tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341840730866664462024-03-13T12:11:37.709-03:00Para ParaguayGreghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-35941110047440125222012-12-04T20:28:00.004-03:002012-12-04T20:28:52.526-03:00Saying GoodbyeThe last few months have been a lot of preparation for ending my Peace Corps Service and transitioning for the next stage in my life. It has also been the holiday season and I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving over the course of a whole week. It started with a trip south to another volunteer's house where about 10 of us prepared and enjoyed our own Thanksgiving feast. This year did not include any Turkey but there was some traditional food such as stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and green bean casserole in addition to the summertime foods of coleslaw, barbecue pork ribs and chicken and jambalaya cooked by our Gulf Coast native host. It was all super delicious and got us nice and full for the following day spent next to a beautiful 100 foot waterfall. Immediately following this was the Lady Gaga concert in Asuncion. I cannot say that I would ever attend one of her shows in the US but considering the price of the tickets and the amount of volunteers that went I had to go. She put on an hour and a half long show that featured a giant 4 story castle and a bunch of monologues in English that basically only the Americans in the audience understood. She really could have used a translator to help her connect a little better with the Paraguayans. The day after her show I was off to my friend Josh's site to cook another Thanksgiving feast for his teachers. Between the two of us we threw together an 11 dish meal over the course of 7 hours. There was very little resting and whole lot of sweating as the two of us were slaving away over the gas stove trying to get everything done in time for an 11:30 lunch. After all the effort the Paraguayans seemed to love the meal and learned a bit about American tradition as we explained what Thanksgiving means to us. Once this excursion was done it was back to site for me to go on one more field trip with some of my Professors to the famous Lake Ypacarai and now here I am preparing to pack and leave the place that has been my home. I will be leaving behind a lot of clothing that in reality is worn to the point of not being socially acceptable in the States but my neighbors will happily use and give away to other families. I am leaving my dog, Leon, who has been my faithful companion for most of my service. He will stay with my neighbors who have basically adopted him already and feed him at least twice a day with table scraps. I will be leaving behind several American flags and plenty of NY sports apparel that hopefully will be around for years to come.<br />
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The official <a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/party?iso=20121216T11&p0=21&fg1=9acd79&fg2=ff605a&msg=Americuh" target="_blank">countdown</a> for my return to the United States of America has ticked down below 14 days and I have only a few more days left in 8.000 Bertoni where I have lived for the past 24 months. I am currently doing my best to wrap things up with Peace Corps and my house as well as saying goodbye to the people who have been my neighbors, coworkers and family for the past 2 years. Once I do leave a new volunteer will be living in my community from the Agricultural Sector. The hope is that the new volunteer will continue to work with the farmers of my Aquaculture project and help to further develop the fish farm as well as whatever other project that the group would like to pursue. However, every volunteer is different and each one will discover new opportunities in the community that the previous volunteer never realized. I have been saying this the entire time of my service, as the volunteer before me primarily focused on the local school in my community and even lived in the school. Early on I decided that I wanted to reach out into the community a little more and work with farmers which resulted in my aquaculture project and various small agricultural activities with various members of the community. I did continue to work with the school but in a minor role sometimes teaching an English class or giving an environmental themed talk. After a few months in my community I was approached by an NGO that asked me to teach a computer class in a school about 5 miles from my house and I agreed to it as long as that school would feed me on the days that I taught. Shortly after I was requested to teach a computer class at another school about 4 miles away and I agreed to it as well. These two other communities were further away than the normal zone a volunteer works in but I was happy to help teach the kids a very useful skill set that most of Paraguay is lacking. As a result of my working in these two communities they will each receive their very own Environmental Action Volunteer. That means that my little area will have three volunteers for the next two years and the hope is that they will collaborate together to accomplish much more than I was ever able to. Looking back on my service I have a lot to be proud of, I accomplished things that I never imagined myself accomplishing. I learned a new language (I am now trilingual), I taught a ton of kids to use computers, I built energy efficient wood-burning stoves, I helped to make the dietary and financial futures of members of my community more stable, I lived in a strange place for 2 years and yet there were so many things that I was not able to accomplish. My women's group never was able to attain its goal of raising chickens for egg production, my youth group only lasted a month or two, I had failures at planting green manures. My failures are mostly my fault from either lack of experience or lack of time and I feel terribly that I did not put more effort into making them work. However, everyone has their limitations and I learned a lot and more about my own limitations as a human being. That does not mean that I don't feel terribly guilty about letting people down because I do but I can live with it. I am not perfect but I did try my best and that is all I could do. Sometimes things just do not work out. I have built some lasting friendships and gotten to know some wonderful people whom I will miss a ton. So now is the time to say goodbye and letting them know that I leaving and I do not know when I will be back again. In one of my schools I have been replaced by a Paraguayan computer teacher which was the ultimate goal of mine all along. However, it was very sad because it cut my time short with the kids and when I visited afterwards they would come up to me and ask why I was not teaching them anymore and that they liked me better and if I would come back next year and teach them again. I was not expecting this reaction and I had an awful time explaining to them that I was going back to my home and family and that they have a new teacher now and a new American that will be working in the school. It was the first time that I realized how much I am going to miss this place. In my site the people are used to the coming and going of volunteers as they have had quite a few over the years and they now know they will get a new one so it is not as big a shock or even as big a deal. That makes it easier on me as they understand my goodbye is for real but obviously still very tough. Overall, I am proud of myself and what I was able to do over the course of two years.<br />
