"Development" at the Bolivian Cocaine Source:

An invitation to lead development for a non-profit (NGO) in Bolivia! This is a dream come true. Pro-Health International (PHI) has invited me to be its country director in Bolivia! Having worked in Bolivia in the late 1980's, I know something about the country I will be helping. I re-call the snow-capped mountains, the massive Altiplano (high plain), the valleys falling away from 13,000 feet to 300 feet altitude, the pampas of Santa Cruz and the Beni, the Amazon, and the 28 indigenous groups, many living below a $100 income per year. I give notice at the Las Cruces, NM, District Public Health Office and begin preparation.

It takes weeks to get a passport in New Mexico. Go to the main post office on East Lohman and Las Cruces. Ask for the clerk. Wait. A 50-ish stout woman with blonde hair pulled back into a pony-tail comes to the desk. Ask her for all the forms and procedures for a passport application. Receive the three forms and ten steps. Drive to the Mail Boxes 'R Us on North Main. Go to the front desk. Ask for passport photos. Wait. The middle-aged Hispanic-descent, stocky salesman comes from behind the counter, points to the white line, "Stand with your toes on that line." "Look at the red dot. Raise your head a little. Tilt it a bit to the left. That's good. Hold it there." Click. "It'll just be a minute." He inserts the photos in a tiny plastic bag and hands them to me. "Twelve dollars, please."

I drive the twelve miles home, three through the city, a stop-light every third block, turn at Lohman, a mile past the newly built Santa Fe style buildings, then right and down the old Mesa Highway. The onion fields are green, getting near picking time by the Mexicans out of Juarez. The big irrigation canals loaded with water out of the Rio Grande cool the otherwise blazing hot summer. Then it's through the thousands of acres of pecan groves that drop the temperature twenty degrees. In my old, un-airconditioned Mazda pick up, these groves are a delight. The green is in stark contrast to the otherwise mauve semi-desert landscape. The cool is a relief. And imagine the millions of luscious pecans maturing at the ends of the branches! Take your pleasures where you may, I always say. Thank God my perspiration is evaporating faster than it can dampen my clothes, leaving me hot but not swimming in sweat and sliding in the seat dust as it turns to mud, like back on the Thai border.

I get home, turn the swamp cooler down to 75, and sit down with the forms. I have to fill them out and send them off now. The family will follow later. It's such a thrill to return to the work that I've trained for all my life. What a relief it was that Mary, Mariana, and Marcy finally said they were ready to go back overseas! Bolivia. Imagine those high plains, rugged, falling valleys, and the low pampas. It will be a pleasure to apply all that I've learned in the last years to development, summing it with the decades of earlier development experience and training. With all I know from Asia, Africa, and the Americas, adding the communities' and staffs' experience and training, we can help these communities so they take off economically like the Space Shuttle, to soar, to be productive, to have healthy children and economies. At last, with the leadership position in an NGO (Non-government Organization), I can optimize team performance and build on shared visions! This opportunity from Pro-Health International (PHI) is a godsend! I can finally do what I've trained for all my life.

PHI said I needed to get bids and book my own tickets. So, two weeks later when the passport arrive, besides putting the house, the cars and RV up for sale, packing out, I ask for quotes from three travel agencies for the flight from El Paso to La Paz (Las Cruces' airport has Mesa Airlines service, but they only fly to Roswell and Albuquerque, the wrong way, and El Paso is only 40 miles away from the house). I get the quotes from three travel agencies in town, $1162, $1175, and $1149, and send them to the Los Angeles headquarter of PHI for ticket purchasing. The office then buys the tickets from their local travel agency for $1177 (why not?) and sends them to me by FedEx.

What's the itinerary? American Airlines out of El Paso at 11:15 to Dallas, American from Dallas to Miami, then American from Miami to La Paz, flying out at 11:45 PM and arriving at 6 AM. With my two bags, passport, tickets, and cash in a belly pack (safer and don't have to sit on the wallet during 18 hours of flights), I'm ready. Mary drives me into Cruces and leaves me at the Holiday Inn to catch the airport shuttle to El Paso. It's on time: fifty minutes to the airport now.

The American line in El Paso has thirty people in it, twisting twice with the ribbons and posts. Check in is the usual rigmarole: "Ticket please. Passport please. ID please. Has anyone given you anything to carry aboard, sir? Where would you like your bags checked to? Are you checking anything else? Here's your boarding pass, Sir." The walk to the boarding gate is only 300 yards or so, the inspection station just up the stairs. So begins my journey that will end tomorrow morning, God-willing, at the 13,000 foot high airport of El Alto (the High Place), just outside of La Paz.

Early the next morning, the pilot announces that we will be landing in El Alto in an hour. I hear him through the grogginess of light, disturbed, restless sleep. A steward coming down the aisle with a cart, puts a box on my tray. Breakfast! Cold rolls, a piece of butter, a jam container, tin-foiled cheese, a plastic cup with orange juice sealed inside, plastic knife and fork. Air travel is not what it used to be. Maybe I can get to the restroom before we land.

