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

En Avion, Agua, Tierra

Let’s start with the happy ending.

What was in that dish was, finally, one of the most enjoyable meals I’ve had on this trip.  But I digress.  You want to know how that plane, 4x4 and boat ride went.

Well, as you’ll see in the video clips things were a little less dangerous than we had originally thought.

Let me give you some background on the Tumapasa Water Project.

Tumapasa is the kind of town where they dry rice on the street.

Kids get baths like this.  (I’ll bet that water is colder than anything I’ve experienced on this trip.)

Downtown Tumapasa looks like something out of an old Western, at least at this distance.

About ten years ago Tumapasa had about 300 residents.  At that time they put in their first microhydro system, sized for about 300 residents.  Today the village counts upwards of 1500 souls.  The electrical system was converted to a diesel generator a few years ago, but it’s expensive to run.

Meal-a-Day helped the residents upgrade their system.  The people did the work (a lot of it!) with the guidance of this man:

He’s an engineer with an NGO named Prodener.  Having the two systems gives them a backup and allows them to continue to grow.  Roll the videos!  (There's a reason for three: This blog format limits videos to 2 mbs and this is a story that is bigger than 2 mbs!))

Part the First

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Part the Second

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Part the Third

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Having electricity will help these people in a number of fundamental ways.  We wandered around town and found the clinic.  The medical assistant showed us a refrigerator where medicines are kept and an autoclave for sterilizing instruments.

We talked to a carpenter who uses electricity to build furniture.  His "workshop" is all outside, under the trees.

Now I'm going to tell you about the "not-so-wonderful" part of the day.  Shortly after that speech Bruce made he became sick in a big way, like passing out sort of sick.  They will be talking about him for years.  He had to be escorted to a car that was there (actually the taxi that had brought us to Tumapasa.)  One of the local women climbed in with us and was very distressed crying "Medico! Medico!"  as we slowly drove down the mountain from the celebration to the town's hotel.  She kept touching his chest over his heart and believe me, I was praying that the problem was actually located lower in his body, as he had indicated to me before passing out in the car.

I can kind of joke about this now but at the time it was all I could do to be calm (to appear calm) as I was thinking about how to manage an evacuation from this place out in the middle of nowhere Bolivia.  And I wasn't laughing at all.  What was needed was some rest-room and room-rest.  After emerging from the above illustrated facilities, Bruce lay down for an hour or so. We shared a big bottle of Fanta and gradually he recovered enough of himself to finish up the day.

All's well that ends, I always say.

So after staying the night in Rurrenabaque and eating at a place called Camilla's, which looked like Humphrey Bogart should be sitting at the bar, we made a hasty retreat back to La Paz.  At the airport we noticed this poster-

When we got back in town we immediately headed to a fascinating "Save the Children" program to evaluate it.  Lord willing, I'll fill you in on the details on Thursday.  Here's a visual preview:

So, about that empty dish.  Bruce needed food.  I needed something safe, reassuring, sweet.

We're traveling to a new country today- Ecuador (which I have learned is not spelled with a "q").

Flying through Lima one more time, we should be in Quito by midday.