Week 6 & 7 from Ascend Alliance on Vimeo.
We got back from our week long escapade in Cusco, Peru just in time to enjoy three more days of Santa Cruz sun before we have to go back home to Utah. We have loved being a part of Ascender Bolivia for the past two months and wouldn’t give up this experience for anything. Thanks for joining us on our adventure! Adiós!
Week two was a huge success here in Santa Cruz. We really kept busy this week, working on all sorts of projects from soy classes in Yotau to construction in Basilio! However, the highlight of the week was the Ascend Business Training class graduation in Santisteban that we had the opportunity to attend. Jhon Acuña is an excellent business teacher and his students really respect him. It was incredible to see the students both in their class environment and also at their graduation. Most of the people didn't have a chance to complete their education in the past so receiving this graduation certificate really meant the world to them.
We are loving Bolivia more and more each day! With all of our amazing "spanish teachers" here at Ascender, we are learning more than we ever imagined!
Bolivia. WEEK ONE
Lets start off by introducing ourselves... Hailey and Amber, the newest interns for Ascend Alliance here in Santa Cruz, Bolivia! Since day one, we have been blown away by how different it is here compared to Utah, which is where we are from. We've been here less than a week and we have already had so many opportunities to help out. It's so amazing to see how much of a difference that the various Ascend programs have for these Bolivian people. They are always grateful and so willing to learn all that they can. We are loving Bolivia so far and can't wait see what this week will bring us! Stay tuned!
energized by the structure in which Julia, Ascender Cusco´s manager, conducted this group dialogue between leaders of the community Patabama. Using some great visual processing, the group of leaders discuss community issues, what tactics have been tried in the past, obstacles and consequences of those efforts, and ways to improve the efficacy of Ascend´s involvement using available resources from both ends. Very grassroots, creative, and valuable way of communicating.
owned by altitude. Our hike to the top of this peak was both beautiful and educational (thanks, Geoffrey), and we loved every moment spent huffing and puffing from the few extra thousand feet. Saw some great ruins, talked to some cheerful local farmers, gaped at the views of Cusco Valley and surrounding mountains.
intrigued by the rich setting in the Cusco area. The political, cultural, linguistic, and historical context for Ascend´s work there is very different than ours here in Santa Cruz, something we want to be conscious of as we work in these communities.
impressed by the staff´s organization. We sat in on a planning meeting for the upcoming Ascend Expedition to Cusco, and it was evident that the small-ness of their team encourages them to be well-coordinated and organized. Also impressive is the great spread of work they have created in several communities: from health campaigns, reforestation and construction projects, a thriving greenhouse at an orphanage, various community classes, and a slew of other projects. Busy busy!
Last Friday we taught an awesome first aid class to 15 + women in Nueva Esperanza. We have a friend who is a Med student here in Santa Cruz who was supposed to help us teach the class, but last minute (11:30 p.m. the night before) he backed out. Thank you, friend. I guess you could say we were a little frantic the next morning trying to pull everything together. Carmen, our Bolivian side-kick, wasn’t going to be able to come with us either because she too had a class to teach in another community (23 de Octubre), so were on our own.
A wrong bus ride and a lost taxi driver later we made it to our humble open-air chapel to teach the class. We used a manikin to teach CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver to the women and each of them had the opportunity to practice their mad life-saving skills on Little Anne (the manikin). Afterwards, we taught general first-aid care which included the following topics: skin infections, fever, diarrhea, dehydration, snake bites, chagas (a common parasite), bleeding, etc.
Apparently the class was a success because we were asked to teach two more classes to a group of boy scouts. Wish us luck!
On the bus ride to La Guardia, Amanda got a chance to save the day and get some serious nurse training. A man in the bus suddenly began having a grand mal seizure, and nobody on the bus knew him or knew what to do. As I assured the bus ¨¡Ella es enfermera!¨ (She´s a nurse!), Amanda worked on keeping the man´s airway open while trying to get him conscious using some pain stimulus after the seizure ended. In the meantime, I worked on convincing the bus driver (who didn´t even stop the bus) that the man needed to get to the hospital. The guy was in bad shape, and luckily we did manage to stage a quick exchange when both the bus and an ambulance pulled over on the side of the road as the two drivers dragged the man into the front seat of the ambulance (banging his head on the way out), and strapped him in like an average passenger. We hope the man is ok. Also, Amanda is a rockstar.
To recover from this traumatic experience, we gawked at, bought, and ate lots of fruit. Check out all those beautiful orange colors!
I have a strange love of all things cemetery, so Amanda indulged me and we spent way too long in the La Guardia cemetery. So awesome.
Hola! Amanda and Annika here - we are interning at Ascender Bolivia in Santa Cruz, and loving every minute. Until August and July, respectively, we are working with the staff here in developing their ongoing programs, refining the evaluation and research processes, and learning about the intriguing historical and cultural perspectives of Bolivia. Here are a few of our impressions these first few weeks:
These people know what they are doing. The staff here is organized and efficient, and their programs are carefully thought out to be appropriate and meaningful for the communities and families. In San Miguel, a small rural village, we have met families who don’t have much, but do have plenty of space and great soil. Carmen, Health Director at Ascender Bolivia, is teaching the women in San Miguel how to create and sustain family gardens. While Ascender provided the first seeds, some instruction, and lots of encouragement, these women are the driving force behind making their ¨huertos¨ (family gardens) a success.
In Nueva Esperanza, Jhon (another staff member) is teaching budding enterprisers from a small community about the foundations of business. In the last class, we learned about the difference between short and long term goals, how to set appropriate goals, and how to change dreams into reality. Even in freezing weather, there is always an impressive turnout to the biweekly classes, and we can see the wheels turning as the students think about how to empower themselves and their futures.
Bolivians have big hearts. Everywhere we go, we are impressed by the hardworking, generous, and kind nature of Bolivianos. This street vendor was PSYCHED when Amanda bought orange juice from him, couldn’t stop grinning, and even gave her a free refill. As we spend time in more rural parts of Santa Cruz, we find that those who have little, give much. One woman, living in a house with dirt floors and no running water, was excited to give us soy milk she had learned to make in a class with Ascender – we recognize that her offer to us is probably a sacrifice, and feel so honored to be around such great people.
We are getting fat. Anyone who knows either of us will not be surprised that our short term goals usually include trying out the food at a new street vendor or comedor. Yesterday, we literally walked three hours in search of the perfect meal. One staff member thinks our obsession is particularly funny, and often refers to our “lugar favorito,” (favorite place) – an open market food court bustling with hundreds of vendors and food from Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, and even Austria. We figure we brought enough Pepto Bismo to allow us to try any and all.
The weeks before we had spent quite a bit of time adapting the questionnaire to focus on indicators both of Ascend's impact on the lives of these families and of demographic aspects that might guide Ascend's future involvement in the given community. Campanero, where it was decided we would start, is actually a community Ascend is not currently working in, so the data from there will mostly serve to give some idea of the situation of the families after Ascend's involvement.
Don Nano surveying a woman with Jhon's supervision.
Kendal surveying a mother (or is it the child?) while the mother doesn't lose time from her sewing.
