First day of the fiesta

Today, the first day of the fiesta universitaria, we had a mass then the College admimistration competed in fútsal (small-court soccer), basketball and soccer. It was a beautiful day, and a great start to a full week of activities. Lots more posts to come!

Photo: Father Freddy preaches to the student body.

Photo: The Campus Manning women's fútsal team.

Urpuma

Near the College is a very old "Inca" trail called the Camino de Choro. It starts far above the tree line at 14,500 feet above sea level, and descends over 3 days into lush cloud forest at about 4,000 feet. Toward the end of the trail is a tiny community called Sandillani where there is a community-run ecolodge called Urpuma. That lodge is managed by our student Vidal Pérez, a young man from the local community.

Photo: Urpuma lodge in Sandillani on the Inca Trail (photo by René Callisaya)

The ecolodge was built with local materials by the 25 families that live in nearby El Chairo, with support from the United Nations, Conservation International, the local NGOs Biota and Prodener, the state university in La Paz and the National Park Service (Urpuma is in the Cotapata National Park). It has 30 beds and a camping area, and electricity provided by a water-powered generator.

Photo: Student Vidal Pérez with the College's visiting professionals Yves Comont, Hye-Jung Park, Kate Fuller, Danielle Lang and Francesca Beninati.

Though built with best intentions, many community-run tourism enterprises like Urpuma flounder due to a lack of capacity in the local community, generally farmers with no experience attending to tourists. Community members often receive some training, but it is not enough to respond to the needs of tourists from all over the world.

This is one way that the College is responding to the need for capacity-building in rural communities: providing young people with skills that can make a community-run business like Urpuma successful. Because when our students can create success in their rural communities, the College is successful, too. Felicidades, Vidal -- y ¡adelante!

Elevator talk

Photo: Research proposal writing class, agronomy and veterinary majors

I teach the research proposal writing class to agronomy and veterinary students at the College, and one of the activities that we do during the semester is an "elevator talk", a 60 second talk to convince someone in an imaginary elevator to finance their research. It is a lot of fun! and helps the students to frame their research in a way this is concise and understandable to every-day people. Here is my student Guillermo talking to his "Godfather" about his proposed research.

FONADAL in Bolivia

Monday the College received the National Director of the European Union's development agency, Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Alternativo (FONADAL), Victor Hugh Almanza. And he came with good news: since the College promotes on-the-ground, grassroots development, FONADAL wants to support the College with business development support and opportunities for students to help develop projects in their communities. Thank you, FONADAL!

Photo: Director General Father Freddy, FONADAL Director Victor Hugo Almanza with three co-workers and Jhonny Torrez from Radio Coroico.

Visit from Cross International

Yesterday and today the College was honored to receive Claudio and Stephanie from Cross International, a Christian relief and development ministry that supports good works all over the world. We are pleased to be a recipient of their efforts!

They visited the student-run food program that Cross Int'l supports, and visited some local students in their homes. Here Stephanie interviews an agronomy graduate from the College, Gerónimo Álvarez.




Thank you, Cross International!

____________________

I visited the Cross International office last month -- and they featured us on their blog this month!

Engineers Without Borders

This week, the South Dakota State University chapter of Engineers Without Borders arrived on campus. They are here to help the College and the community analyze and find solutions for problems with water. Welcome!


Photo: SDSU's Engineers Without Borders chapter, lead by Professor Bruce Berdanier.

Day of the Bolivian Farmer

Today is the day that indigenous farming communities honor the role they played -- and play -- in the development of the country. From the War of Independence, to the Agrarian Reform, to the establishment of the first indigenous school of Warisata, to the foundation of the College in Carmen Pampa, farmers come from all around the area came to Carmen Pampa to remember the sacrifices they make for a better life for their children and their communities.




And it centers on education. Students recite poems to the campesino and to the indigenous leaders who helped them win freedoms. Whole communities parade with the Bolivian and the Indigenous Nation flag, the wiphala. Whole classes at the school organize dances that remember Bolivia's history and native customs.




