CMaDFA: South America visit Learn about Meal-a-Day projects with Bruce Parker and Steve Johnson while they travel in South America.

Seemed Like a Good Idea

While I catch my breath, allow me to comment on trying to run in crowded cities.  It seemed like a good idea at the time but if the traffic doesn’t kill you the air pollution will.  The carbon monoxide/dioxide levels in my blood when I took these pictures after running through the Villavicencio neighborhood must have been staggering.  They actually ban cars from the city every once in awhile to try to reduce the pollution levels.  September 18 was one of those days.  We had to wait until 8 pm on our return from El Viento before we could drive into the city.  This is one of the reasons Mauricio is dedicated to finding “green” solutions to energy production.

There was something out there in the Llanos that bites!  Bruce and I both have a multitude of these little spots in various places on our bodies now.  He’s been trying to get me to believe they are the beginning of Dengue fever.  Speaking of which, there was a fellow from El Viento who helped us with the car, then shook hands all around, THEN told us he didn’t feel well because he was getting over Dengue!  (Where is that hand sanitizer when you need it?  Buried in my suitcase in the back of the truck!)

There were two exciting developments yesterday as a direct result of Meal-a-Day’s support of Mauricio’s work.  A year ago we funded him to travel to ten remote villages to talk with people about how they can use microhydro to improve their lives.  These were places that he already knew were interested but because of the expense, hadn’t been able to visit previously.  Yesterday one of those visits bore fruit.  A small Indian village up in the mountains got funding for its microhydro installation from a hotel in Scotland.  (The hotel plans to use photos of the village with its electricity and clean water in its lobby.) After his Meal-a-Day sponsored visit, Mauricio submitted an application to an organization called Mercy Corps which finds contributors for worthy projects like this one. 

This is an illustration of how Christadelphian Meal-a-Day Fund of the Americas is always trying to leverage the donations it receives.  We’re always looking for ways to plant seed money, small amounts that allow people to illustrate to other larger resources the value of what they are doing.  I’ll give more examples in a future blog.

 The other exciting development was the visit Mauricio got yesterday.  The man pictured with him traveled four hours by boat and an hour by small plane to come to Villavicencio to talk with Mauricio about his plan.  He lives in a very remote jungle area with others who are ready to do the work to put in a microhydro installation.  He came with pages of drawings, measurements and photos of his river to learn how his dream can become a reality.

Last night we stayed with Mauricio’s mother in Bogota.  She is a wonderful hostess and our visit was very pleasant.  And she has hot water!  This morning’s shower was fantastico!.  This is the first time in a week, even at our hotel in Villavicencio (hardly expected water in El Viento) that we’ve had hot water.  How pleasant the little things are.  We don’t know how good we have it back home.

One last note.  The candy bar was calling to me from the display case in the restaurant last night.  “Would you like a Hershey bar, Steve?”  Si!  “Only $2300.”  To figure out the equivalent in USD you need to divide by 2000.  After doing the math I splurged and bought two.

Yesterday we visited a feeding and education program that Meal-a-Day has been supporting named Semerillos de Amor  ¨Sowers of Love´ and an orphanage in Bogota.  Our Lord willing we´ll show you some video tomorrow from these very impressive programs.