Do any of you  Tamboites from mid-60's remember a honeymoon couple staying overnight at Tambo.  The details as I remember was they were on their honeymoon.  They were on a motorbike and had come from the states and were going to Patagonia I think.  By the time they stopped at school I'd had fun for several summers when Paul and Phil Hale came to Cochabamba and rented motor bikes.  In those days there were no laws about wearing helmets, at least that I knew of.  I loved being on a bike -  in those days only as a rider, never in control. 

After I graduated from Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland Oregon I moved to California and worked at the Wycliffe headquarters when they were in Santa Ana.  I bought a small Honda 90 while there and totally loved it.  Always longed for a bigger one.

Seeing this couple totally ignited my imagination.  It was to me the most exciting  way of travel and from that time my dream was to someday make that trip - from States to land tip in South America.  I never have made that trip but it's only in very recent years I've accepted the fact that I probably never will.  And more, have accepted the fact that now I would want a more comfortable ride.  But I spent years planning that trip in my mind - what bike I would ride, what route I would take and always  in my dreams was an overnight stop at Tambo.   I've often wished I'd found out their names and asked them to keep in touch.  I've wondered if they wrote a book about it. And I've wondered if stopping at Tambo became a memory for them, as their trip so set a rainbow in the sky for me..  One little chance event yes, but  it's been one of those big moments in my memory.

(Words in parentheses are mine- Galilee)

In 1967 Jean Bates had invited Sharon Swank and myself to spend the year in Bolivia. I'm sure you remember Sharon more than me as she was closer to your age and I think in her senior year. I was in 9th grade that year.  (My loss, I never met either of you.)

I arrived in Cochabamba a week after school started in Tambo. As the airlines lost my luggage, Jean had to take me shopping for some clothes and shoes before I could leave on that long bus ride to school. We took her Honda 50 to the market. I didn't realize until years later the significance of those huge piles of coca leaves!

And, as you know how Jean is, she always had some activity for you and there was no idle time.  I spent the next few days helping out at the print shop - seems like it was just across the street. I thought I remembered it was the Borden’s that lived at the print shop.  The second day we had a very nice sit down lunch. It almost seemed like a formal meal. All I remember from that lunch was the rhubarb pie! My first and, in fact last.

 (HA! When I borrowed a book to read from Jean, she made me look up all the words I didn’t know. Then I had to show the list to  her.  Then Jean would use those words when we talked to make me familiar with them.  Jean loves words and raised my own interest in them.  Jean did live across the street from the print shop for quite a long time.  After I left Bolivia she moved into the second apartment over the Print shop when it came empty.  I would imagine you ate at the WBT group house as my mom and dad always ate lunch there.

When I arrived at Tambo Mr. and Mrs. Lotz helped me settle in. Something new for me was study hall in the evening after a day of school.  It was a good idea.  But mostly I remember the distractions.   

Shortly after I arrived at Tambo there began to be talk that guerrilla leader Che Guevara was in our area leading a guerrilla band.  This created a huge commotion amongst the older boys especially. Everyone was trying to get as much information as they could and any new information spread through the school like wildfire. But the most reliable source of information seemed to come from the bus drivers , Galgo or Dyana.   During the next period of time, as the military was looking for Che Guevara, the students were instructed to stay on the school grounds. We were not even permitted to go across the road to Doña Antonia's little store.

One afternoon a couple of truckloads of soldiers came driving around and parked on the far end of the soccer field. They were in full gear and had automatic weapons. Some of the older boys who spoke Spanish were able to pick up some information from the Bolivian national soldiers in the trucks. They were told that a truck driver reported seeing a small band of guerrillas  just a few miles up the road going toward Comarapa. Did that ever raise the excitement level around the school. In retrospect, knowing where Che was captured I suspect that report was an exaggeration. I guess though, that we all felt safer with the soldiers in the vicinity because the next day two of the older boys and I were allowed to take the old Power Wagon out to fetch some firewood on a rocky creek bed a mile up the road.

A few days after that word of Che Guevara's capture and death made its way to us. Someone acquired a newspaper showing his corpse. I thought it was graphic and gruesome. It was over almost as quickly as it started. I wonder if Che Guevara realized the significance of those huge piles of coca leaves!! In 1967 life seemed more innocent. Little did we suspect of the coming drug wars, cartels and so many destroyed lives - all for those coca leaves.

J. David Beckes (aka John)  (Thank you John)


A portion of the Newspaper report at that time.

Valle Grande, Bolivia, Oct. 10--The army high command officially confirmed today that Ernesto Che Guevara, the Latin revolutionary leader, was killed in a clash between guerrillas and Bolivian troops in southeastern Bolivia last Sunday.

The armed forces commander, Gen. Alfredo Ovando Candia, said Mr. Guevara had admitted his identity before dying of his wounds. General Ovando said at a news conference that the guerrilla leader had also admitted that he failed in the seven-month guerrilla campaign he organized in Bolivia.

The identification of the body was made after fingerprinting by the Eighth Army command.

[United States officials in Washington reacted cautiously to the Bolivian reports that Mr. Guevara had been killed, but there was an increasing tendency to regard them as true. Page 18.]
 The body was flown here yesterday, lashed to the landing runners of a helicopter that brought it from the mountain scene of the clash. The army said yesterday that it had received a report that Mr. Guevara had been killed near Higueras, but it declined to make immediate positive identification at the time.

After the body, dressed in bloody clothes, arrived here, it was fingerprinted and embalmed.

