CHARIS BARKS
Biography
Para español oprima aquí:
BIOGRAFÍA DE CHARIS BARKS
Do You Need an Interpreter in Bolivia?
Condensed Biography
I was born in Minnesota but have spent over half my life in South America (lucky me!). At age 4 my family moved to Cuenca, Ecuador where we lived for 4 years. There I learned Spanish for the first time and attended an international bilingual school. After a two-year furlough in the U.S. our family was stationed in La Paz, Bolivia. There I attended the American Cooperative School for three years before we returned to Minneapolis. I attended Minnehaha Academy there through the eleventh grade before we returned to
Bolivia
where I graduated from the ACS in 1984. At age 17 I returned to the U.S. alone to begin my Bachelor's Degree at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota and did not see my family for three years. Therefore, upon returning to La Paz for Christmas vacation during my junior year of college, I decided to prolong my stay and studied for one year at the Universidad Católica Boliviana. Upon returning to the U.S. to complete my studies in International Relations and Latin American Studies, I transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis-St. Paul. In 1988 I moved to Houston where I lived and worked through 1996, with the exception of one year when I was stationed in Miami. During this time I worked for a Mexican company in international trade and exports. In 1996 I traveled through Bolivia for 2 months and was struck by how much the country had changed in the years I had been gone. I returned in January 1997 to look for work. The Bolivian government had just capitalized several government-owned industries and many U.S. companies had opened offices in
Santa Cruz
in the tropical region of southeastern Bolivia. I began working independently as a translator and interpreter, eventually set up my own company, and lived in Santa Cruz for the next 9 years. In 2005 I returned to the U.S. where I lived in Fresno, California. It was during this time that I began creating BoliviaBella.com as my personal attempt to ensure Bolivia is viewed in a positive light despite its growing pains and current political instability. Bolivia has been given a bad rap all around and is a country worthy of better attention than it receives in the news. I'm now back in lovely, growing, ever-expanding Santa Cruz! I'll keep my biography short so as not to detract attention from the real reason you visited BoliviaBella.com. My other personal passion is writing poetry. I invite you to learn more about me through some of my published
poems.
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