Tree Farming

The same day Weatherly headed to the orphanage for the deaf, I (John Mark) went on an adventure with our director, Mike Timmer, to check on our tree farms.

We took a shared taxi-van 4 hours away to the Chapare region. Then we hopped on the back of some motorcycle taxis that took us to a creek that we had to wade across. We looked for a certain place along the road that marked our property then Mike took out his machete and began to blaze a trail through the undergrowth so we could see how our Balsa trees were doing and our recently planted Teak. It's kinda like Goldilocks meets Tarzan except we never found grandma's house. We did however manage to get turned around and almost lost. A hundred mosquito bites later, we found our way back to the road and eventually all the way back home. Overall it was quite an enjoyable experience. I've since bought my own machete as well, just in case. :)

The long road for moto taxing.

The creek we crossed by foot.

Yep.

Enjoying scrumptious coca leaves.

Balsa harvesting = money for orphans!

Laying Floors at the Deaf Orphanage

After completing the project in Kewnia, I (Weatherly) went with the missions team to the deaf orphanage, as JM was busy in the jungle.  We laid new floors for a desperately needed new building.  While the deaf orphanage is not a part of International Orphanage Union, we often help them with projects and certain needs as they do not have much (or any) support from the States.  The orphanage is run by Bolivians, who divide the campus into a girls and boys home, each with house parents.  The campus is a beautiful plot of land, about 30 minutes from Cochabamba.  The orphanage needs about $30,000 for new building as one of the dormitories is becoming dilapitated.  If you know of a church or special interests group who would like to help, please let me know!

The team from Church of the Good Shepard all decided to purchase some new hats, after everyone got pretty burned in Kewina.

Preparing the floors for new concrete.

The manly men with the concrete mixer!

Aren't these kids darling?  Even though I did not know sign language, it's amazing how much we could still communicate.  I never realized how much charades is a life skill :)

On the campus, they have chickens, ducks, rabbits, a calf (who likes to be pet like dog), a puppy, and sheep.  I was taught all of the signs for the animals.

Laying the concrete floors.

Some amazing women at work :)

Rebuilding Kewina

International Orphanage Union has two homes out at Camp Kewina, a Christian camp that can hold up to 500 kids at a time.  It's located about 2 hours away from Cochabamba.  Anyway, we had a crazy storm come through and it did a good amount of damage to our homes.  Thankfully, while we had to deal with a huge eucalyptus tree falling, it just missed one of the homes.  This week we had a team in from Church of the Good Shepard in Leo, Indianna who were a tremendous help!

A beautiful view of the lake on the way to our homes in Kewina.  

Of course, one needs to be aware of sheep crossing.

The eucalyptus trees that were knocked down during the storm.

The roof of one of the homes was pretty crushed.

A close up of even the roof rafters being split.

 

Our project with the team, besides cleaning up the damage from the trees, was to complete a sewage line from the septic tank to the city sewage line.

The neighborhood kids gathered around to watch the gringos at work!  Some even helped!

Camp Kewina inself got hit pretty hard.  This was their brand new dining hall which was directly crushed by a tree.

The camp is beautiful and at the top of the hill are the corsses we hiked to the first time we came.

There is quite alot of livestock just hanging out on the streets of the town.

A typical home (adobe mud bricks) around the camp.

Finishing the day hanging out with Blondie, the camp dog.