Our students, products of this evolution toward ever more justice and equality, particiate with pride.





It is an amazing day.

Classroom accommodations for special needs children

Student Carla Taboada defended her graduation project yesterday, an analysis of how elementary school teachers in our municipality accommodate children with special needs. She found that most teachers have special needs children in their classrooms, and modify their lesson plans so that these students can participate in classes with their peers instead of being isolated at home or in a special classroom. She found that the biggest barrier to more acceptance of special needs children in the classroom is social prejudice, including shame on the part of the parents. Another factor that makes this integration difficult is the frequency that teachers are moved from school to school.


Photo: Carla presents her research.

Carla is part of the family is many senses of the word: she grew up in Carmen Pampa, the daughter of the head of maintenance on our upper campus, Campus Leahy. She also studied at the College, and now has a son of her own, a future student of ours!

Photo: Carla poses with her family and defense committee.

Carla, we wish you much success!

Inaugural mass

Photo: Students line up for the flag-raising before the mass.

The inaugural mass for this semester was today. The bishop reminded the students of staying faithful to their dreams, even when things seem difficult: it is making it through the difficult times that proves our grit. Keep us in mind and prayer as we start the new semester.


Photo: Student Sergio from the agronomy department presents the bishop with a candle for the altar, as we are all called to be a light for the world.

More sign-ups

Second day of sign-up for classes! And the rain continues as students trickle in for the new semester...

New semester

Today is the first day of sign-up for classes -- and how incredible to see the students, new and old, with their incredible energy and excitement about a new semester. Even the rain doesn't dampen their spirits (though it does muddy our shoes!).

Gracias!!!

Thank you to everyone who attended the Fiesta de Ayni -- supporters came out in record numbers, and the College raised enough for almost 10 more scholarships for students who want to make a difference for their people. GRACIAS!!!!

Pow Wow at Oglala Lakota College

The students from the College who participated in the Ethics conference in South Dakota shared a traditional Bolivian dance at the pow wow in honor of the 2011 graduates of the Oglala Lakota College. They got a warm welcome, from one group of indigenous people to another.

Visit to SD

This semester, our Director of the College Research Institute co-taught an ethics class with South Dakota State University, Presentation College, Oglala Lakota College and Sisseton Wahpeton Community College. The conference to review the class is in South Dakota, so we came with some students who contributed to the class. This video shows some of our experiences on the first two days.

don't wear fleece to a fiesta

The story of a baptism by volunteer and guest-blogger Mary Murphy. Thanks, Mary!

_____________________

Why no fleece? Not because fleece would be inappropriate attire, but because of the mixtura.

Last weekend I was in La Paz for the baptism of Jhunior Adiel, the newborn son of Marcela, one of my former Education students who finished her coursework in 2010. Marcela asked me to be the madrina of her baby, and I soon learned that the Godmother receives (undeservedly, for sure) even more honor than the mother herself. After the church ceremony, we all climbed what felt like hundreds of stairs to the house at the top of the city where Marcela and the baby share a single room and a single bed with her sister and her sister’s daughter. The celebration began with a toast of sweet champagne, followed by an enormous dinner of roasted chicken and all the trimmings. No knives or forks, just finger-lickin’ good food, and we wiped our hands on pieces of toilet paper torn from a roll in the middle of the table.




After dinner, several people slipped out of the room, and I thought they were leaving the party. Meanwhile, because it gets chilly at night, I slipped into my black fleece jacket. All at once, everyone came back, each one bearing a gift for the baby and a bag of white Bolivian confetti, known as mixtura, to shower over the heads and shoulders of the mother and the madrina. You get the picture: just as I’m about to leave for my hotel, I’m covered with thousands of little scraps of white paper, sticking like mad, of course, to the fleece.

