July Update

Life is busy, and we are afraid the BLOG has paid the price, in the sense that it has not been updated as regularly as it should have been.

These past months have been as hectic as ever, with home building impinging on just about all other aspects of work. We have recently had Andrew´s parents, who came over to give a hand with the Bible translation into the Toba Language.

Andrew´s father with Toba translators in Juarez (above)
and with Toba community members in Church (below)

We were pleased to receive a visit from Ian McKay, member of the British Bible Society´s Executive Team. Andrew was able to fly him up to the Chaco, providing a birds-eye view of the advancing deforestation in the region. Ian also met the rest of the ASOCIANA team and was able to visit a small wichi community in order to get a feel for the situation on the ground.

Ian McKay and Andrew, shortly after completing 5 hours flying over the Chaco,

followed by a rather dodgy landing back in Salta.

Bulldozers seen knocking down forest, making way for soy bean cultivation.

Lines of ashes, left after felled trees are burnt on the property of a Swiss businesman,
close to Wichi communities east of Tartagal

Some of the photos taken on the flight with Ian were used a couple of days later in a presentation given by Andrew for ASOCIANA to a wide audience, including government officials. Who had gathered to listen to a speech by Miguel Bonasso, one of Argentina’s leading campaigners against deforestation.

Andrew is currently coordinating a conference on the theme Church and Environment. This has captured a lot of interest, especially form the Catholic Church. The event has also been declared of interest by the Legislature. There is a Spanish language web site for the event, which we would encourage you to visit, even if you cannot read it.

Work with ASOCIANA continues its giddy pace. The coordination of the team has now been taken on by Ana Alvarez. Andrew provides some technical input and research work from Salta. The team is seeking to grow, but finding the right people is often elusive.

As SAMS grapples with being absorbed into CMS, we remain somewhat uncertain about the initiative and have concerns over the way it is being handled.

Andrew continues with his consultancy work. Having recently completed an assignment with Compassion International in Guatemala, he has now been invited to do further work, this time in Colombia and Ecuador. He is also expecting to undertake work for a Swedish agency, this time in an evaluation in Brazil. Maria has also been doing work, in this case translation, for Compassion International.