Bus rides and interviews

Today I got back from La Paz and Chulumani, the capital of the South Yungas. We had a long weekend because of carnaval so we decided to see more of Bolivia. Even though we were warned to wear rain jackets because of the water fights, it was still a shock to get pelted by water balloons as we entered Chulumani in the middle of the Carnaval parade. I would have loved the event as a child, but found myself staring down all children, and men of all ages, to warn them not to hit me with a water balloon. We had arrived in Chulumani after 4 hours in the very back of a bumpy bus ride with my bug bite covered legs hitting the metal of the seat in front of me. It was fun to see everyone having fun, but the true Chulumani showed through when the town was quiet the next day and everyone was friendly and greeting us with many hellos. We hiked around the area, which is fairly similar to Carmen Pampa. It's technically about 2 hours from here if you can find transport, but we took the easier and longer route... four hours to La Paz and then four hours to Chulumani.

In La Paz, we met up with Prisca, who is going to be a new volunteer at Carmen Pampa. She was the first person we met in Ecuador and we became instant friends. It's nice to see a familiar face and it will be great to have her here at Carmen Pampa. This morning I walked by the school my gramma volunteered at when she was 19 and it was exciting to think of her here. The school is in the middle of where all the action is in La Paz!

So far at Carmen Pampa I have been spending time getting to know the students. Kirsten and I have been interviewing students who are at the end of their studies and doing their thesis projects. It's been interesting to interview people on things that I know nothing about. We are meeting a lot of people and learning our way around campus as we try to track people down. One student, Judit, has been working on her thesis regarding different ways to grow spinach. She wants to promote it in the area because of its health value and its market in the tourist industry. She came from a village 24 hours away to first go to high school here and now to college. She chose agronomy at Carmen Pampa because her family is from the countryside and she worked in the fields growing up. She says that she likes to work in the countryside because it contains all of life and that it is important that people have relationships with plants and animals. While completing her thesis, she has been raising her 1 and 1/2 year old son with her husband and hopes to run a fruit farm in the future. (And he's really healthy from all the spinach he's been eating!)