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Now it is time to go home and be with my family and friends for the holidays. After that.....the sky is the limit.<br />
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<br />Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-79775703263001801212012-10-10T17:38:00.004-03:002012-10-10T17:38:53.200-03:00To the First World and Back<br />
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I have travelled from the third world to the first world and
then back to the third. I went from getting around by riding my bike over miles
of sandy red dirt roads to driving my car at high speeds down the New York
Thruway. I went from eating chicken necks and mandioca to chicken wings and
sweet potato fries. I went from drinking the standard Brahma to flavorful
microbrews. I went from sweating in the shade to sweater weather picking
apples. And then I came back to the third world to spend a few more weeks and
wrap up this adventure that has been my Peace Corps service. September was highlighted
with preparations for the tail end of my time in Paraguay with a couple of
weeks spent in Upstate New York as a strong reminder of what I will be going
back to come December. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The start of September marked the last 3.5 months of Peace
Corps service for G34 and brought on the preparations for our departure in the
form of a Close of Service conference. At this conference our entire group that
arrived in Paraguay in September of 2010 got together for the first time in
nearly a year and we were able to catch up with each other and enjoy each
other’s company. The workshop focused on our reflections about the Peace Corps
as well as our service, what we need to do in preparation for our departure
from Paraguay and ending our contract with the Peace Corps and what the future
can hold for us. It was a very informative couple of days that also allowed for
a little bit of pool time and even a dance party that featured a Winter
Olympics theme. At the conference we learned about the work and educational
benefits that we receive as a result of our PC service which really started to
shift my focus to the real world. I have been looking at jobs opportunities for
some time and now is the time when I can start applying to different
opportunities that I find. I have also opened my mind to further education as I
imagine that I will need a more advanced degree at some point in the future. Why
not take a look at the programs that Peace Corps promote? I have found a
program that offers a Master of Science in Environmental Policy which is an
exciting and important area in the modern world as climate change has come to
the forefront of environmental issues. By the close of the conference we were
all excited about our futures and how close we were to finishing our service
but also sad at the fact that we will be leaving the place that we have called
home for the past two years as well as saying goodbye to the people who have
welcomed us into their homes and made us a part of their families. As is every
life change the ending will be bittersweet but the future is bright. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Immediately after this conference I had the opportunity to
go to some Jesuit Ruins in the southern part of the country. I went to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_and_Trinidad_Jesuit_Ruins">Trinidad</a>
where I visited another volunteer and saw the remains of a Jesuit ruin dating
back to the 15<sup>th</sup> century. The first tour I took was at night and the
ruins were lit up with beautifully placed lighting with great background music
giving the place a wonderful museum feel that was completely outdoors. The
scale of the place was astounding and imagining how the old Jesuit priests
organized the Guarani Indians to construct the place with their bare hands and
simple tools is mind blowing. Throughout the ruins there are statues with their
heads removed which were supposedly removed by looters in their search for
gold. One of my favorite little details was the flower emblems found all over
the place which symbolized the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passionfruit_flower_(Hato_Mayor,_Dominican_Republic_-_January_2012).jpg">passion
fruit flower</a>. The history of these ruins of the Jesuit reductions dates
back to the 1600’s when the Jesuit priests gathered the Guarani Indians into
these compounds in order to keep them safe from the Brazilian slave traders
that would constantly take the unprotected Indians captive during this time
period. In the reductions the Jesuits taught the Indians about Christianity but
at the same time helped to preserve the Indigenous culture by writing down the
language and this is a big reason why the Guarani language is still around
today and continues to be an official language of Paraguay. These reductions
were also working villages where the Indigenous peoples learned modern crafts
as well as received education. Eventually these missionaries were expelled in
1767 and the Missions went into disuse and disrepair and we are lucky to have
what remains of them to this day. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After my little in-country excursion it was time for my big
out of country excursion to the USA. I was originally going home for 10 days but ended up staying for 6 extra days due to missing
my flight and then a little bit of negotiating with the airline. So in those 16
days I did a ton of things but not too much. I went on a nice mini road trip
with a group of college friends in order to see Justin, my college roommate, get
married in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to his lovely bride Kayla. I went apple
picking with my family. I saw the Giants win on Thursday night football. I went
for a hike up an Adirondack High Peak on a very wet yet colorful day. I ate a
lot of chicken wings. I visited a Grad School. And I spent a lot of great