"Coffee, Sir." "Yes, thank you." I need my mind to shift into gear soon.

I open my window to get a glimpse of the snow-covered Cordillera, the mountainous backbone of Bolivia. God, it's been a long time: ten years! Ilimani juts it's snow-covered peak miles into the sky, reaching 23,000 feet, silhouetted to the East by the rising sun's rays. The slums of El Alto slowly come into view, un-painted adobe houses, tinned rooves, dirt streets, few with sewers. The lights of thousands of vehicles starting the early morning congestion, scraggly street lights in a number of places: Welcome home, Chip, they seem to say.

The plane lands quickly: no congestion at this airport. It taxies along the runway to the terminal, taxiing up to the one boarding tunnel. The people start getting up, gathering their belongings to disembark. Bolivians are easily recognized, not only by their black hair, swarthy complexions, shortness, but by the bundles they've packed onto the plane, electronic gifts for the family. We passengers don't talk: we are still too groggy.

The plane door opens and the 13,000 foot atmosphere thins even the airplane's internal environment. It's cool: 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the pilot said. 6:30 AM and passport, bag pick up, and customs checks. I remember this process.

As I walk through the tunnel ramp, I feel light-headed. The altitude of the airport is beginning to affect me. "Slowly and don't lift much weight," I caution myself.

Immigration check: I'm an American, so I don't need a visa. "Where are you staying, Sir?" "How long will you be here?" The clerk quickly stamps the passport with a visa. As I walk towards the baggage carousel, another clerk asks for my passport. He has an ancient photocopy machine and needs to copy it. I look for a seat by the carousel to await the luggage: no sense in provoking an altitude reaction. Finally, my bags arrive. Leaving the baggage reception room, customs asks for the customs form and the baggage tags, a small Aymaran porter collecting the latter.

In the waiting area, I spot the sign: "PHI" in big letters held by a middle-aged, glowing woman. I walk up and introduce myself: "Buen Dia. Soy el Señor Chip Morton."

"Hello, Mr. Morton. Soy Ana Maria, su secretaria. Thees ees Jorge, the driver."

They've driven up from the city in a Grand Cherokee jeep, one of the signs of an NGO (Buy American). It's a relief to know I do not need to hire a taxi, look for a hotel, etc. As usual, the staff has taken care of it. Thank God I am no longer a young professional. In those days, it was a poker game whether staff would meet me at airports the first time I arrived. I remember flying into Jakarta and wondering, "Do I need to get my taxi, look for a hotel, then try to contact the agency?" As luck would have it, I had to wing it that first time in Indonesia. As a director here, I knew that experience would not be repeated. "I'm back!", I think silently to myself.

We walk the 50 paces to the car, load the luggage, and are off. As we drive through El Alto, the adobe and unfinished brick, tin and occasional tile rooves of the city refresh my memory. Jorge dodges pot-holes. Coming to the first red light, he flashes his lights and drives through. This early morning light-running is typical of Bolivia: no traffic, why stop? After the second toll booth, we enter the highway to La Paz, the capital and my new residence. The views are incredible, as usual. The city is to the East. The four lane, divided highway winds down from 13,000 feet to 12,500, giving us views of the city extending like rapids down the valleys and along the mountainsides, lights of buildings, traffic, and a few street lights glowing for miles, Mount Ilimani's white peaks beyond the city, the slopes in this area covered with tall Eucalyptus, and the nearby three to five story buildings with just hollow red brick finish, no ceilings, and tin rooves. Welcome to La Paz!

We enter the city, passing the market, the old cathedral of San Francisco, and now a few ancient public buildings from Victorian and other classic architecture, always surrounded by non-descript sky-scrapers. The driver dodges the potholes, the vendors and buyers ambling through the early morning traffic on El Prado, the main street, and continues to run stop lights as we descend through the city. Finally, after the "downtown" area, we pass the Plaza del Estudiante and arrive at the tree-filled Plaza de Isabela la Catolica. Jorge circles the plaza and pulls in front of a ten-story building.

"Thees ees your hotel, Mr. Morton," announces Ana Maria. A liveried porter appears for the bags. I get out, slowly, remembering the altitude. Inside, reception has my room ready, only needing me to fill out a form for tourism.

"Wheen do you want to come to the office, Sir?" asks Ana Maria.

I need time to shower, shave, and change clothes. "Please come for me at 10 AM. Gracias, Jorge. Gracias, Ana Maria. Nos vemos a las 10."

When I arrive at the small office five blocks away on Arce, almost in front of the ten-story, barricaded, marble US Embassy (it was not here last time, I remember), I meet the ten staff. In all, there are two secretaries, two messengers/drivers, three programmers, two accountants, and an auditor. We will support a program in four departments, the Bolivian equivalent of States, with 130 staff who serve somewhere between 30,000 and 200,000 people, depending on how you make the calculation.

