More from Moro Moro

Well folks, I’ve completed a second week in Moro Moro. I’m getting used to it. Moro Moro is both the name of the town pictured above as well as the surrounding municipality (think county). Depending on how you count there are between 500 and 1500 people that live in the town itself and approximately 3500 in the municipality. The confusing thing is that a lot of people have a room or small house in town and in one or more of the surrounding communities. I live with the family of the pastor of the evangelical church in the town of Moro Moro. The church is attached to the pastor’s house and is the process of being remodelled from its former state of a garage to a sanctuary half the size of the sanctuary of S. 7^th St. Mennonite Church. There are two services on Sunday and two more during the week. MCC’s office in Moro Moro is the front room of the house where Andy and Cassie Herringshaw live which is only a few blocks from where I live. The other MCCer in Moro Moro, Nathan Harder, lives in the community of La Abra de Astillero which is a quick motorcycle ride or a two hour hike from the town of Moro Moro. Andy and Cassie work primarily with potable water systems and dry latrines and Nathan works mostly with sustainable agriculture projects although sometimes things overlap a bit. Although we are still working to define my exact role here, I will be working with a mix of both sustainable agriculture projects, dry latrines, teaching a class on caring for the environment, and occasionally a bit water systems. Andy and Cassie are the water systems experts and so my role with water systems will be limited. MCC works mostly in the communities surrounding the town of Moro Moro. To reach our worksites we either ride motorcycle or hike. As witnessed by my landscape photos above, hiking here can be really beautiful and quite literally breath taking as the air is thinner at this higher altitude.

A quick list of things I’ve done with my host family:

Eat lots of good (and often greasy) food cooked by my host mom Marleny

Bake oatmeal cookies

Watch soccer games at the local soccer field

Play checkers with my 8 year old host brother Jabez (Hah-bayz)

Clean up trash in the back yard to make room for a garden

Attend church where my host dad Jairo (Hai-row) preaches and leads singing

Share music, violin, singing, guitar

Even though I enjoy spending time with my host family I get bored easily and go to my room to read. So far in Bolivia I have read Dignity and Defiance (stories of Bolivia’s response to globalization), two Dan Brown novels, Angels and Demons and Deception Point, The Smith of Whooton Minor and Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien, half of Irresistible Revolution by Shaine Claiborne, and I’m most of the way through Catch-22. I’m really enjoying catching up on doing pleasure reading that I didn’t find time for during college. MCC’s office in Santa Cruz has a nice library with books on theology, peace, farming, the environment, Bolivia, and a decent fiction selection made up of books left by various past volunteers. Each time I get back to Santa Cruz I will swap out the books I’ve read for new books to satiate my book wormy appetite.