Tuesday, June 12, 2012

GOATGATE 2012


Sometimes while serving the Peace Corps bad things happen. In reality, volunteers who have no negative experiences at all in their two year service are a minority. That is the nature of the work and life in general. Not everything is good all the time and everything can have an ugly side to it that accompanies the beautiful. As volunteers we are put into a fish bowl and our communities view us as apart from themselves no matter how much integration we do. Peace Corps Volunteers will be viewed as rich even if they live just as their neighbors in the most rustic conditions. Peace Corps Volunteers will be viewed as foreigners no matter what and as a result we stand out. These are the only justifications that I can come up with for my goat being stolen. As an American, I stand out and am viewed as someone that has some wealth and therefore some people want what I have. In this case my goat was taken from me and is most likely long gone by now.  The positive spin from this incredibly negative experience has been the initiative that my neighbors have taken to attempt to recover the goat. People went house to house letting them know what had happened, a town meeting was held to try to find a solution and people expressed their concern to me directly and apologized on behalf of their compatriots. While none of this will get my goat back it is good to know that my community has my back.

In other news, the aquaculture project has officially been inaugurated. This is hard to believe since it seems like only yesterday that they first broke ground. This past Friday the group invited the Governor, Mayor, a Polka Band and other government officials to help celebrate this new resource in the community. All told there are now 24 fish ponds in 8.000 Bertoni with 12 being constructed with this project for 11 different landowners and their families. So after some opening speeches where the politicians talked about the importance of small-scale projects such as this one to improve food security, create an additional source of wealth, utilize marginal land that couldn’t be planted otherwise and at the same time having a low environmental impact on the land. Other themes that were touched upon was the importance of taking responsibility for outside investments in Paraguay that historically have cost Paraguayans more than they have gained for them as a result of long term environmental impact that have ruined land and contaminated water sources. This responsibility is a very important current issue as much of Paraguay’s land has been sold to foreigners that take part in large scale agriculture and mining projects that have a tendency to lay waste to the land. So the idea of an ecologically friendly project such as raising native fish on land that wasn’t being utilized for anything previously in order to produce protein that has a much smaller environmental impact as other protein sources such as cattle is an incredible valid and important one in modern-day Paraguay. Anyways, once the speeches were made and the band had played a bit the crowd headed down to one the ponds where the ceremonial ribbon was cut. Afterwards, everyone was invited to a cookout to celebrate the completion of the project. Moving onwards the group hopes to obtain more fish and to dig more ponds in the community in order to make a sort of fish resource in the interior of San Pedro. I am incredibly proud of the group for accomplishing all that they have and making the project work no matter what setbacks we faced. Hopefully, this group will be successfully raising fish long after I am gone and finding ways to improve their project in order to make an environmentally and economically sustainable project.

Speaking of me being gone! I can’t believe that only six months are left in my service and it is getting to be time to start thinking about my immediate future. To be honest, I have been thinking about my post-service future for some time now keeping an eye on the Texas A&M job board for any interesting opportunities whether it be a job or an assistantship for a Master’s Program. At this point I am looking into job opportunities more than Graduate Schools as a result of my arrival date in December. Most of the Graduate School programs have fall start dates. I think it may be time to make money anyhow and if I ever feel so inclined I can go back to school and receive my Master’s or who knows maybe even my PHD. For now there seem to be some interesting opportunities in the job market. I may be getting ahead of myself with the job search as there is still much to be done in my last six months. For one I have my computer/English classes that are continue to be very rewarding for me. Another project is a travelling Environmental Workshop that I am helping to plan for the entire state of San Pedro that will take place over the next couple of months in order to bring some environmental awareness to a variety of schools in a variety of locations. It is also about the time in my Peace Corps service where I am to start thinking about follow-up volunteers in my area. As of right now it appears that a volunteer will be coming to my community once I am gone as well as another possible volunteer in each of the communities to which I travel to teach computer use. Over the next few weeks I will start to determine the possibility of having volunteers in those communities.  Besides that I am starting to prepare to wrap up my service. The months are flying by and the days are super short. Before I know it I will be on a plane out of here and back in the USA. 

2 comments:

  1. I can't believe you have only 6 months left- time flies! I'm so sorry about your goat :(

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  2. Greg, I am sorry about your goat. Although it was stolen, maybe it's really helping someone in need right now (not an excuse to perform the act... but still). Regarding your project, that's pretty awesome. It's good to know that you're making such an impact while you're there. Try USAjobs to see if there is anything you would like to do there. I hope your last 6 months are amazing!

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