The first week in-country, I spend visiting the major international donors to our program, namely the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in its six story building, the Japanese Embassy in a converted house, and a network of agencies working in health, PROCOSI, in another converted house. I also ask for an appointment with the US ambassador to introduce myself and PHI, but her secretary says she is not available and a meeting cannot be scheduled. The Embassy will call me later, she says. Likely story, I think to myself. Events later showed they never would return my requests for an appointment.

Finally, I am finished glad-handing officials and I am free to go to the field to visit staff and projects. The lead programmer, Juan Carrasco, and I drive to Oruro, four hours away, to visit the office we manage there. We have to re-trace the route up to El Alto, then start down the unfinished Oruro highway. It takes us half an hour to cover the two miles through Oruro that are still under construction. Indigena women and their children shovel dirt into the potholes on the unfinished part of the highway. The children run to the car and ask for 'voluntary contributions' for their mothers' work when the jeep passes by. Juan comments that the mothers dig the holes during the night and fill them during the day. Is he a skeptic or just being honest, I ask myself. An hour into the trip, we leave the slums of El Alto and accelerate to 120 KPH on the two lane highway to Oruro. Just three toll booths, 137 miles of highway, numerous potholes, and half a dozen villages have to be passed to arrive. The drive is a straight one along the Bolivian Altiplano, lined by snow-peaked mountains, looking like Nebraska between Grand Rapids and Sidney but 13,000 feet high, edged by salt-crusted fields and decorated by dust-devils and llama herds.

Three hours later, we pull into the old mining town of Oruro. Juan tells me Oruro's gold and tin mining is virtually extinct now. Only one source of income remains, the annual "Carnaval" when thousands of dancers and tens of thousands of tourists converge on the city, filling all the hotels, restaurants, and many private houses. The dancers, he says, wear colorful costumes that bring to life Bolivian mining and herding legends, and dance through several miles of the city before entering the church of the Santuario del Socavón (Sanctuary of the Mineshaft), on their knees at the end of their celebration.

As we come into town, Juan uses his cellular phone to call the local office of PHI and warn them of our arrival. We wind through the crowded highways, boulevards, plazas, and side streets of the city. I watch the native vendors with their street-side stands selling cassette tapes, music disks, and snacks. The women wear the traditional "Chola" skirts, hats, and many petticoats. Their long pig-tails hang down their backs. They all appear stoical, waiting out the day to gain their few Bolivianos.

The PHI office is on the far-side of Oruro, I find. Clara Montaños, the regional director, and José Quispe, the director of the local off-spring NGO, APOLO, await us in front of the three-story building. As we get out of the jeep in the dirt parking area, they come down to greet us.

"Porque no vamos a Nayjama's para almorzar?," asks Clara. ("Why don't we go to Nayjama's for lunch?") "Esta bien." Okay.

Five staff pile into the office's Toyota Hi-lux and we are off, three sitting in the bed.

During the lunch of pejerrey, a white-fleshed Altiplano lake fish, in a crowded, no-frills restaurant, Clara speaks effusively about all she has done in her 20 years with the agency to build an excellent health program. She tells of the clinics she has set up. She speaks of the hundreds of local health workers she has trained. She complains about the lack of financial support from the national and international offices. I listen and absorb what she's saying.

When Clara excuses herself to the restroom, José, an older indigena man, slides his chair closer to mine and whispers in my ear, "El personal no la quieren." The staff don't like her. "Porque?" Why? "Porque insista que ella dirija, planea, y controla todos los programas." Because she insists on directing, planning, controlling, and micro-managing all the programs. It looks like I have my work cut out for me: is this the traditional Bolivian under-cutting of a leader or a valid complaint? Clara's egocentrism leads me to think the latter.

We return to the agency building cum training center and treatment clinic. Clara and José give me a tour of the building and introduce me to the staff, doctors, nurses, health promoters, accountants, and a driver. After an hour's overview of the programs in Oruro, Clara and the agronomist, Carlos, Juan, and I get in the jeep to go south towards Huanuni where PHI has both agricultural and health activities. We wind through the signless Oruro streets, finally reaching the highway that goes south. A short gas stop and we're off.

To leave the city, as always, we have to pay a highway toll. "Donde van?", (where are you going?) asks the clerk in the green toll booth.

"Hacía Huanuni."

"Tres Bolivianos."

We continue south maybe twenty miles on the highway to Potosí, turning off just before Machacamarca. We leave the asphalt and enter ancient, hand-cleared roads that wind and twist through plains, hills, rivers, streams, and small towns as we approach the edge of the Altiplano. Large and small stones are littered on the roadway. Being the Bolivian winter, there is not much water in the streams and rivers, so we gently ease the jeep in and out of the watercourses. How different is this countryside from the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, I think. There, people would buy four-wheel drive vehicles and drive them into and along the Rio Grande to have a challenging outing. Here, any outing is a challenging one.

