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UA Alumni

Reporter: Nellie Ashley

Eduardo Lopez shares his favorite UA memory, Old Main after the September 11 Attacks.

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Food Blog

Reporter: Nellie Ashley

Chicken strips, fries, and drink are combined in one box. Pollos Chuy is a chicken place in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Contributor:  Bolivian student Alfonso Roca

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Food Blog- Pollos Chuy

  For lunch, Mai Le and I went to this place called Pollos Chuy. It was a small, fast food place. There were hard plastic seats and bright, red and yellow circles and dots on the walls. Our interpreter, Alfonso Roca, ordered for us while we e sat down and waited for our food.

The menu was simple, chicken nuggets, strips, fries, drinks and dessert. I ordered the nugget meal and was surprised when they brought it. I did not see my drink, because it was under my fries and nuggets.

My meal was in one container.  The drink was in the bottom of the box with a long straw that ran from the bottom all the way through to the top of the meal. The nuggets and the fries sat on top in a little tray, so your drink doesn’t get greasy. You sip your drink without moving your cup.  I could take my meal for a walk with me in one hand. The nuggets and fries were tasty.

We wondered why we did not have this in the states. I figured that our drinks were too big for this idea.

                                                                       – Nellie Ashley

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Biocentro Guembe

Reporter: Nellie Ashley

Pablo Reznicek shares a little history about the resort.

Contributor: Bolivian student Alfonso Roca 

Music: "Happy Mandolin" by Media Right Productions

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UA graduates in Bolivia fondly recall campus days

By Nellie Ashley

 SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia – On a day when terrorists were trying to cripple the United States, a University of Arkansas student from Bolivia learned what community and leadership were all about.

 On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, Eduardo Lopez joined hundreds of students on the front lawn of Old Main on the UA campus, with the emotional crowd extending all the way to Dickson Street.

 The peaceful ceremony was to remember the lives lost and to help all students cope with the life-changing events of that morning.

 It was a moment of peace and unity, Lopez said.

 “It was a memory and a place,” he said, recalling the scene from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where he lives today.

 He met friends and peers at Old Main, because it was centrally located and close to his classes. This moment was example of student leadership, he said.

 Lopez completed his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 2001 and his master’s in 2002, attracted to Fayetteville by the UA’s engineering program’s high academic standards.

 That same academic reputation caught the eye of Pablo Reznicek, who attended the UA in 1999.

 Reznieck did not finish his engineering degree at the UA because he needed to come back to Bolivia to help his father, Carlos, run the family business, the Biocentro Guembe resort near Santa Cruz.

 Reznicek completed his ungraduate studies in Bolivia and said he plans to come back to the UA to pursue his master’s. He said he wants to continue the family tradition of becoming a Razorback that his father started in the mid-1970s.

 He said he misses Fayetteville and the campus.

 “Arkansas is such a nice place to live,” he said. “The ease of living and getting stuff done yourself.”

 Lopez moved back to Bolivia to be close to family after graduation and works as a financial director for a company in Santa Cruz. He said he plans to pursue his doctorate in industrial engineering.  

 When asked what the UA should do to reach out to Bolivia, Lopez mentioned the following that he wanted more distance learning opportunities for Bolivian students, more study aboard opportunities for UA students to come to Bolivian universities and more programs that focus on an area of study like logistics and agriculture.

 “I think there are great opportunities for international businesses, the University of Arkansas and Bolivian colleges and universities,” Lopez said.

Scholarships from the university and assistance from Partners of the Americas – an exchange program for professionals and college-bound teens – offered students a chance to pursue an education in Arkansas. Lopez is one of the students who took advantage of these programs to come to the U of A.  

According to the International Students and Scholars office website, in the spring 2014 semester, 65 Bolivian students attended the UA. Bolivia had the fourth highest number of international students, behind China, India and Panama. Most students are in the engineering and business colleges.

  This story is part of the 2014 Lemke Abroad program for the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas. 

