Kathryn Whittaker's father helps some Santiageñas carry the large organ tubes

Before I was even thinking about coming to Bolivia last year, Peter and Kathryn had started working on getting an organ from Earlham (they both graduated from Earlham) donated and sent to the Catholic church in Santiago.  Peter came back to the US for SALT re-entry retreat and while visiting home in Indiana help pack up the organ at Earlham (these sites have his video of the process- http://www.univision.com/uv/video/Barckhoff-tracker-pipe-organ-to-Santiago/id/593132644 and http://www.youtube.com/user/wiggipe).  About the time I got to Santiago, we had a little over a month to prepare for the big opening concert (Friday, October 30)  for the organ with an amazing organist, Stephen Roberts, who was coming to play.  So while Peter was in Santa Cruz trying to work out all the problems that the organ ran into trying to get to Bolivia, I stayed in Santiago to help Kathryn and the Organ Committee (a group of Santiageñas helping bring the organ) organize various things and get the choir and orchestra ready for the concert, while still learning Spanish and how to do my job. 

Peter and Susie put some finishing touches on the organ

During part of this time I took the train to Santa Cruz for the MCC retreat, and came back with Susan Tatershall who came to put the organ together. 

Peter and Kathryn decided it would be really great to bring the Hombres Nuevos orchestra in Santa Cruz to play with our orchestra because they are a bigger and more established than our orchestra.  So that they could play well together we got donations to take the Santiago orchestra to Santa Cruz to practice with Hombres Nuevos for a couple days.  Their director Antoine Duhamel is an amazing and crazy musician (whose primary instrument is trombone) who spent much of his life working with the system of orchestras in Venezuela.  About 4 years ago he decided to come work for SICOR in Bolivia and has directed Hombres Nuevos sinces then.  Because I was directing a few of the pieces for the concert I rehearsed with Hombres Nuevos and the Santiago orchestra and was incredibly nervous to do so especially because I had absolutely no time or resources to help me prepare for conducting these pieces.  Looking back, I know there are things that with experience and practice I could have done better, but I think things ended up going pretty well considering I was overwhelmingly busy, just a beginner at Spanish, and still learning how to work with string instruments.  Also I felt crazy taking 16 students to a city of 1.5 million people with only two parents.  Luckily nothing terrible happened and we all returned to Santiago for the concert.

Kathryn helps Stephen Roberts get his organ shoes on to start the concert

While I took the orchestra to Santa Cruz, everyone in Santiago was waiting nervously for the organ to arrive.  It should have come 3-4 weeks before the concert, but because of various shipping and customs problems in kept getting held up.  Then about 3 days before the concert it arrived and Susie, Amado Cadena (a Bolivian organ builder and repairman-this is a pretty unique position because there are hardly any organs in Bolivia), and Peter began what was supposed to be a two week job of putting the organ back together.  The final week before the concert, everyone involved in the project worked like crazy to get all the details put together, the organ in good enough shape to play, and the music sounding good because the Organ Committee had invited different important people from the local government and also people and organizations who had donated very much money to support the project.  Finally on Friday night the concert began (all the organ parts were played by Stephen Roberts):

the orchestra waits for its turn to play during the concert

Concerto in G major, by Prins Johan Erns/J.S. Bach- for organ solo

Adagio en Sol Menor, by Giazotto/Albinoni- for organ with the Santiago and Hombres Nuevos orchestras

Concerto No. 3, by Pdr. Antonio Soler- an organ duet with Waldo Papo (an organ teacher in Urubicha, another Bolivian town who had been penpals with Stephen Roberts for several years) 

Sonatas de Capilla, by W.A. Mozart- for organ with the Santiago and Hombres Nuevos orchestras

Praise the Lord with Drum and Cymbols, by Sigfrid Karg-Elert- for organ with an Hombres Nuevos brass ensemble

Ego Sum Panis Vivus, by Pdr. Giovanni Battista Martini- for organ and the Santiago choir

Trio for organ and trumpet- for organ and trumpet solo (a kid from Hombres Nuevos played this)

Concerto in G for Organ, Op. 4, by G.F. Handel- for organ with the Santiago and Hombres Nuevos orchestras

Variations on America, by Charles Ives- for solo organ

looking inside at the organ's pipes

Leading up to the concert, I was incredibly nervous because it was my first ”real” concert that I conducted in (I directed two orchestra pieces and the choir piece).  But overall I think it ended up going really well, and everyone was happy to relax after getting the organ in place and working.

