The Team

Carey Averbook - Author

I am an anthropologist, researcher, photographer and multimedia producer. While studying anthropology at UNC-Chapel Hill, I took classes at Duke's Center for Documentary Studies. At the time, I was working with the Rogers-Road Eubanks Neighborhood Association to improve their community programming and services, such as literacy classes, street soccer games for youth, and after-school programming. My interest in international development and the “good life” brought me to Bolivia in 2012 where I coordinated a collaborative research and art project with a collective of women to articulate their vision of "Vivir Bien," a good life. A year later, in the south zone of Cochabamba, I worked with a community of women and domestic violence survivors to create a photo-based multimedia project about women’s resilience in the face of climate change impacts.

In 2017, I received my M.A. degree in New Media Photojournalism from George Washington University's Corcoran School of Arts and Design. I split my time between Bolivia and the D.C. area and my work focuses on social, cultural, and environmental issues in the Americas. You can see more of my work at careyaverbook.net and may contact me at caverbook@gmail.com. If you’d like to read about why I made “Only the Bridge Matters Now,” please read more.

The first time I was in Bolivia was in 2012. While I was there, I visited a town called Tarata, which is in a rural region called the Valle Alto about 40 minutes to an hour from Cochabamba. I spoke to someone on the street and he asked me if I had ever been to or heard of “Arleengton, Veergeenia.” I’m originally from North Carolina and I had no idea where Arlington was. I told him that and he said “oh well I’ve been there a few times to visit my family.”

It just so happened that, in 2014, I moved to Arlington to go to grad school in D.C. I rented a house in South Arlington, walking distance from a number of Bolivian restaurants. As I made new friends in the Bolivian community, I was amazed to learn about the size of the community in northern Virginia.

As I got to know more people and researched the history of the Bolivian community, I learned more about the Valle Alto – the region of the town that I had visited. And I learned that a lot of the towns there – most of the towns there – have emigrated and a number of them have transplanted to northern Virginia. Some of the towns almost in their entirety have moved to Virginia. For example, Santa Rosa is a town whose census in 2012 had ~250 people living in Santa Rosa and over 500 people from Santa Rosa living in Virginia.

I was really moved by peoples’ stories of coming to Virginia and their lives here, by both their struggles and sadness as well as their joys and resilience. As I mentioned, I came to D.C. for grad school. The program I was in was New Media Photojournalism at The Corcoran School of Art and Design at The George Washington University. I’m an anthropologist, photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia storyteller. In May 2015, I embarked upon my thesis project, documenting, conveying, and honoring the stories of the Bolivian community in northern Virginia and the Valle Alto.

Christian Wood - Web Developer

Christian Wood is a web developer from Minnesota who believes in the power of technology to inform, engage, and empower people. Find him online at christianwood.net.

Carolina Vicent - Translator

Carolina Vicent is an English and German into Spanish and Catalan translator from Valencia, Spain. She studied her B.A. in Translation and Intercultural Mediation in the University of Valencia and her M.A. in Legal Translation and Court Interpreting in the Autonomous University of Barcelona and she has experience working for the European Commission and the Pan American Health Organization. Currently, she works as a freelance translator in a wide range of fields, including culture, law and international affairs.

Funders