quality time with my family. After my wonderful time at home it was time to
come back to Paraguay to finish my last 9 weeks. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Since being back it has been hot, really hot….as in over 100
degrees every day. That part has not been a ton of fun and it has been made
worse due to buses breaking down and inconveniently travelling at the hottest
parts of the day. I need to get my Paraguay smarts back and relearn that all I
need to do at the hottest part of the day is sit in the shade and drink terere. <o:p></o:p></div>
Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-61669354747445503232012-08-29T10:24:00.002-04:002012-08-29T10:24:38.773-04:00A Month of FirstsAugust 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.<br />
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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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara" target="_blank">Carpincho</a>,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon" target="_blank"> Paloma</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caiman" target="_blank">Yacaré</a>. 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.<br />
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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 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRGxJf6LKAg" target="_blank">bottle dance </a>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....<br />
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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.<br />
<br />Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-6396674142045675822012-08-01T20:28:00.001-04:002012-08-01T20:49:23.052-04:00Agosto Poty, Vaka Piru<br />
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“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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terer%C3%A9" target="_blank">Terere</a> 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 <b>ca</b>ña (a sugarcane rum/whisky), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Rue" target="_blank"><b>ru</b>da</a> (an herb) and <b>lim</b>on (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! </div>
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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 <a href="http://www.amigoslink.org/" target="_blank">Amigos de las Americas</a> 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. </div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa" target="_blank">moringa trees</a> (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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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,<a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/25-things-to-do-before-you-turn-25/" target="_blank"> 25 things to do before you turn 25</a>. 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: </div>
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<li>People are people, no matter where you go there will always be good and bad. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></li>
<li>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.</li>
<li> 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.</li>
<li>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. </li>
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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.</div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-78252773695965798252012-07-07T15:00:00.000-04:002012-07-07T15:00:12.939-04:00The Aftermath<br />
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In the time since<b> <a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/600526_626725021069_212914881_n.jpg">Goatgate</a></b>
there has been quite a bit of excitement in the news from Paraguay. The week
following the disappearance of Ears, a conflict between landless farmers and
the police resulted in casualties on both sides as a peaceful eviction went
wrong. Exactly two weeks after my goat was taken, the Paraguayan Parliament
impeached the President as a result of a history of poor judgments, within 48
hours the President was out of office and the Vice President was sworn in. This
of course caught the attention of international media and resulted in backlash
from the neighboring countries in the region. Needless to say Paraguay is
experiencing some interesting political times and the future remains uncertain.
So what does this mean for the daily life of a Peace Corps Volunteer in the
interior? Not much, in fact, it would be hard to tell anything has changed at
all. Sure, there are some new conversation topics that come up when drinking <i>terere</i> with the neighbors, but in reality
the daily life in Paraguay has not changed at all. I continue teaching,
visiting neighbors, shopping in Santani, riding my bike, running, reading, talking
with other Peace Corps Volunteers and of course drinking <i>terere</i> (or more likely mate now that it has gotten so cold). The
Paraguayans continue to go to school, listen to polka, work in the fields,
plant their gardens, drink terere, go back to the fields and of course drink
more terere. So while the news abroad may seem quite dramatic, the <i>tranquilo</i> Paraguayan lifestyle has
tranquilly prevailed. Personally I have found this Paraguayan attitude
extremely refreshing. I have to admit that for several days I was very much the
typical American following the news minute by minute expecting the worst and
getting myself really worked up to the point of hysteria. Then I looked around
to the people who would actually be affected by whatever consequences might
come and saw that they were drinking terere just like any other day. These
Paraguayans by no means were oblivious to what was going on in their government
and most definitely had opinions about the occurrences, but in reality nothing
was going to affect their lives that day or the next. I found this approach
very refreshing, especially after a couple days of following the news late into
the night, it resulted in much needed break from being too connected to the
world. This just goes on to support the idea that my Peace Corps service is
just like camping. I essentially am outside even when I am not, I sleep in a
sleeping bag, bugs are a constant nuisance, cooking is either done with a fire
or a gas tank and (if I so choose) I can be completely disconnected. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Currently, 8.000 Bertoni as well as all of Paraguay is
getting into another cold spell as winter seems to come and go. Only last week
it was in the 90’s and now it is back down into the 40’s. Of course this has
resulted in me getting a cold and has even made my cellphone sluggish but to be
