vet won, 4 to 2).



Sister Christine Cullen, who was with Sister Damon when the college was young, arrived, to the great surprise and joy of many.

Here she is with Federico Carrizales, Juan Paucara and Gerónimo Álvarez.

The evenings were talent nights, with each department competing in events like dance, theater, and poetry recitation. Here vet students dance in surgery costume.



The last night, we remembered Sister Damon and many others that were instrumental in making the college a success over the years.


Sunday (today) were the traditional dances. It rained on and off, but it didn't dampen the spirit of the dancers.









Tonight is a fiesta where students will dance and some trophies will be given out. The spirit shown over the weekend has definately demonstrated that all of our students are winners. And as is often said (to the losing team): Pero sí, has ganado -- ¡has ganado experiencia! (But you did win -- you won experience!).

There are lots more photos in my October 2008 Google photo album if you are interested. And more photos of the dance from Sr. Jean Morrissey here.

Unclogged

Volunteer mathematics consultant Mary Murphy from Smith College shares some thoughts about living at the college. Thank you for sharing, Mary!

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While the rest of Bolivia is roiled with political unrest and the U.S. economy is going down the tubes, we at the Volunteer House are celebrating a domestic victory (also having to do with going down the tubes, but in the literal sense). For several weeks, our kitchen sink was malfunctioning, releasing dirty water onto the floor from we-didn't-know-where. Before long, the entire kitchen floor was caked with mud. The lake reached epic proportions and turned deep red on the night we had beets for dinner, and we decided to stop using the sink. This meant washing pots and dishes in the laundry area, nowhere near the kitchen, boasting a leaky roof and no light.

We couldn't keep this up forever, so yesterday I tracked down Profesor Donato, retired high school chemistry teacher and current supervisor of maintenance at the lower campus, who volunteered to insert caustic soda into the drain, washing it down with a kettleful of boiling water. That did the trick! Mostly. We still had a leaky pipe under the sink, probably due to previous caustic soda treatments.

Don José Tintaya, the college fix-it man, dropped by to solve that problem. All repairs are very seat-of-the-pants (how the heck do you say that in Spanish?): he heated up pieces of PVC pipe on our propane burner, then jammed one into the other. When it didn't quite work, he used more heat and more force, finally declaring the job complete. (He forgot, however, to replace the faucet that spews water from its base. Then again, it has been doing so since at least 2005, so I guess there's no rush.) I made them a thank-you pot of coffee, and Don José, Donato and I sat down at the kitchen table to chat, Donato commenting as he lingered over his coffee that it was already 11:00 a.m. and he hadn't accomplished a thing that day. As far as we were concerned, I said, he certainly had.

That evening, as I left to go to the library, four people were competing for the chance to wash the dinner dishes!

This morning, I noticed that a small pond is re-forming at the base of the sink. Ah, well! You'd think it might be easy to locate the problem, but the sink was completely enclosed in a concrete-and-stone wall, into which they had to make a huge hole to get at the pipes. Seeing what was going on was another difficulty because the light in our dish-washing area is poor at best, and none of it makes it through that hole in the wall.

Not much academic work will happen this week, as the students are focused on Intercarreras*, which began Thursday night [More about the games, and the college's 15 year anniversary, soon. -ed.]. Last week, I attempted in vain to teach during my Wednesday noche de estudio, with dance music blasting from the basketball court right outside our window and practice for a vigorous traditional dance in full swing. Not only could I not get the students' attention (they preferred to look out the windows -- who could blame them?), but I couldn't hear myself speak, and many of the students weren't even present.

Wednesday night, though, I had another satisfying tutoring session with Fátima, a student in her final year of Eco-tourism, who hopes to also study architecture and needs to learn mathematics. With my help, she is working her way through an algebra review book, and I hope we'll have enough time to get to functions and a bit of calculus. Fátima gets it! This is one reason I enjoy working with her. First of all, she does most of the work on her own, making notes on what she wants to ask me about. Second, when I explain to her the principle behind a particular method, she wants to know. Nearly every other Bolivian student I've worked with learns rote procedures and strenuously resists understanding. The general reaction to my attempts to explain what something means or why it works is met with blank stares and an immediate reversion to the tried-and-true approach of copying (often badly) from the blackboard or from a friend's homework paper. They appreciate my help, but they seem to think that my explanations must be some wacky foreign style of doing math (which I suppose they are). These kids are young, though -- less than one year removed from their rural schools -- so there's hope.
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*Intercarreras: A multi-day marathon of athletic and cultural competitions, running from 7 in the morning until 3 the following morning.