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A Day In The Clouds
Our day again began early the next day -- a day in the clouds. It is not uncommon to walk through clouds of one sort or another in the remote villages near Caranavi, Bolivia. At this elevation, early morning clouds linger in the lush green mountaintops. In the streams and waterfalls along the winding road that link these tiny villages together, colorful clouds of butterflies collect and sway gracefully. And dust clouds meet every twist and turn made by foot or wheel along the road. It is strange and beautiful, and then strange again.
 A History Lesson
We headed to Alto Sajama to visit settlements where a staff member by the name of Carlos serves as technical assistant. Jonny Reyes, director for MIRNA, gave us a history lesson on this region of his country as he drove.
Most of the inhabitants of this part of Bolivia originally came from the altiplano, Bolivia's high plains. Many are Aymara or Quechua Indians who speak in simple Spanish -- a second language to their native tongues.
 They settle in the area to make a better life and living for their families. They traverse the treacherous road for hours aboard trucks, high atop cargo, without covering or in overcrowded buses. They make their way here, with only what they can carry on them. Then they take to the land to try to raise crops.
It is hard to live here. Families are large, on average, consisting of five people. Days are long, chronic illness is common, and the lack of passable roads makes getting help extremely difficult. The average life span for the area is 51 years.
Farmers use slash and burn techniques not out of disrespect for the land, but because it is cheap, it requires little long term investment and it works. For a short time anyway. When it stops working -- usually after two harvests -- they move on.  Migrating is how they have learned to cope, to survive. They come to this place, make the most that they can from the land, and when it stops providing, they move on.
The results of this cycle of slash and burn and migration are pollution, environmental degradation and an extremely poor people. The act of migration in itself causes people to forego future planning. Their only future certainty is yet another move.
Agricultural Assistants One Day, Counselors The Next
We were not yet to Alto Sajama when we came upon a man and his two young sons, wielding machetes. We stopped the jeep to talk to them. Johnny said, "CARE has not yet come to this family's area. We plan to work here in MIRNA's next phase, which begins in 1999."
I asked the man his name, and to tell us about the work he was doing.
"My name is Mateo Melendrez," he replied. "I have banana trees on a half-hectare (one hectare equals 2.47 acres) of land. My sons and I are clearing soft wood and cleaning the land around my trees. We will then burn everything around the trees. My sons will stand with banana leaves near the trees and beat the fire down so it doesn't ignite the trees.
"This gives us a lot more fruit."
Matteo goes on to tell about how he wants CARE's help. His son died while coming down the Yungas road, his brother died of malnutrition and his wife has chronic back pain.
As we drove on Johnny explained. "Sometimes we are more than agricultural assistance in the areas where we work. We can be doctors one day, technical agricultural assistants the next, and then counselors yet another day. We maintain an agricultural focus, but we must adjust and be sensitive to the needs of our participants. This is only right. And this is what makes CARE work."
 "I Plan To Stay With This Land Now."
We eventually met up with Mateo, an agricultural extensionist, in Alto Sajama. Mateo wanted us to meet Roberto Huiza, a farmer who has been very receptive and successful with crop diversification. Matteo smiled brightly. "Are you ready, escritora?" he asked. We followed him on a short but hard uphill hike to meet Roberto. It was hard to imagine that anything could grow on such rugged terrain. But, soon we came upon him, standing on a small terraced plot he'd carved out of the slope, tilling the soil with a crude pick tool.
Roberto Huiza is like many farmers in this area. His face bears the signs of work, of sun, of exhaustion. Waking up at 4 a.m. every morning to tend to his 2 hectares of land, at noon, his day is not even half done. It will be 7 p.m. before he heads home. Wearing thong sandals and a button-down shirt open half-way, his long pants are covered in soil the color of rust. His shy eyes, shaded by his cap, are shielded from sun and our long looks.
His father moved his family here when Roberto was 8 years old. He came from a place in the altiplano where winters can bring  temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero. In the heat of this day, it is nearly impossible to imagine. Sweat has left his hair damp, but frequent, biting mosquitoes prevent the shedding of clothes.
This day, Roberto worked on a small terrace that would serve as a miniature plant nursery for his family. He used simple techniques that he learned from CARE to grow disease-free crops. Next he'll introduce the new plants on his land, and produce a greater variety of healthy crops.
Carlos explained. "Like many of the farmers in this area, Roberto had everything he needed here already. The land, if treated with respect and with a few simple but creative techniques, is very fertile. But we cannot, nor would we want to, come to the farmers and just give out lessons. We learn together. We build trust.
"Take coffee trees for example. Coffee is the most abundant crop grown in this area. But coffee trees must grow under the shade of other trees. Slash and burn techniques rid the jungle of tall, soft wood trees that shade the coffee. It takes a lot of trust, time, and hard work to get this message accepted. Slash and burn is a much quicker fix. And with so much migration, it's hard to encourage people to commit to new techniques."
"In this 10-square-foot area, Roberto has grown peppers, chiles, beans, limes, bananas, coffee and mandarin oranges." Carlos added. "He has worked with CARE for a year and a half. You can see by the diversity of his crops that the land will produce for his family. We have worked together so that he now can think of the future here. He can plant trees knowing that they will not produce for two or four years, and he can abide by that."
Roberto concluded, "I have lived throughout Yungas for 30 years, but I plan to stay with this land now."
continued...
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