honest this beats the heat because it is much easier to warm up than it is to
cool down when air conditioning is not an option. The best part of the last few
weeks has been the abundance of pineapple. I have my piña hookup (a 10 year old
kid) that comes to my house at least once a week to give me pineapples in
exchange for a few sips of water and of course some money. This has made my
life much happier as I can experiment with all sorts of pineapple smoothies
that mostly include pineapple, powdered milk and water (if I am lucky banana). It is also gardening season and I have spent some time working on my neighbors garden as well as my own and very soon my spinach, chard, cabbage, parsley and broccoli will be ready for transplant and I will be able to eat a bunch of tasty salads. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This past week was of course Independence Day in the USA and of
course the Peace Corps Volunteers had to celebrate our Nation so a lot of us
went into Asuncion for the annual picnic at the US Embassy for some hot dogs,
hamburgers, Cuban Music and Mexican Beer. My personal favorite moment was
winning a door prize! I won a bath kit that including 4 different ways to scrub
myself, a bar of soap and a basket. While it may not be as good as the massage
that was another prize it will be handy to try and keep my feet<i> pique</i> free and keep my toenails from permanently
taking on the red color from the soil. In case you were wondering, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungiasis">pique</a></i> is probably the
most disgusting thing that I have experienced on an almost daily basis. It is a
type of flea that thrives in sandy soil (aka my yard) and infects humans and
dogs by penetrating into the skin of the foot and then growing as it fills up
with eggs resulting in a painful spot on the foot. While not recommended I prefer to pop them
out with orange spines which results in a white pus looking substance coming
out as well as the body of the flea. I have gotten so good at this procedure
that my elderly neighbors, who don’t see all that well, entrust me to take out
their <i>pique</i> for them. Another life
skill learned.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Speaking of life skills, a few weeks back I received a phone
call from <i>Karai</i> Nelson, one of my
neighbors, he says, “Gregorio, come here right now! I just killed two <i>Jarara</i>, come here to take a look.” How
could I say no? So I head on over and when I finally arrive to the edge of his
forest at the back of his fields I see the two dead <i>Jarara</i> hanging from the fence but I don’t see him. I take a couple of pictures and go into the <i>ka’aguy </i>(woods) to find Nelson where I find
him cutting down some trees. He asks me if I saw the <i>Jarara</i> and of course I say that I had and then he tells me that I
have to bring them home with me. I am pretty reluctant but as most Paraguayans
he is very insistent and I relent. I ask him if he has a plastic bag around as
they are bleeding a lot and I only have my backpack and don’t especially want it
to get covered in <i>Jarara </i>blood and of
course he doesn’t. Grudgingly, I place the two 6 foot long <i>Jarara</i> in my backpack and take them home (a <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothrops_jararacussu">jarara</a></i>,
by the way, is the Guarani name for Lancehead which is one of the more
dangerous venomous snakes in Paraguay). I now have these two recently killed <i>jarara</i> in my house and am trying to
decide what to do with them; my predecessor famously ate a <i>jarara</i> during his service and I decided it would be best to break
from this tradition so that Paraguayans don’t think that all Americans just
love eating snakes. I decided that the best use for these two dead snakes would
be future belts. So I quickly looked up how to skin a snake and then did so.
The result: two beautiful 6 foot long snake skins that will someday be
transformed into belts once they stop stinking. Life skill learned: I can now
confidently skin a snake. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now that I am down to the last 5 months of service it feels
as if life is starting to speed up. School Vacation has just started which
gives me two weeks off from my classes and I plan to visit a few other
Volunteer’s sites with this free time and before I know it July will be over
and then it will be August! At some point I still need to get to Iguazu Falls,
one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, and maybe even the Jesuit Missions
in Southern Paraguay. This is also getting to be the time where I have to start
getting my site as well as some others ready for new volunteers who will
replace me when I am gone. My follow-up will likely be the last Environmental
Volunteer in my site as there is a three volunteer cycle and I am the second,
but new cycles could start up in some neighboring communities ensuring that
Peace Corps continues its long tradition in my area. And so the Peace Corps
will continue working in Paraguay; each of us as Volunteers are just minuscule pieces
of the vast Peace Corps Sustainable Development puzzle.<o:p></o:p></div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-20223101373625314482012-06-12T18:23:00.000-04:002012-06-12T18:23:17.840-04:00GOATGATE 2012<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
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.</div>
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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. <o:p></o:p></div>
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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. <o:p></o:p></div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-297379651650806792012-05-02T13:49:00.002-04:002012-05-02T13:55:45.352-04:00Winter is ComingIt’s hard to believe that only 3 months ago one of my
favorite activities was sitting under a cold water shower for as long as I
liked. Now I try to stay warm by eating hot food, drinking maté, wearing all of
my clothes while curled up in my 15°F sleeping bag with a movie on my
laptop. I hate to make it sound that bad because it is only getting as cold as
the 40’s but when you are in an unheated, uninsulated house that has a metal
roof, concrete floors, and half inch wooden planking for walls that don’t quite
reach the ceiling that 40 degrees tends
to infiltrate every part of your life. As
the weather changes my daily routine changes. Waking up isn’t so hard but
getting out of my nice cozy cocoon is terribly difficult especially knowing
that I am only to go outside with the sun barely up and hop on a bicycle to
ride about 3.5 miles through sand, uphill the entire way, to teach some 50 kids
ranging from 4 to 14 year olds the basics of computers. Nobody said it would be
