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vol.9 no 1, June 2003
There is still so much to be done in Bolivia that on our return to Canada, we felt we had left unfinished business. Every so often during our year back in Canada, we thought about the many friendships we had left behind, and the immense needs of the people. We found ourselves thinking: if we went back, we could bring such-and-such, and do this or that... The directors invitation was open: "If you decide to come back, you're always welcome." September passed, and October, and then finally in early November, we committed ourselves. We're going back.
While the director is here over the Christmas holidays, we'll meet with him and see what needs to be done. Monique will go back to the hogar (the home) to help the young six to fourteen-year-olds with their homework, and help with other educationai tasks. She'll also show them how to preserve food. Micheal will go back to the farm to help set up various operations.
This year, to facilitate his work, Micheal carried in his luggage a circular saw in detached pieces. The first thing he did on arrival was assemble the saw, install a small table and make a work bench so that repairing and making things is easier. No more visits to the local cabinetmakers with their simple tools; no more sketches to make himself understood.
But any carpentry project requires serious thought because materials are not always available locally. Seven hours of travel to go and as many to come back, and then ten days of waiting around for delivery.
For example, a project begins with the purchase of materials, like plywood in Santa-Cruz, then a ten-day wait until the truck has a big enough order to deliver the materials to Vallegrande. This year, projects included cupboards for the chicken house, a garage, and a new house, and a root cellar for potatoes. With an eighty-year old volunteer as his assistant, Micheal worked on a ventilation system, put up new partitions to improve the preservation of the potatoes, and created adequate lighting. It was an impressive challenge. Because nothing is straightforward, the work took three whole weeks to complete. Not obvious to someone observing from the outside. And in between there were other urgent tasks such as sealing a leak, repairing the motor of a water pump, sharpening knives.
As for Monique and the other women volunteers, the garden was their priority. The weeds, that seem to proliferate overnight, have to be pulled. There are the strawberries that ripen at an amazing rate. The kids - at least fifteen of them - can't keep up. We help them with the picking. The strawberries are large and juicy but the demand is small. Once the freezers are full, we have to use our imagination... Lets make jam with the surplus berries. Soon, we have no more jars to put them in. We go to the neighbourhood restaurant and the other hogars to collect used jars. Again, we have reached our limit: two cauldrons of fifty litres of strawberries every day. That translates into a lot of jam. For want of anything better, we use plastic pails of 15 - 20 litres. We buy up whats left in the village. Luckily, the director is able to replenish our stock during a trip to Santa Cruz.
The real solution is in Cochabamba where the only factory for making glass jars in Solivia is located. Cooler temperatures and a slowing down of the harvest give us the time to go there. With the donation from the NFB retirees, we buy two pressure cookers of 25 litres each, glass jars with lids, ladles, tongs, everything necessary for making preserves. We leave with two full packsacks and six crates of marchandise in the luggage compartment of the bus.
Now the tomates can ripen all they want. We're ready with our jars. We pick a good batch and then allow them to ripen for maximum results. We also want to train employees so that they can continue preserving after we leave.
One fine day, all the conditions are right. We set ourselves up for making preserves: pressure cookers, boiling water, well-ripened tomatoes, jars and lids, strainer, funnel, salt, pepper, sugar, ladle, tongs. We have everything we need. For our first try, we make 20 jars of tomatoes to help get the children through the winter. Ours is a far cry from an ideal canning operation, but, as the manager of a canning factory in Qu�bec had told us: "You have to think small, like doing a workshop, you train your staff and gradually they'll grow into it." We remembered his helpfui advice and agreed with him.
Once the miracle has happened, the kids have to be told not to open the jars until they are ready to eat the tomatoes. The strawberry venture had allowed us to observe and be wary of certain behaviour.
Now we know that stearn does indeed dance above the pressure cookers even though our cannery is not yet a reality. There is plenty of opportunity for more projects. A veterinary has asked us to give demonstrations to the villagers to show them how to make their own preserves.
Thanks to all the NFS retirees who helped the children of the hogar to enjoy the fruits of summer well into the winter because now the harvest can be preserved.
