Projects Abroad’s Amazon Rainforest Conservation Project in Peru is to appear on Ross Kemp’s “Battle for the Amazon” on Sky 1 this week. The programme is on at 10pm on Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st April.

Projects Abroad hosted Ross Kemp and his team for a week at our Taricaya reserve in Peru. They took some stunning footage of our reserve. The programme aims to highlight the rapid de-forestation of the Amazon rainforest caused by cattle farming, soya bean farming and oil exploration and wanted to team up with Projects Abroad as our volunteers have been working on the reforestation projects in the Amazon for years.

Find out more about Ross Kemp’s “Battle for the Amazon” here: http://sky1.sky.com/ross-kemp-battle-for-the-amazon-on-sky1-hd

Find out more about our Peru Conservation project here: http://www.projects-abroad.co.uk/volunteer-projects/conservation-and-environment/peru/

Volunteer at Ciudadela SEDEGES

By Daniela Viljoen, Director - Bolivia

Ciudadela SEDEGES is a state run orphanage that we have been working with since 2002 (previously known as Alejandro Magno) and Care volunteers are needed here all year round especially between December and March.  The state only provides funding for the salaries of most care workers for 10 months; March through to December. Last year they had two out of ten members of staff stay on with a paid salary and another two of the remaining eight who stayed voluntarily (with no pay for three months). When this situation occurs, the children are left at the orphanage without any sufficient adult supervision. This has been happening every year, even before we began supporting the orphanage full time. In addition to this, it is the summer vacation, so the children are currently not in school.

There are other members of staff, for instance, the Director, Psychologist, Social Worker and cook, who are also on a fixed payroll. However they struggle to manage the 10-15 children in each home (a total of six “casitas” – homes) and everything that comes with managing a home (cooking, cleaning, bathing, ironing, washing, and controlling the little ones). The staff also have their own responsibilities and therefore there is insufficient time spent on the children.

Freddy Mita, who is our Care Supervisor in Bolivia, is currently working on a Ciudadela Summer Plan of activities and tasks that volunteers will be able to take part in. This will run alongside the daily chores of running the home such as cleaning, bathing, washing clothes and so forth.

Now, we need volunteers to help! So…keep us in mind!

Click Here to learn more about the Care program in Bolivia

Performance at the QUIERO OIR!!! ROCK 100% COCHABAMBINO

By Daniela Viljoen, Director - Bolivia

Working with Projects Abroad, the spirit of volunteering is always there, whether it be doing a project alongside our volunteers, or helping a noble cause for a friend of a friend. This past Saturday, Cochabamba held a concert, QUIERO OIR!!! ROCK 100% COCHABAMBINO, in benefit to help a little girl raise funds for surgery to repair her hearing.

Alejandra Estrada, Projects Abroad Bolivia staff member, helped to organize the entire event along with a group of friends and 6 rock groups who participated in the event; Terapia, Mammut, Oil, Vitamina Queso, A Pie, and Cartel Afónico, all rock bands from Cochabamba! After a month of planning, this Saturday 2:00pm came along. We all offered to help with anything we could.

The concert was held at the outdoor Olympic Beach Volleyball courts. It was a perfect day (of the usual in Cochabamba) to say the least. The sun was bright and the setting set for an awesome Rock concert! Volunteer Justin Gouin helped set up some of the tents, and Alejandra and I got to work the best job ever… manning the beer stand. We became expert servers by the end of the night. Carmen, Ximena, Ana Silvia and volunteers showed their support by head banging and jumping to the music, and enjoying the delicious food and drinks.

Everyone who worked at the concert, along with the bands supported 100% voluntarily! By 10pm it was time to hit the after party….(to keep raising funds….of course!) Hopefully this will become an annual event to help different causes…and just maybe Ale and I will get to work the beer stand again! ROCK 100% COCHABAMBINO!!!

Volunteers and Staff at the monthly Social event in Cochabamba, Bolivia

By Alejandra Estrada, Travel Coordinator - Bolivia

Once every month in Bolivia, we organize new and fun activities for our volunteers and staff. From going out to a restaurant, organizing barbeques at the office patio or cooking some traditional food ourselves; we always try to innovate what we do so we show as much of our culture to the volunteers who are always eager to discover more.

