Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A Month of Firsts

August has been a month of new experiences and lots of success. It has been one of those great months that come along once every so often over the course of the Peace Corps service. It has also just flown by! It is hard to believe that this weekend will mark the beginning of September and therefore the last few months of my Peace Corps service. September will be spent mostly out of site as I have a Close of Service Conference and then shortly afterwards I will be travelling to the US for a 10 day vacation. I suppose this is just the craziness of the last few months of Peace Corps service.

This month has been a culinary adventure and I have had more crazy food in the past few weeks than I had in my first 22 months of service. It all started with a conversation about what I had and had not eaten in Paraguay. Of course I have had all the normal things like pork, beef, chicken and spaghetti, sopa paraguaya, pig head, cow head, cow feet, cow intestine, bull testicles, pig intestine, chicken feet and neck, armadillo, blood sausage....the normal stuff. It came out that I had not eaten some of South America's famous wildlife so the Paraguayans decided to change that. I can now say that I have eaten and enjoyed eating Carpincho, Paloma and Yacaré. The Carpincho or Capybara, is the worlds largest rodent and is really just a Giant Swamp Rat. This was prepared very similarly to pulled pork and was slow cooked for half a day with various spices and vegetables that apparently rid it of its normal swampy flavor. The result was delicious and tasted like a drier pulled pork that would have been great on a sandwich only with random rodent bones thrown in. The Paloma or Pigeon, left a little more to be desired. The cook told me at first that it was frog soup and I tended to believe him as the way the bird was cut looked like a squatting toad. This dish was prepared as a soup and the meat tasted like chicken but just with a lot less meat...the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. A fun fact that I learned afterwards is that pigeon is supposedly an aphrodisiac...can't say that I can verify that. The Yacaré or Caiman, was a result of a surprise invitation and included a nighttime walk to someones field where a small group of people were preparing this dish. Caiman is renowned to be a tasty dish and I was really excited to give it a shot. This was also prepared in a slow cooking type of way that resulted in tender meat that was as white and flaky as fish, meatier like pork and flavored like chicken. It was  quite tasty and well worth the adventure. The least adventurous of the different meals was something called lechón which is really just a young pig barbecued in its skin. While this for me was very delicious and produced very tender meat it was also very fatty and made me a bit sick. Also watching Paraguayans attack it like lions eating a zebra but with a knife and fork caused it to lose some appeal for me.

The Asuncion Marathon was also this past weekend. In an effort to get in shape and lose a few pounds I signed up for the half marathon a couple of months ago and have been diligently training for my first race ever. My training consisted of running 4 days a week at various distances in and around my site. All my running was done on dirt and sand which has probably saved my knees and ankles but also made me nervous about a transition to pavement. Turns out I had nothing to worry about and it also turned into my advantage to have a relatively hilly site which gave me a lot of practice running up and down hills which turned out to be the key to my race. Throughout my training I had set a goal for myself of an 1:45 to finish the half marathon which works out to be about 8 minute miles. Some days I felt this was attainable others not so much. So this past Friday I arrived in Asuncion and Saturday I picked up my race kit which included a shirt, hat, washcloth, vitamins, and my number 598. About 20 or so other volunteers also participated in the race with the majority doing the half marathon, some doing the 10km and a few crazies doing the full marathon. Saturday night we went to a pasta dinner held for the runners so we could all  pre-race carbo load. This turned out to be a nice event that gave shout outs to the participating countries and had some traditional music and dance including the bottle dance where the dancer had a total of 20 bottles stacked on her head and she seemed to struggle just keeping them up there much less dancing with them on her head. The marathon had participants from England, Kenya, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Argentina and of course Paraguay among others. Sunday morning came around and it was cold, in the 50's, for me this was the ideal running temperature so by 6:30 we headed to the starting line checked our bags, pinned our numbers on, stretched out and prepared to run with 3,000 other people. At 7:00am the clock had counted down and we were off, well the Kenyans were, we were still way back in the midst of the crowd. Eventually we got going and started to get some space to run when we got to the first of many hills for the day. Then it was on, I killed the hills both up and down and loved the feeling of running past people next thing you know I am 10km into the race and the crowd has significantly thinned and I am feeling great. All I could do was smile as I confronted yet another hill or saw a friend also running, it just felt great and I was making excellent time.I also learned that drinking water while running is extremely challenging and half of my drinking attempts resulted in choking...I will have to work on that. At 18km I knew I only had 3km to go and I had to push it and so I ran faster and the closer I got to the finish line the faster I tried to run and the more people that were there cheering. Finally, the finish line was in site and I passed the old man that had passed me only a few minutes before ad I crossed the line at 1:41.39! I crushed my goal and finished with a more or less 7:45 minute mile. I couldn't have been happier. So maybe a marathon could be in my future....

