Reconnection with Proyecto Horizonte in New York City

In January, I had the opportunity to meet the founder of Proyecto Horizonte, Christian Ruehmer, and work with other volunteers in supporting Proyecto Horizonte at the LatinFinance Awards Gala at Gotham Hall in New York City.  LatinFinance provides financial markets intelligence on Latin America and the Caribbean and publishes a magazine and daily news alert.  It also hosts conferences and other events, such as this one.  For the awards ceremony, Proyecto Horizonte was selected as the “charity of choice” and featured throughout the evening.  The gala showcased Proyecto Horizonte through an auction, a speech and video presented by Christian, and beautiful pledge cards, which highlight Proyecto Horizonte’s own children appreciatively thanking the new donors with their short, extended arms waving paper with letters that spell out, “GRACIAS”.

I first worked with the children of Proyecto Horizonte about two years ago when I volunteered onsite, tutoring after school in reading and writing and supporting the Tantakuna women’s group through marketing and research.  Since then, I have worked remotely with translations and marketing, still supporting the organization, but at a distance.   

As a part of preparing for and supporting Proyecto Horizonte at the LatinFinance event, volunteers supplied tables with pledge cards, set up the auction table, and talked about PH among ourselves and with potential donors.  Ramping up for the event was exciting and filled with anticipation, but after an evening filled with drinks, dinner, an awards ceremony, and the auction, we were exhausted. However, at the end of the four-hour event, we paused and gave a toast to Proyecto Horizonte, satisfied that what we did that evening would translate into changing lives.

The venue was beautiful, the evening went smoothly, and thankfully, our work that evening did raise funds for Proyecto Horizonte.  What was most meaningful to me was the chance to meet Christian and his family and other volunteers, like Brittany Denter, who are excited about and engaged with Proyecto Horizonte’s work.  Collaborating as a remote volunteer can sometimes be challenging, even with Facebook, Skype and all of the other technologies connecting us.  This event has helped me reconnect with Proyecto Horizonte’s mission and remember why it’s important to me to support the community of Mineros San Juan and to share the happiness I experienced while I was there walking through the bright Bolivian sunlight and chatting with the children.

---Ashley Lacy, Volunteer

If There's a Will There's a Way

Brittany talks about how anything is possible in Bolivia, standing up in buses for long periods of time or even riding on the roofs of vans. 


I think that this should be the motto for Bolivia "If there's a will there's a way" because it really is true. We say it back home but because of so many rules and regulations sometimes there really isn't a way. This weekend a couple of us headed off to Toro Toro to see the dinosaur footprints and crawl through enormous caves but since you can't book a bus ticket in advance you have to just show up and hope you get a seat. After asking all the Toro Toro bus companies if they had any seats we were with out luck (unless we wanted to sit under the bus with the luggage) and started to think that we had better just turn back and head home. We started to head back after putting our names on a list for a morning bus the next day, a bus driver approached us and asked if we wanted to ride on his bus. We were so excited, we thought all the buses were full so we asked how we could ride on this bus now but not before. The man said we could stand in the aisle way and surely people will get off before Toro Toro. Not thinking we would have to stand for 3 hours before the first group of people got off. It was quite and adventure and a struggle watching everyone look so cozy while sleeping in their seats while I attempted to keep standing. Patients paid off while waiting for the bus that day because there is no way that we could have seen all that we did if we would have taken the saturday bus. Luckily on the way back we had good seats!

Packing

Brittany talks about how the weather in Bolivia and how it is do different throughout the regions and how packing lightly is essential for weekend trips.

    Its hard to know sometimes what to pack for weekend trips because the weather is so different in each region of Bolivia. For example, in the Jungle it was so hot during the day but the temperature dropped during the night. In Machaca it was bone chilling cold because we were so high up in the mountains. Like always I over pack for everything! I had an entire backpack filled with clothes for just a long weekend in the jungle, but the one thing that I have learned is that less is more when choosing clothes for a trip. Packing just the essentials makes your backpack lighter to carry and you can always re-wear clothes, as long as they aren't drenched in jungle sweat. I have learned the hard way how to pack lightly but as long at you have enough undergarments you are good to go. Since Cochabamba is known as the "City of Eternal Spring" its always on the warmer side which makes dressing every morning pretty easy. Most of the North and Western parts of Bolivia are hot because that is where the jungles are but as you move southeast it begins to get a little cooler. So, pack accordingly and not too much because in the end your the one who has to carry your bag around.

Multiferia

Many of the volunteers over the weekend attended the Multiferia to learn more about what projects the children have been working on, Brittany explains her impressions of the projects. 


A group of us volunteers showed up Sunday at 8:30 to check out the Multiferia, which is exactly like our school science fairs. I was so impressed with the kids experiments and everything they were sharing with the public. There were so many kids of all ages with so many different projects, from the famous volcanoes to making perfume, there was a little bit of everything. Some of us volunteers got put on duty to judge each project. The kids would tell us about their project in great detail and then we would ask them questions to make sure they really knew what they were talking about. Many kids were very shy to start with but once they started explaining they were so engrossed with their project they wouldn't stop talking! It was so great to see the kids in action teaching the community about various topics.