Here are two articles (in Spanish) about the project:

-http://eldia.com.bo/index.php?cat=182&pla=3&id_articulo=18596

-http://www.eldeber.com.bo/2009/2009-10-18/vernotasantacruz.php?id=091017223407

armadillo.  one day when i got home for lunch there was half an armadillo sitting on the fire stove.  i was a little hestitant when we started opening up the animal and pulling the meat off its body.  although i think it would take me some time to really like it, its juicy unique flavor was interesting to try.

Things I encounter on my 20 minute walk into town day:

wandering donkeys and cows because many people let their animals roam the village.  people visiting their neighbors or running errands.  a small monkey who lives in someone’s yard and at times likes to make mischief (when a visiting orchestra stayed near his house, he got into their room and threw the contents of their suitcases everywhere).  students walking to school.  chickens and dogs.  loud music from one of the dance clubs/Ricolas or someone’s house.  construction on various houses.  people riding bikes, trucks, horses, or motocyles.

What my work schedule looks like during summer break (the middle of November to February):

8am- beginning violins, 9am- intermediate violins, 10am- individual theory and piano classes, 11am- classes for those who want to start playing an instrument

working with the wind instruments

12pm- lunch

The most awkward cat name in Bolivia:

when I first got my kitten, people told me, even a biologist told me, that it was a she.  so i named her Eva.  turns out he is a she.  Since he already knows his name the easiest change to make it a guy name would be to call him Evo.  but this is the name of the current Bolivian president and  in the region of Santa Cruz where I live people don’t often hold this president in a favorable light.  maybe i should look for another name.

The most otherworldly SALT orientation visit:

one week when i was back in Santa Cruz we had an orientation visit to a Mennonite colony.  surprisingly, there are around 50,000 old order Mennonites living in Bolivia.  apparently they first moved to Mexico and Canada, but when the government started to expect too much of them they moved to Bolivia where they could have their own schools and more secluded communities.  one of MCC’s big projects in Bolivia is staffing a information center (Centro Menno) and providing other resources for the Colony Mennonites because some have had trouble adapting to life in Bolivia.  one of the guys who works at Centro Menno came to translate the low German for us.  we talked, ate lunch with them, and got a tour of the farm.  at one point we alternated singing songs for each other and asked various questions about our different lifestyles.  it felt like no place that i had ever visited before, especially not in Bolivia, and made me wonder if this is what my ancestors lives would have been like. 

More people to know in Santiago:

Filomena- an older woman who lives in the convent next to the church and music classroom who used to be the director of a nearby school.  she used to help do various things for the music school, but after multiple conflicts with the kids (she had a more authoritarian style of relating to them than they liked) she decided to retire from being involved with the music program.  she often offers me food or drink when i’m around.  she still works with a group of kids who do traditional dances with drum and bamboo flute music.

John Wood- one of many naturalists and bioligists who come to study plants and animals in Santiago.  i think he teaches at Oxford.  He brings a team of biologists who go tramping out into the forests to find the plants that ”can’t be found anywhere else in the world but Santiago.”

A gathering at the MCC retreat

So after my first 3 weeks in Santiago, I took the train back to Santa Cruz for the MCC Retreat and to get a few things done in the city.  A couple days after I arrived at MCC, all the MCC Bolivia workers (I think there are around 60)  piled into two small buses and a van to drive to Semipata (a smallish town known as a great tourist destination) for our annual fall retreat. To get to Semipata we drove 3-4 hours west of Santa Cruz, which means gradually curving up into the mountains. Our lodgings here were simple, yet homey guest houses where we ate and had different sessions during the day. I really enjoyed to chance to catch up with all the MCCers that I don’t get to see often.

