Busy as A Bee

The month of March has flown by here in Paraguay. It finally feels that the weather is getting cooler and it has been raining quite a bit. At night I have been using my sleeping bag (Amazing how cold the low 70's feel all of a sudden)and jeans are becoming much more comfortable to wear during the day. The biggest down side to this type of weather is that when it rains everything shuts down; no school and no bus. When it rains I couldn't leave my site unless I decide to go by bicycle through wet sand and mud (Not a fun time at all). Additionally, this month of March has been filled with work and learning new things!

It all started off with a weekend of fun and and seeing my training family from Guarambare as many of us Peace Corps Volunteers flocked to Asuncion to see Shakira in concert with Ziggy Marley. These weekends in Asuncion tend to be very fun as we take a little vacation from speaking Guarani and Spanish and have a few more drinks than we would if we were in our sites. The concert itself was a blast, although Shakira doesn't actually sing in her performances she still knows how to dance. And then the day after I brought 3 other Volunteers back to my site to work Bees. And so began my new expertise with all things Bee. With this group I did a trasiego (moving a bee hive that is wild or splitting a hive from an existing box into a new bee box) with one of my neighbors in site. This whole experience went very well and took hours. Since then I have done 3 more trasiegos, one time the bees managed to get into my shirt and veil and stung my face resulting in some beautiful swelling. The most unfortunate part about bees getting into your shirt/veil is that you can't take off the suit. You can either try killing them, leave them be, or let them sting you after which they will die. Once the bees sting you the stinger and venom organ stay in your skin and continue to pump venom. Usually, you would just pull these out and no big deal but since I was in the middle of the trasiego they stayed put and emptied all of their venom into my face...good times. My most recent trasiego was yesterday and including taking a wild hive that was 10 feet up in a tree and putting it into one of the bee boxes that I have built. In order to get access we had to cut the tree down and then one by one we cut off the combs and attach them to the bars that sit on top of the bee box. Then in theory the bees will take up residence in that box since that is where all their food and babies are. So far my success rate has been 2 for 3 with the one failure being a severely depleted hive infested with ants, termites, spiders, and moths. So my bee work has been very rewarding to say the least, complete with stings and all, luckily I usually get some fresh honey out of it.

This month I have also begun an English Class at the High School. Every Friday I have an hour long session with the 10th graders to teach them basic phrases in English.To be honest I wasn't entirely excited to start doing this as I was unsure about working with this older group of kids and managing a classroom of 20+ students by myself. But after my first class I am pumped to keep doing it. The kids are really into it and seem to appreciate my teaching style. Typically, a class here is having the students copy notes off a board into their notebooks or listening to lecture nothing more. What I have done, based on my training and my personal preference, is start a class that demands 100% participation and learning what the students want to learn. While this may not be the most efficient way to learn, the reality is that the little that we do cover the kids are going to remember based out of repetition and personal attention. I have been very happy with how the kids support each other, there is a lot of laughing but they are all laughing with each other and when a student struggles their neighbors/friends never hesitate to help them. This class has been one of my favorite parts of my service so far. World Water Day was also this month (March 22nd) and I help activities in the school all day. I taught all the kids from 5th grade up through 12th (about 150 kids) about the world water supply and the water cycle. Then we had an activity that demonstrated what we do as humans that damage our water supply and stresses the importance of water conservation.

The other big project that I had participated in for the month was building fogons (essentially wood burning ovens) in a neighboring community. A fellow volunteer received money from the local government and a development organization to build 14 or so fogons in her community and she has a limited time to complete it so she called upon her neighboring volunteers to help her out so of course as her closest neighbor I was inclined to go. I rode my bike there and back for three days and we built something like 5 or 6 fogons in these days with help from Paraguayans and other volunteers. Prior to having a fogon families cook over a fire on the ground in an enclosed place. This presents health problem to the cooks; bad backs from being hunched over a fire as well as lung damage due to smoke inhalation. The fogons remedy this by placing the cooking platform/ fire above the ground at a comfortable height as well as having a chimney that draws out the smoke instead of filling the room with the smoke.

One other big event that happened this month was the death of my host father's mother (my host grandmother). This happened about 2 weeks ago and has shown me an interesting aspect of Paraguayan culture: How they deal with death. The death rituals here are very different than those of the US. Once a person dies and they have their prayers and interment they continue to have 9 days of prayer. So for each day after the death they go to the house of the loved one and say prayers with all the family there. Then on the day before the noveno (9th day of prayer) they make chipa all day (a food made of mandioca flour, cheese, and lard). We made over 500 pieces of chipa for this occasion. Then on the ninth day the family goes to the cemetery for prayers and the grave which in Paraguay is in above the ground concrete boxes eventually decorated with tile and a small shrine. On this occasion the mourning was very powerful with several people wailing and screaming. Once this is done the kids all line up and kid a piece of chipa. Then we go to the house of the loved one once again and then most people from the community come (must have been close to 100 people there) and all have their last prayers. After which the kids line up again and get more chipa. Then it is done. The family will continue to have a prayer session at the 6 month, 1 year, 1.5 years, and 2 year anniversaries. Depending on the family they may even do more. This is obviously a bit different from how we do things in the States and I have been inclined to think about which way is a better way to mourn the loss of a loved one. The reality of it is that one isn't better than the other they are just different ways to get to the same end.