Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Work, Food, and Home

I have now been in Paraguay over four months and things are really starting to pick up. About a week ago I travelled to another Volunteers site to help with a summer camp that was 3 days long. The theme of the camp was health, so we taught the kids all about exercise, dental hygiene, healthy foods, and how to avoid getting parasites. Each day we had around 30 or so kids whom we entertained for 3 hours in the morning before it got too hot at mid-day. In addition to entertaining the children we fed them every day and gave them plenty to drink because it was easily in the 90’s by 11am. To say the least we all had a blast, the kids were great and we had a fun time teaching them and they even taught us a few new games as well. In addition we made up a 3 part skit to demonstrate hygiene called Amor Ky’a (Dirty Love). This skit was modeled after the generic Latin American Telenovela and involved a handsome man (me) and two lovely ladies. This handsome man was switching his love interest between two women as a result of their physical condition at one point one woman had horrible diarrhea due to bad hygiene and at another point the other woman had disgusting teeth. But of course karma would come back and get this handsome man as the skit ended with the women losing interest in him as he had let himself go and was fat, had horrible teeth, as well as chivivi (diarrhea). The kids loved it! Over the next few days I would walk around the community and I would hear, ‘Gregorio! Amor Ky’a!’ The last day of the camp we had a review of everything that we had learned as well as a giant water fight; definitely a great way to cool off on another really hot day.

The week before my summer camp I was struck down by Paraguayan beliefs and luckily I came out alive. The first thing that happened was a bit of flu that had me laid out for about 5 days with fever and dizziness which of course was attributed to me having grown a mustache and when I cut it off the illness was gone. Next was a slight concussion that occurred after I fell playing a bit of soccer on wet grass, I woke up the next day just feeling completely sleepy and all day long, there was nothing I could do to wake up and the family noticed and their explanation was that I had slept the night before with the fan on all night and therefore I was lazy…actually it was a concussion. In reality it isn’t that different from what we do in the states, we also try to find reasons for why we are sick. Whether we attribute getting a cold to a stressful situation or a bad stomach to a specific meal we do attribute blame but we tend to blame things that actually affect our physical/emotional state not electric fans or mustaches. But there are a lot of food rules that do exist that any outsider coming to Paraguay would find surprising and likely break. Here is the list that I have compiled in my first 4 months I am sure there are many more to come:
1. Eating Peanuts after Beer will cause diarrhea.
2. Drinking water after eating anything pig will cause diarrhea.
3. Drinking milk while eating onions will cause diarrhea.
4. Eating ice cream after drinking milk with cause diarrhea.
5. Eating watermelon/ melon before drinking terere will cause death by explosion.

What makes me most curious about these things is their origin. Who decided one day that these things were prohibited, it had to have been one bad experience that was blamed on doing that action. Luckily as an outsider I have found that I can get away with eating some peanuts with my beer by say I am accustomed to it and everything is fine. In fact it has turned out that if you run into any sort of culture clash you can just say acostumbrado and it will fly but they will also watch you and if you go to the bathroom anytime soon afterwards it will be assumed that you have diarrhea.

My next few weeks are also looking to be very busy, tomorrow I am having my first community meeting which I have spent the past few days advertising by handing out fliers house by house as well as getting an announcement made on the local radio. My hope is that a decent amount of people show up and we can have a productive conversation about what we can work on in the community and hopefully form a Neighbors group that will make achieving any larger scale goals much more feasible. In addition I plan on planting the idea of a women’s group where I can also help to promote healthy practices and help the people find another source of income for economic improvement. Then next week is my own summer camp that I am holding with some environmental and health themes. Then I have my site presentation where my boss will come to my site and introduce me formally and help to explain what the Peace Corps is as well as bring my bicycle and other luggage that has been sitting in Asuncion. Then after that I will hopefully be living in my future house all on my own. Currently, I have three options. One is living in the school where the previous volunteer lived, it is a big space and just about everything I will need is there but it will mean kids constantly coming in and out of my living space, and a bathroom that isn’t currently functioning. The second option is across the street from where I am living now, it is one of the nicest houses in town and empty, it has a modern bathroom and everything I would need as well but I feel living there would also make me look like a rich American. The third option is in a different part of town where the previous volunteer did not spend much time; it is probably the least ‘nice’ of the houses and will require some fixing up. To be honest I am leaning towards my third option and as long as I can get permission to live there I would be more than happy to put in whatever work needs to be done to make it livable. But this is all up in the air still, the school is the sure thing, but I still have to wait a bit before I can move out but I am starting to get antsy to live on my own.