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UA graduates in Bolivia fondly recall campus days

Reporter: Nellie Ashley

Santa Cruz resident Eduardo Lopez has an undergraduate degree and a master’s from the University of Arkansas. He recalls Old Main as his favorite place on campus.

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Guembe resort offers a natural getaway for Bolivian tourists

By Nellie Ashley

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia – Butterflies glide through the air inside the caged dome. Out of a lush, green bush, a blue butterfly darted to greet me. It turned, flashing its iridescent wings and disappeared.

Nestled into the trees and manicured bushes, the butterfly house at Biocentro Guembe is just one gem the popular resort has to offer for tourists looking to escape for a few hours or days near Santa Cruz.

Linked with bricked and gravel paths and lined with tangerine trees and flowering shrubs, Guembe also has an aviary, bees and a monkey island. All coexist with the visitors and guests at the resort.

Inside the butterfly house, Guembe staff members raise and maintain 14 native species of butterflies. The reason to care for native species was the plants that the butterflies feed, said Efrain Del Carpio, a Guembe supervisor. Butterflies recognized plants from their native habitat.

“They will keep looking for certain plants until they found the plants or until they die,” he said.

Guembe’s butterfly lab shows the insects at various stages of a butterfly’s life. Visitors can see butterfly eggs on leaves, caterpillars crawling and eating leaves, cocoons hanging off leaves and butterflies leaving their cocoons. Then, they go to live in the butterfly dome and the eggs that they lay come back to the lab.

The staff protects the butterflies as they grow and get ready to go into the dome, Carpio said, adding,  “They have natural predators at every life stage.”

They are helpless to wasps, bees, praying mantises and other predators.

The critical care of the butterflies represents the theme of the resort and the meaning of its name.

Guembe owner Carlos Reznicek, a University of Arkansas graduate in the mid-1970s, loves nature and created Guembe out of that passion, said Pablo Reznicek, Carlos’ son and a former partner owner of the resort with his father. It opened in 2005 after several years of construction and planning.

The name Guembe refers to the Guembe plant. It was believed that when Adam and Eve were rejected from the Garden of Eden, Eve covered herself with a Guembe leaf. The plant grows on palm trees, without killing or harming the host plant. It creates a relationship with the tree through an exchange of nutrients that both plants need.

The resort also has a symbiotic relationship with its guests and the animals being raised and cared for.

The resort, also is known for it massive aviary, stretches 46 acres on property where the elder Reznicek had his home. The aviary houses numerous tropical birds including parrots, peacocks and toucans. The birds fly nearby and are not shy about showing their colors. Some of the birds were former pets that owners decided they could not care for anymore and gave them to the park.

Next to the birds is a large area devoted to tortugas, or turtles native to the region. Dozens of the reptiles slowly lumber across the dirt while watching visitors on the nearby paths.  

On the other side of the park, Monkey Island has squirrel monkeys and capuchins climbing all over a tree-covered island in the middle of a small lake. While the monkeys were supposed to remain on the island, a few were spotted jumping from tree to tree outside the lake, near the bungalows.

For many Bolivians, the daily ticket price of 150 bolivianos, or about $20 (U.S.), is pricey – in line with ticket costs for similar parks in the United States.

 The resort, with a hotel, restaurant, bungalows, pools and beach volleyball courts, attracts around 300 people per week during the winter season and around 4,000 people a week during the summer.

“We are looking to expand, but we face challenges with buying land,” Carpio said.

Bolivian student Alfonso Roca contributed to this report.

This story is part of the 2014 Lemke Abroad program for the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas. 

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Guembe resort offers a natural getaway for Bolivian tourists

Reporter: Nellie Ashley

 At Biocentro Guembe, guests can interact with butteflies and other animals. The theme of the resort is coexistence with nature. It's name comes from the Guembe plant which develops a relationship with the palm tree that it grows on.

 Contributor: Bolivian student Alfonso Roca