[The Guevara fingerprints are on file with the Argentine federal police. As an Argentine citizen, Mr. Guevara was required to be fingerprinted to obtain a passport when he left his homeland in 1952. These official records have provided the basis for comparison with the fingerprints taken by the Bolivians from the body said to be that of Mr. Guevara.]
 The scanty beard, shoulder-length hair and shape of the head resembled the features of Mr. Guevara as shown in earlier photographs. He was 39 years old.

 For anyone interested, there is a very interesting book, written by Elizabeth Musser, called Searching for Eternity about another major war criminal captured in Bolivia around this same time.

Things that stick in my memory as good.I love now, but failed to appreciate the fact that as high school students, every student had a job they did for a month.
I was folding sheets the other day and remembered sharing that job with another girl in my first year there. We did sheets seemingly for hours and they had to be perfect. The two of us worked together to pull them out and fold them so they lay perfectly flat and with out wrinkle and all the edges perfectly matched. This was my first lesson if doing a job with someone else, and doing it properly. I think every student who did the laundry ended that job with a pride in doing a job well. Well, I don't know that for sure. I just know it was the result with me. Today I cannot fold a sheet badly without an inner “I've got to do that over.” And in this day of dryers for clothes I find I miss the smell of air dried clothes.

One of the jobs I got a lot or so it seemed to me was cleaning the girls bathroom, showers, sinks and toilets and the staff bathroom. I came to love the fun of making it shine and I personally came to enjoy working on my own to do the job. I only learned later in Bible School that cleaning a girls area was a lot easier than cleaning a guys area.

I don't actually remember any other job I did though I'm sure I was on the roster to do them all.


I also liked the fact that we were responsible to keep our own rooms clean, beds made, clothes in their places, floor swept and whatever was needful to make the room presentable. My mom had taught me to work and showed me each job and exactly how to do it. But I think at Tambo, with everyone having to do work, added a dimension for me to try and do it as well, and with pride.
In class, I loved History with Mr. Bill Pittenger. I loved taking notes in class and not following a book though we had books to study. I loved the essay tests and that after the test we all, as a class met with Mr. Pittenger and argued why we deserved a higher grade for our answers. He was generous and never made us feel foolish. I was so disappointed at Multnomah that we had these cookie cutter tests with answers that meant memorization of dates and events. I loved the fact that in writing an answer the dates and events and sequences just fell in place and became real which facts and figures without the story never has for me. I'm big on the story of how and why.

I loved English with Mrs. Lotz. She introduced us to the joy of good literature.  I admit the grammar and spelling parts destroyed my g.p.a. more than once. ARG!!! But again, Mrs. Lotz was a teacher who made learning like exploration – a bit hard at times, but the end was worth it all. I still have a copy of James Whitcomb Riley's The Bear Story in my book of special poems. Mrs. Lotz reading of it made it come alive. And for Shakespeare, I remember we did Julius Caesar in her class. Years later, my daughter and I had a ball reading The Taming of a Shrew aloud, each of us taking different voices. Sometimes we just stopped to laugh. Something I would never have even thought enjoying without Mrs. Lotz' classes.

I loved Algebra with Mr and Mrs. Lotz. I seem to remember Mrs. Lotz started the course, Algebra 1 and Mr. Lotz taught Algebra II. I have never found math easy. I had to many blanks in my grade school years to be able to work well in any math. I am still not good in anything beyond the basic four skills and unfortunately, although I loved Algebra and did well in class I promptly forget it all. That I'm sorry for but I will say, I loved those classes and the sense of accomplishment as I conquered each new exercise.  Also, the fact that by Algebra II Mr. Lotz gave us a test paper and we had the week-end to complete and turn in the test.  He set guidelines and trusted us to follow them.  That taught me about wanting to be worthy of the trust.

I loved where Tambo lay – out in the country. I loved the terrain around the school and the river that could roar one day, or turn into a mild mannered lady tripping along depending on the rain in the mountains. I loved the hills, the cactus. And I loved the 7 hour bus trips to and  from Cochabamba to school, through the mountains and the rain forest. I loved the unexpected things that happened. On the bus trip I loved those times, only a few in number, where all the kids that got on the bus at Tambo sang hymns, in harmony, as we road through the night. It never occurred to me to wonder what the other passengers thought or may have wanted. I do hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

I loved the music we had at Tambo. Mrs. Hurst making the piano dance and sing all on it's own. I've traveled and lived in many places since Tambo and discovered that we were very blessed with the musical talent we had at Tambo. Mrs. Hurst, Anna Foster and Gloria Stairs, there in my day, were all so talented. I was blessed that both Anna and Gloria so often were willing to sit and play for me, allowing me to just enjoy it and sometimes to sing. Wonderful memories.

Someone had made a platform in a tree in the area just off the road going out of Tambo toward Santa Cruz. In my first year there I spent almost all my free time up in that tree. I loved it. My memory is that that tree platform wasn't available by the next year. I never did find such a relaxing and lovely spot again.

But I loved that whole area surrounding school, and the freedom we had during the afternoons, after our jobs were finished, to wander in the hills. I learned to have my quiet time out in the open air. It actually took me years to adjust to having devotions inside in a house.

There are so many individual things I enjoyed but mostly not general things we all shared.  I had hoped when I started this blog that other Tambo-ites would share memories they had from Tambo but this hasn't happened.   But, thank you members of the staff and fellow students for all you added to my life.  I wish so much I'd taken more pictures while there.  I've enjoyed what others have shared.  Thanks for that too.