Last week also included another fantastic event which was the Environmental Expo that was planned by the Volunteers in San Pedro. This event was held in Itacurubi del Rosario where currently 3 volunteers are living as it is a medium sized city. The idea was to have several stations set up with the school children rotating through. In total we had 13 volunteers to help manage the 450 or so kids that we had in the gymnasium. The six stations were climate change, deforestation, tree planting, trash classification, trash management and the snake kit. I was in charge of the snake kit which I would not be wrong in saying was the biggest draw of the six stations. So 450 kids and 8 mini talks later we had gotten through the mobs of kids after a tremendously successful event thanks to the planning of the volunteers in Itacurubi and the participation of the rest of the volunteers in San Pedro. This was just another success in what has been shaping up to be a tremendously successful Peace Corps Service.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Agosto Poty, Vaka Piru


“Agosto, vaka piru ha tuja rerahaha” this Guarani expression states that ‘the old, skinny cow dies in the month of August’. This is the last month of winter and can be a time of hardship due to cold weather, lack of food and generally considered somewhat unlucky. A typical tradition is to drink Terere with two medicinal herbs, agosto poty (August flower) and pyno’i (a small stinging nettle) and is said to purify the blood. Another traditional drink is called Carrulim which are the words caña (a sugarcane rum/whisky), ruda (an herb) and limon (lime) put together to make a fun sounding word. The purpose of this tradition is to free the body of all the bad that can happen during the month of August including death. So enough of all this death and disease, Happy August! 

Winter Break has come to an end this past week after the kids and professors got an extra week off due to a widespread flu that has been going around. That means back to teaching for me! I was able to enjoy the three weeks off doing various things in my community as well as travelling and seeing some other volunteers. To kick off the winter vacation some of the Peace Corps Volunteers in the area helped to train the Amigos de las Americas which is a cultural experience program from the US that sends high school aged kids to countries like Paraguay for cultural exchange and a primary project or two. In Paraguay their focus is on youth empowerment as well as fogon (wood burning stove) construction. As Peace Corps Volunteers many of us are practically professional fogon builders so the Amigos staff invited us to their training event where each of us took a group of Amigos and trained them how to build these stoves from the ground up. After their initial training they spend another 6 weeks in Paraguay in their designated community with one or two other Amigos while they build fogones as well as work in the schools for the youth empowerment aspect of their assignment. This past week several of the Amigos Volunteers as well as some Paraguayan Volunteers came to a community close to my site to build a couple of fogones for a school that was previously without. I was invited to help instruct and supervise the construction of the stoves I had 12 workers to watch over and with so many hands we made quick work of the simultaneous construction of the two fogones and within 5 hours we had completed them both… a record time. 

Over the break I also had an opportunity to travel a little bit within the country and went north to San Pedro de Ycuaamandyju (San Pedro of the Cotton Well) to visit some volunteers that live up that way. This small city, the capital of the state of San Pedro, always reminds me of an Old Western town with its many dirt roads and narrow streets lined by many shops and saloons. While in town we went to a concert for a local band called Los Verduleros (the vegetable sellers) which has been a very popular group in Paraguay with two major hit songs Borracho (drunkard) and Soltero (bachelor). The concert was a blast; we danced on stage while the group was playing, went backstage with them to enjoy some free beverages, stayed out until the sun came up and even had some pancakes before the sunrise. To say the least we all had a lot of fun during our time in San Pedro and as always it was enjoyable to spend time with other volunteers in order to see what they are doing and how they are living.