I could not have imagined a warmer reception from people with next to nothing, graciously sharing everything they have. One couple even accompanied me on the bus all the way through the city to the door of my hotel. I spent a good half an hour in my room picking the bits off my jacket, all the while sending drifts of confetti onto the floor. Despite my best attempts, I couldn’t clear the rug completely. Feeling a bit sheepish, I left an extra tip for the chambermaid, and hoped that she had a vacuum cleaner and wouldn’t have to do the job, scrap by scrap, on her hands and knees.

I hope not to fall too far short of their expectations of a madrina, especially since I get to do this all over again in two weeks for little Wara, the daughter of another former student. But, this time, no fleece!

one night only

The Carmen Pampa Fund is holding its Fiesta de Ayni -- an annual get-together for supports of the College -- in St. Paul this year. Current students and graduates will be there, real-life examples of who we are -- some of the faces of Carmen Pampa. And my face, too!




Please come and join us if you can! The event will be held June 23rd, at 6 p.m. at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota (Rauenhorst Ballroom on the 3rd floor of the Coeur de Catherine building).

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

A special lunch

Have you cooked for 35 people recently? Students from the College’s church group did today, under the tutelage of our own Sister Jean Morrissey. The students invited all of the elderly from the community of Carmen Pampa to a big lunch and BBQ chicken, potatoes and cheesy rice, plus cake made by the Poor Claires in Coroico.



This is the second year that students have done this kind of outreach. “Our mission emphasizes serving the poor, and the elderly in our community deserve our attention,” said Sister Jean, who is in her seventh year of service as head of pastoral ministry and religious education at the College.



To show their appreciation, many of the guests brought bags of oranges and tangerines from their farms.



After lunch, Father Freddy invited all of the elderly to the front of the church for a special blessing. It was a fine day for all.

Stephan Campos

Today the College lost a son: Student Stephan Campos was found with the wreckage of a small plane that crashed while on a mission for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. He and three other U.N. officials were working on Proyecto F-57, a project to assesses the environmental impact of coca production in Bolivia. The plane was found in the jungle about 60 miles from Carmen Pampa, after two days of searching.

Stephan was completing his research project for graduation while working for the United Nations. We talked last August when he visited the College to turn in a copy of his graduation project, a soil use classification map for our local municipality. He said that he was proud to be able to contribute to the 2009 Bolivia Coca Monitoring Report (pdf) as a mapping expert (see his photo on p. 63), increasing the knowledge of how coca -- both a sacred, ceremonial crop for the Aymara and Quechua people, and the plant used to make cocaine -- is impacting the environment.





I had Stephan in my Tropical Ecology and my Research Proposal Writing classes. He was a very intelligent and friendly young man, with a lot of good ideas about how to improve the College. He is survived by his wife Pamela (an education student) and two daughters. Stephan, his wife, his youngest daughter and some friends are pictured here, in a photo I took last August in Coroico of students selling sausages produced at the College.




We mourn his loss, and asks for all of you who support of the College to keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

More Easter

A late posting of some more awesome Holy Week photos.

The Via Cruces, carrying the cross around the community to remember the story of the cruxifiction, is always powerful.







After the Via Cruces is the adoration of the cross, where all reflect on sacrifice and selflessness.




The Saturday night mass is a LONG one, time to remember our origins as Christians, and share as a community.




The mass ends with hot chocolate and bread for all.







We had a lot of students from the elementary and high school who could not make it home for the Easter weekend (the teacher strike prolonged the school week last week). It was good to have them participate -- it made for an extra-full church!

I hope that everyone had a great Easter! Love to all from Carmen Pampa.

Maundy Thursday

Tonight was the Last Supper mass. Father Carmelo was the celebrant. One of the most touching moments is when the priest washes the feet of the "disciples," in this case, community members.




Sister Jean played the music for the mass, accompanied by our Academic Secretary Manuela and some young women from the high school.