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I arrived in the ceiling of South America by plane on January 20th. ¨Bienvenido Hermana Minga¨" Ruben greeted myself and 2 other Americanos. I instantly doused my sluggish body with a coca tea infusion. WOW. The peaks of the mountains like primordial sentinels peeked through the fog. At 12,000 feet, I felt wobbly and had to pinch myself to see if I finally had arrived at La Paz. The beauty of the city nestled in the biceps of the Andes was amazing. What had brought me here?

Hello.

Friends call me Minga and this is my debut on this website. BQEF is an exciting adventure in culture, language, learning and spiritual transformation. This sounds too good to be true.

Let me examine the 3 words B-Q- E. So I understand the need for education. Jose Martí says, "Ser culto es el unico modo de ser libre". (Education is the only way to obtain freedom.) I understand the beauty and wonder in working with the people of Bolivia. Bolivia is the richest and poorest of countries. Galleno wrote, “of all the Latin American countries, Bolivia is the one with a furious sense of dignity." What about the Q?

Ronald, 18, speaks Aymara and is in his final year at the “General Enrique Penaranda” public high school. He is one of the brightest students at the Internado in Sorata. Ronald is from a community on the altiplano called Cocoyo, which is four hours by car from Sorata.  Buses only run on Saturday and Sunday, so he goes home just one or two times per year. His father works in a cooperative gold mine near Cocoyo, and his mother farms. On school vacations, Ronald works in the mine with his father.

They came from four countries, spoke three languages, and ranged in age from 4 to 76.   And they gathered at the Internado in Sorata, Bolivia, to wash rocks!  The rock washing was part of a project to repair drainage problems in the patio of the Internado, a residence for rural students attending middle and high school in Sorata.

13 students graduated this June (mid-year: the Bolivian school year runs February - November), and 14 new students began studying with help from BQEF's donors. Below are highlights of 4 of the recent grads (more coming soon).

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Facilitators have been trained in 3 cities, and several teams have learned the skills needed to present content and run a Basic or Advanced workshop --- the mechanics and logistics of planning, organizing and setting up a gathering of 12 to 20 people for a three-day workshop.

The Bolivian facilitators and Jens Braun developed a strategy whereby local teams will organize about 10 simultaneous workshops in June in five to eight locations.  Jorge Arauz from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting will be on-hand afterwards for a gathering of all facilitators to evaluate, share, and learn from each other.  There are other requests for workshops between now and June, and Bolivan facilitators will be leading these independent of North American logistical support.

K'ispina, cucumber salad, quinoa salad and more: download the Bolivian foods pamphlet by clicking on the link below

UPDATE:

Pánfilo Chura Aliaga (now preparing his thesis, with scholarship support from BQEF) and Rosemery Mamani Mamani (Education Sciences graduate and former scholarship student), co-wrote “Inter-Culturalism as a Complementary Construction”, a pamphlet they have submitted to the Bolivian National Education Department for review and use. The pamphlet topic is intended for the country’s new educational initiatives and is an academic discussion of one of the big themes in Bolivia today: how do you work together effectively in a country where there are so many cultures?

Rebeca Tintaya, Alicia, Rubén, and some of the other ex-becarios are working together to sponsor a scholarship  student. They tell us there is a real sense of the value of the becas (scholarships), and that people are very, very happy to have had that opportunity to transform lives - their own, their families, and others.