English Department News

Greetings to all!

     Apparently prayers have been answered – it has stopped raining all day, every day, and just in time for Carnival! It is sunny to cloudy most days now, although it is still raining some of every night. It is the rainy season, after all. But the sunnier days are allowing things to dry out between rainstorms now, so the roads are MUCH better. Thanks be to God!

     Major changes have been in the air the past few weeks here at the UAC, both in staffing and in processes, so it has been a stressful start to the semester. Thankfully, things seem to be settling down a bit now, and the students and staff are finally able to settle into the work of the semester. It looks like I will end up with about 25 students in two classes, similar to last semester. We are still in need of some supplies, which I will shop for in La Paz next weekend, then I think we will be all settled.

     Our English department has been going through some changes as well, but we are on course now. We have decided to use an Earth stewardship theme for this semester, so our joint activities for all English students will be in that theme, and each class will do an Earth-themed project too. This allows us the opportunity to integrate cultural exchange conversations, community awareness activities and fun for the students. Watch for more about this as the semester progresses – I have already begun my first related unit as I am reading The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein in English and Spanish to my classes, then they will have to do some analytical thinking about the themes in the book and the resulting commentary on the relationship between people and the natural environment. Other activities in my classes will include a couple of vocabulary and awareness-building nature walks in and around campus, an Earth-day skit for the whole upper campus, and more. Our first English club activity will be a movie night featuring Avatar, a movie with heavy environmental stewardship themes. If anyone out there has some ideas for activities, please share them, they would be very welcome.

     I should mention at this point that the stewardship theme will very much be an exchange of ideas, because there are some things that Bolivians do VERY well as far as respecting the environment, and we Americans certainly have some things to learn from them. There are also things that I have learned and will share with my students, too. The most fun will be watching them come up with their own solutions!

     I will leave you this time with a recipe that readers from last semester will recognize – this is the Bolivian version of banana bread. If you like it a little less sweet, or need a reduced-sugar recipe, this would be a good choice for you.

BOLIVAN BANANA CAKE (Queque de platano)

¼ cup or 100 grams butter

½ cup or 200 grams sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon salt

¾ cup or 250 grams flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven to 160 C or 320 F. Beat together butter and sugar until foamy, then add eggs and salt and mix well. Add baking powder and flour, mix well. Stir in mashed bananas and pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour, check with a toothpick, bake up to 15 minutes more until the toothpick checks clean.

     The last few days, it has rained in the early afternoon after being partly sunny in the morning. Today, it was so pleasant after my 2nd class was over at 1:45 that I left the door to our apartment open to welcome the breeze. Cookie was happily asleep on our bed, so I didn't need to worry about him running out. It sounded as though it was raining very hard, and I looked outside, but it was only sprinkling. Then, the rainstorm marched down the mountain and it started pouring very abruptly, sort of like the sudden downpour in a thunderstorm at home. Unusually, the wind was blowing the rain in the windows and onto the balcony. Bella, the pretty red-gold shepherd mix who had been napping on the welcome mat, appeared in the doorway with an obvious question on her face - could she come in out of the rain, please?

     Like all other dogs here, Bella is an outside dog, but her polite request was so sweet, we told her okay, and she tentatively stepped in a few feet. Thus began Cookie's education. The two of them spent the next 10 minutes alternately ignoring each other, sniffing along behind each other, and, finally, interacting. He snuck around under the table, batting at her tail as she passed by. She looked at him with great puzzlement, clearly thinking, "What are you, and why are you messing with my tail?" He continued to mess with her, seeming to push the limits of acceptable behavior, and she good-naturedly played along, poking her nose at him and snuffing, ducking in and out of his reach, like she'd lived indoors with a cat all her life. Sort of strange for an outside dog who lives where there are almost no cats (there are some in the village, but only one other here on the upper campus). Anyway, the rain began to let up, and she must have heard something outside, because she went rushing over to the doorway to look out, then stepped out. Cookie followed along behind, right on her tail, messing with her, and stopped in the doorway to glare at her when she left. It was so funny! If he had hands, they would have been on his hips as he shouted, "And STAY OUT!" Clearly, in Cookie's mind, dogs belong outside. Fortunately for him, Bella seems to agree.

     On the topic of maintenance, Jeff has some thoughts to share:

     Riding to Coroico the other day, I noticed a group of Bolivians hacking at the jungle to keep the sides of the road from encroaching the lanes. This happens about every 3 months. It is amazing how fast the jungle attempts to begin reclaiming what it believes still belongs to it. Sinom, our guide in the Amazon jungle had to hack his way through trails that his father taught him when he was little. He uses these paths anywhere from 2-8 times a week, every week, and still he must force back the jungle. Even though these people have been here for a VERY long time, the struggle to maintain their hard won infrastructure remains constant. The road to Coroico has had several large trees that have had to be cut up to clear the road. Several smaller trees just get run over until only splinters remain. The road had been taking a beating with all of the extra run-off from the rains. The road side has lost that battle in several places now. Bus drivers are staying to the cliff side as much as possible (sometimes too far!) and then ending up in the cliff side ditch. These slumps are taking half a lane or more from the already narrow road. Recently, we also have had a mud slide, resulting in another half lane loss. This mud slide was about 25 feet across, and about 2 feet deep. It wouldn't necessarily throw your car off the cliff, but it could ruin your whole day.

