Rebecca Hornbach outside a building in La Laja with two women and a young boy.
The rolling green hills of La Laja, Bolivia.
Rebecca dining with people in La Laja.
Rebecca paints the walls of the new library.
Rebecca Hornbach is used to living in small towns. Before moving to Ketchum, she spent three years working in the Peace Corps in Bolivia. For two of those years she lived in La Laja, a small village of about 350 people that was an eight-hour bus ride from the nearest city. There, she lived in what is referred to as a “campo,” or a rural town, working with the community on health issues and education. She raised money for books and a library and eventually built a beautiful reading center.
Hornbach was so enthralled with her experience that she decided to stay a third year with the Peace Corps. That time, however, she opted to live in a city in order to have a different experience living abroad. Rather than living in and working with a specific community, Rebecca helped other Peace Corps volunteers, mentoring them, supporting them, and occasionally giving them refuge.
Before entering the Peace Corps, Hornbach led quite a different life. A Texas native, Hornbach went to College on the east coast. At Hamilton College she studied Sociology and Spanish and decided to move west once she landed a job as an assistant to a financial analyst in San Francisco. Eventually, she decided banking wasn’t really for her and instead opted for the Peace Corps. She’s never looked back.
From Bolivia she went to Texas and then to Boston with her husband, Irwin Sentilles. The two moved from Boston to Sun Valley where he began his own design consulting firm, FirstFourth. What was supposed to be a short stay may become a more permanent fix, a familiar story in this area.
Now in Sun Valley, Hornbach has a new community project with South American roots; she is the new interim director of La Alianza. La Alianza is a multicultural center for the Wood River Valley that brings people together to celebrate differences and to share resources. Hornbach says, “I really love this town and I’m excited about this job. I’m excited about interaction with people of a different culture, especially people from South America since I lived there and really appreciate it.”
Yet, she also knows this will be a big challenge. At the moment, she is the only person in the office and is trying to get the center running by March. Her goal is to open the eyes of people who were previously uninterested in cultures, other than American culture, to see that new traditions and new faces are a good thing for a community and in turn to improve relations between Spanish speakers and native English speakers.
When she’s not doing all things Latino, Hornbach can be found enjoying the outdoor wonders of Sun Valley. Although new to the sport of Nordic skiing, she just completed the Boulder Mountain Tour in early February. She is also a member of VAMPS and loves to take her dog, Sage, on long snowy hikes. La Alianza is scheduled to open this March. For more information or to get involved email or call Rebecca (208.578.5408).
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