Community Life from the Fields to the School

For the last 6 weeks, myself and 5 other British volunteers have been living in the small Bolivian town of Chuqui Chuqui together with 7 local volunteers, working on the local farms and helping out in the school. The place itself is very basic; our accommodation consists of 4 beds in 3 rooms – the two in my room about one foot apart. There is no mobile phone signal or internet, the electricity frequently goes during large downpours and we are occasionally without water, too. However, that is not to say that I do not like living here; Chuqui Chuqui is a beautiful place. High up in the Andes, it is not uncommon for us to be working on the farms, only to be interrupted by numerous green and yellow parakeets, or to look up and see a lone condor silently gliding past. Another thing that I have come to love, and will miss when I am back in the UK, is the number of dogs that are constantly running around – if you are walking anywhere, the chances are you will be joined for at least part of your journey. 

After getting off to a slow start with our project, things are starting to come together. As we were the first ever group here, we have had to establish ourselves in the community and start everything from scratch; something that those volunteers going into more well-established projects would not have to worry about. As the community have never had any foreign volunteers from ICS before, it has also been important for us to take the time to build relationships with the locals; it is important to always greet people on the street, simply so that they get used to your presence - “buenas” has probably become my most-used word. We have also been heading down to the local school one or two evenings a week to play football or basketball (a sport which I can play about as well as a 3-year old child who still isn't quite in complete control of all of its limbs) with the young people here . Now that the locals are more used to us, they have started to open up; during yesterday's “Día de los Muertos” celebrations a lady approached us to offer us some food and drink in the street and invited us to come and eat with her. 

For the first few weeks our project mainly consisted of helping local farmers on their farms, and taking part in music classes two times a week in the school. We have been taking it in turns, with the Bolivian music teacher leading one class and us the next: While they taught us how to use the Bolivian instruments “zampoña” and “tarka” - similar to the panpipes and the flute-, we taught them English songs such as “You Are My Sunshine”. 

However, in the last few weeks we have been able to expand our activities. Work has begun on what is called our “escuela de campo” - a plot of land on the local farms where we will be helping farmers to learn about how to plant and look out for diseases on new crops which are hardier and will sell for more money at the local market. This will mean that they will be less likely to be damaged by extreme weather, such as hail, and will bring in more money for the farmers and their families improving their livelihoods.

On top of this, we have begun to do even more work in the school; last week we gave workshops on dental hygiene with the local dentist and her assistant.  After explaining how and why they should brush their teeth, we handed out free toothbrushes and toothpaste to all the students. Following on from this, we will be starting our English classes this week and hope to make this a regular activity for anyone in the village who is interested, including our fellow Bolivian volunteers.

We are now halfway through our programme, have integrated well into the community and our projects are properly underway. We have six weeks left in Chuqui Chuqui and should have made a real difference by the time we are back in the UK for Christmas.

By Jamie Agnew