An hour down the trail, we come to a small village of 50 adobe huts backed by larger hills.

"Acá no mas," says Carlos. We're at our destination. Juan leaves the rustic roadway and now follows minimal tire tracks across the barren plain to the edge of the village. Along a deep gully in the plain, Carlos tells Juan to stop. We blow the horn three times. Twenty or so Quechua men, former miners, climb out of the gully closer to the hills. They are dressed in inexpensive, ragged, dirty cloth pants and shirts. Most wear a colorful, woven wool cap. They all carry either a pick or a shovel, the blades half gone from years of use. We drive as close to them as the path will allow, get out, and greet them.

"Buenos tardes, Señores. Cómo están?"

Carlos introduces the head of the village irrigation committee to me. He explains that we are helping the village build a piped irrigation system.

I walk with the men into the gully, easily ten feet deep. The men are digging it out and laying three inch PVC pipe in it. Carlos explains that they have built a filtration gallery further up and will slowly lead the pipe out of the gully and into the fields, where the men will use the water for their crops, allowing them to plant the more lucrative onions, garlic, and habas, the giant Andean butterbean-like crop.

I ask Carlos for a schematic of the project.

"No hay," (there is none) he tells me.

I ask him who the engineer was that designed the system.

"No había," he replies again.

I ask what the cost estimate of the project is.

"Mas o menos cinco mil dolares," he tells me (more or less five thousand dollars).

Now I am worried. We talk with the men, asking them how they organized the project, how they have planned it, what they will use the water for, and how they will manage the water. Thankfully, they have planned the system a bit better than my agency has.

We say our goodbyes after half an hour and continue along the road towards the tin mining town of Huanuni. Twenty minutes and three stream crossings further along, Carlos directs us to a village to the right of the roadway. It's only a five minute drive off the "main" road.

We rumble along a minimal, tire-tracks pathway through tundra-like vegetation to approach another community of thirty shacks, bordering on the cordillera that rises above the plain. We approach the headman's house. As we pull up, a weathered, bronzed man with the traditional wool cap, ragged clothes, bare feet in tire-tread sandals, comes out of the house.

We greet. Carlos chats with the man. He introduces us to "don Alejandro", the village leader. Then we all walk toward the nearby hillock and climb it. On the top is the remains of an old cement water tank. A new four inch diameter polytube pipe comes down from the mountainside and feeds water into the tank.

I ask Carlos if they plan to bury the feeder pipe. He says they do. We walk 500 meters along the ridge that leads into the hillock and find where the pipe is buried. I check another 500 meters for leaks and find none. We return and discuss with don Alejandro what the plans for water distribution and use are. This village has fewer plans than the prior one, but Carlos tells me that they have experience in managing irrigation systems, so not to worry. He explains his plans to build five plastic and adobe greenhouses in the village that will allow them to produce vegetables and export them to Oruro. He notes that night time temperatures on the Altiplano go below freezing, so the villagers have to have greenhouses to produce vegetables.

Thirty minutes later, we say goodbye to don Alejandro, laud his and his community's efforts, and return to our jeep for the remaining forty minute drive to Huanuni.

As we approach the town, we have to weave among slag heaps along the roadway. A mile before the town, we reach the bank of the river over which Huanuni is built. In the riverbed, we see women and children in ragged clothing and barefoot in the 40 degree weather and freezing river, digging and panning for tin. Carlos explains to me that they can sell these mine run-offs, gaining tiny incomes that allow them to survive. He further explains that the mines are shut down due to the low price of tin on the international market. The government is selling the mine. It seems that the people go from bad to worse, I think.

Like pioneers, we explore the trails entering Huanuni until we find one that leads to a bridge into the town. There are no highway signs, even though Huanuni is a town of thirty to fifty thousand people. We cross the arced, stone bridge and enter the cobble-stoned streets of the city, passing hundreds of two-story, virtually windowless stone houses. We circle the central town square, drive another half block, and Clara tells Juan to park the car. We get out. Clara points to a small sign painted on the side of a building, "PHI Huanuni Clinica de Salud." It's ours! She leads the way through the low doorway. We greet the two women and one man in white lab cloaks inside.

The staff are a receptionist, a practical nurse, and a psychologist. The psychologist shows us his small, minimally furnished "consultaría" (10x10 rooms, straight-backed wood chairs, no cushions, carpets or colors anywhere other than two or three Ministry of Health posters). He explains to us that unemployment is epidemic in Huanuni and that it has aggravated the alcoholism problem. He says that he would like some games to attract and occupy youths and hopefully prevent their drinking and teen sex. He says the teen pregnancy rate has also sky-rocketed due to the unemployment and despair, again aggravated by the alcoholism. What can I do?, he asks.

