The Great Anual Textile Fair

Since I'm dedicated to unrestrained honesty these days, I must first say that I've now spent two whole weeks in Cochabamba, working at Casablanca (a hip Italian café I've worked in since 2005) trying to make some cash on tips. The salary is 5 bolivianos (80 cents) an hour. And I'm doing it for the money. Pretty awesome. 8 hour shifts from 6pm- 2am. I'm also flat broke, and I'm newly single.
But this Sunday was the big textile fair in Aramasí, so I had to go. I went with Casa Esperanza in the bus from Villa Amistad. Also, one of my oldest friends from Cocha, Katya joined us and is responsible for many of the photos. Casa Esperanza is the house I visit most in the Villa. That's because mama Jenny's the best, it's Roxana's (my goddaughter) house of origin and all the little dudes there love to rough house and have daredevil contests. Since they were toddlers, Freddy and Mario and Douglas have been climbing up and jumping off furniture, walls, trees, anything accessible. On my last visit to their house, they got me to jump off the roof. We always have a great time and I get to be a kid, and they do too. That's to say, it wasn't any ordinary trip to Aramasí.
We arrived in Aramasí at 11 am, after two hours of the typical, "Are we almost there? How much longer till we're there? Are we about there?" In Cochabambino that's "¿Ya llegamos? ¿Cuánto falta para llegar? ¿Casi estamos ya?"
There wasn't much going on when we got there, set-up, people milling around, none of the fun Aramaseñans that I usually hang out with. The folks in Aramasí tend not to come out when there are people from other communities around. I guess they're more comfortable waiting in their houses, not feeling the need to be hospitable or mingle or anything until the festivities actually start. I don't know, it felt a little strange.
So, with some time to kill, I wanted to go out to the dam, I climbed through the tunnel at the bottom last time I visited and I think they closed the gate since then. So I went off down the hill with Douglas, the activities director from the Villa and Carla, his faithful sidekick. We found most of the kids from Casa Esperanza down at the water where we have to cross the stream before starting the climb up to the dam. After playing in the creek, most of the kids decided they wanted to go up to the dam. Because they didn't realize how far it was. Hehehehe.
When we got to the dam, it was so worth it. The rainy season is over, so mud doesn't get washed off the hillsides into the waterways and the water in the reservoir was crystal blue-green. It looked so good, I had to jump in. The kids thought I was crazy, they had no idea how I could stay afloat without being able to touch the bottom. I was the only one who jumped in. But the rest of them went down to the shore behind the dam and practiced skipping rocks.
Then we walked back down to the textile fair. We had already missed some of the festivities, and when we got there, some guy was talking in Quechua, it sounded like a political rally and there was a wicked wind. The kids went to eat there lunch on the bus and I had some Chivo al horno (baked goat) which was delicious. I ate too quick to get a picture of the food. There were no utensils, and so salad, two varieties of potato and leg of goat was gobble down with the hands. It was awesome. During the feast I shared some chicha with Freddy, the head nurse, and some medical profession visitors. We all got up and complemented the food and pretended like we were leaving without paying. Doña Cristina, the cook, chased after us yelling in Quechua and smiling. I don't know what exactly was said, but it made everyone laugh really hard.
Ah, good times.
Different music groups were playing after lunch and it was difficult to round everyone up for our scheduled time of departure. Then seven or eight other visitors from town asked to join us back to Cocha. Then the bus didn't start. So I sat in the driver's seat, pushing pedals and trying to start the engine when they gave me the sign. They took the battery out, put it back in, bought some wires, poured some Coca-cola in there, got some other men to check it out. And finally, the bus started and we left. Most everyone fell asleep immediately. But then the little guys woke everyone up and started playing punching games and the girls started singing Spanish versions of that song-chant they do in Big with Tom Hanks, you know? Anyway, I became a human carnival ride pretty quick. My arms are still sore. The next morning was a meeting in the Villa and I did not come close to making it.
Well, I'll be lucky to publish this now. The pics just aren't loading.

Progress, I think

Well, where do I start? I started by loading pictures, and I didn't choose what side to load them on very well. So please excuse the disorder.

Life has been intense and interesting lately. More has been going on in my personal life than in my 'professional' life. Some of the hi-lights are that I found some climbing buddies, I rode a mule, an old friend visited me from Honduras, I climbed through the dam, I was in 3 newspapers, and I got a promotion at work (waiter to manager!).