easy. Luckily this scenario only happens two days a week. The other days can be
a slower start, after staking the goat out to forage I can sit down with piping
hot maté that gives me a little energy boost as well as warms me from the
inside out. Then in the morning I generally walk around town to see what is
happening whether it be in the school, my neighbor’s house, or how many fish
ponds have been dug for my aquaculture project. Around lunchtime I get back
home to move the goat and give her some food and then I have to decide if
showering will be in my future because I know by afternoon it will be
impossible to convince myself to stand under cold water for any amount of time
and bucket bathing does not sound entirely appealing yet. The very short
afternoon is much like the morning but recently has included a little bit of exercise
to get the blood circulating. Then I bring the goat back close to the house and
feed her again maybe make myself some dinner and get another pot of boiling
water ready for maté and settle into my sleeping bag. Then I have time to plan
activities for the next day, watch whatever movie strikes me on my laptop,
listen to the rats crawling around my kitchen and hoping they finally eat the
poison and not my soap and eventually I fall asleep resting to start another
day.<br />
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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Luckily, I took a vacation before this most recent cold snap
and was able to escape to Uruguay for a week with my bestie, Josh. The whole
point of the trip was to break up our service a little bit in order to see
someplace new as well as spend some time in a bigger city and to lounge on the
beach. So after a severely delayed hour and a half flight we landed in Montevideo,
Uruguay, the third most southern capital city in the world, which is a decent
sized modern city with a little over a million residents and sits on the River
Plate where it enters the Southern Atlantic Ocean. We stayed in a place called the Red Hostel
right outside the Old City and right in the center of the city not far from a
McDonalds. The very first night we were able to experience a lot of what
Montevideo had to offer us. It started and ended with the Uruguayan variety of
Pilsen and in between a great dinner of Seafood Paella (it had been a really
long time since I had seafood) accompanied with Uruguayan Tannat wine. After
this we were drawn in with some Brazilian tourists and some others staying in
the hostel and went out to see what nightlife is like in the Uruguayan capital.
To say the least it was not what we expected. Turns out that music circa the
1950’s US is the popular scene in the dance clubs. That the dance club scene isn’t
really inside the dance club at all but instead out on the street outside the
club where everyone is gathered drinking, smoking and being raucous. After an
hour of this it was decided it would be a good idea to move on and try to find
our way back which we eventually did but not before getting some good old South
American street food, hamburgers and hotdogs. At about 5 am we were in bed. The
next few days in Montevideo were spent walking around and seeing the sights
that included the zoo where we discovered a giraffe and a housecat that had
formed some sort of symbiotic relationship, the famous Port Market where every
booth sells more cuts of meat than you could ever imagine, McDonalds where the
Big Mac is the Big Mac no matter where you are, and the Old City where the
streets are covered in dog poop. Then it was off the Punta del Diablo (the
Devils Point, named for its trident shaped coastline) for some fun in the sun.
Luckily it was sunny 80% of our time there which is unusual for low season and
the temperatures were warm enough to go into the surf. As a result of it being
the Low Season the whole town was empty. Normally, during high season, there
are probably 50 or so hostels and hotels open, for low season only one, the
Diablo Tranquilo Hostel. Lucky for us it is also the best hostel in Punta del
Diablo and offers all sorts of excursions that include surfing, sand boarding
and horseback riding. We didn’t participate in any of these excursions but
still had a great time. The Diablo Tranquilo hostel was the first ever hostel
in PDD (Punta Del Diablo) and was created by an American entrepreneur at the
age of 25. After several years of managing this hostel and opening up an
associated restaurant and suites he has decided to get out and sell especially
since PDD has blown up with hotels and luxury suites as a result of it being listed
as one of the 10 Places in the World to see in 2008 by Lonely Planet. I imagine
that low season in PDD is not much different than the early years as far as the
crowds go and I was happy to get into the ocean every day and even get a little
bit of sun. Aside from that we did a lot of walking and saw a lot of the
coastline that included dead sea turtles and sea lions as well as live dolphins
and many beautiful vistas and opportunities for beach jumping and planking. After
a few days at the beach, barely avoiding ammonia poisoning, we had to get back
to Montevideo in order to fly back to Paraguay and then of course to get back
to our cold countryside reality.<o:p></o:p></div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-74297782195304023302012-04-07T16:11:00.000-03:002012-04-07T16:11:55.112-03:00Semana Santa and When Being Literate is not a Good Thing<div class="MsoNormal">Happy Easter! The past few days have been spent with my Paraguayan family/neighbors for <i>Semana</i> <i>Santa</i> or Holy Week. In the United States we recognize Holy Week but in Paraguay and most of Latin America it is a big deal. Kids get a few days of vacation and people aren’t allowed to work. More importantly <i>chipa</i> is heavily consumed and family from all over comes back to the countryside to spend the holiday with their parents and relatives. This past week starting on Wednesday the kids were off from school and the people began to prepare for <i>Viernes Santo</i> or Good Friday when meat cannot be consumed and <i>chipa</i> is the main course. This preparation means washing all the laundry, getting the house in its cleanest state, and making lots and lots of <i>chipa</i> and <i>sopa</i>. <i>Chipa</i> is a popular food in Paraguay sold in the streets and on buses from baskets. It is made from pig fat, eggs, cheese, buttermilk, mandioca flour, salt and anise. This is all mixed together then rolled out into rings, wedges, or whatever shapes you feel inclined to make. Then this is placed on top of banana leaves and then into the <i>tatakuaa</i> or wood fired oven. Once it comes out the <i>chipa</i> is at its softest most delicious state. Then once Friday comes around when <i>chipa</i> is the primary meal for the day the <i>chipa</i> is rock hard. On Thursday a giant meal is prepared for the Last Supper and is generally and <i>asado</i>, <i>sopa</i>, mandioca, rice salad and beer. While this time is filled with traditions it is primarily a time for family to be together and to catch up and luckily for me my neighbors invited me to spend the Holy Week with them and they made me feel like I was part of the family. