Thursday, April 29, 2010

Just how much do you want to be here?

Yesterday afternoon I made the 15-minute walk between our two campuses. Half way down the path, I met an agronomy student, a young woman named Fanny Mamani. ¿Cómo estás? I asked.

Un poco cansada -- A little tired, she responded -- I came from Caranavi yesterday.

How did you get here? I asked. Isn't there a blockade? Since Monday, farmers in Caranavi have been protesting a decision by the government to change the location of a planned citrus processing plant from their town to another town further down the road. All roads to Caranavi -- and the whole northeast of the region -- are blocked.

Fanny replied, Well, I went home to Caranavi to see my mother, and got trapped by the blockade. So I walked 8 hours to El Choro -- where the last road blockade is located -- and got a bus from there.

The blockades are sometimes violent: farmers throw rocks from above the road, or physically stop people from crossing. That a student would brave this amazes me -- and drives home how important this opportunity to study is for our students.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Fiesta del Ayni



Our work at the College is possible only through the efforts of many, many people, contributions made according to each person's gifts and means. We celebrate these many contributions with the Fiesta del Ayni, the Carmen Pampa Fund's annual fund-raising get-together.

This year, the event is on May 6th from 6-9 p.m. at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. The inspiring Sister Damon Nolan, foundress of the College, will be there, as well as our current Director General, Father Freddy del Villar.

Two students from the College will also be there -- and like Gonzalo last year, will do some traditional Bolivian dances.

For more information or to RSVP, please call Carmen Pampa Fund's office at 651.641.1588 or e-mail at info@carmenpampafund.org.

Another first

Two weeks ago, we had another first at the College: the first student to graduate with the new graduation option, a business plan.

Most students at the College do a research project for their graduation requirement, but we found that students who wanted to start a business were at a disadvantage. Two years ago we asked Catholic University of Bolivia (our academic home) for permission to graduate students who write and defend a business plan. And our request was granted.

Fernando Salazar is the first of these students. He wrote a business plan for a butterfly farm focused on producing chrysalis and mounted specimens for sale in Bolivia, and internationally on the Internet.

Graduates that become motors for local economies, and graduates that create jobs instead of looking for jobs, is one of the reasons we are here. Congratulations to Fernando, and may many more students with these goals pass through our doors.



Photo: Proposed design for new graduate Fernando's laboratory and butterfly house. Though the main goal is producing butterflies for sale, the business will also be open to tourists.

Friday, April 23, 2010

First grad

Bolivia used to have a shortage of teachers in rural areas, so gifted high school graduates were invited to teach in rural schools. As more students graduated from Bolivia's teaching colleges, these maestros interinos were asked to get their teaching certificates or leave the profession.

In 2003, the College in Carmen Pampa started offering an elementary school teaching degree to these maestros interinos, holding classes on weekends in the town of Caranavi, about 3 hours from the College. Last weekend, the first of these students completed her research project, the last requirement of the program.

This student was Sandra Barreto. She wanted her degree to be able to keep teaching while her husband drives a taxi, and they raise their daughter together. She studied how deaf students are handled in Caranavi's public elementary schools -- and found that school principals and teachers there were generally unfamiliar with idea of mainstreaming deaf students in classrooms with their peers, and also unequipped to make these accommodations.

"Deaf students -- and students with disabilities in general -- are marginalized in our rural schools. Teachers do not know how to integrate them into their classrooms," she notes. "There is also a great prejudice in society, based on the surprisingly common belief that God punishes parents by giving them children with special needs. And since parents are the main advocates in these situations, their children are often kept out of sight at home, or sent to a special program sponsored by the mayor's office."

This is not enough, she explains. According to Bolivian law, and experiences here and in other countries, mainstreaming children with special needs is beneficial in many cases. Sandra is sharing her results with the school system in Caranavi, raising awareness of this issue, and making practical suggestions about how to change the current system, like more teacher training, and working with parents with children with special needs. She is well placed to do this at her current job with an local organization that teaches parenting skills to mothers and fathers in Caranavi.

Meanwhile, we will celebrate her success, a trail-blazer for her classmates as the first graduate from this special program at the College. Congratulations, Sandra!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Carmen Pampa

A student named Carmen Pampa, from our community of the same name, defended her senior project today, the fifth in the Education department. She studied how elementary students understand their environment.

Carmen's father was a librarian at the College, and died in 2003 of tuberculosis. Her mother, who turned to raising chickens with her sons who study vet/animal science at the College, served up a delicious chicken dinner to commemorate her success.

