Bosque de Niños 2011

Right now I’m spending seven months as a volunteer in pristine Bolivia. After a Spanish course in the ‘white’ capital Sucre I travelled here to Puerto Quijarro. The town counts about 20,000 people and is located right at the Brazilian border in the beautiful Pantanal.

The Pantanal is a widely untouched wetland the size of Germany. It stretches over the countries of Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. The wetland is home to more animals than what live in whole Europe and protected by the UNESCO. For example you find Tuiuius, Alligators, Piranhas, Capybaras, the Pink River Dolphin and Anacondas. Paddling through the Pantanal you feel like in a zoo. The eco-system depends on the rain season, when the rivers and lakes are raising.

But as we humans tend to destroy our beautiful planet, the Pantanal faces big problems. Farmers are burning the trees in order to clear land for cattle. People put their garbage right at the waterfront and contaminate the river with chemicals and plastic bags. Furthermore some communities pump water out of the wetland to supply the households. The effluent is lead back into the Pantanal. Lots of work to do to protect this unique place!

Here in Quijarro I first worked teaching English to all grades in the Pinocho- School. But as classes finished in the end of November I had to find something else to work. I didn’t come to Bolivia to make holidays.

Inspired by Mike to change things, I organized a voluntary ‘summer course’ in four different local schools (Fenelon, Max Paredes, German Busch and 27 de Mayo). The project is called Bosque De Niños, which translates to ‘Forest of the children’.

With another volunteer I work five hours every day, in one school in the morning, in another one in the afternoon. The size of the groups varies between ten and forty students. We start with teaching English. After the basics the kids learn environmental English. They study vocabulary like River, Thunderstorm and Glacier (with temperatures of 38°C I doubt, though, that they can imagine a glacier). I enjoy teaching a lot because the kids attend voluntarily, as for that they really want to learn. I try to make the lessons interactive with the ‘color-song’, playing hangman and group work. When the kids come running to you and ask for the next class this is rewarding.

I invited a Chiquitano- Indian to attend once a week. This is a local tribe that used to live in the jungle off nature. As it’s important to revive the old knowledge he talks about indigenous traditions like hunting and teaches ‘Besiro’- the language in which the Chiquitanos communicate. Bayix Bakuirakax Noesa = Protect our Pantanal

Together with the municipality we furthermore planned gardens for the schools. With the kids we first cleaned the school yards from garbage and rocks, then worked the ground and brought fertile earth. Finally we planted native trees, bushes and flowers in the gardens. A net to protect against the sun was hung up. The children enjoyed the activity a lot as it was a welcomed difference to classes. Additionally they learnt about local flora, and were given a sense of responsibility. Always one grade has to take care of one part of the yard. One girl said: “Mejor un jardín que basura!” (=A garden is better than garbage.) Simple, but true.

In the end of the 2,5 hours of class we play games with the children. They can’t concentrate for more than an hour, anyways. All time favorites are soccer, ‘Who is afraid of the Crocodile?’ and ‘Robber& Police’. I’m convinced playing and running around outside is very important for children. Otherwise they hang in front of the TV or computer.

Another activity I organized was a cleanup at the Pantanal waterfront. Bolivia is a rather poor country with bad infrastructure. A sense of responsibility for garbage doesn’t exist. When travelling in the bus for example, everybody throws his plastic bottles out of the window. Hardly anybody is worried about contamination or polluting the environment. It’s difficult to change the habits of the grown-ups. But children you can teach and explain. So I discussed with them why and how garbage pollutes nature, how animals choke on plastic bags and chemicals kill the fish. With the older students we had great discussions about the garbage issue.

Then the children designed signs against trash, all of them had great ideas. Following we painted colorfully the wooden boards that we put up in the Pantanal. In Quijarro many locals go fishing for Piraña, eel and other fish. When down there they chew Coca and drink beer. Most fishermen leave their cans, bottles, bags and even clothes carelessly in nature. Walking at the waterfront you feel more on a garbage dump than in one of South America’s most beautiful natural areas.

Over two days I took about 35 children and two signs down to the Pantanal. Even though the wetland is really close, most children had never been there! In their families they are not taught about the beauty and excitement of nature. So luckily we spotted a lot of wildlife: Alligators swimming in the water, Crabs running on the mud, snakes and Capybara! The children were impressed by the unspoiled beauty of their home.

We set the self-made signs up, so that everybody going to the Pantanal beach has to pass them. One sign says: Your garbage, your responsibility. The other one: The children of Quijarro want to live in a clean place. Furthermore I organized that the municipality puts garbage bins there, as it has no sense to tell people to throw away their garbage but to not give the possibility to do so.

Both days the children also were handed out big bags to collect garbage. Within a short time the first bags were filled! You can’t walk five meters without seeing an abandoned plastic bottle or beer can. The worst are the plastic bags that you can hardly get out of the mud. We found everything starting with jeans, continuing with an oil can and last but not least a bicycle. We collected ten big bags full of garbage, but cleaned maybe just a 400m stretch of the waterfront. To clean everything you’d need weeks, I hope to repeat the activity, maybe with more children. But: You really change the place with education about contamination and fines, not with one cleanup. Still it felt good to show the kids the beautiful area they live in, but also the ugly face of pollution.
On December 20th the ‘summer course’ ends. In the last week I organized a small movie night and playing games with all four schools, about 70 kids showed up. We played soccer, talked about the possibility to continue classes. Afterwards the movie ‘Rio’ was shown.

The Bosque de Niños has been a great success and motivates me to work even more.

Bosque de Niños - part 1

Bosque de Niños - part 2

Bosque de Niños - part 3