     I will close for now with a request. I would ask that each of you keep the people of Bolivia in your prayers. With the flooding and mudslides in Rurrenabaque, and the heavy rains washing mountain roads away all over Bolivia, many people are dead, and many more still missing. Pray that we get only the rain we need to sustain the people and economy, and no more.

La Paz to all! 

Fiesta de Las Alasitas, Las Cascadas and Registration

     Our friends and neighbors here on upper campus had one last blast before school started… we all loaded up the kids and went to Coroico for Las Alasitas – the Aymara festival of miniatures, where they all buy tiny reproductions of what they want for the year, then take them and make little shrine to the good-luck god, Ekeko. After the fiesta, we went to the waterfalls (Las Cascadas), two of which are large enough that they have cemented in the pools at the bottoms for swimming (and to prevent the road from eroding away!) See our photos for some great shots!

     This week, first semester classes started here at the UAC. This is quite the production, as I’m sure you can imagine. Carmen Pampa is a tiny speck of a village, and Coroico is not all that big either (about 5,000 people). The crowd that descends on the area for registration weekend is truly an awesome sight. Many parents come along, and you will see pictures of some whole families if you follow the link to this week’s photos. http://tinyurl.com/p3wnlhj

     Never mind the traffic! At one point over the weekend, Jeff and I observed with amusement while about 25 people tried to get into a microbus headed back to Coroico. The bus had come from the village below, so there were already probably a dozen people on it. Here’s the fun part: these are 15-passenger vans with a luggage rack on top and a little extra space behind the front seats because that’s where the edge of the engine compartment is. It was like watching clowns crowd into a Volkswagen!

     This time our job at registration was to check-in the students. There is a behavior covenant they had to sign, then more paperwork if they were new, or a check-off form to take along to the next station for existing students. This means we got to see the face of every student who registered. We really enjoyed the chance to meet all of them, even though the place got pretty crowded a few times. We just kept our heads and worked the best we could. It was a lot of fun! I wish we could be here for that weekend every semester.

     So, a new semester means new classes, and lots of new faces and names to learn. My two classes are both English 1 this time, so they have a few words they have picked up here and there, but for the most part they are brand new. Most of my students this semester are in their third year of studies, although there a few who have been here more or less. Both classes meet during the 11am – 2pm lunch break, and we may end up combining them once the registration finalizes next week. Currently there are about 22 students total, so one class would be manageable, and it would allow us to do some things that the two classes are too small to do alone (for example, maybe another baseball game project??) We will have to see how it all shakes out. New this semester is a survey that I have given to all of my students to fill out. It asks them in English and Spanish about their home and family, what they are studying, what they would like to learn this semester, the ways they learn best, other ways they have learned English (if they have), etc. I am very much looking forward to reading these and getting some insight into my students much earlier in the semester than last time. (Last time I was halfway through the semester before the interviews where I learned more about my students than what I had learned in the classroom. The good news is that they had enough English by then to tell me all about themselves in English!)

     We have not yet made the trip to La Paz for school supplies and to finish up the tool shopping from the collection the St. Andrew’s Godly Play kids gathered in December, so if anyone would like to contribute to the fund for notebook paper, poster supplies, Scotch tape, and a new music player/USB drives for the upper campus, we (and the students) would certainly be appreciative. Thanks in advance to anyone who can do that.

     Jeff has taken a LOT of pictures of the flora here. We don’t know what most of them are, so if you do, comment on our blog and then everyone can know! http://tinyurl.com/p3wnlhj

     I will leave you this week with my kitchen-tested recipe for one of our favorite Bolivian foods: chicken salad sandwiches! Chicken salad is VERY different here, and so is bread. For an authentic sandwich, buy a big (Quarter-Pounder-sized) hamburger bun and squash it a bit and let it dry out so it’s a slight bit stale, then layer about ¼ cup or so of the salad inside the cold bun while the salad is still warm from the stove. Betcha can’t eat just one!

Blessings,

Susan, Jeff and Delaney

Bolivian Chicken Salad for Sandwiches

2 cups leftover roasted chicken, preferably white, shredded small (de-boned, but a little skin is OK)

4-6 medium carrots, peeled and grated (use the ¼” side of your box grater)

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and grated (use the ¼” side of your box grater)

2 large garlic cloves, minced

OPTIONAL: 2 small beets or 1 medium, also peeled, grated ¼” WARNING: SALAD WILL BE RED/ORANGE

1T chicken bouillion granules + 2 cups water OR 2 cups homemade chicken broth

¼ cup canola/soya oil

Salt to taste

Combine chicken, carrots, onion, garlic and beets (if using) in a large saucepan with water/bouillion or broth. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes or until all veggies are soft. Remove from heat, drain. (I save this flavorful broth to make yummy rice later in the week. It will keep for 7-10 days in the fridge if well-sealed.) Return drained mixture to saucepan, add oil, and heat to medium. Saute 5-10 minutes until mixture is a little drier and more separated. Remove from heat, salt to taste. Serve immediately on a sturdy bun or toasted slices of French or Italian bread.

Add-ons:

Toasted sunflower nuts

Melted cheddar cheese on the toast (doesn’t work so well with the bun!)

Fresh-ground pepper

Rings of uncooked sweet bell pepper, one per sandwich