Here is our latest success with her two children. ¡Felicidades, Carmen!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Carmen Pampa Fund

This week, two members of the Carmen Pampa Fund Board of Directors, Ann Leahy and Tara Nolan, were at the College to do collaborative planning for the next six months, and share our respective successes and challenges. With Ann and Tara's energy and good will, and the spirit present at the College, I think that there is no challenge to great.

And here we are: (L to R) your truly, Director of Education Andrés Pardo, Academic Secretary Manuela Urbina, CPF Board President Ann Leahy, Ex Bolivian Ambassador Jorge Crespo, the Bishop of Coroico Juan Vargas, CPF liaison Sarah Mechtenberg, Religious Education Director Jean Morrissey, College Director General Father Freddy del Villar and CPF Board member Tara Nolan.

Veronica Calles

Coca is a plant with a long and complex history. Considered the mother of all plants, it has many traditional uses among indigenous people of the Andes. It wasn't until cocaine was isolated from the leaves in the mid 1800s that it developed its current reputation as a narcotic -- and when used traditionally, it is not considered a vice. It still has an important place in Andean society.

To grow coca, the soil is inverted, turning the rich topsoil under, and forming hard terraces with the clay subsoil. The coca is planted into these terraces, and produces harvestable leaves for about 30 years. Then the land is abandoned: this process leaves the soil unfertile, even for forrage grasses.

Veronica Calles, an agronomy student at the College, planted an abandoned coca field with a mix of ground covers, crops and local tree species to see whether the land could be recovered for use -- and found that leguminous cover crops and local tree species adapted successfully -- and the crops, well, not so much.

The project was supported by a USDA-funded collaboration with South Dakota State University, Sisseton Wapheton College and Nebraska Indian Community College, directed by Dr. Diane Rickerl, one of the College's ambassadors.

Her graduation project was well received, and Veronica last Thursday became the latest graduate at the College. Congratulations, Veronica!

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Sarah Purcell joined us in Carmen Pampa as a recent graduate in international political economy from the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently collaborating with the student-run food cooperatives at the College*, intending to improve campus-wide nutrition through various approaches. She explains
A long-term yet attainable goal would be the integration of the campus's organic vegetable garden into the food cooperative, making it the primary source of fresh food for the students. A similar approach, the farm to table or local food movement, is gaining force in the United States at this time, but is unfortunately largely restricted to a privileged class. The College, on the other hand, created for underprivileged students, has the potential to accomplish this full circle of food production on its very own campus. As it is, every student must contribute four hours per week to community service, so much of their time is already spent in the garden. Furthermore, most of the students on campus are from farm families themselves, so this connection to the earth and know-how already exists.


While this increase in production and increase in collaboration is in the works, Sarah aims to organize the purchase of dry staples such as rice and sugar in La Paz which would save money -- and this money could then be spent on supplementing student diets with otherwise limited foods. She notes, though, that "change takes a considerable amount of work, and most importantly, time, even when attempted on a small scale."

Sarah hopes to use her experience at the UAC-Carmen Pampa to strengthen the unintegrated local food systems in the United States that are now bounded by class constraints. Her approach to these food systems would be through city planning, where she finds special interest in policy that could help with the integration of community gardens into cities and grocery stores into low income neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, she will be moving on in the next few weeks. Thank you, Sarah, for your work here at the College -- and we wish you much success in the future!




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* The students pay about $20 a month to participate in the cooperatives, and that is subsidized by a generous donation from the Carmen Pampa Fund, and additional support from Cross International.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Easter 2010

Here are some pictures from our Easter here in Carmen Pampa.

Here is Father Freddy blessing palms on Palm Sunday.



The students did the passion play -- and a student named Jesús played Jesus.



A crowd of people from the congregation -- kids, mostly -- stood and followed Jesus as he carried the cross around the church. They were laughing and whispering and taking pictures and carrying on, which I thought was a little rude. Then Fr. Freddy said during his homily that the real crucifixion was like that, too: a spectacle, with people crowding around and talking and the like. It gave the story a new meaning for me.



At the Thursday night mass, Fr. Israel washed the feet of some church members, in remembrance of the Last Supper.



Friday we did the Way of the Cross.



Last night was the Easter Vigil mass. It starts out outside at the fire.

(This picture is from Joel Vaughn. He and his wife, Lynn Myrick, are here contemplating the College as a possible home for the next 3 years as Franciscan Mission Service missioners.)

Happy Easter to all! You are in our prayers here in Carmen Pampa.