[continued]
At night the bunkhouse was the center of a wide range of activity. Some of the students took the time to work through what they had learned that day, as their projects moved forward, and made plans for the next day — what to keep, what to modify, what to push for, and even what to give up as unworkable. Some team members took time to rest or read. The media team, which in only a day or two had been absorbed into the students’ lives, made notes, planned the next day’s video shots, or sorted through digital photo files.
The media team from Auburn’s Office of Communications and Marketing consisted of Mike Clardy and Kevin Fichtner, who worked together as a video team; myself and Jeff Etheridge, who took digital photos; and Camille Barkley, who assisted in bringing the media tasks together. We were joined in the bunkhouse by Benjo Paredes, his son Isaac and Ivan Roman, who served as the group’s hosts for the week. Ivan works with Corson on the SIFAT team as its Latin America coordinator. Their deep knowledge of the area made them an inseparable part of the Auburn team.
In what can only be another story, Corson, the son of missionaries who worked in the Amazon basin of Bolivia decades earlier, met Parades when he was a displaced, would-be silver miner turned cocoa farmer who was also a firebrand Marxist. Now in his seventies, Parades’ politics have been weathered by time and circumstance, and his reputation is that of a revered community leader. Respected wherever he walked, it seemed even the smallest child knew there was a larger life behind the soft, searching eyes.
Corson heads SIFAT while Benjo and Isaac manage the Bolivian counterpart CENATEC, which is roughly the same in terms of purpose. The idea behind both is to bring, and leave behind, the kinds of technology that the people of the Potosí, the region where Quesimpuco is located, can use in daily life. As Corson explains, it means not bringing tractors into a place where there are no garages and no parts; and not bringing in structures, equipment and processes that require trips to stores in places where there are none.
It requires, he explains, listening to what the people need, and not telling them what they want. The student team understood this before going in, but appreciated it all the more as they undertook their projects. What they learned, said one, was to develop a cultural sensitivity to meet their needs in a sustainable and collaborative way. In the end, it’s a lot tougher than bringing a tractor in.
“Having lived and worked in Latin America, I have seen a world where people just don’t have a lot,” Herkt remarked. “The people here are not lazy, in fact they work so hard. They just don’t have a lot to work with. They raise kids, they laugh and play, and it’s all so difficult, and at the same time, so simple from a western point of view. Should we feel sorry?
“We Americans are constantly in search of things. The real keys are food, water and shelter . . . after that, what do we really need? The people here have survived, and thrived for hundreds of years. As the students — and myself — have worked here, we have come to a beginning in understanding the culture, and the technology that can be introduced here in a way that will be a real benefit.”
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