Another New Year, another new start

Welcome to 2009. Another New Year, another new start. 2008 was impressively full of activities for Bolivia as a country and certainly busy for the Bootmans in Bolivia. A brief summary of 2008 for us needs to include:

• The Montaño Twinz, Adriana and David, turned 1 year old in July. Now walking, they quickly passed to climbing, running and otherwise being uncontrollable. We spend a lot of time helping with babysitting as Alice and Osvaldo continue to build their various business ideas.
  
• In November the Twinz were joined by their new cousin, our latest granddaughter, Sophie Marie born to Bryon and Jasmine Bootman in Des Moines Iowa.
• Teaching in Bolivia is a major effort for us. This falls primarily on Barbara who continues to teach secondary mathematics full time at Hughes Schools. She also does some tutoring. Steve taught one day a week.
  
• Our interminable project of building a house has dragged on and on and on. Now at about 13 months of construction, it is probably within 1-2 months of being livable. Mainly on January 1 2009 it lacks having the main doors hung, some windows,finishing with setting the toilets & tubs in the bathrooms, completion of the encircling wall & gates, finishing the electrical installation and completing the kitchen consisting of installing the cabinetry / setting the sink.
• The non-profit "Participatory Wholistic Ministry" finished its first full year. See www.ipwmin.org Basically this was a pilot project to check the feasibility of delivery of books where there is very limited transportation infrastructure (i.e. no roads and lots of foot-trails to be traversed by donkey). We can tell by the interest by teachers in books that we will have plenty of demand for books and didactic material in northern Potosí Departmento.
• The process of getting my enterprise Consultoría Ecléctica off the ground is s-l-o-w. Billings are definitely less than expenditures. But frankly I don't expect to break even until late in 2009. See www.consulting-bolivia.com for the English version of the enterprise. It has the basic objective of enabling electro-technology to improve life in Bolivia, employ Bolivians in technology, and if possible make a modest profit. 2008 was dedicated to getting a foothold in lightning protection, a almost unknown art in Bolivia. We represent a couple of firms who have products that are useful for lightning and over-voltage protection. For a Spanish version of what we are doing see www.proteccionrayos.com and www.consult-eclectic.com In November we hired two engineering students part-time to help.
• In November we broke down and finally bought a car, a 1996 Honda CRV. Thus ended 5 1/2 years of complete dependence on public transportation. Public transportation is exceedingly plentiful and cheap here in Bolivia.
  

The new year will see completion of the house, probably in February. School starts in February and Barb will be full time again. The enterprise Consultoría Ecléctica will expand in billings (or else!) and scope. We hope to add some additional products to our portfolio and expand our advertising coverage to other parts of Bolivia. In 2009 we hope to also have the legal basis for the non-profit established in Bolivia. It will be called "Amistad en Acción" (Friendship in Action). With a little luck and a good tail-wind we will be at an important family reunion in the USA in the later half of June.