My work of late...

Holas a todos!!

 

            Ok, so now that I have one blog post up FINALLY, I thought I would go crazy and even put another one up. This one is to show that I do other things besides party all weekend with festively-dressed Bolivians.

 

            So, the reason why I have not been able to write any blog posts is because of a little project called Centro para Rehabilitación para Ciegos “Manuela E. Ganarillas.” I have been working with this center for the last two months to develop an environmental education program for blind students there. It is by far my favorite work I have done so far with my NGO here. Even though it took an incredibly long time to get this project launched and has resulted in many weeks of stress for me, I cannot deny that the skills I have gained and the relationships I have built are more than worth the trouble.

 

            I have been given this project to me by my supervisors as my own, meaning that although they are an endless source of knowledge and support for me, I have planned and implemented every single lesson I have had with these students. In addition, I have nearly mastered my use of Spanish in professional environments (it is difficult to cheat and use hand gestures in front of blind students, I learned quickly), and have truly experienced what sustainable development is, as my priorities with the older blind students (from ages 20-38, though they still have the uncomfortable habit of calling me Profesora Sarah, like I´m a professional or something) shifted beyond environmental education and instead to teaching them environmentally-friendly microenterprise skills so that they can find a way to gain their own income.

 

                        I teach two groups, one of children from ages 11-16, and one of the older students that I have already talked about. This was the first time that I have gotten the chance to work with education with young adults, and I was not that surprised to find that I loved it, and even enjoyed it much more than working with the younger group. It is very difficult to work with younger blind children in a group, because their level of development and integration into the community are at staggeringly different levels, and it has been very difficult for me to adapt to this. For example, I have two students 11 years old, one who was more than ready to learn something more complicated than the food chain, and one who was so distracted by playing with the plastic animals that I was using as a teaching aid that she ended the lesson not knowing how to define the phrase “food chain.” J It´s been a new experience teaching them, to say the least.

 

            On the other hand, the students of my age have already found their own ways to be independent and are genuinely interested in how they can save the environment, how they can teach others, and how they can “meterse en su comunidad” – find their own place in society. So far I have loved every lesson I have had with them, because they are so passionate and excited about learning everything and about applying what we have learned to their lives. Working with them has helped me understand sustainable development in a much more tangible manner, and I am hoping to be able to work with adults, especially the younger ones, in third-world countries throughout my life in various workshops like those I have been able to teach here.

 

OK, enough blah-blah-blah, here are some various photos of the projects that I have been doing with these students. Some of them were taken by my supervisors, Alejandra and Lia, as I was stressed-ly running around trying to make sure that every student was doing what they needed to be doing.

 

 

 The young'ns learning what material can be recycled through a rhythm game:

The young'ns learning to recycle paper (sorry about the crappy shadows):

The older group learning how to plant medicinal herbs and herbs for cooking:

Water conservation project: 

My favorite project so far, where the older ones make baskets out of used newspaper. The whole goal is to give them microenterprise training so that they can start their own business:

 

About a third of the money donated to Fundación Gaia Pacha by all of you wonderful people is going to this project, so thank you! The majority of the rest of the money is going towards creating another center for environmental education not unlike the first one on the sustainable farm, only this one is in a natural history museum. The rest of the money is going towards creating environmental education workshops for environmental engineering and education majors at the local universities. If we get the chance to get these projects up and running to the point that I can take photos of them before I leave, I will post them as well!

 

I hope all is well with you all!! I will hopefully post another blog soon of a beautiful trip I took in January to the world´s biggest salt flat, called Salar de Uyuni, now under extreme international spotlight for its lithium resources for batteries for electric cars. This all depends on my ability to steal the photos taken by some friends on this trip while I was without a camera, but stay posted.

Cuidense!!

Carnaval!

Hello All!!! I hope this extreeeeeeemely late blog post finds you all well. I thought that instead of trying to keep you all up-to-date on my life for the last four months, I thought I would just give you a picture and video version of my life so that you could see it yourself.

I’ll start with Carnaval 2009, which takes place at the end of February. While the really famous Carnaval in Rio de Janiero is all about getting really drunk and naked for a weekend and dancing like crazy (which I am not denying that  we would all thoroughly enjoy as well), Bolivia is known for its cultural celebration (OK, and its drunkenness, but drinking here is a very cultural activity). Its most famous celebration is in Oruro, where the city transforms from sagebrush-blown ghost town to party-till-you-drop town as the celebration begins Friday night with live bands all night long, from folkloric music to rock bands. Then, at 7 AM, the parade begins, where traditional dance groups from all over Bolivia (and one from Chile, which is mostly there just for all of the Bolivians in the audience that are still bitter over Chile stealing their ocean access to throw water balloons and to spray foam at them) come dancing in beautiful, extremely ornate costumes, and dance through the town for three or four hours. This lasts until sunrise the next day, which I’ll describe in a moment, and then a second wave of dancers comes in and dances all day Sunday.

Here are some photos of some of the costumes:

Here are a few videos of what we saw throughout the first day. Prepare yourself for the wonderful filming skills of Sarah!!! (I am not responsible for any vomiting that occurs while watching these.)

