Geronimo Huanca

Becky, former volunteer and great friend, agreed to share her thoughts about her visit on the blog.

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It has been seven years since I lived in Carmen Pampa and worked at the UAC-CP and three years since I visited. I attended the Ayni Festival that the Carmen Pampa Fund and St. Catherine University hosted last week in St. Paul, MN. After seeing the video I was prepared for big changes when my husband and I arrived last Sunday.

Arriving at the UAC, the changes were soon apparent: there are new buildings on campus, and the biggest change is the 765 new students studying today. The only familiar faces are the graduates that now work and teach there. A few students that had just started seven years ago are now finishing their thesis (one has her pre-defense today!).

Despite these changes, there is something that hasn’t changed. The energy. The energy of students excited and anxious to begin a new life, to change their future, to change the future of others. You can feel the energy they have to make these changes, changes beyond the superficial changes of new buildings. Changes that are more subtle and much more important. To see those changes, one has to travel outside the school.

Yesterday, we went to a nearby village, Santa Gertrudis, near the town of Coripata on the other side of the mountain. Santa Gertrudis is the hometown of Geronimo Huanca, an agriculture student now preparing to do his senior project. When I met Geronimo eight years ago, he was an extremely timid (I think he actually shook when he talked to me the first time) but conscientious young man. Geronimo grew up in Santa Gertrudis, raised by an older couple, who he calls his parents. He never knew his biological father and his mother passed away when he was very young. His parents, an older couple never able to have children of their own, adopted him and raised him.


Photo: Becky, her husband Chad and Geronimo visit in his house in the community of St. Gertrudis.

Geronimo is incredibly dedicated to his parents and they to him. Throughout his time at the UAC, because of their age, Geronimo traveled back and forth from school on the weekends to help them take care of their land and crops. His father grew sick a couple of years ago and Geronimo had to take time off school to take care of him and the land. His father passed away last year but his dream was to see Geronimo graduate. His mother, wife, and son (six years old) have all supported Geronimo in his push to continue to study.



Photo: Geronimo and his mother in their small garden plot.

Now, Geronimo is working on his final senior project, his last requirement for graduation. The Sud Yungas, where Geronimo lives, has had much more of its land cleared and planted with crops, especially coca, which can leave the soil depleted. The communities on this side of the mountain are starting to realize that the lack of trees and the hard use of the soil are beginning to turn the country-side into a desert. Water is scarce and food crops have a hard time growing. Food crops that used to be plentiful in the area now have to be brought in from elsewhere.

Geronimo’s senior project will work with the municipal government in establishing small tree nurseries in each community on the mountainside. These nurseries will help communities re-establish the cover to maintain moisture and nutrition the soil needs in order to be productive. This change may take a long time to see. However, the change in Geronimo is already clear. He is well-known and respected in his community. He is confident in sharing his knowledge with not only his community but also with the decision-makers in the government. He is also confident in living a life that is different, planting diverse crops instead of just one, maintaining the forest on some of his family’s land and using his knowledge to better not only his life but that of his community. That is the type of change that is seen by not only me. His community sees this change and commitment as well and one can hope that the inspiration of one life changed will be enough to change others as well.


Photo: The community of St. Gertrudis from across the valley.