[continued]
We were introduced to our quarters, a bunkhouse that was also used by missionary teams and other village guests. It was divided into four small bedrooms, all double bunked, and a general purpose room for eating and meeting. A kitchen sat off to the side. After we stowed our luggage and camera equipment, we were each given a plate, a bowl, a cup, spoon and fork and told to keep up with them.

The following morning we awoke to independence day in Bolivia, and went into town for the first time. Quesimpuco is one of a string of small villages in the Chayanta Valley, and is comprised of a couple of hundred families clustered around a town square. Electricity was introduced to the city a couple of years ago and is used mainly for lighting. Cooking and heating are still done with charcoal, dung and scrub. Wood is scarce.

The climate is challenging for farmers. They rely on a short wet season to get their crops in, and have essentially one harvest. The Auburn students were looking at two areas to improve crop levels: the irrigation of a 40- to 80-acre area of terraces and a bench-scale hydroponics installation. They worked long and hard on both projects, building on the progress of earlier teams.

The hydroponics project required the construction of an approximately 8-foot long structure fed by a perforated PVC pipe running along the top. It ran water and nutrients into a row of plastic containers that were, in turn, perforated and allowed the row below to be watered, and so on through several levels. The nutrient-rich water was collected at the bottom of the structure so that it could be recycled.

The first run-through was planted in alfalfa, a crop common to the area, and used for both human consumption and livestock feed. The Quechua in the area also grow fava beans, potatoes, peas and wheat. It’s an agrarian community where shepherds run flocks past terraced fields, as they have for centuries.

Four members of Auburn’s student team worked on the bulk of the hydroponics project: Michael Ciuzio, a sophomore in mechanical engineering; Colton Martinez, a sophomore in chemical engineering; Logan Kennedy, a junior in biosystems engineering; and Micaela Sandoval, a junior in zoology and pre-vet. Their design of an indoor tray system was transformed into a working model over a period of a week, with village workmen assisting in the construction, using the kind of hollow brick masonry that is common to the area.

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