Okay, as an example of what we were doing is—, as I said, as I remarked
before we said that in Bolivia, it was only in the mountains in the
valley, we speak two languages, which is En—, not English, Aymara and
Quechua so if you go out of the city to the little village, little tiny
towns, like if you go here you will see the hilly-billys over here,
right? Over there you're going to still see the Indians, you know, the
indigenous people, which they don't speak Spanish, they speak Aymara. So
it's so hard for them to communicate so what we were doing, what is
called in Spanish "alfabetizacion," which is teaching them to write and
read in English—, in Spanish, right, which is "literacy" translated. So that's what we were doing. At that time there
was a big campaign of alfabetizacion, or a literacy campaign in order to
help them to get better education. At the same time, in—, just an
example, one village, only one village, there were different other
projects—, when I say different projects it's because they were leading
for different organizations as what they call US Aid, or, what was it
now, UNICEF, programs and they were coming into prenatal programs for
women. Because of their viewpoint, the little village, they are not
going to be people, I mean the women, they don't know how to take birth
controls. You know they just have babies as much as they—. Which is
good, we can grow our population. [Laughter]
But anyway, what they wanted was to teach them, you know, how to take
care of themselves, how to take care of the kids. That's hard work. That
was really hard because we need to see them as a persons, as a community
themselves. That they were having their own values, their own goals, and
their own costumes. Which was hard. So, I worked with them, you know,
teaching them, giving them lessons, like Spanish lessons, also maternal
care lessons, being, perhaps, a counselor at times. Helping with the
children, you know, things like that. That's what we did before I get in
the university. When I get in the university, what's different—I did
more like participatory communication. Which is, I did a program with
them, this is still related, in literacy but we go a little bit further
and studied the community. What is their ethnicity, you know it's more,
kind of, sociological study. So it was still related, it was the same as
I was doing, but it was juts a little bit more. I also see how
communication is a big area. You communicate at anywhere, any time. So,
but for them, for us also when I do this program is how to introduce to
them the radio. How to introduce to them the newspapers. Even just doing
one, two pages writing is communication. So we wanted
them to see what they want. I mean we were not going down there and
imposing on them. Because that is not participatory. We talked with
them, we asked them what their needs are, how they want to be helped.
And from them we, and also I learned to organize that way. Because
organizing is not what you wanted to do, it is what the community wants
to do, and you just help them to getting better or tell them how to
organize. That's what we usually do, I mean that's what is
participatory. And I like that. I don't like to give orders, and
everybody do it for me. Because that's another—.