I tell him I will try to get some donations. I will contact the Los Angeles office and see if any donor can contribute. How much do they need, I ask. He tells me maybe a thousand dollars. I ask for a budget and plan. He says he will develop them as soon as possible.

Clara leads us out of the clinic through the streets lined by un-painted, two-story, adobe buildings plastered to a uniform gray color. At the start of the third block, she knocks on a wood door made of sanded but un-glued boards. A short, middle-aged indigenous woman in petticoats, ballooning skirt, blouse and pale blue sweater, wearing plastic, flat-heeled shoes, no socks or stockings, opens the door. Inside, the air is toasty. Eight other women are in the room, along with three gas fed industrial bread ovens. Fresh bread rolls fill three cloth-covered baskets on the floor. A new batch is being taken from the oven. Clara explains that we helped this women's club buy the ovens and organize a small business that sells bread to the local tiendas (small grocery stores, Latin America's equivalent of US 7-11s.) I introduce myself. The president of the cooperative introduces herself and the other women. I ask them how they are organized and how they share profits. They explain that each woman takes a turn baking or distributing the loaves every three days, that there are twenty-four members of the cooperative, and that they share profits equally after expenses at a meeting the end of each month. I ask them about the benefits to their families. Some reply that this is their only source of income. They use the income to pay light and water bills and buy food for their children. I ask about their husbands. One woman replies that most are unemployed and use any money they get for alcohol. Typical, I think: the women work to support their families and their husbands either work in the formal sector or drink. Too bad. What can we do about it?

After a thirty minute visit, we return to the jeep to drive back to a Oruro hotel for the night. I am depressed. The staff is working on a shoe-string budget. They are not developing adequate project plans. They are not developing budgets. They apparently do not relate to donors. They have no vision or plan. They are attempting to apply development band aids to a hemorrhaging economy and health system. The major success is with a women's small enterprise project. Where do I start, I ask myself. What did my predecessor do about the quality challenges and focusing the agency on successful activities, I wonder, as we drive the two and a half hours back to Oruro. I don't see the results.

The next morning, Juan and I re-trace our trip from Oruro to Huanuni and now beyond. Driving up the mountain out of Huanuni, we find a bus has broken its axle and somehow ended angled across the road, the front nosed into the mountain and the rear at the road and cliff's edge. No traffic can pass. We double back into town. Juan asks how we can get through to Llallagua. Finally, one raggedy fellow in his thirties, arcs his arm around to the other side of town, sweeps it up the mountainside, and glides it along the top of the ridge. He explains that the center of one of the mining camps is that way and that a trail leads from it across the ridge to re-join the highway beyond the broken-down bus.

Going up the mountainside, I feel like we are driving up an unpaved part of Stone Mountain, Georgia. But this mountain is not granite. I am told it is still laden with tin ore. When we drive out of the camp along the ridge, I give thanks that we have a four-wheel drive car. We need it now.

We re-join the main road beyond the breakdown as promised. Buses and trucks are backed up beyond the side-trail we enter on. I ask Juan when he thinks they will remove the bus that is blocking the road.

"Entre un día, seguro," he replies (within a day, for sure). The waiting buses are loaded with passengers going to Oruro. Patience, patience is the virtue of the poor.

After another hour of winding our way through the mountains, raising clouds of dust behind us, blowing our horns before entering blind curves, we dip between two mountains on a clear, straight stretch of the road. Llamas! There are hundreds on either side of the road, three on the road, and a scattering of sheep. I ask Juan to stop so I can take a photo. I remember that Ecuador had no herds like this one. I look for a shepherd or shepherdess but find none. I ask Juan who is tending the flocks. He explains that the herdsmen just build circular stone corrals and let the animals out in the morning, back in at night, and close the corral with a tall, strong door. The llamas manage the rest. The corral is to protect them from predators.

I am amazed.

Another hour. We pass through the old town of Llallagua and proceed along the road, now cobbled, to the village of Uyuni where PHI has yet another project. The road arcs, curves and rises like rapids through the mountainside. The curves are no longer as sharp. The cobble-stones keep one's speed down, so we no longer blow the horn continually to warn on-coming traffic of our approach.

As we pull up at the Uyuni office, I note a UNICEF office across the street and an ADRA one half a block away. Two jeeps and a Dodge Ram pick-up are parked outside the wall. The wall is low, made of adobe. A three-foot high, thirty foot long sign proclaiming "PRO-HEALTH INTERNATIONAL" with a USAID Food-for-Peace emblem at either end adorns the wall. Here, I learn, PHI is well-heeled, supported by United States Government project money.

First things first: I talk with the 45 Hispanic and Mestizo staff. What is their vision of success in Uyuni? What is their mission in achieving the vision? They don't know what I'm talking about. What are their successes? Constructing things. What are their failures? Getting practice changes in the people. What would they like from a director? Be supportive. Be clear.