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now that we are well into April, the kids are well into their school year as well, which has meant a great deal of work for me. I am now a few weeks into my computer classes which at one school have grown to include kindergarten through 3<sup>rd</sup> grade as well as my traditional 4<sup>th</sup> grade through 9<sup>th</sup>. These young kids have created another challenge for my teaching as I learn how to teach young kids who are afraid of the big strange looking and strange speaking teacher but also have very short attention spans. At my other school I have integrated English lessons into the lesson plan which breaks up teaching computers every week. As of right now my student count is at 180 or so students; kind of overwhelming to say the least. In other news my fish project is taking off and about 2/3 of the entire cost is has received funding and ground will be broken in the next few weeks on the 10 new fish ponds that we have asked for. But there is still funding to find and this will probably require even more work as I try to find alternative sources of money for our project. From here on out I will continue to work on the Fish Project as well and my Chicken Project but my primary focus will be on my schools and preparation for my classes. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Cultural Integration Note</i>: In Paraguay, a popular term that is often thrown around is <i>letrado</i> which literally means literate. While we understand the meaning of the word literate to mean being able to read in Paraguay it generally means devious or sneakily smart. I have come across the term <i>letrado</i> in two main contexts one referring to the ability to learn and the second one referring to being flirtatious or good with the ladies. People generally use this term for me on a daily basis with different people using its different meanings depending on the context of the conversation. Upon meeting someone for the first time and the find that I can speak Guaraní or that I know some agricultural technique will often call me <i>letrado</i>. Inevitably, every conversation comes to the topic of women and then <i>letrado</i> becomes a completely different word and refers to be sneaky or even womanizing. In this context <i>letrado</i> can be a damaging term as it can lead to mistrust. In my personal experience the use of <i>letrado</i> is entirely innocent if not used in a jokingly manner and has become a humorous part of my daily life. I have one bus attendant that will call me <i>letrado </i>on cue, essentially whenever I get off the bus he will say, ‘<i>Gregorioooo</i> <i>letradooo</i>.’ All you can do is laugh. In other contexts the best response is to laugh it off and say, ‘I am not <i>letrado</i>, I am stupid,’ and that generally will get a laugh. But as in any situation where I don’t know the culturally correct response I just ignore it or laugh it off and then change the subject. <o:p></o:p></div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-90560506474680955802012-02-27T12:51:00.000-03:002012-02-27T12:51:01.823-03:00Chicken and Fish<div class="MsoNormal">Summer is finally coming to an end, school is about to start, the honey harvests are just about over and my life is about to get a lot busier. My major focuses of late have been on my Aquaculture and Chicken projects. As my Paraguayan counterparts have told me you have to fight to get these projects pushed through and I have definitely been fighting for both of my groups but at the same time trying to be as patient with my possible donors as possible. I have gotten a lot of practice writing grants, shopping for prices and requesting various donations from NGO’s and Government Organizations. I suppose that this is great experience for whatever the future has in store for me but it has caused a lot of headaches and required a lot of travelling and meeting with various people to get my aquaculture and chicken projects out of the planning stages.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">My aquaculture project is nearly to a point where I need to sit back and wait to see what PLAN International will contribute to the entire cost of the project. It is likely that they will fund a good portion of it but that we will also need to ask the Municipality and State for additional funds to help to get the project rolling. This aquaculture project will be using a semi-intensive fish farming technique to grow two native species of fish. The first and most expensive portion of the project we will have a 2500 sq. ft. pond excavated and then lined with a plastic tarp to contain the water. The second part will be getting water pumped into the pond from the nearby stream and then add fingerlings (babies) of the two Native fish, Pacu and Carimbata. Pacu is a delicious (really good in fish soup and my next experiment will be baked in a banana leaf) medium sized fish that can grow up to 4 lbs in this type of system. It is also vegetarian so it will eat leftover bananas, melon, beans, etc. that the farmers have from their harvests. Carimbata is a bottom feeder and will eat the excess food that sinks to the bottom as well as waste produced by the Pacu. These ponds will be oxygenated by a simple yet clever method where cow manure is added to the water so that algae can thrive off of the extra nitrogen and produce oxygen. This is a relatively low maintenance system and the only inputs are once daily feedings and the occasional addition of cow manure. In about a year the fingerlings will grow to about a kilo in raw weight depending on how well and often they were fed. The current market price for these fish is about $6 per kilo and in a pond with 1,000 fish that could translate to $6,000 after the first year. Not a bad sum from a project that requires so little maintenance. However, the primary goal for this project is food security based and not income based. Fish is a much healthier source of protein than cows, pigs and chickens and it will also theoretically decrease deforestation because of the small surface area required to grow the fish compared to the amount of pasture land required to grow a cattle. The potential economic, nutrition and environmental benefits of this project make me believe it is one worth fighting for and the results will touch 10 different families that have 40 children between them.