The news.

Most of my time in Chimeo is spent happily removed from the turbulent daily news. All that I pick up about the world outside of this town of 500 is word of mouth- a strike that will take place the next week, a bus crash in Cochabamba, the high temperature (a couple of weeks ago it got to 48*C, which, if you do the math, equals really really hot.) Im told that I NEED a radio to keep up with the goings on in the country and the world, but I like this metamorphosis from habitual, almost addictive daily paper reader to blissful ignorance- it feels really good, really simple.

Alas, in the doctors office yesterday I found myself alone with a few recent copies of El Deber. They were a bit dated, so I felt a bit less guilty reading them. As I only read the news every two weeks (or less), more and more it seems like nothing is changing at all and makes me even less prone to shell out the 5 Bolivianos (50 cents) to not learn anything new. Is there or is there not inflation? The President of the EEUU and congress still disagree? Putin is breaking all the rules and no one has done anything about it?

I turned past the informational pages toward the op-eds, hoping for some salvation. On the way I bumped into a special section on Global warming and another one on SIDA (AIDS). I find it really exciting when I find things like this in the paper in Bolivia- global warming, domestic violence, alcoholism. In my experience, people are really thirsty for knowledge that we might consider common sense- can you get AIDS from a handshake? What do antibiotics do? This week for example, I found myself explaining the nature of the seas (salty water, full of life, you cant see the other side) to one of my favorite families in Chimeo.

The section on Global warming was truly well done- simple, clear language, great graphics that explained just how this phenomenon occurs. As it should, the article made me examine my life in Chimeo and my life in the States. Each one carries with it a different set of responsibilities in the environmental conservation realm. In the US it’s a need to cut back, resist- drive less (if at all- bikes have wheels too!), reuse containers, etc. In my Chimeno life, there isn’t really any room to cut back. No one in Chimeo has a car. When people in the area take car pooling to a whole new level- three to the front seat is standard, four to the back, and one or two lucky souls get to ride in the trunk of the station wagon for half price (why its cheaper I don’t understand- its really the most comfortable spot in the car). Electricity is only used for a lightbulb or two, maybe a small fridge (Chimeo has less than ten). Despite temperatures between 90-110*F, there are no air conditioners. To deal with the heat, people find other solutions- take it easy at midday, live in a small house that’s easy to cool, wet your head to cool off before you go to sleep, have lots of shady trees. Wouldn’t it be easier to employ some of these creative techniques in our lives in the States and other energy gulping countries? Environmental conservation does not take state of the art solar panels, rather open mindedness and a bit of improvisation.

Chimeo does have one large responsibility that we are not fulfilling- Aguarague. At the base of this unguarded national park, Chimeo has a unique opportunity to conserve something rare, beautiful, necessary, and THEIRS. Nonetheless, some community members extract lumber from this reserve and sell at terribly low prices. There needs to be a more proactive solution to this situation, starting with education, precisely the kind of thing El Deber presented. It will take more than movies or newspaper articles though, for a few reasons. First of all, the much of Chimeo’s adult population are not particularly adept readers. Second, how do you convince a family that struggles to feed itself to spend time on conservation? Sure, everyone recognizes there is less firewood than there used to be, and that the river is much lower than it used to be, but this doesn’t provide my family with any more or less rice and bread. Although it does not fall directly in my agriculture realm, Aguarague affects every part of life, especially the success of Chimeo’s bees. It’s a problem Ive been struggling with and will continue to struggle with throughout my service.

So perhaps this blissful tranquility of Chimeo cannot continue to be- the world knows about Chimeo’s cheap lumber, so likewise Chimeo must know about the situation of lumber in the world and the rights of their unique territory. My counterpart, Enrique, who worked for seven years as a park guide in the national park Noel Kempff, believe the key to conserving Aguargue is through Ecotourism. I believe it could work in Chimeo, but the difficult part will be educating, inciting, and training the rest of the folks in Chimeo on the subject. For now Enrique and I are going it alone, against an increasing tide of wood exiting Chimeo. Its such an enormous threat, and two years is such little time.