Fall 2022, Amazon Pueblo News from the Jungle: Building, scholarships, solar power, and more!

Welcome!

Our mission is to support the education of indigenous youth in the Colombian Amazon.  We believe that through education they will become self-sufficient in sustainable employment/business.  The three ways that we help to support their education are:

1. Direct educational support (scholarship program, assisting the local schools)
2. Health support (building a community health center, helping students to attain medical care)
3. Community support (assistance with transportation, agriculture, and infrastructure)

This is the news covering some of what we did in 2022!

School shopping in the city of Leticia.

The almost-complete roof on top of the concrete slab and columns.

The Quest to Build the Health Care Center: A story of concrete and metal in pictures

After years of fundraising and planning, we have finally started building the center.  From April to June of 2022 we bought materials, transported them, and found skilled workers to do the construction.  We have completed the first phase.  During 2023 we hope to complete the second phase, putting up...  READ MORE

This damage was caused by a powerful rain and wind storm.

Roof, rot, rats! The shocking state of the school buildings in La Libertad

This picture shows the deplorable state of the school buildings in the village of La Libertad.  The community school is in need of one more teacher.  No new teachers want to come here, and for... READ MORE

The trip back from buying school supplies in Leticia.

Going Upriver on the Amazon

Sometimes the journey is more fun than arriving at the destination!  We spend a lot of time on the river.  Going upstream can take up to twice as long as going downstream.  If we are in a large boat with a small motor, the trip can... READ MORE

Five of our scholarship students waiting to go to Macedonia.

Mayhem in Macedonia: The fight to save a school. A story in pictures.

In 2019, eight months before the pandemic, work began on a new "megacolegio" mega-school, in the village of Macedonia.  Then we started to hear of problems... READ MORE

Romario building the ladder to access the panels.

Solar Power Lights up the Village

Solar power is in La Libertad.  The solar panels' prices are half what they were when we started the project in 2012.  Accompanying the drop in prices has been an increase in efficiency.  What does that mean?  We're going solar!

We bought our solar panels and lithium-ion battery from Cristian at Emergy Sun in Leticia.  They helped us with installation tips and some technical support.  This is Energy Sun's fourth year in Leticia.  They have done projects... READ MORE

The project's director with our on-site director and two volunteers.

Daily Life Around the Village of La Libertad

We thought it would be nice to show some of the less intense day-by-day happenings in the village.  Here are photos of life and things around the project's buildings in the village.  At the end of the post to which this links, we have a video of the only working bike in La Libertad!  READ MORE

A scholarship student with a letter to his sponsors.

Education can save a life: School or coca fields and murder rates

While our reasons include education enabling the students to have improved work opportunities, more sustainable living conditions, and resistance to corruption, one of the largest parts is to give them the option to stay out of the illicit narcotics industry.  READ MORE

Lost in thought over a hamburger in Leticia.

Daily life around Leticia, Amazonas, Colombia

Here are a few pictures from daily life around Leticia, the capital of the State of Amazonas, in Colombia.  It is located at the frontiers of Colombia, Brazil, and Peru.  READ MORE

Would you like to help us?  

We are starting our fundraising drive for next year on Tuesday, November 29.  Please visit the donation page on our website for options.

https://amazonpueblo.org/give/

or on Venmo

benangulo@outlook.com

Mil gracias!

 

Quest to Build the Health Care Center: A story of concrete and metal in pictures

Good news, we are doing it!

After years of fundraising and planning, we have finally started building the center.  From April to June of 2022 we bought materials, transported them, and found skilled workers to do the construction.  We have completed the first phase.  During 2023 we hope to complete the second phase, putting up the walls, doors, and bathroom.  We thank everyone who helped us to achieve our goals!

The almost-complete roof on top of the concrete slab and columns.
The roof is corrugated, painted metal on a structure of welded metal supports.

These medications are from Peru.  While untrained people are not allowed to
prescribe and give medications, the health center will give the villagers a clean
and an organized place to administer their meds.

This poster was on the wall of one of the health clinics in the city of Leticia.
It shows some of the illnesses and accidents common in the river communities.

Once the center is up and running, we hope to help sponsor
vaccination clinics.  It is easier for the providers to come to the
community during a scheduled time.

This boy had a skin infection from coming into contact with 
the unsanitary ground conditions during a soccer game.
An antibiotic cream helped to clear it up quickly.

This picture shows a terrible skin infection.  The man lanced a small boil

on his back with an unsterile orange tree spine.  Within five days the infection

advanced to the above stage.  Just days more without treatment and he may have

died.  If he had had access to the center, he could have used a disinfected needle

and he may have avoided the infection.

Luckily, he went to the hospital in the city of Leticia.  There he underwent
treatment with aggressive antibiotics and two surgeries to remove the infection.
He recovered within two weeks, but it will take up to a year for the skin to
completely regrow.

Many times the health problems in the village may be treated when they are small before they become more serious.  Basic things like small wound treatment and disinfection are all that is needed.  The health care center gives them an area to do these simple things.

We loaded the gravel into empty feed bags.

Next, we loaded the sand.

And last, the bags of cement.  Each bag had to be wrapped in plastic
bags to protect against water in the trip upriver.

After being placed in plastic, each cement bag was then placed
in a feed bag to make it easier to carry and more resistant to bag rips.

Then we carried the bags at the port of Leticia to our boat which
was docked at the Balsa Piranita, a floating raft.

When everything was loaded we could head upriver.
Our 35-foot wooden boat can transport no more than 2 and 1/2 tons.

Rebar to reinforce the cement.

At last, we are preparing for the construction work.  These are rebar
supports to be used inside the concrete columns.

Preparing the footings for the concrete slab.

Now it is really starting to look like something!