along the bus ride to Semipata

We returned to Santa Cruz after about two days of retreat, and I had a chance to spend a night with Arelis, one of the other SALTers. Her family attends a Catholic church that some of the other 3-year MCCers work with, so we went to the Saturday night mass and then chilled out at her house. The cat at her house had kittens, and I mentioned that the previous SALTers in Santiago had their own kittens and the Whittakers had offered me one of the kittens their cat was going to have. The next day Arelis showed up at MCC with a kitten in a box that she had brought on the Micro (bus), and apparently the kitten had very orally expressed its dislike for traveling in a box. She had told her host mother that I was interested in getting a kitten, and her host mother immediately decided she should send this kitten to me.  I very quickly fell in love with this kitten and decided it would be worth trying the 12 hour bus/train ride to take it with me.

my kitten, Eva

As it turned out, Susan Tattershall, the woman who was coming to build the organ, was on her way to Santiago about the same day that I was so we decided it would be more fun to go together (with my kitten). Because the train didn’t run that day we took an overnight Flota (these buses are generally thought to be less comfortable and slower than the train, but they’re not too bad). I had fun getting to know Susan a bit during our trip, and the kitten did pretty well, although was happy to finish the journey. Susie now lives in Colorado and works for a University Honors Program, but has spent her life working on organs. Much of her work was restoring and fixing old organs in Mexico, and so she spoke wonderful Spanish.

the yard at the MCC compound where I stay in Santa Cruz

Overall my time spent in Santa Cruz tends to be a mix between being a chance to relax and take a break from my job (and have “English” days- what we call taking a break from Bolivian culture and spending time with other English speakers and doing things that remind us of home like watching movies), and having to frantically catch up on communication (blogging, skyping, emailing, etc.), working on various projects for the music school, and shopping for things I can’t get in Santiago or are cheaper her in Santa Cruz.

Also, for those of you who want to see more pictures, I’ve been putting them all up at this website (there are links to this on the side of this blog page too):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristenswartley/

After Peter left for Santa Cruz, the next three weeks now seem like a blur in my memory.  Probably my brain filled to beyond its capacity in this sudden immersion of learning a new language and job that it couldn´t make sense of much for those first weeks .  Since all the kids have school in the morning until noon, all of the music classes happen in the afternoon, and my schedule has stayed pretty much the same:

***first some definitions…  Vientos=wind instruments (we have 2 clarinets, 2 flutes, and 1 trumpet), Preinfantile=the begginners string class (about 8 kids), Infantile=the middle level string class (about 10 kids), Coro=choir (about 25 kids), Teclado=piano/keyboard (about 8 kids), and Orquesta=orchestra (about 22 kids)***

Monday: Vientos (2pm), Infantile (3pm), Coro (4-5:30pm), Orquesta (6-8pm)

Tuesday:  Preinfantile (2pm), Infantile (3pm), Coro (4-5:30pm), Orquesta (6-8pm)

Wednesday:  Vientos (2pm), Infantile (3pm), Teclado (4pm and 5pm), Orquesta (6-8pm)

Thursday:  Preinfantile (2pm), Infantile (3pm), Coro (4-5:30pm), Orquesta (6-8pm)

Friday:  Vientos (2pm), Infantile (3pm), Coro (4-5:30pm), Orquesta (6-8pm)

Then during the mornings I usually work on planning my classes, getting things organized, and fixing instruments (we have to replace a lot of broken strings here because the cheap ones we use break more easily).

Well, I´ve got to get going, more later….

My first week was pretty intense.  Laurie, Peter, Paul Whittaker, and I took the noon train and arrived in Roboré at about 11:30 to meet Peter´s host father Don Willie who drove us the final 45 minutes to Santiago.  The next morning, Laurie and I walked down the road to Milton and Katheryn Whitakker´s for lunch.  About 40 years ago Milton came with MCC to Santiago to teach English and later Katheryn came with another organization (about 17 years ago).  They met, married and have worked on their own dairy farm in Santiago ever since.  Now they and their 5 children–  Ramona (14), Rachel (13), Joe (11), John Milton (9), and Paul David (6)—are the only people in town that I can speak English to.  They also own the the Escuelita that I live in.  Because Santiago is so small and not very wealthy, no one really has extra rooms to offer so my living situation works differently than some other SALTers.  Many years ago some missionaries built the Escuelita as a school for the indigenous people.  When they left, Milton and Katheryn bought the Escuelita and turned it into a guest house.  I live in one of these rooms, and my host family is the woman, Doña Marta, who takes care of the place and her three daughters, Daniela, Diana, and Samara.

