As a Peace Corps volunteer I was asked to do and tried to do many things in Chuñavi. Early in my second year Emiterio, the local school teacher, approached me with a suggestion. Why don't we build a greenhouse for the schoolchildren? This way we could grow corn, oranges and other non-native plants. The altiplano was only hospitable to growing potatoes, quinoa and barley, and then only for an extremely short growing season--5 months!

So we rounded up the Parent's Committee and sought their opinions. Sure they all would be willing to help and would enlist all the other parent's aid as well. All that was needed was for us to submit a porposal to US AID, via Peace Corps channels, to purchase materials and supplies.

By June we were ready to go to work. The project had been funded. We started by digging out the hole. The greenhouse was to measure 4x15 meters by 2.5 meters deep. A rather large hole, and all was to be excavated by hand!

		Finally in September we inaugurated the greenhouse.