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As we enter the classroom, 25 students jump to their feet and shout “Buenas tardes, Señor Director!” Mr. Victor Cadena, director of Emmanuel Quaker School in El Alto, Bolivia, asks the students to sit down and they do with a resounding, “Muchas Gracias, Señor Director!”

Director Cadena then introduces us.

We explain that we have come under the care of the Bolivian Quaker Education Fund (BQEF), to learn about our Bolivian Quaker brothers and sisters, and that we plan to share our experiences when we go home. The students are bright and curious about these strange visitors from “el norte.”

On February 5th, 2008 we landed in La Paz and struggled to breathe in the rarified air above 12,000 feet, as we were met by Emma Condori, coordinator of volunteers for BQE-Bolivia. Emma, who became our guide, mentor and friend, took us to our apartment in La Paz and arranged to meet us the next afternoon.

Thus began our education about the Quakers of Bolivia. Over the next six weeks we would visit Quaker schools and meetings in La Paz, El Alto and the rural towns of Batallas and Achacachi. We would bask in the hospitality of Emma’s Aymará family in Batallas, and in the warmth of Bolivian Quaker pastors and lay people. Three days a week we would help teach English in Emma’s classes at INELA Quaker School in north La Paz.
 
La Paz is situated in a valley some 12,000 feet above sea level. It is ringed by steep hills. Above them is the altiplano, a 600 mile long arid plain between the two main Andes ranges that is populated almost entirely by the Aymará, largest of the 20 plus indigenous ethnic groups that comprise over half of Bolivia’s population.
 
In La Paz the well-to-do few, of European or mixed descent, live in the lower elevations to the south, where the climate is a bit milder. Central La Paz is a cultural transition zone. Continuing north – uphill – everything changes. Streets narrow, pavement gives way to rutted stone. Modern storefronts are replaced by hole-in-the-wall stores and street venders.  North La Paz is a frontier. It is the La Paz of the indigenous, Aymará population, and of its Quakers, drawn here from impoverished altiplano villages in the hope of economic betterment.
 
Emmanuel Quaker School, with 175 students in grades 1-12, is located in a bleak neighborhood in El Alto. Its single four-story building is old, cramped and unheated. Although it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, it is cold at above 12,000 feet. The children have on winter coats and some wear knitted caps in class. We are invited to visit several classes. Director Cadena encourages students and teachers to share their pride in their school and hopes for its future. As they speak the needs become even more apparent. There are no science labs, meager computer facilities, and few ordinary school supplies. There is no school library. There is scant space for sports or play. It is a chronically impoverished situation.

Our experience at Emmanuel paralleled that at the other Quaker schools we visited. All have bright, eager students and dedicated teachers and staff. All aspire to combine high quality education with a Christian message. And all are stymied by a severe lack of resources.
 
In the 1920’s, missionaries brought Quakerism to Bolivia. Although educating indigenous Bolivian people was prohibited by the government, in 1930 evangelical Christian education was begun with itinerant Quaker schools led by missionary teachers. The revolution of 1952 ended the slave status of the indigenous people, but only in 1970 was Quaker education legalized. Quaker schools numbered over 30 in the 1970’s before beginning to decline.
 
Government attention to public education that began in the 1970’s and has increased under the current Evo Morales administration, disadvantages Quaker schools, which do not receive government help. In recent years, North American and European Quakers and others have begun helping the more than 30,000 Bolivian Quakers. Since 2003, BQEF has been raising funds to improve schools and provide scholarships that enable high school graduates to attend college. As they graduate, these young Quaker adults return as professionals and become a lifeline back to the indigenous communities. BQEF supporters believe that this investment, by helping raise Bolivian Quakers out of poverty, will also contribute to stability and peace in this unique part of our world.

Paul Mitchell and his wife Valerie Vickers recently spent six weeks in Bolivia under the auspices of the Bolivian Quaker Education Fund (www.bqef.org) and can be contacted at pdmitchell@bellsouth.net.

Faith Matters is a column written by people of diverse faiths. To write a column, contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com