Now it's my turn for input. It's all in Spanish, but the presentation goes more or less like this:

"Our vision is what success will be in the future. What will success in the Uyuni area be? Will it be success if people can feed themselves and their children? Will it be success if the children are educated for the 21st Century? Will it be success if the people still need you or if they no longer need your work? What will success be for PHI in Uyuni? I suggest success will be that the hundreds of thousands of people in the Uyuni area can feed themselves and their children, stay healthy, be competitive in the modern world, and govern themselves justly and creatively. That will be success."

"What is our role in achieving success, our mission? We act as catalysts. We talk to the people. We ask them what their village will look like when their children are their age. . . if they are successful. We ask them what their plans are to achieve that future. We ask them what everyone agrees on. That will be our point of starting. We ask the people. We don't tell the people: we ask. We are catalysts and facilitators who empower them, not people who make them dependent. When we ask, we look for gaps and ask what they will do about those things. If they say they need certain materials, technicians, or transport, we ask who else there is in the area that could provide it. We only enter in to do things with the people when no one else can. We fill the gaps when there are no local solutions. That is our mission. We are catalysts of improvement, catalysts to identify dreams and facilitate achieving them. We do not do things for the people. We work with the people."

There are some questions. The staff is excited. This is a new way of thinking. But how can they do it?

I suggest we go to the communities and try some things. Will they watch and then tell me how to improve what we do? Ten of us get in three vehicles to visit communities. We drive along windy, mountainous dirt roads through what looks like a wasteland. For miles, there is just scrub grass, hills, and rocks. Then we pass through a valley with a stream flowing through it, trees along the edge of the stream, and fields irrigated by canals cut from the stream farther up along its course. As we drive out of the valley, the staff point out a village higher on the hillside, a water tank being constructed slightly above it, and a larger canal flowing into it. That's one of our project villages. We'll visit it.

Our three vehicles pull off by the small elementary school to the east side of the village. They lead me to the irrigation canal. I walk along it, observing the major canal coming in, reaching the stream that flows through the community, the aqueduct across the stream that is to feed the small irrigation reservoirs, the fissures on one side of the aqueduct that let much of the water leak into the stream. What is this, I ask. They explain that it was a flawed design and they are working on overcoming the problem. I walk along the canal to the reservoirs. They are only one-quarter full of water. Obviously, if most of the in-flow is lost, the reservoirs will be depleted. I see some small vegetable garden plots near the reservoirs. They are watered during this winter period with irrigation waters. Where are the designs, I ask. We don't have them with us. We will show you when we return to the office, the engineer replies.

Our health extensionist, a Quechua-speaking nurse, invites me to return to the school and talk with mothers. What is their language, I question. Quechua. Who will translate? I will, she replies. We walk back through the village of adobe houses with tin or tile roves to the school. It is a small, L-shaped one-classroom building. How many grades are taught here? Kinder through 5th? How many teachers? One. We enter, finding benches, slanted bench-style writing surfaces, twenty indigenous women and maybe eight of their spouses.

"Buenos tardes," I greet them.

"Buenos tardes, Señor. Bienvenido."

The nurse introduces me. She tells them I am the big boss from La Paz. They act duly impressed. I ask them if I can talk with them. They say yes, of course. I say I cannot speak Quechua and the nurse will have to translate. "Esta bien," they reply. Fine.

I ask what PHI does with them. The nurse translates. One lady replies, "Builds irrigation, drinking water, and teaches us about health."

I ask what they have learned. They say, "About good food for our children, about washing our hands before we prepare food, about immunizations."

"Que bien. Can you tell me what your major health problem is," I ask.

"Our children get diarrhea after we carry them to the fields to work in the siembra with us," one says.

"Because they eat dirt and manure when we put them on the ground to play while we work."

"How much of a problem is that?" I ask.

"Most of the time we can treat them at home. We lose a few days of work taking care of the sick children. Some of the time, the children are badly sick. We take them to the health clinic."

"Where is the clinic," I ask.

"Twelve kilometers along the road."

"And how do you get there."

"We usually walk. Sometimes we take the mini (a van that works like a bus and charges fares)."

"How long does it take to walk to the clinic?"

"Four hours."

"How much does the mini cost?"

"One Boliviano (twenty cents)."

Then what happens, I ask. We look for the nurse, they say. Is she always there? No, often she is away, doing something else. Then what do you do? We come home. If she is there, what does the appointment cost? It is free. What does the medicine cost? It is free. Does the nurse always have medicine? No, only about half the time. Then what do you do? We buy it in a small store. So what does your treatment cost? It is free, they say. What is a day's work worth? Twenty-four Bolivianos, they say. You lose a day of work each time your child is sick to go to and return from the clinic, don't you? Well, yes. What does the mini cost to go and return? Two Bolivianos. Do your children ever die from the diarrhea? Only about four a year. Is there anything you could do to keep the children from getting diarrhea? When the nurse translates this question, the women become excited and begin talking rapidly among themselves in Quechua. Everyone speaks. I ask the nurse what is happening. She says they are discussing the question.