All work must be done by hand.  We have no heavy machinery in the village.

Doing the last part of the floor.  The floor had to be finished all at once.

The forms for the columns are up.

Now the columns needed a week to dry and harden.

While we were waiting for the concrete to harden we had time to
get the roof ready.  Originally, we planned to use wooden support for
the roof.  But we ran into problems.  The beams we had cut warped badly.
We decided to construct everything with metal.  This was a much more expensive
option, but one that we believed would give us a much stronger roof and much
better longevity.

It took us three trips in our smaller boat to bring
up all the metal beams.

The beams had to be sanded, cleaned, and painted with rustproof paint.

After some worrisome delays, the welders arrived.  We housed them in the
guesthouse, where they stayed for three days.  We also provided them
with food during this time. 

Many of the villagers have never seen a person weld.  During the work
there was a party-like atmosphere!

In this video, the welders are installing the

roof understructure.  Look for the two kids in the tree!

These "tejas" are four meters in length.  They come painted.
We had to go upriver to Peru to find them.  They are 
much less prone to rust.

The center is in the middle of the village, on a hill next to the school.

In the next phase of this project, we will be building the walls, doors, and bathroom.  The cinderblock pictured below will be made in the village.  We have sand that we can clean, sift and use.  We also have the forms.  All that is missing is the cement, water, labor, and bringing everything together!

One of the village kids shows an example of a cinderblock
we will use for the buildings.

Through the health center, we will achieve the following five things:

1. Provide a place for the students and their families to receive basic health care.
2. Provide a place for medication to be stored.
3. Provide training to specific members of the community to treat illness and injury.
4. Provide a secure place for health and community records to be stored.
5. Provide an office and dormitory for visiting health care providers.

You can join us!

We are raising the funds to start phase two of the construction in 2023.  Your donation will help us to do this.  Our donation portal is at https://chuffed.org/project/health-care-center-in-the-jungle-village-of-la-libertad

But there is also the option for you, as a volunteer, of joining us physically in the village of La Libertad to help with the construction!  Our guesthouse, kitchen, and bathroom are clean and mostly comfortable.  Please contact us at info@amazonpueblo.org for more information.

Roof, rot, rats! The shocking state of the school buildings in La Libertad

Roof, rot, rats!  These pictures show the deplorable state of the school buildings in the village of La Libertad.  The community school is in need of one more teacher.  No new teachers want to come here, and for good reason.

The village school of La Libertad is located in the Colombian Amazon, South America.  It serves 90 children aged 5 to 13.  The families of the school children live in extreme poverty.  Many of them earn less than two dollars per day, have high illiteracy rates, and have no steady employment.  School and education are the best hopes for the village children to have better opportunities for sustainable employment.

The school is in a deplorable state of repair.  For many years the buildings have not been properly maintained.  The students and parents are not able to advocate for the school and themselves.  The teachers fear if they bring up the problems they will be seen as "troublemakers" and face repercussions.

During the pandemic, the problems became worse.  The ceilings of the classroom are falling in, boards are rotting, the roofs leak and the teacher housing has holes in the floor with rats running freely.

For the past six months, the school has been short of one teacher.  No new teachers want to teach in La Libertad, given the terrible condition of the school and support buildings.

We are raising money to fix the school.  We will repair the ceilings in the classrooms, change the roofs, replace the rotten boards in the teacher housing, and paint where needed.

We seek donations to help fund our work in the community.  In all, it is estimated that we need a minimum of $2,000 to do the majority of the school repairs.  The link for donation is found below.

One of our scholarship students presenting "Stone Soup"
during the Mother's Day celebration, in 2022.

We use the company Chuffed to accept donations.  Thank you for reading!

https://chuffed.org/project/jmxbaavnjbak

Going Upriver on the Amazon

Sometimes the journey is more fun than arriving at the destination!  We spend a lot of time on the river.  Going upstream can take up to twice as long as going downstream.  If we are in a large boat with a small motor, the trip can be over four hours.  Here are some random pictures of this year's trips.

Our first picture is from a return trip to the village after doing school shopping for the scholarship program.  The day was beautiful, with scattered rain showers.  We were lucky to have a spectacular rainbow in the background when we stopped for a break about halfway to La Libertad.

Here we are traveling during the rainy season to bring supplies to the village.  The pails in the bow of the boat contain food, hardware, paint, and the like.  Anything we don't want to be soaked by the rain we put into huge trash bags.  This shot was taken during a gentle rain.  Slightly before this was a torrential downpour.  The visibility was reduced to about 500 feet, so we had to greatly reduce our speed.  At times the rain is so heavy that we must pull to the side of the river and wait until it is safe to continue.

During the rainy season, the water level may increase up to 30 feet from the low of the dry season.  This lets us go further in the tributaries, up to a mile into the jungle.  Cargo is much easier to transport, allowing us to drop off our supplies close to our back door! 

The trip upriver can take between four and five hours with our 35-foot wooden boat and a full load.  It's a good time to relax (unless you are driving), talk, listen to music, or play around.  However, everyone down to the littlest child knows not to rock the boat!

We always try to leave Leticia, the closest city downriver from La Libertad, no later than 2 pm.  We account for weather or mechanical problems, which can increase the travel time greatly.  At the back of the boat, with the paddle, is Romario, our pilot for the day.  It is common to see children as young as 10 years old operating their family's boat.

After we had some problems and needed to change the propellor on our motor, we arrived home to witness a beautiful sunset.  Luckily, we always travel with a good flashlight to be visible to other boats, to see logs in the water, and to navigate the narrow waterways in the back part of the village.

At last, we arrived at the village port.  Notified by the sound of our motor, and on the alert to our late return, the village children and youth rushed down to greet our boat.  They were eager to help carry our supplies up the banks to our houses.