Miraflores Miracle

Taken from a blog post by Jimmy Bollinger - October 22, 2005

Lucho, the director of La Palmera has been reaching out to this nearby rural community of Miraflores which is about 30 min from Trinidad for the last few years. Just a couple of years ago, he acquired some land out there known as the "Chaco" which is now used as the spot for La Palmera to hold its camps and future retreats. In getting to know this community one of the local teachers had mentioned that many of the kids in the village had never been to the Rio Mamore, the large river that passes near the other side of Trinidad. So, Lucho took it upon himself to organize an outing to go see the river a couple of weeks ago. Well, low and behold a couple of weeks ago we got a tremendous amount of rain and the roads were so muddy they were dangerous to drive on. So he was forced to reschedule. I went out to the community with him on Sunday since he wanted to talk about some improvements to the Chaco with the guy who is sort of the caretaker of the land. While we were there we rescheduled for Tuesday to take these kids to the river. Monday, we had a bunch of rain again, and we both were wondering if we'd be able to go again. The rain let up in the afternoon and didn't happen again except for a brief period overnight. Monday night before I went to bed, Lucho tells me, "I need you to help me and drive the truck to the river with the kids in the back since I am going to drive the bus. None of the other workers can go". I'm thinking to myself, "ok, I have no Bolivian drivers license, no experience driving in Bolivia and I'm driving a cargo truck. I asked if this would be a problem and he said in typical Bolivian fashion, "no, you follow me, we'll be ok".

So yesterday morning, I wake up at 5:30 in the morning with the sun starting to come up (sunrise here is about 6) and it was overcast, with dark clouds, appearing like it was going to rain again. I was thinking we were going to have to cancel. Lucho picked me up along with another volunteer and off we went to have breakfast prior to picking the kids up. We went off to Miraflores, Lucho in the bus and me in the truck along with the other volunteer and made it there no problems. It was still dry, and we picked up about 35-40 kids plus about 10 parents and their teacher. On the way back, Lucho realizes that many of them had not seen Trinidad, so we take them to the new stadium in Trinidad which is quite large by Bolivian standards and has a full size track with a soccer field in the middle. The kids thought this was amazing and I remembered back to the first time my dad took me to Folsom Field (home stadium for the University of Colorado) when I was about 9 years old. I almost started crying watching these kids enjoy their experience at the stadium. After letting them play around on the field, we took them inside the building beneath the stadium where Lucho, the teacher, the other volunteer and I took turns showing them ping-pong (which they had not seen before). Then we left the stadium and Lucho decided to take them to the fish museum at the local university. The kids looked around and were amazed at how big the fish were and asked if they lived in the river we were going to and Lucho said "yes, of course". I could feel their excitement building.

Then, Lucho decided to bring them to La Palmera for a tour of the school. Well, it just so happens this week is La Palmera's 20th Anniversary, so the place is all decorated and Tuesday morning all the La Palmera kids were playing basketball and soccer under the newly constructed pavilion and concrete playing field. When the kids from Miraflores arrived, the gym teacher changed around the schedule so that the kids from Miraflores could play against the kids from La Palmera. First the girls went and played basketball and the girls from Miraflores won! Then the boys played soccer, but this time the La Palmera boys won. After this as we were beginning to start the tour of the school, the rain began to pour down and the kids were beginning to become discouraged a bit that we might not be able to go to the river. So, Lucho told them we would wait out the rain and in the meantime sent them into the classrooms with the La Palmera kids where they did some activities. It is now 11:00 and we are beginning to think about lunch and what we were going to do since the cooks only make just enough food for the 300 students at the school and the 40 or so teachers and volunteers (and never have leftovers). Lucho asks them if they could accommodate 50 more people and they say, "ok we'll give smaller portions". After she says this, Lucho and I both thought of the miracle of Jesus and the two fish and five loaves of bread that he had preached on the Sunday before and he says to me, "watch this miracle happen again". Not quite as impressive as feeding the 5000, but still, 50 people extra is quite substantial. Well, lunch time passes and everyone ate and was full, and there was even extra uneaten food given to the dogs that guard the school at night.

By the time lunch passes, the rain has for the most part stopped, so Lucho says,"ok, we're going to go". So we take off through Trinidad to go towards the river. We make it out of town, and as we start to arrive to this police checkpoint, it starts raining again. As I pull up behind Lucho, who is stopped, I am sitting with the other volunteer in the cab. We sit for about 15 min and I wonder what is going on. I walk up to the driver's side of the bus to find Lucho arguing with the policeman over a sticker that he was missing on his bus. Lucho frequently has problems with this particular officer and was telling him that all he is doing is trying to find something to fine Lucho on. The officer tells Lucho, he can buy the sticker (for more of course than in town) and Lucho says to the officer, "I'm not going to give into this kind of corruption." After hearing this the officer says, "well, you're not passing then and shuts the gate. At this point the kids faces are all very depressed. Lucho offers to take them to a couple alternate locations, but they say, "no, we want the river!" So Lucho buries his pride and we get the sticker back in Trinidad and go back to the police checkpoint a second time.

The second time, I managed to lose Lucho in town heading out and made a wrong turn, so by the time I arrived to the checkpoint, he had already passed and I thought, "oh no, they're going to hassle me for my license". But, I pulled up, they raised the gate and held out a ticket for me. The other volunteer hopped out and grabbed the ticket and then we were on our way. As I found out later, Lucho had told the guy not to give me any problems and he must have not felt like entering another argument with Lucho. Lucho and Lorna know lots of people in high places in the police, so had they gotten his name, they could have gotten him in trouble. As we pull up to the river, the rain is letting up, the sky is clearing and it is turning into a beautiful afternoon. The kids had a great time at the river and even went swimming, rowing in a canoe and were just as happy as you'll ever see kids - it was like taking them to Disneyland.

Rio Mamore (Mamore River)