This month, in order to celebrate Cochabamba’s 199th Anniversary; Santa Cruz’s Anniversary and the beginning of the spring on the 21st of September, we decided to host a very nice party at the office. Although we decided not to cook something traditional from Cochabamba –actually no cooking at all, this time; we decided to have a buffet Camba instead: food from the orient of Bolivia like Huminta, sonso and masaco. I won’t elaborate on each one but, just to give you an idea: there is a lot of cheese and yucca involved!

For the entertainment part, we always try to have a folkloric dance group to show the traditions of each region. When no group is availible our very talented staff is always ready to show some hidden talents when dancing a diablada, or a morenada. Luckily, we were able to find a dance group, so no rehearsals prior to the event!

Professional dancers doing the cueca

After a very nice performance of the cueca and bailecito, we had a quick ‘how to’ class with our volunteers. Teaching them the basic steps of the cueca as well as some rhythmic steps of the caporales, we realized, once again, all the fun we have dancing and showing our traditions to the volunteers. After a few minutes, the dance floor was crowded and dozens of white tissues were twirling in the air.

The talent was in the air that night and so Freddy decided to pass on the guitar from hand to hand (some of us managed to hide and only jump in with some shy chorus from the back). Alec, Lucas and Martin took turns at the ‘podium’, delighting us with some songs.

To finish such fun and warm night, we all danced a diablada and were, literally, out of breath!

Next month, we’ll be taking part of a Benefic Rock Festival with 4 of the most representative rock bands from Cochabamba and Bolivia! Can’t wait!

By Alejandra Estrada,

It is not a cake, per se, but it is called that in our very own Andalucía from the south: Tarija.

But, first things first: The Jueves de Comadres (Female Comrade’s Thursday) is a traditional celebration that takes place the Thursday before carnival, mostly in the valleys of Tarija.

In Tarija, the comadres (women) exchange this typical ‘cake’ as a sign of their friendship.
Tradition says that if you want to be a comadre with another woman, you prepare a cake with all the things you know she likes (and you like), and take it to her house at noon. You accompany this with 2 beers and lots of fire crackers; just to make some noise.

The next year, on comadres day as well, if the woman you gave the cake to wants to be your comadre, she’ll prepare another cake, following the tradition.
A lovely and loud tradition this is, but a great excuse to party with your female friends, warming up for the carnival days.

Now, this cake is actually a sweet bread or biscuit. Round shaped and garnished with anise, which gives it a peculiar flavour.

This bread lies on a hand made willow basket. On top of it you can add any season fruits like grapes, plums, peaches and pears.

Vegetables are also a good idea to include on this delicious cake. Carrots, cucumber, corn, etc. Of course, all of this has to be raw.

Sweets must be part of this healthy package as well. There are many typical carnival sweets like confites, suspiros, etc. (a sugar boost, indeed) that will add some more colour.

To decorate, you can add some basil branches, flowers, many little colorful flags, balloons and serpentine surrounding the entire cake, so that you can see nothing but colors, the top of the flags and the balloons. This is one of my favorite celebrations.

This year, since I couldn’t fly to Tarija, I ordered a couple of these cakes so I could do some comadres celebration as well. (These tradition and cakes you can only find there). So, on Thursday morning I prepared a big cake for the lovely comadres at the office. No fire crackers and beer, this time, but we did have a nice gathering on our kitchen eating delicious fruits, sweets and, of course, the ‘cake’.

Next year, they’ll have to return a cake to me, or better yet… 5 cakes! This, of course, if they want to be my comadres
(Just kidding, girls).

So, happy second month of the year! And, if you ever come on carnival season, remember to celebrate the Jueves de Comadres!

Street Graffiti in Cochabamaba. Here an artist has rendered Cochabamba state within a map of Bolivia.

After 26 hours of traveling and I am back home from a two week trip to Bolivia where I was visiting placements, meeting with volunteers and training a staff member. Hence the lack of recent blog posts! I apologize to the blog’s loyal readers.

I actually went down to Bolivia with the intention of live blogging my whole trip or at least put up a new blog post every day about my trip. I even brought my laptop with me for this express purpose but, alas, my computer for some reason wouldn’t recognize the internet at our office in Cochabamba.

Consequently, I was left with all these new blog posts and photos but with no place to put them! This is why with the help of technology I am going to be uploading the blog posts for my trip to Bolivia from October 30th to today. Although they will be a little late and not necessarily “live blogged”, I hope you enjoy them!