After the trip to San Pedro I was off to an Environmental themed Winter Camp at another volunteer’s site. This is planned to be the first of a series of workshops where the volunteers from my area will teach Paraguayan children about various environmental themes including trash management, climate change, biodiversity and deforestation. The next ones that we have planned promise to be even bigger (a couple hundred kids) but they would only be over the course of a single day with rotations to break up the number of kids per presenter. During this camp I helped to teach about trash management, the food chain and biodiversity as well as showed off the snake kit that includes a preserved venomous snake and gives information about the identification of the venomous snakes of Paraguay. This camp went extremely well, after a day and a half with about 20 or so kids and a lot of educational activities we were all exhausted. I finally made it home and I have never been quite so happy to be back.

As a result of the extra week of vacation I was able to enjoy some relaxing time in site and had the opportunity to visit many of the families that I had not seen in some time as well as do some much needed work around my house. One day was spent with a machete in hand as I cut all the grass and weeds that were in my overgrown front lawn. Another was spent visiting various families which resulted in me going out into the fields to get mandioca, hoeing some overgrown plots of melon, cutting brush (with machete) and taking leaves off of moringa trees (the magical cure-all tree from India). I have even started my very own radio program that airs on Saturday afternoons. I talk about various environmental themes and I can also play whatever music that I choose. This past week I covered gardens; everything from the benefits of gardens to what vegetables can be planted together to homemade pesticides. This coming week I will be talking about beekeeping in preparation for the spring. For my first program I decided to play some American music so I played LMFAO’s Sexy and I Know It as my intro song with some Levels by Avicii constantly in the background. I have no idea what music to use this week but I intend to keep it American. 

At this point in my Peace Corps service things are definitely winding down. I am currently in the process of site development with my bosses. This means locating places where future volunteers could end up being placed. The current idea is to have a volunteer living in the community where I am as well as one or two others in some of the surrounding communities where I have also been working. The idea would to have a small group of volunteers close enough to each other that they could coordinate on projects as well as enjoy the fact that another American is living fairly close by. I am personally winding down my own projects and thinking to the future and of life back in the USA. Currently, I am still leaning towards a job and am waiting to hear from prospective employers. I am also in the midst of training for my first race, a half marathon that is at the end of August in Asuncion. I have been doing a lot of running on the sandy, hilly roads of my community over the past few months and I am making great progress towards the goals that I have for the race. So on August 26 wish me luck as I attempt to run further than I ever have before! The next bit of news is that I will be taking a trip to the USA in September in order to help my college roommate celebrate his marriage to the love of his life! I will be home for 10 days and I hope to see lots of family and friends as well as to enjoy some of the flavors from the states that I have missed the most including a big healthy Sandwich and Buffalo Wings. 

Oh yeah, it is also my Birthday this Saturday and as I turn 25 I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a quarter of a century in age. A friend directed me to this page, 25 things to do before you turn 25. I feel that I have done the vast majority of things on the list. Number 23 is one of my favorites: Leave the country under the premise of ‘finding yourself’ …. and go home when you start to miss it. The one about buying a Macbook Pro will never happen and I don’t feel the least bit bad about it. To say the least, I feel pretty accomplished for my first 25 years of life and I have to thank my family and friends for supporting me in my journey to get where I am today. I have been on a lot of adventures that span the Western Hemisphere with different pretenses for each trip along the way I have learned a lot about the world as well as myself. I have learned that: 
  • People are people, no matter where you go there will always be good and bad.
  • It is important to always be open to trying new things and taking advantage of all the opportunities presented to you, as you never know if you will ever have the chance to do it again.
  •  The world is full of beautiful and amazing places but the places that you tend to miss the most are the ones closest to the place you grew up.
  • The most important thing is to be happy with your life and if you realize that you are not, you must to do something to change that. 

Come a few months’ time I can add Peace Corps to my accomplishments and I will be able to say that I have lived outside of the USA for a little shy of 3 years if all of my travels are put together.  I can’t say that I have found myself while living abroad because I realize that I had never lost myself in the first place, however, I can say that it is almost time to go home.