Paraguay up to my Site Assignment

The past month has been filled with training and language learning. I have learned many many things about trees, gardens, schools, Paraguayan culture, and the Guarani language.I can officially name and identify at least 15 different Paraguayan trees, both native and non native, and can harvest and treat the seeds for planting. For some education practice we have been working in the local school in my town. We have done many activities regarding garbage. The garbage situation here in Paraguay is horrendous and generally people will just burn plastic before it rains or else just throw it in the street. The school expressed interest in garbage education so we designed some lessons addressing the situation. Teaching the kids that gargbage will remain for a long time if we just leave it in the streets and that burning plastic pollutes the air. In the end we dug a pit in which garbage will be buried, which is the best option here in Paraguay. We also did some projects with some of the younger kids to think of ways to recycle garbage such as reusing plastic bottles, using milk cartons to plant trees in, and making plastic bottles into art. This series culminated in the kids making flowers out of plastic bottles and painting them.

Last week we had our long field practice where we went to another volunteers site, Jacob, to work with the people there. In his site we planted some trees and transpanted others, we taught the school kids, both elementary students and high school students about some environmental issues including garbage, and did a review with some of the kids he has been teaching about the rapidly degrading Atlantic Forest. This site was in a beautiful rural part of the country with many low hills with streams running between. Every family here has a piece of land where the plant and harvest only enough food to feed themselves and there livestock. The livestock of choice in this region are cattle and pig which roam the streets freely grazing and feeding wherever they can find food. I lived with two younger brothers in their late 20´s who ran a butcher shop, which during the week I was there was completely out of meat. Their house was also the site of the town volleyball court where all the male village youth would come every night to play, talk, and drink wine and coke (It´s a big thing down here). This exposed me to a ton of Guarani and to being on the outside of many funny conversations. But these were very nice people and we had some fun interactions exchanging Guarani words for words in english.

This past month has been very rewarding and full of educational experiences all getting us ready for the big day (tomorrow!). Tomorrow we will find out our future sites, the place where we will be working for 2 years... The anticipation is unbelievable but I am optimistic about it.. jahechata.