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The chicken project is an effort I am working on with my Women’s Group called ‘Madres Unidas’ (United Mothers). The ultimate goal of this project is to obtain higher productivity laying hens for 14 different families. This plan includes construction of a chicken coop where the hens will spend most of their day as opposed to the traditional chickens that spend their entire day foraging around the yard. This means that it is a more intensive chicken system that will allow the hens to put more energy into laying eggs instead of spending the whole day searching for little bits of food. Being kept in a coop will also keep the hens healthier than the normal yard chickens that pick up tons of parasites in their daily ventures. The training involved in this project will also teach the women some basic economics, how to make their own well balanced chicken feed, how to diagnose chicken diseases as well as treat them and better nutrition for their families. I have already demonstrated and practiced making a large amount of chicken feed for the women to feed their chickens and how to bake homemade bread. They especially loved the bread making where we made over 40 loaves in a tatakuaa (wood-fired oven) and are excited to start making <i>pan casero</i> on their own instead of going to the store to buy bread. I have been supplying the women with the baker’s yeast since several have been making the bread independently and the local store does not sell it. Eventually I will have our local <i>despensa </i>(store) sell the yeast so that the woman can get everything they need for the bread locally once I am gone. The status of the chicken project is a little behind the aquaculture project but has potential to jump ahead in the very near future as the total amount being requested is much smaller and the sources of the money will be easier to work with as it is a very common project. I have very high hopes for both the chicken and aquaculture projects and they are at the point where I can start to focus on other things such as my classes which will start up again in the next week or two. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After nearly 3 months without rain, San Pedro and my site have finally gotten the rainfall that they needed. Unfortunately, the rains have come too late to salvage many of the crops that have been lost due to the drought and the heat. To say the least, it has been a tough year for farmers in Paraguay after an especially cold winter that froze a lot of produce, then this terrible drought that dried up the corn, hoof and mouth disease that is wiping out cattle and the price of cotton that stood at about $1.50 per kilo last year has plummeted to $0.40 per kilo this year. I have several good friends that are seriously considering selling off their land and moving to the city where work is more stable and life is a little easier. Many people cannot afford to take this route so the government is saying that it will step up and distribute corn and beans to those that lost their food crops in addition to their cash crops. But Paraguayans are a resilient people; talking to them I have had the conversation of how hot it has been and how much we need rain a million times, they will tell me how they have lost a crop yet at the same time tell me how blessed they are that their corn crop ripened before the worst of the drought or they will simply smile and say that this is just how life works: when things are good they are great and when things are bad they are terrible, yet we will survive. The past few months in site have been tough, I have been struggling with work while also dealing with tragedies in the community and tough times in my personal life but I am taking a page from the Paraguayans book: life can be hard but I will survive. <o:p></o:p></div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-59222371162515788662012-01-02T20:50:00.000-03:002012-01-02T20:50:04.959-03:00Passing the HolidaysThe month of December has gone by like a flash and most of it has been spent out of site. While I feel bad being away from my people so often I have also enjoyed seeing more of the country and being a bit touristy and experiencing more of what Paraguay has to offer. Being away from home for the holidays is tough enough but being alone in the Paraguayan campo is even tougher especially when it is super hot and most days are spent sitting around drinking terére and lounging in a hammock so travel with fellow volunteers seems justified. Travel has also been made a lot easier as a result of my fantastic new neighbors whom have essentially adopted my dog and goat. In repayment to them I have done some plumbing in their house, worked in their field, made them bread (and taught them to make bread), and done a lot of general sharing with them. I am still eating several meals a week with them though not as many as the beginning which is a great thing for my diet and independence.<br />
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This month has also been a very introspective time as well as I am a year into service and everything is downhill from here. The month started off with the farewell get together of the environmental and agriculture volunteers that were in our sister group and arrived a year before us. It was great to see how they ended their service and how close of a group they were as they prepared to leave the country. We celebrated by gathering in one of the prettiest areas of Paraguay at an awesome hotel with a pool. The whole day was spent poolside sipping on beers and that night featured skits, slideshows, and a dance party. It made our group realize that we have to do a better job documenting our next year so that we have great memories to share by the time we swear out. The other half of a group swearing out is a new group swearing in. Peace Corps is very cyclical like that and at every swearing out there is a swearing in and a group that is halfway through. You essentially get 3 completely groups of being with very different mindsets regarding Peace Corps and their service. Personally, I am at a place, and I think a lot of my fellow group members would agree, where I am full of negative feelings and at the same time hopeful expectations regarding my Peace Corps service. I have been let down and taken advantage of more times than I would like to admit and the failures have added up. My actually role in country has been a constant question on my mind, I have constantly been asking myself about how much good I have actually accomplished and if I am making any difference whatsoever. Am I just wasting my time here? The answers to these questions have been mixed