I thought I would hold off until my last day in Cochabamba to visit and do a post about probably the most iconic image of the city, the statue of Cristo De La Concordia. The statue stands on a hill overlooking Cochabamba and is visible from close to every point in the city. It is actually a couple of centimeters higher than the more famous Cristo Redentor in Rio De Janeiro, which was recently named to the “New Seven Wonders of the World”.

Grabbing a taxi or walking the 1250 steps (I would recommend the taxi!) to the top is a nice way to spend a lazy afternoon over the weekend and it affords some amazing views. Below you can see the city of Cochabamba and even make out the peak of Cerro Tunari at 5035 m in the upper right hand corner.

There are more photos after the jump

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Me with the Christo. It was a very bright day! Notice the sun burn?

On Friday, I was fortunate enough to visit the ancient site of Incallajta, 132 km east of Cochabamba, with Ana Silvia, the Desk Officer in our Bolivia office. It takes three hours to get there through the beautiful scenery of the highlands and it was a perfect trip for a art history buff like myself. A view from the car ride to Incallajta The ruins are set in a remote valley and rarely visited. On the day Ana Silvia and I visited, we were the only ones there! It was certainly a nice change of pace from the busy commotion of Cochabamba. A set of ruins at the entrance to the site More pictures and information about Incallajta after the jump

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More ruins Incallajta was most likely built in the 1460s by the Inca Emperor Tupac Yupanqui and it formed the easternmost outpost of the Incan empire. Although it looks nothing like Cuzco, Peru at the moment, several researchers believe that is was also designed as a sort of ceremonial replica to Cuzco, the Inca capital. The first thing I noticed was that the site is enormous as it covers over 12 hectares! The main building is the kallanka, which served as a meeting hall. Although all that survives today are its exterior walls, the roof was supported by immense columns. Here I am in front of the walls of the kallanka and I am not a small person! More views of the kallanka, isn’t it big? Ana Silvia and I also did a little hiking and discovered a beautiful water fall on the east end of the site The waterfall Ana Silvia in front of the waterfall! Stairway to heaven, haha! Incallajta is truly an amazing site and I would recommend checking out the impressive ruins if you are ever in the Cochabamba area. The remoteness and scenery of the surrounding countryside are worth the trip and you get to see a part of Bolivia you would miss out on if you only stayed in bustling Cochabamaba.

Merve with kids

Today I was able to get out of the office a little bit and visit some of our Care and Community placements with Carmen Copa, our Care program supervisor. We first visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Cochabamba in the town of Quillacollo. The orphanage houses boys and girls between the ages of 4 and 15 but when we visited all of the older children were at school while our volunteers helped the local staff members with the care of the younger children. The children live in smaller houses (casitas) with around 10 kids per a house, so it is like a little village!

It was just my luck that when we arrived, it was playground time!

More photos of volunteers and the kids after the jump!

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These are some of my playground buddies. They have way more energy than me!

Since playground time was the favorite time of the day growing up, I jumped at the chance to help out our volunteers and supervise play time. For the next hour, I was supervising the jungle gym, running around and manning the swing set as three boys with boundless energy wanted to be swung higher and higher. By the end of our playtime, I was exhausted! But everyone on the playground was calling me “tio” or uncle so that made it all worth while.

We moved indoors to visit with three volunteers, Merve, LauraBeth and Phyllis who were looking after children in their casitas.

Here is Phyllis!

Here is LauraBeth!

As each house has a TV and DVD player, a treat for the kids is to watch some music videos. Here is Merve overseeing an impromptu dance party.

Besides assisting the local staff, our volunteers on the Care and Community program have initiated a daily activities session where the children do group activities, solve puzzles, play with blocks and draw. The kids love it and it really helps them with their development.

A big thank you to all our volunteer “tia” and “tios” in Bolivia who are helping and making such a big difference!

Since Wednesday is the main market day in Cochabamba, Carmen Copa, our Care supervisor, was nice enough to show me around La Cancha, Cochabamba’s enormous market. It is huge!

Whatever you are looking for, you are bound to find it at La Cancha. You can buy anything from papayas to pluming equipment to sneakers to eggs. They seriously have everything!

You can even get a cute puppy!

Or buy some delicious peaches …..

Here I am with my favorite shop keeper who supplied me with some totally “legit” and very cheap CDs.