On the radio -- again!

On Thanksgiving Day, Radio Journalist Jack Rice from WCCO in the Twin Cities interviewed Carmen Pampa Fund Interim Executive Director Sue Wheeler and Interim Program Director Joel Mugge about the college.


Photo: Joel Mugge and Sue Wheeler.

Give it a listen here:
http://www.830wcco.com, and click on the 11/27 Jack Rice Show that says, "The United Nations has rated this school in Bolivia as one of the top seven schools combatting poverty."


Or download the podcast here:
http://www.830WCCO.com/epsiode_download.php?contentType=36&contentID=3131220


Photo: Jack Rice on WCCO.

Thanksgiving

Sarah Mechtemberg, Sister Carmen, the volunteers and I had an excellent Thanksgiving Day meal yesterday. Everyone remembered the people that we are thankful for: family, mentors, leaders who help us imagine a better future. And we are all thankful for the opportunities that life offers us, and want to extend these opportunities to other who do not have them. That is a big reason that we are all here.


Photo: Hugh Smeltekop, Andy Engel, Sam Clair, Mary Murphy, Sarah Mechtenberg and Carmen Minga.

(We were also thankful for such a full table: Roasted chicken with stuffing, organic cauliflower and broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry dressing -- thanks, Tanya! -- and pumpkin pie! Enough for a real Thanksgiving Food Coma!)

Something fishy

Don José Tintaya is the man who remembers his father leaving the hacienda in Carmen Pampa after being beaten bloody for disobediance. He was one of the community members who supported Sister Damon as she founded the college. He believed that education could transform our world.

Saida Tintaya successfully defended her research project today, Don José's daughter, the dream made flesh, just one generation later.


Photo: Saida Tintaya awaits the grade on her research project.

Saida studied the effect of water temperature on the production of an amazonian fish, tambaquí, to see whether it would adapt to this climate. She discovered that it will grow under local conditions, but will grow significantly faster in the warmer months.

Saida asked me to thank Sister Damon for inspiring her, and Dr. Michael Brown at South Dakota State University for helping with advice and materials to measure the fish as they grew.

Saida has a small clinic in the Alto of La Paz, where she works with her husband Guido, another student soon to defend at the college. Guido was not there today because he was helping farmers in a far-off community Charazani with a chicken project. We are proud of Saida for her success and her work that benefits people in the campo, fulfilling the college's mission. One person at a time. There has never been any other way.


Photo: Saida stands with (L to R) vet department director Martín Morales, her mother Gertrudis, her statistics advisor Ramiro Ochoa, her father José, Vice Director Hugh Smeltekop and her research advisor Constancio Calsina.

A little bit proud

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa, and when I returned to the U.S., I was convinced that I would return to Africa and work there. When Dr. Doug Malo at South Dakota State University said to me, "Hugh, when you finish your studies, we could really use your help in Bolivia," I thought, Why not? I can always go back to Africa next year...

The rest is history, as they say. I fell in love with this place full of young people with dreams way beyond their possibilities, and somehow they reach them -- being a part of that process is an incredible honor. I hope that people who contribute feel that way, too.

My work is different here than it was in my village in Benin. In Africa, I was one man working alongside farmers in a tiny village. Here, I am part of a team, and all of my efforts and multiplied by the efforts of everyone around me. With the support of very few "people on the ground," our students graduate, ready to take on the world.

Though I was promoted recently, I am still involved in the college's Research Institute, our Instituto de Investigación. At a meeting last week, we took a group picture, and every time I look at it, I feel so proud to be part of this. Everyone on our team works really hard, taking on much more than their job descriptions would let on, and working more hours than most jobs would require. Here is the picture:


Photo: (front, L to R) Daniel Choquetarqui, head of labs on Campus Leahy; Daniela Chambilla, head of labs on Campus Manning; Cristina Yujra, library manager on Campus Manning; Olga Jemio, head of libraries; (back) Manuel Loza, research collaborator; Hugh Smeltekop, director of the Research Institute; Rúben Darío Gómez, acting director of the Research Institute

Food Sovereignty

This semester we have a scholar from UC-Berkeley here researching food sovereignty in and around Carmen Pampa. She is Tanya Kerssen, once a grant writer at the Carmen Pampa Fund. We are so lucky to have her, because of her contributions to the college (giving talks, teaching about and leading survey research) and because she has been such an interesting and creative and stimulating person in the volunteer house.

Yesterday Tanya led a survey team in a community across the valley. Here is a photo of Tanya (in blue) walking with her team of student to the community.

Todos Santos

These days are All Saint's and All Soul's Days, and it is a big thing where we live. At noon on November 1st, souls come back to their homes on Earth and visit with their families. To prepare for their visits, families prepare the favorite foods of their departed loved ones.

Here is a table prepared in the community of San Pablo just up the road. Families bake bread people (t'antawawas), bread ladders and bread horses, and put out plates of favorite foods, and fruit and coca. The picture above the table is of a nursing student from the college, Bautista, who died in 2007.




Here are some kids and a community leader praying at the table prepared for the souls visiting my Godson's house. People come all morning on November 2nd and pray in front of the table for the souls visiting the house. The family then gives them bread and fruit.




After praying, the adults sit and reminisce about the past. I heard some incredible stories about "the old days." One man's father, practically a slave in the old hacienda system, had his wife chosen by the hacienda owner; a woman teared up and she remembered losing her first three babies to early deaths; another remembered running away to La Paz and working at a restaurant until her mother found her a week later and dragged her home. (Most of what was said was in Aymara, and went right over my head.)

There was also a group of men who played the drum and traditional flutes called pinkillas to accompany the souls as they visit each house. They said that some of these traditions are being lost as the new generations lose interest in their parent's "backward" traditions.




Tomorrow the families will go to the cemetery and give out more bread and fruit to the people that come to pray over their graves.