For a River Called "Liquid Typhoid"
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RadJoy Bird made by a mother and her two young sons at Rio Achumani, La Paz, Bolivia, Global Earth Exchange 2014. Photo by Mariette Hurter
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For their Global Earth Exchange this year Mariette Hurter of La Paz, Bolivia and her two sons chose the polluted Rio Achumani as the site for their act of beauty. Mariette writes:
The Global Earth Exchange was really hard for me initially. As an environmental "teacher" (currently developing the nature education program for children at
Senda Verde I always focus on getting kids to fall in love with Pachamama.
From the start I knew it would be the Rio Achumani in La Paz, Bolivia, running from the mountains through the city. Someone called it liquid typhoid fever the other day. It would not be possible to get into the river, which made it more difficult to create beauty.
At first we tried making a bird with our shadow... But Savi�n, 10, said that it was not good enough and it was not "permanent". Wayran, 4, identified various sites that have been wounded. He went as far as the fire we made on Friday in the fireplace to celebrate the Solstice. We had to cut down trees to get that wood, he said.
Savian does not attend normal school, but creates his own learning (self design). He wanted to know if he could do a project for the schools upstream to ask them not to pollute and take pictures to show them what it looks like downstream as a result of the pollution. I hope that he will take this project further.
We finally came to a point where the children decided to use stones for their bird and make it on the wall next to the river.
I would love to see this river alive again.
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