Finally, one of the women answers for the group, "We could build a daycare. We could pay one of us to stay with the children. We could leave food to feed the children. Then they would not get sick because they were in the fields with us."

I tell them I think that is a great solution. Let's try to work together to make it happen, I say. I ask what they think about their husbands listening to the discussion.

"It is good. They will have to build the daycare," one of the women replies.

We have to leave, one of the staff tells me. I say goodbye to the women. I shake the men's hands. The staff and I climb into our three vehicles and we continue up the hill. At the top, the vehicles pull over. I ask what's happening. "Field lunch," the local manager tells me. A few thermoses and an ice-chest are pulled out. There is a gallon jug of water to wash hands with. We each have a couple of bologna sandwiches on white bread. The drink is Fanta. We also have some sweet cookies for snacks. Fifteen minutes later, we are finished and continue on the trip.

We visit sprinkler irrigation systems, more like lawn sprinklers than the massive dispersion systems of the USA. We visit a greenhouse with vegetables inside, tomatoes and lettuce. We visit more water systems.

At night, we return to Uyuni and Llallagua, eating the evening meal is a rustic restaurant, "steak" for a dollar, and sleeping in an un-insulated, un-heated hotel on springless beds under masses of blankets. The Twenty First Century has arrived, however; there are one bulb electric lights, showers with "flash" electric water heating attachments in the head (they get warm after the water runs for a couple of minutes) and televisions in each room. The cost is $6 per night. A breakfast of coffee and a roll is included. This is living!

We continue this process for three days, visiting fifteen villages.

The last day in Uyuni, twenty of the staff and I visit a village to attempt a participatory planning. Our four vehicles arrive in the twenty-house village at 9 AM. The road ends at the stream before the village. We step from stone to stone to cross the stream, then walk a hundred meters to the community school. It is larger and newer than the last, built as a small compound with an adobe wall on the outside. The villagers have the key to the compound, but no one has the key to the building so we set up outside in the school yard. As the villagers arrive, we mix and chat with them. Only the men can speak Spanish, so I have to use a translator to talk with the women. Half an hour after our arrival, thirty or so villagers, elderly, middle-aged, young parents, teens, pre-teens, and a few toddlers among them. The extensionist to this village greets the villagers and introduces us. I then say that we would like to talk with them about their village. We will do three things: see how the village is now and what they think about it, think how they would like the village to be when the smallest child here is an adult, and look for areas of agreement. Will that be okay?

Yes, they say, used to conforming to the "development" agents processes.

"First, we would like you to form four groups (eight is an ideal size for discussions) that include a woman, a man, a teen, a child, an elderly person, and three others. Okay?"

It takes the villagers about ten minutes to re-organize, with the staff assisting.

"We will now give you newsprint and markers. Please work together to draw the village as it is today. Everyone draw something in the picture. Then we would like you to tell us about what you have drawn, what you like and what you do not."

Staff collect newsprint and markers and give them to the groups. A staff person joins each group, explaining that they need to draw the village as they see it today. Soon, everyone is drawing the stream, the hills, the scattered houses, planted fields, chickens, cows, pigs, and the school.

I ask the villagers to show what they have drawn. Please, if one group has a middle-aged man show their picture, would the other groups have an older person, a woman, and a teen show theirs. Okay, the villagers say.

The drawings are consistent in showing the stream, the hills, and the fields. They show scattered houses, small, and messy yards. They show a pleasant school in the center.

The villagers explain that the stream and the fields are things they are proud of. The school also has a nice building. The yards are messy. While a woman explain her group's drawing, an eight year old (?) child with a pointing stick comes to the picture:

"Aquí esta el Sr. Huanca haciendo su caca en el jardín." (Here is Mr. Huanca using his garden as his outhouse.)

The villagers do not seem very happy with their village as it is at present, I note.

"Next, let's all draw the village like we would like it to be when this baby, como se llama?, Juanita, is grown up."

The villagers again start drawing. They seem fascinated with the poster-sized newsprint and the large markers. Everyone wants a chance to draw something on the pictures. I guess that they have never used markers nor large newsprint. I see women drawing with excitement, elderly hesitant but with a marker in hand, and school children excitedly drawing cows and chickens.

"Please show us and explain your drawings," I request. "While you tell us, we will write what you say."

The villagers come with their drawings, group by group. The drawings show a different world. The stream and fields are the same, though the fields are more orderly. The houses are completely different. They are organized like a city. Streets are clear. Electric poles are prominent. Every house has a water spigot in its yard and a latrine. Small differences exist in dams and irrigation, improved livestock, roads leading into the town, telephone service. The world of the villagers' imagination is immensely different from that of the present.

As women, men, elderly, and schoolchildren report, one of the staff writes down the frequency of the elements from the groups.