Bolivia Climates

Traveling around Bolivia you might learn the hard way how to dress. Brittany talks about her travels coming back form the Jungle and how every city's weather was completely different.

     Most people don’t realize how different the climates are throughout Bolivia. While on my trip home from the jungle I went from being so hot in Rurrenabaque probably close to 35 degrees Celsius to freezing cold in La Paz maybe about 10 degrees Celsius.

     Our journey by bus through the mountains it even snowed from La Paz to Cochabamba. Although they say that Cochabamba is the “City of Eternal Spring” just a few hours north by bus can be a whole different story. You never really realize how cold it is up in the mountains you go until you’re up there. So always travel in Bolivia with plenty of layers no matter how silly you look because you never know how the weather will be along the way!

Tiquipaya

Brittany and some of the other volunteers head to Tiquipaya to broaden their cultural horizons! They try different dishes unique to Bolivia and test their cacho skils while drinking the infamous chicha.


On Sunday a couple of us went to Tiquipaya, which is a small little city just north of Cochabamba,to have lunch with some of our friends, Lauren and Martin, but lunch turned into Chicha and Chicha turned into a whole day out. The restaurant was family style so we decided upon Charqui which is Quechua for jerky. I figured it was just beef jerky with rice and mote with potatoes and eggs. WRONG… they layed down the dish and all I heard was some one say "llama". I said "WHAT this is llama?!" Sure enough it was, I tried some and it really wasn’t bad. It was a red meat like beef but had some weird unique flavor to it. It was something I had never tasted before. It was good! But it was also very chewy and tough to eat. They way they make Charqui is they cut the llama meat into really thin slices and cure it with salt then hang it to dry for a couple days. After the meat is really dried out they soak it in water and then fry it. It looked exactly like beef jerky but much drier and no juicy chucks like the ones you can pick out of a beef jerky bag. The whole thing was really interesting!

When we had first gotten to Tiquipaya we noticed a huge festival going on, it was a festival for the trout… not quite sure where they would get their trout from other than Lake Titicaca which is a half days bus ride.

 I am always puzzled in Bolivia because not much that they do makes much sense, they are just looking for reasons to drink and dance. One of the girls ordered a trout dish at the restaurant, I dont know why we expected any less but, it came with the head, scales, fins, and all! I had a couple bits and it was really good! 

After drinking our Chicha de Quinoa (much better than Chicha de Maiz)  we headed out to the festival to watch people dance and listen to live music.

                                                        How chicha de quinoa is made

Off to the Lavanderia

Brittany and her two Swedish roommates decided its time to wash their clothes. Heres a post about their adventure to the Lavanderia. 

After being in Cochabamba for a little less than a month I had finally run out of socks and underwear…. the necessities that must be clean (at least for me). I was getting so desperate for something clean to wear that I was first forced to wash some clothes in the sink and hang them to dry.  The next day I went on the hunt for some sort of Lavanderia. After walking close to a mile I laid my eyes on the golden egg only to see the gate was down and they were closed. I turned around and walked back home in the scorching sun. Monday morning came and it was time to pack up our clothes and try it again. Jennifer, Sara and I wrapped our clothes in our aguayas threw them over our backs and headed to the lavanderia one more time.  After many odd looks and whistles we finally made it. The women measured out our amount of clothes, wrote our names down and told us it would be ready tomorrow evening…. WHAT?! An entire day and a half with basically the clothes on my back and no towel for showering, this should be interesting. The next day at 5pm we headed back to pick up our freshly cleaned clothes. You don’t appreciate the little things like clean clothes till slip on a fresh pair of PJ’s and snuggle into soft clean sheets. 

Machaca por el Festivide de Señor Exaltacion

Recently our volunteers received a great opportunity... the chance to see first hand how small villages, like Machaca, celebrate their Saints. Being the only tourist or Gringos made for quite an adventure. 


After a 9-hour journey by bus through the mountains we have finally made it to Machaca, an extremely small self-sustaining village.

We all stood around in the village center and watched as the people carried their saint Señora Exaltacion and showered her with confetti from one corner to the next. They stopped at each corner blessing and praying all four sides of the village. The marching band followed playing Simon and Garfunkel ‘Sound of Silence’.

 At the end of their small march the priest dipped flowers in water and started putting holy water on everyone. Then they began blessing all the automobiles by putting flowers, streamers and bows all over the cars, even pouring beer on the tires while praying for safe journeys home, since the roads are so dangerous… and the band continued playing ‘Sound of Silence’.

 Finally one of the girls went up to the band members and said, “Why do you keep playing that song?” the man replied, “thats Señora Exaltacion’s favorite song.” We all got quite a chuckle out of that because after we had told them it was an old popular English song, but the men didn’t know what she was talking about. So apparently who ever the priest was at the time they started celebrating Señora Exaltacion really liked Simon and Garfunkel. We drank Chicha by night and attempted to blend in with the locals!