True to Bolivia’s machista culture, many of the women’s costumes were designed to show off their legs and their wonderful skills of moving their hips, and many of their dances (in my humble but feminist opinion) are more to show off their bodies than to dance some sweet moves. There were a few exceptions to the rule; one of them included a dance and costume that seemed to want to portray women more as scary ogres than as beautiful showpieces. Here is a video of both worlds: a simple women’s dance in beautiful costuming, as well as some women’s costumes that really should have given me nightmares at night.

Bolivians have an obsession with fireworks, and it definitely came out at Carnaval. I watched dancers dance among exploding bottle rockets and men gathering to collect up the fireworks while they were still shooting into the air. Here is a traditional dance of the tinkus (I think) dancing like gazelles (with bulging calves of steel, I’m sure, to be able to do this for so many hours) through some fireworks.

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Around 3 AM, the best group in Bolivia, proudly from the university in my own hometown Cochabamba, started to dance a dance called Caporales. While the women normally have very simple steps in this dance (though not easy – they move their hips for three or four hours straight in five-inch heels), several women in this group chose to dance de macho – that is to say, they danced the men’s dance steps instead, which are much more energetic and lively, which I just loved, so here is a video of them. This is another one of the exceptions to Bolivia’s machismo. Keep in mind that they do this for three or four hours. This group also came the next day to parade again:

At the end of the night, around 5 AM, all of the Bolivians and foreigners that had not yet passed out in a corner in the street climbed a hill together to the church of the Virgin Maria of Socavón, who is the saint of this whole holy weekend, and bands played traditional Bolivian songs while a crowd of thousands of people sang, danced, drank some more, and watched the sunrise together. It was so holy to be surrounded by such a happy crowd of people, everyone barely with enough room to dance but still dancing, and then, as the first rays of the new morning came, every person raised their arms into the air with their palms facing the sun to soak in the warmth and new light. I didn’t have camera batteries at this point, but I don’t think that it was something that I would want to capture on film, just because it was such a personal (and interpersonal) experience.

Oh, and one more thing about Carnaval: it’s a complete crazyhouse for the audience members. During the short spaces between these beautiful costumes and dances, the stands would turn into a war zone of water balloons and foam spray. I’ve been accustomed to dodging water balloons - or we can be honest about my reflexes and say I’ve been accustomed to being hit by them – since December, because Cochabamba is even more determined to waste this country’s precious and scarce water resource than the rest of the country, but I have to say, Carnaval was a completely different story. You cannot take more than two steps without being sprayed by a water gun, by espuma (foamed soap), or pummeled by water balloon after water balloon. Here is a picture of the beautiful girls I went with after we got a little too involved in a war with a bunch of ten-year-olds:

And here is a video when we decided to do an experiment. Basically, my blond hair has gotten me way too much attention since I’ve been here (not in a bad way – people just notice me very, very easily), a huge white flag in a crowd of brown people, and seeing how much Bolivians got pummeled when they went down to the street in the breaks between dances, my friends and I wanted to see what would happen if me and my blond hair went down there:

 

Well, that’s about all. Sorry I’ve been so busy lately to update this! It just means that your donated funds are going to a good but very time-consuming cause down here. My next blog will be about the work I’ve been doing, followed up by a Salar de Uyuni blog.

P.S. My plans for the summer are more or less officially decided now, so I thought I would give you all a quick update:

April 30 – My FSD program ends, my parents come to visit and we run wary-nary around Bolivia and Peru like chickens with our heads cut off for ten days but manage to see EVERYTHING.

May 10-12 – I come home and spend Mother’s Day weekend with the feminine side (or I guess less masculine side) of my family in the mountains of Southern California.

May 17 – I fly down to Phoenix! Hopefully there I can experience the salsa dancing and clubbing there and make a very scientific comparison to the dancing down in Bolivia. I’ll also be spending my birthday there and joining my Camp Sparky friends for Big Camp!!

May 24 – run off to Seattle to visit the siblings and amigos!

Shortly after that – Run up to Juneau to hopefully get some nice backcountry skiing in with the sister-poo!

June 1 – my research internship up in Juneau begins. It’s a paid research position where I will basically be helping to survey the alpine and subalpine ecosystems in southeast Alaska, because it is one of the least studied ecosystems but a great indicator for climate change. We will be spending extending stays in the backcountry skiing and hiking our lives away and lamenting our difficult lives. I will also be creating my own research project up there.

August 15^th – my program ends, I run home, dump my stuff off in my room, and run off to Arizona to start my semester and see if I can handle an academic lifestyle again after a year of feeling like I’m working in the real world (and then find that I can’t, and drop out of school. Just kidding, Mom ;) )

Much love to you all from Bolivia!!! Keep in touch and let me know what you have been up to!!!

Disclaimer

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years and that this blog finds you well! I just need to write a quick disclaimer that there probably won't be too many blog posts any time soon - some silly person decided to leave her camera in the glove compartment in her car while she was in the US, and didn't pack it on the return to  Bolivia. So, without photos, this blog would be pretty dry. 

A quick update...I am still working on the Ecoteca on the little farm, and Gaia Pacha will soon start building another similar environmental education center in the local Natural History Museum. And, starting in February, I will get to start working with the blind kids on an environmental program! So I am really excited about that!

Also, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to those who donated!!! You have no idea how much it means to me and all of the Gaia Pachans, and to the kids as well!!! So muchisimas gracias!!!!!

I hope all is well with you all!! Take care!!