So the whole reason I was on that horrific road was to get to Camiri to attend a taller (workshop) on environmental ed. and how to use this ¨maletín didactico¨(didactic briefcase). The maletín is a box of five educational text books all about Environmental Ed. related to the Chaco. They´re really well done and I think would make a great resource for the teachers over here in Bermejo. From the books I found out that Bermejo is actually part of the Chaco (just barely, but we definitely are). I knew that the vegetation and climate was similar, but didn´t know exactly where the boundary lie. So that was pretty exciting to find out. Not only are the materials directly relevant to Bermejo, but now when all the Chaco volunteers brag about how bad ass they are I can join in ;) I think I will be a really valuable asset to the Chaco team. For instance, when challenging the Altiplano gang to drinking competitions...ha! The Chaco is the second largest forested area in South America (the first being of course the Amazon). There is a distinct rainy and dry season. Whereas in the Amazon it´s wet all the time. It extends through parts of Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.
The idea was to attend the taller to see how it was run, get the materials and then organize general environmental ed. tallers for the teachers here in Bermejo and hopefully give away copies of the same materials. The taller was less than amazing (definitely an eye opening experience into the way things are run in Bolivia vs. the states), but it was good to see what elements I liked from it and can incorporate into my own taller and what I did not and can cut out. Part of it was training on how to give tallers in general so since I completed the training GTZ (a German organization, based in the Chaco) will now give me the maletins´ for my own tallers in Bermejo! So now I don´t have to make copies of anything and all the teachers will have their own maletín which is great. A couple of volunteers that attended the taller as well are going to help me give the tallers here in Bermejo in Jan/Feb. Where going to plan the best taller B-jo has ever seen! So I´m pretty excited to have this project in the works. Many of the teachers I´ve worked with have told me they want envir. ed. materials (any materials really) and now I have found really good ones. So I feel like this will be a really worthwhile project. Something that will definitely benefit the schools down here.
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