 After meeting the Whittakers and eating lunch on Sunday we took their jeep into town for a welcome get together the orchestra and choir were having for me.  During this time, I met a bunch of people who I didn´t remember and got to hear the orchestra and choir for the first time.

We started rehearsing on Monday because during the upcoming week we needed to perform two concerts!  I began by watching how Peter worked with the orchestra and choir and gradually started to rehearse all the music with them.  On Tuesday morning we visited both of the schools in Santiago to announce to each classroom that the younger kid´s string classes would start that afternoon. 

Tuesday evening we had our first concert!  Some sort of eco-conference with people from around the world was meeting in Santiago´s hotel and they wanted to hear the local music.  They played several pieces that Peter had worked with them on before he left and I directed two of them.  Although I felt somewhat unprepared for this having only been in Santiago for 2 days, it forced me to jump in and start learning quickly.  With hardly any time to worry about it, I had participated in my first concert in Santiago.

After this we needed to prepare for a performance on Sunday.  The priest, Padre Piotr, who organizes the Chiquitania Baroque festival in April was coming to see how our orchestra and choir sounded so that he could better arrange our performance places for the festival.  At this point I had learned to conduct all the songs.  After the performance Padre Piotr seemed really excited about our musical potential for the festival, and expressed that the choir especially impressed him.  Also, he told us that he is going to send an organ teacher for December and January to get people started learning how to use the new organ.

Following this week of hard work and concerts, Peter headed back to Santa Cruz to work on the final details of getting the organ here, and I continued learning how to teach in Santiago.

Monday afternoon, Laurie and Lynn took us to the Democracy Center to hear a little more about the political/economic/social situation in Bolivia.

{In the MCC library I found a book about Latin American history that someone recommended to me called Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano and reading this has enhanced my curiosity about Bolivia’s history.  This intriguing and moving group of stories from the 1970′s recently made history again when Hugo Chavez publicly presented the book to Barach Obama during the 5th Summit of the Americas.}

This organization, which does work all over the world, was started in California in 1992 and then moved its base to Cochabamba, Bolivia.  The Democracy Center “works globally to advance social justice through investigation and reporting, training citizens in public advocacy, and leading international citizen campaigns.”  They gave us a lot of helpful background information on the complex situation in Bolivia, especially in their recommendation to “always assume that you don’t know what the hell is going on, and most of the time you’ll be spot on.”  If you’re interested in learning more about Bolivian politics, they have a link to their “Blog from Bolivia” at– http://www.democracyctr.org/index.php– and a new book titled Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization, ed. by Jim Shultz and Melissa Crane Draper.  Also, they have great internship possibilities that I’m sure some of my friends would love.

Also in Cochabamba last week, I learned some new Salsa dancing moves and went on a piercing escapade with the other SALTers!  Out of the six of us, five got something new pierced and this included 3 new nose rings and 3 new earings.  I got two of the ear piercings right next to my other earing holes (eventually I’ll have some pictures).

Now in Santa Cruz, Laurie has filled this week with more orientation activities, and all the rest of the SALTers went home with their host families last night.  This week we’ll visit each of our workplaces (they’ll come visit me in Santiago later in the year), learn important Micro (bus) routes in Santa Cruz, and get to know our places of employment.  I’ll be staying in the CCM guest rooms until I leave on Saturday with Laurie and Peter, and during this week, connecting with music organizations in Santa Cruz.  On Saturday I met Peter Wigginton who had my job last year and is coming back to work for SICOR (Sistema de Coros y Orquestas) again this year teaching cello.  He will help to introduce me to some of the music organizations in Santa Cruz and then orient me to what I’ll be doing in Santiago.  So far everyone I’ve talked to has seemed really excited about Santiago de Chiquitos so I’m excited to get there.