At the end of the presentations, I analyze: "It looks like everyone wants electric service, drinking water and latrines. Many of you want irrigation and improved livestock. A few want better roads leading to the village. Is that correct?"

One villager stands up, a man in his forties, and says, "My group wanted improved livestock."

I ask, "Is that what you said?"

No.

"We can work with you to get drinking water and latrines. Who can help you with electric service?"

The municipality. The Prefecture. The electric company.

"We have to leave now. Jose Miranda, your extensionist, will return next week to start planning based on what you have drawn."

Some villagers become upset: "Why did you ask us what we wanted if you could not do everything," they ask.

I reply, "Because we need to know your plans to work with you."

Some are placated. Some remain upset. What kind of NGO are we, they seem to be asking themselves, not coming in and giving them everything they want?

My visits continue in similar fashion through Potosi, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz. We do community planning time after time over the next months. We even have some events with other NGOs, the municipality governments, and community men and women representatives, groups of 60 to 100 people with PHI staff. The staff and I write a proposal to support community-based planning and community-led efforts. We submit the proposal to USAID, our government's foreign assistance agency.

In the proposal review, Dave Brubeck's voice from Washington, on the conference phone is saying, "Well, as we stated in the last paragraph, we have recently agreed with USAID/Bolivia not to fund any more projects there, so there is no money for your proposal. Too bad you responded to the Invitation for Proposals. Besides, your document has many innovations that are unproven in the Altiplano population. You've put far too much contribution from the local population, and we don't believe you can get it. No one's ever asked for or gotten that much. And, what's worse, you've written that you will always begin with planning involving the municipalities and local people. How can we fund that? Their plans might change from what you've promised. That admits a degree of uncertainty in exactly what we will be funding. Although you presented objectively verifiable evaluation specs and the twelve pages of budget details by line items, we need to know exactly what your agency will do each month for the next five years. You have to tell us who will work with each of the ten municipalities and the 300 communities, not just what the program will achieve. Did you really think we fund deliverable specs? We can't even tell from your proposal what the names of the communities are that will receive each penny of our money. Your proposal is unacceptably vague, only giving a hundred pages of details and saying things like, 'In the future search, we will determine shared visions and develop specific action plans. Afterward, we will put these shared visions and plans into inter-organization contracts.' Besides, we have agencies like CARE and SAVE that we have been working with for half a century: we know exactly what they will deliver. Therefore, your proposal is again rejected."

I try to explain that when communities want something we don't have in the budget, that we will have to tell them we cannot support that element but that we can help them find other NGOs and donors. Dave feels this is too wishy-washy. He wants us to limit ourselves to what was written at the start of a five year project, no ifs, ands, or buts.

I ask how we can do continuous learning and improvement and optimize local input and control that way. He says it doesn't matter: he is only insisting on the type of a relationship that all NGOs have with USAID.

My head is whirring. Have I died and gone to Hell? How could he say such top-down things? How could it be that in the 21st Century a government functionary is still saying that we have to repeat all the errors of the Welfare System? How could it be that every time I work closely with a US government development bureaucrat, I end by concluding that he or she is inexperienced, self-deluded or morally corrupt, and imagines her or himself to be royalty? Why do I learn time after time that "development" is not an objective, but a game of power and sleight of hand? How can this surely deluded impression be confirmed and re-confirmed, time after time? But let me begin the story at the beginning...

I do not give up real development without a struggle. I go to the CEO of PHI, Harold Nuberry, and make my case. I tell him, "AID is imposing what is easy for them, same old, same old. They know they are wasting the tax-payers money. They know they are not achieving development through these brain-dead methodologies. We must make a case for real development."

Harold replies, "Chip, your job is to make friends with these AID people. They are almost our sole source of funding. They have the money. You have to cater to their desires."

I tell Harold, "Look, the way I see it, we are the tax-payers. They are the government servants. We should make the best case for the way we believe the job should be done, not just lay down and take whatever plan these 'government servants' dish out. I insist that we stand up and be counted and not just be puppets to our government. That would be acting like we live in a dictatorship, not a democracy."

"Chip, either conform or get out."

My heart is heavy. The dancing devils have won. I have despaired of doing development in Bolivia with my government or agency. My experiences have convinced me we have to build development from the communities, local governments, local agencies, and staff up. From my business studies, I know that corporations now plan based on "whole systems" input and using continuous learning and improvement methodologies, but the USAID office-bound bureaucrats like Dave Brubeck and PHI's own Harold Nuberry, who represent my own government and my former agency, insist that we conform to AID specs, regardless of what field realities are. They expect non-government agencies to pre-plan everything the villages will construct and do before the project is funded. They want "who, what, when, where, and how" pre-determined without local input before any program is launched. They seem to want a repetition of the last 50 years of the American welfare state in other countries. And our Congress does not contradict their top-down policies. What am I to do? I have failed in promoting affirmative, grassroots led development. My bags are packed and I am leaving Bolivia.