T is for travel

And now, installment #2 in the “Bolivian Libraries Program ABCs”:

T is for travel.

As you may know, the MCC Libraries Program’s home base is the city of Santa Cruz. Our desks are here, our files and office supplies, our collection of books on how to promote reading and organize community libraries. But as often as not these days, our work is on the road—lots and lots of kilometers of road.

Sandra and I have been busy these past few months, no doubt about it—to the point that our MCC coworkers pretend not to recognize us when we actually spend time in the office. Since January we’ve covered some 5,000 kilometers (3,106 miles), according to my estimate, not counting swerves to avoid cows in the middle of the highway, the ups and downs of rough dirt roads, or detours when the usual route is blocked for repairs.

What calls us away from the office? Anything from visits to the neighborhood libraries here Santa Cruz to meetings in towns several hours away where there’s interest in starting a library, to workshops for teachers on how to enrich their students’ learning experience. The week before last we spent four intense days in the villages of El Carmen and Candelaria, training teachers from two rural school districts in classroom library management, reading activities, and educational games. This Thursday we took a shared taxi (five people plus the driver) to a small settlement named Bisito an hour or so away from Santa Cruz; there we met with the members of the newly formed library committee to help them take their first steps toward establishing their library.

And it looks like the pace won’t be letting up anytime soon. If all goes well, Sandra and I will travel thirty-some hours by bus next week to Argentina to get in on a conference on libraries and reading promotion. On the way back from Buenos Aires we’ll stop in Huacareta, a small town near Sucre, Bolivia’s colonial capital (click here to see a map) to lead a workshop for the schoolteachers, at the invitation of the local Peace Corps volunteer. The next trip scheduled is to Comarapa (in the Moro Moro area) in May for another workshop. Then there are follow-up visits to the teachers in El Carmen and Candelaria to be scheduled…the continuing visits to the rural communities closer to Santa Cruz where we’re hoping to help start five new libraries in 2006…and any day could bring another request for a workshop or a visit.

Earlier this year, my housemate Aida asked me whether I was enjoying all this traveling or finding it tiring. My answer to that question now is the same as it was then: “Both!” But mostly, I’m having a great time.

Photos, from top to bottom:
The teachers of La Laja (a small town in the mountains above Moro Moro, in the valleys of Bolivia) pose in front of their school. Sandra and I led a workshop in this community earlier this year.

That's me, reviewing some of the finer points of the Dewey Decimal System with a teacher from El Abra, an even smaller town near Moro Moro.

These teachers from El Carmen really got into a learning activity in which they modeled characters from a story with Play-Doh.

Participants in a workshop held in Candelaria get ready to travel back to the communities where they work. The majority of these teachers work in tiny rural communities where up to three grade levels share a single classroom. Many of them told Sandra and me that the learning activities shared with them will help them teach more creatively and effectively.