We've been working mostly in two communities, Chupak'asa and Ahuri. Ahuri is my favorite community, and I'm the only gringo ever to visit. Maybe I've mentioned that before. But it's still true, and I'm pretty proud. Ahuri is the furthest community we do agricultural work in. There are some communities that receive health services from us that are much more remote. But Ahuri is prettier. It is bubbling with water, it literally oozes out of the ground everywhere, the whole place is soggy. It's on a green hillside striped with high stone terraces. Obviously, Ahuri does not lack irrigation or potable drinking water, but they do lack sustainable agricultural methods. About two months ago, we drug a plastic drum, some tubes, 5 kilos of sulfer and calcium powder, chancaka (a huge brick of caramelized sugar), and a plastic valve to the community. Just this week, though were we able to put the stuff to use. I wrote about our mountain ridge meeting last week or so, and the time before that was carnaval and we were distracted by chicha, food and abundantly producing family gardens. So we finally made the organic fertilizer and pesticide. The ingredients for the fertilizer, or 'fermented shit,' (as José affectionately calls it) are bullshit (7 kilos), a liter of milk, half kilo of ash, one kilo of chankaca and a liter of water. All of that gets dissolved and mushed-up and goes into the drum. Then we punched a hole in the lid of the drum and fixed a valve in it and connected a tube to the valve. So the only air coming in or out of the drum is through the tube. Then the tube goes into a bottle of water so air can blow out, but only water can get sucked in. And then we put the contraption in the sun because fermentation happens quicker at higher temperatures. We did all this really slow, step by step, explaining (in Quechua) what to do in what order and why. All the time, the farmers were given the tasks to complete, José just explained how and why. The guys were pretty capable of doing everything and understanding the process. And I think they were pretty excited about the new toy and new opportunities to improve their production.
Next, we made organic pesticide, or as José calls it, Sopa Sulfer-cálsico (sulfur-calcium soup). First we made an adobe brick fire pit and lit a fire. Then we put a 30 liter tub on it full of water. Then we measured out 1 kilo of sulfur and 1 kilo of calcium powder. When the water was boiling, we threw the powder in and began to stir. We stirred for an hour and a half, at least. The soup went from bright yellow to orange, to brownish orange, to dark port wine color. Stirring was really a pain because it kept boiling over and splashing everywhere. And because you didn't want to stand too close to the fire or bubbling stew. And the sun was hot and bright at over 3,000 meters above sea level. But sitting around, taking turns stirring sulfur soup is a great opportunity for chit chat. I got invited to a party tomorrow, supposedly celebrating Quasimoto. But I think they were joking. Not about the invitation, about the theme. By the time the soup was done, we were ready to climb back up to the truck. But before we left, we were given heaping bowls of rice and potatoes with a few veggies around the edges. I barely managed to get it all in my mouth. But it was good starch energy for our hike.

In Chupak'asa we've been working on installing an irrigation system. I got the job of carrying the roles of tubing down to the community. There is a stone water reserve under a natural spring that we were able to use as the water source. We had to empty it to clean it out. That's what I'm doing, cleaning out the rocks. But you can see the water trinkling out of the pipe there, which comes from the spring, protected by that cement construction. Silvia, there, is one of the cute girls from the community that goes to school in Aramasí, and an excellent soccer goaly. We connected a tube system with control valves to bring water to all the family gardens. And at Silvia's house, since they have the best garden, we installed a sprinkler. So here we are, the whole irrigation team standing over the first dry season sprinkler in Chupak'asa. When we turned it on, it had so much pressure that we all had to run away so not to get soaked. Then we adjusted it to water the garden and not the whole household. After the sprinkler was fixed, we had a little feast in their inner court area. We feasted Papawayku (potatoes cooked under ground), llajwa (freshly crushed spicy sauce with locoto and quilquiña from the garden), choclo (large kernal corn) and sardines with raw veggies. My job was to open the cans of sardines with my knife. And everyone always asks what I carry a knife around for.

Another thing that happened which was very important for my project was a community wide meeting. They are held every month on the 25th. But this meeting was more important for three reasons: the executive director of the Association Amistad Bolivia was leaving and a new one taking her place, so they were both there to symbolically pass the torch, the president of Amistad and director of the American board had also come from the US to be at the meeting, and also, it was the meeting before elections and they had to talk politics to their community vote would count. So everyone was there, even people that don't live their, but still claim it as their 'home.'
During the meeting I was watching closely for my chance to jump in and present my project officially to the community in front of it's leaders and the directors of Amistad. So I jumped in, José translated for me into Quechua and then the mayor of Aramasí STOOD UP and supported me and my project to the community, saying that it was good and important to the community that they cooperate and support me!!!! I got the official blessing. THAT'S just what I had hoped for. So now I just have to do it.