Don and Dona Antonio

Success Story

Don Antonio's vision is to improve life in rural communities to reduce migration to the shantytown El Alto.

Twenty years ago, El Alto was a small town. A few rows of houses lined the rim of the arcuat cliff that overlooked the large buildings of La Paz 1000 feet below. In most socially stratified areas, higher elevations are populated by the wealthy, where calming views and isolation from city noises and pollution are coveted. In the Andean region it's the opposite. El Alto sits on a broad elevated plain thirteen thousand feet above sea level. Here, oxygen and warmer temperatures pull people to lower elevations, as if gravity has more of an effect the higher one is. Two thousand feet below El Alto, in the lowest sections of La Paz, Zona Sur looks more like a wealthy suburb outside Miami than a neighborhood of the largest city in the poorest South American country. Where as Zona Sur has fine restaurants, well kept parks with flowers, and businessmen in suits, El Alto has rutted dirt roads, open sewer lines, and no effective management of densification. Twenty years ago this didn't matter, El Alto was a small town of peasants. Today its population rivals La Paz. The majority of the 700,000 inhabitants are jobless; young children roam the streets selling gum; kids stand in classrooms; at noon packed chicha hovels dole out corn liquor. The scene makes one wonder why El Alto is the fastest growing city in Latin America- why are people moving to one-room houses where the bathroom is the street outside?

Perhaps the best analogy is gambling. Why wager when the odds are against you? But, casino odds are only slightly in favor of the house. In Bolivia, moving to El Alto for opportunity is one in a thousand.

Don Antonio hesitated to answer this question when I asked him. "The money the government does spend, is spent in the cities."

"But not El Alto", I replied.

"In my town there's no reliable source of water. In 1981 there was a severe drought. That's when everyone left. We can go to El Alto and live with relatives. Kids want to be around other kids."

We met Don Antonio Ayala Apulaca while serving in the Peace Corps. Don Antonio was then working for a German organization in a larger town. We planted trees together. Don Antonio wanted to build a small tree nursery in his town Jankusaya to provide shade for livestock and to protect the quinoa and the potato crops against wind erosion. His organization, like many others, concentrates its efforts in more populated locations. Thus Jankusaya, and rural towns in general, have lost a large percent of their population to El Alto. A year after Don Antonio elaborated his desire to improve Jankusaya, TERRA's niche became working with unaided rural communities to improve social conditions so that families remain in the country where economic success and quality of life is greater than in El Alto.

In Jankusaya, 380 residents live in family clusters in a windswept plain at the junction of two rivers. Volcan Sajama's white, 21,000 foot peak, is clearly visible to the west. Don Antonio's family's houses surround a shallow, hand-dug well. Don Antonio’s potatoes and quinoa grow well when it rains, but the whims of the weather only provide sufficient water in January and February. Similar to his neighbors, Don Antonio provides for his family by selling his crops and a few of his sheep in a nearby town. His one remaining son attends school, twenty five minutes away by foot. The school sits on the edge of the larger river where the only trees in the town shade three rooms. Though the trees can drink the river's water, mine contamination and the high salt content relegates the river's function to a road for the biweekly bus.

In 2002, Don Antonio and Mike Stephenson, a founding member of TERRA, built a tree nursery in Jankusaya. The tree nursery has a variety of native trees and Don Antonio has planted Quisuara and Queuenwa to help preserve the topsoil of his and his neighbors' fields. But, the tree nursery suffered from the same dependence on the weather as the crops. Don Antonio's well provided some relief but natural fluctuations in the water table often rendered the well useless. This problem highlighted a graver community weakness- in times of drought, animals and crops die and people have little choice but to live in the city. This was the first cause of Jankusaya mass emigration to El Alto and it continues to threaten those that remain. Don Antonio rightfully believed that a deeper well would not only improve tree production, but it would also serve as a failsafe against sustained periods of drought and improve irrigation. Animal forage is now grown and animals will soon feel the effects of better food. Furthermore, wells are uncommon. Yet the area is ideal for them. Many communities that lack reliable drinking water overlie aquifers fed by the glaciated Sajama Mountain. Don Antonio's well will therefore be a showcase project that has great potential to improve health conditions, safety, and create alternative approaches to economic development in surrounding communities.

Don Antonio has a toothless smile. If it were because he brushed his teeth with contaminated water this story would be perfect. It's not, it's because poverty pushed people back in time. Unfortunately, many Bolivians in the Altiplano region see their future in El Alto; their situation is dire enough where one and one-thousand odds seem low.

Don Antonio's thoughts have persuaded us- "Just a little focus on rural areas can convince people that life is better in the country than it is in the cities."

Project Brief
Title:
Jakusaya Well Drilling
Status:
Funded
Location:
Community of Jankusaya, Provincio Pacahez, Municipality of Corroco, La Paz, Bolivia
Participants:
TERRA Resource Development International, Antonio Ayala Apulaca,
Cost:
$8,000 USD