Sí a la Autonomía

After visiting the small community La Libertad, we went to another remote area called Huaytú on July, 15th. There, the NGO Aguarague is teaching people how they can increase their honey-production with the Bolivian bees that they're keeping. Right now, they use big metal cans as beehyves, but they're going to transfer the colonies to new, wooden hyves. That will increase the production and by selling the honey through a cooperation they can get 2x to 4x the price they get now. It was great to meet these people who live from almost nothing, but still make a very merry impression. They very much appreciated our visit, and we very much appreciated their warm welcome.
This was a big contrast to the inauguration of the new chairman of the entrepreneurial association of Santa Cruz, CadeCruz. Raul Strauss, the new chairman, had invited us to this event, but merely spoke to us. We waited for about 45 min before the ceremony started, and it contained a lot of references to the importance of a strong Santa Cruz, promoting autonomy. This posh elite dressed in expensive suits and dresses saw themselves as the motor of growth in the region and the country. But it was difficult to believe that this rich elite really cared about people like we met in Huaytú and after the ceremony ended we left as soon as possible. We went to a Mexican restaurant for a late dinner, and later on two men who apparantly had also been to the ceremony sat down at the table next to us. While we were joking about the strong autonomía movement, one of them showed his appreciation for what he thought was our support for the movement and gave us his business-card. He appeared to be the head of that whole movement, which must be very powerful judging by the many 'Sí a la Autonomía' signs that appear everywhere in the streets.
On monday the 16th we tried to process some data we had gathered through the previous week, prepare for meetings to come and decide on unfinished matters. That prooved to be a daunting task though, with time passing quickly while everybody was typing away on laptops and in internet-cafés.
But it was necessary to wrap up our activities of last week, because on the 17th we left for Samaipata, a small touristic village in the first hills of the altiplano, the highlands that cover the west of Bolivia. It was nice to get away from the bustle of Santa Cruz and enjoy the quietness of the small village. The main reason we went there was to talk with the Asociación Samaipata Cultural, who wanted to set up their own library. We had many meetings to teach them how they can write a project proposal, find out how we could make this project economically sustainable and ask schoolchildren what they thought of the idea. In the end we decided to first set up a bookstore and later on expand this to a kind of study center/library.
With old Inca-ruins and a natural reserve nearby, Samaipata attrackts quite some tourists. The income from this business, however, mainly goes to foreigners who set up a hostel, restaurant or bar catering to the specific demands of European and American tourists. Therefore, we organized a workshop where we explained how locals could get more benefit from the tourist-industry. We combined this with a competition, promising a $200,- award for the best proposal to implement corporate social responsibility in a small local enterprise. About 30 people turned up for this workshop and they reacted enthousiastic to the initiative that we showed. Let's hope we get a lot of good proposals!