… some great articles that people have brought to my attention:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8206836.stm> This BBC article talks about a similar program to what I’ll be doing only they live farther North in Bolivia.

<http://pressroom.earlham.edu/articles/2009/08/ec-organ-its-way-bolivian-jungle> Peter has been working on getting Earlham’s old organ donated to the church in Santiago de Chiquitos.  We’ll be having a concert with it in October!

First, a few definitions:

MCC/CCM (Mennonite Central Committee/Comité Central Menonita {in Spanish speaking countries}): ¨a relief, development, and peace agency of the North American Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches.¨

SALT (Serving And Learning Together): A program for North American young adults to do a year of  service/learning outside of North America (this is what I´m doing)

IVEP (International Volunteer Exchange Program): A program for non-North American young adults to do a year of service/learning in North America

YAMEN! (Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network): A program for non-North American young adults to do a year of service in countries outside of North America.

and now what I´ve been up to:

Orientation to SALT (Akron, PA/Aug. 8-15): This week about 55 SALTers, 60 IVEPers , and 10 YAMENers collided on the grounds of the MCC Welcoming Center/Offices in Akron, PA.  We stayed in guest houses according to countries so I lived with all those coming from or going to Latin America.  We had a great time talking in bits of Spanish/English/Portuguese and trying to learn various Latin American dances like Salsa and Samba.  All week we had lectures about various things to prepare us for the year, and during our free time, we played pick-up sports games and jammed with various instruments.

In the Air (Sat. Aug. 15, 5:45pm Philadelphia -Miama– arrival in Santa Cruz, Sun. Aug. 16, 8:15 am): I experienced my first flying sickness after we made a quick touch down in La Paz, Bolivia.  Apparently, passengers can sometimes be affected by the altitude here.  The Bolivian SALT coordinator Lori Eschleman Longenecker, her husband Lynn, and three children, Nathan, Maria, and Jesse picked us (a total of 6 Bolivian SALTers) up and took us to the CCM center in Santa Cruz.

CCM orientation (Sun. Aug. 16- Tues. Aug. 18): The CCM office/center in Bolivia is the biggest in South America and has some pretty cool features like guest rooms for visitors, a library (yay books to read!), houses for the caretakers, offices, and a communal dining room and kitchen.  In the 2.5 days we were here we met the other CCM workers, learned a bit more about the culture here, and got to try salteñas, a traditional Bolivian pastry.

¨Runawasi¨ in Cochabamba (Wed. Aug. 19- Fri. Sept. 4): On Tuesday night we took a ten hour overnight bus to Cochabamba (more west and higher altitude) for 2.5 weeks of language school.  For a few different reasons, this year CCM wanted to send the SALTers to Cochabamba for language school.  So far CCM has only worked in the province of Santa Cruz and therefore hears only the political voice of the East (more on politics later).  They are trying to expand their program into the West also which has been the poorer part of the country for many years.  So in trying to make more western contacts, they´ve sent us SALTers to Cochabamba.  Also, they found a school that could give us four hours of individual classes a day and homestays which seemed better than what they´ve done in Santa Cruz before.  Runawasi is a small school in a neighborhood on the west of Cochabamba that teaches Spanish, Quechua, and Aymara.  So far many of the other students we´ve met are also planning to work in Bolivia for year or two or travel in South America.

Host family practice: For our two weeks in Cochabamba I´ve been staying with Doña Antonia Estevez and her large family (2 adult daughters, 1 adult son, and 2 grandaughters who are 12 and 17).  I´ve had fun trying to communicate with them, but still can´t understand conversation at their normal pace.

Cochabamba: The other SALTers and I have had fun exploring the city and finding interesting cafés and sites.  Last weekend we took a 2 hour bus trip south to Incallayta which is the second largest site of Incan ruins in South America (Machu Pichu is the largest).  We walked around the ruins for about 2 hours hearing about what the buildings might have been used for.  This weekend Lori and Lynn came and planned some more country orientation activities for us.  Thursday we heard a talk about recent Bolivian politics/history from a guy at the Fundación Gandhi, Friday we saw a drama by a group of young people (many from poorer circumstances) called  COMBA, and Saturday we learned about Andean cosmovision/spirituality froma professor at the Catholic University.  The many things to do-see-learn here have kept my brain tired and ready to head to bed at an early hour each night .

