Yanayo and the EWB trip

Yanayo was quite an experience, and it is very difficult to describe in words, but I´ll give it a try.

The trip started by having to hang out all Sunday in Cochabamba because we needed some materials from a store that wasn´t open until Monday morning. We were able to leave by about noon on Monday with the car (we rented a Toyota 4Runner very similar to mine) loaded on top with a bunch of HDPE pipe. I was the driver, and Andrea and German (Yanayo´s ¨mayor¨) were the passengers. After nearly 8 hours we made it the whopping 150 km (about 90 miles) to Yanayo. I had never been so gripped driving a car before. The roads were sketchy in places, but we made it. Myself and Andrea joined with Donee and Jeff whom had stayed in Yanayo.

The first day Jeff, Andrea, and I went to look at the sketchiest part of the road we are trying to fix/rebuild. To the right is a picture of a river that is now flowing where the road previously was. We were also treated to some great views, which became very common in this part of Bolivia, which they call the Valles. In the afternoon I went to a few houses with Donee and Ruben to fix some of the stoves that were installed this past summer. Ruben is the stove ¨guru¨ and we were mostly observing and helping him with fixing the stoves. It was very interesting to see the homes of people in the community. Everyone in the community is Quechua and only a few people can speak Spanish. It was difficult to communicate with some of the community, but I could understand the Spanish of Ruben fairly well. They live amazingly simple lives in very tough conditions.

We got rained on almost every night. This is the rainy season in Yanayo and everything was green as can be. In a few months, once the dry season has kicked in, all the green will disappear and turn to brown. Over the next couple days I continued to help Donee with the stoves as well as with some health and air quality testing she is doing. One highlight was when we went to the school and did spirometer tests and weight/height measurements with the kids. The kids did a good job with the spirometer testing, and it was amuzing as well.

Guido is the school teacher for Yanayo, and I was able to get to know him well (he speaks Spanish). Kids come from neighboring communities to go to school in Yanayo. But the school is only up to 3rd grade. After that kids have to go to Acasio for more education (20 km away). Not many children do that, most start helping their parents with farming and livestock. There are even children in the community that are younger than 3rd grade and are working (like the women in the family in the picture below).

The last night we were in Yanayo we bought a goat (with the help of Guido). It was cooked by Donna Pacifica (Ruben´s mother). She cooked it in an outdoor adobe stove, and she is a great cook. The only problem was the volume of food that was served. The first course was a big bowl of rice, potatoes, and fried goat (some of the inner organs). Then the second course came (and shown to the left), and it consisted of more rice, potatoes, and a mound of goat. I tried to force myself to finish, and got everything down except a bit of the rice. It was a ton of food to try and eat. But it was a nice evening and fun to eat at Donna Pacifica´s home.

We made it safely back to Cochabamba after another scary 7+ hour drive with a loaded down car. I learned a lot in the short time I was in Yanayo. It was amazing to see the Quechua culture and how they live. It was incredible to see how these people live simple, subsistence lives in often harsh conditions. The people of Yanayo always made us feel welcome and were very appreciative of what we are trying to do. There are going to be more successful projects in this community coming up this summer, and I am excited to see how they go.

I´ve left a lot of details out and I have a ton of good pictures, but for now I´ll leave you with this one of some kids having a good time on the swingset.