This week will be our last at language school and then we´ll head to Santa Cruz for another week of country orientation.  After that I will take my 10 hour train ride to Santiago de Chiquitos!

And hopefully from now on, I can do a little less general review and more stories .

Chao!

What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
-Mary Oliver

Hooray for everyone who sent money to MCC for me!  Thank you!  I recently found out that MCC got $5,400 for me which is way more that what I needed to raise.  On Saturday I plan to move home to Iowa, so this week will be full of packing and cleaning. Anything that doesn’t fit in my parents Honda civic goes to Gift and Thrift .

Some interesting facts about Bolivia I’ve run into recently:

• Lake Titicaca, located at an altitude of 12,507 ft, is the highest commercially navigable body of water in the world.
• Almost half the population of Bolivia resides on Altiplano plateau, with an average altitude of 12,000 ft.
• La Paz, Bolivia sits at an altitude ranging from 11,811 feet to 13,287 feet above sea level and has the world’s highest golf course. The air is so thin that a well-hit shot will travel several meters farther than at sea level. The largest deposit of salt on the planet is in Bolivia.
• Bolivia is one of the wettest countries in the world. The annual rainfall is over 5000mm.
• The world’s largest butterfly sanctuary is in Bolivia.
• The potato was first cultivated and the llama was first domesticated in Bolivia

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June 2009

Dear family and friends,

During the months following my graduation from Eastern Mennonite University in December, I spent time trying to figure out where my Music Performance and Liberal Arts majors might take me next.  Then, while baking cookies and cakes at a bakery in Harrisonburg, Virginia, I stumbled upon an option that I am thrilled to tell you about.

In August I will begin a year-long adventure serving with Mennonite Central Committee’s SALT program (Serving And Learning Together— http://www.mcc.org/salt/).  This program brings together young adults from North America to engage in and learn from another culture in the world by living with and working for the people there.

the previous SALTer in Santiago de Chiquitos

My placement as “youth orchestra and choir facilitator” will take me to Santiago de Chiquitos, Bolivia, after a week of orientation in Akron, PA and a month of language study in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  This town of about a thousand people in Eastern Bolivia boasts no paved roads, generally hot/humid temperatures, and great hiking trails (and a ten hour bus/train ride for me from MCC’s main offices in Santa Cruz).  I will work for an organization called SICOR (check out this site for some great photographs– http://www.sicor.org.bo/nuevoIndex.htm) whose vision is to reclaim the lively heritage of renaissance and baroque music found in many of the Jesuit mission towns of the Chiquitania region (look here for a map of the area– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_Missions_of_the_Chiquitos).  These towns still have large archives of music written by both the European Jesuits and Bolivians from around 1600.  Santiago de Chiquitos is the farthest-flung of the communities in Chiquitania and therefore receives less support from SICOR.  My job here, among other things, will be to work with MCC and SICOR to plan and direct rehearsals for the youth in Santiago de Chiquitos.  I am extremely excited for this opportunity to practice and share my musical knowledge while listening and learning from the wisdom of another culture and language.

In the next two months before leaving, I have many preparations to make.  For this year of service, MCC requires participants to raise $4,300 to cover expenses.  Will you help me raise this money? There are two ways you can do this–

1)      Online: Go to http://www.mcc.org/donate/donate.html

-Under “Designation” select Other

-In the space beneath type in “SALT support for Kristen Swartley (628913)”

2)  By check:  Fill out the green sheet in this envelope {check “1.)__SUPPORT…”}

-Staple a check with “SALT—Kristen Swartley” on the memo line to the green sheet

-Send to MCC (address on green sheet) by July 13, 2009

Anything that you can give will be greatly appreciated! Other ways that you can help support me and keep in touch during this next year include writing me letters or emails, keeping me in your thoughts and prayers, and visiting me if you happen to be in Bolivia J.  If you would like to get update emails about how things are going please send your email address to kristenswartley@gmail.com.  Again, thank you so much for your help!

Peace to you,

Kristen Swartley