at best. Admittedly some days are better than others and some of those days are really bad but many of us have agreed that our lives are on a rollercoaster and while in the States life is the same in Paraguay you can be on top of the world one morning and hitting rock bottom that afternoon. That is likely to happen at least 3 times a week and the only way we get through it is our network of friends and long phone conversations with our own personal support groups. When I really sit down and think about it I have realized that I do have a good list of accomplishments between my computer classes, english classes and individual work with farmers. Another perspective that I have gained is that big sustainable projects are practically unheard of in Peace Corps and that the most long lasting positive impacts that we can make as volunteers is with individuals through conversation and just hanging out with them. The other day we ran into a volunteer who left Paraguay 3 years ago and his perspective was similar to mine, your service is most fulfilling when you pass your time in your community with the people you want to spend time with. The projects that we try to push along rarely have much of an impact but its the individual conversations we have and a day spent helping someone out that makes the longest lasting memories in our Paraguayan communities. It has been hard to be a laidback as Paraguayans recently but the reality is that we need to be and when we do our lives become happier because we are able to enjoy our time in the moment instead of some future project that we are pushing towards.<br />
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Now that the holidays are over I have decided to try out a few projects that various groups of Paraguayans have approached me about. I plan on playing a strictly supporting role providing information when applicable but never leading their gatherings or doing paperwork for them. I have three projects that seem to be impending one is a chicken egg project with a group of women in order to produce higher quantities of eggs, the second is a home garden project to create a more diverse food supply in community members houses, and the third is a fish farming project with a community member who is a an expert in this area and wants to help others in the community acquire their own aquaculture projects. These 3 are fairly large projects but luckily I have a handle on them in their subject matter, all I need to do know is help the groups to nail down funding sources and with that my second year could be a huge success. Realistically, I only see one of those projects coming to completion, but in my role as a facilitator I will do what I can for all of them even if all that ever happens are informational meetings for the interested parties.<br />
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It is crazy that it is already 2012 and I have less than a year left in my service and returned volunteers keep saying to us that this year will go by in a flash and I must say it already feels like it is. But that has to do with my crazy travelling going to see places like a white sand beach on an isolated lake in Paraguay for Christmas or spending New Year's Eve at a huge beautiful waterfall miles away from the nearest paved road and a 40 minute treacherous hike through the forest. My next few months will be more tranquilo as I will be spending almost of it in site because I have no foreseeable travel plans. But I will keep you updated! So happy 2012 may it be a great one!Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-15500212739849969842011-12-02T12:33:00.000-03:002011-12-02T12:33:30.965-03:00Thanksgiving in the Summertime<div class="MsoNormal">It is summer once again in Paraguay. School is out, the crops are growing and it is getting real hot real fast. Since my last post I have changed houses and moved to the other side of my community. My current house is a modest structure that faces some beautiful pasture land and backed by fruit trees. I had to vacate the old place because the house owners decided to leave Buenos Aires early and restart their lives in Paraguay (About 10% of Paraguay’s population works abroad mostly in Buenos Aires, Spain, and the Northeastern US and send their income back to their families in Paraguay). But the change has been nice, while moving was a little stressful especially considering all of the activities I had going on and only recently returning from a vacation, the outcome has been a tremendous improvement in my happiness. So after a couple of trips in a horse drawn wagon loaded with all of my possessions I was officially moved out of my old house and into my new rustic residence. The best way to describe my current house is as a fixer-upper. When I first moved in there was no electricity or running water and full of coriander seeds. Luckily I happen to be fairly handy and I got the electrical problem fixed and then I started with the plumbing which involved replacing old broken plastic pipes and then adding a couple taps, one inside and the other outside. The neighbors were very impressed and they now want me to do a little plumbing in their house! My neighbors, Ña Ramona and Karai Amarilla (Mr. Yellow), are the best part of my new house. They have adopted me as their son and describe me as a son that fell to them from heaven to their visitors. They are both in their late 60’s and extremely respected in the community. Ramona is the community medicine woman and gets several visitors a day looking for her natural remedies. Mr. Yellow is a farmer who still works out in the field just about every day. They are super kind and invite me to eat at least one meal a day with them as well as to use their refrigerator as my new place does not have one. They are also in love with my dog and my goat and feed them 2 meals a day. This has been a great relief to me especially while travelling or working away from the house. They do all this essentially in exchange for my help around the house and homemade breads. My new home has also come with several roommates: two toilet frogs, one tarantula the size of my hand, 2-3 giant toads, the occasional kitchen lizard and a young family of doves above my porch (I have already killed my wasp roommates/guards). The houses location has put me about 1km further from most of my work commitments but also to a sparsely populated pocket of the community which results in spectacular stars and quieter mornings.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">With the end of the school year came the end of my English Class and Computer Classes and looking back at the numbers it is amazing to think that I introduced some basic English to about 30 students and computing basics to some 130 kids. I never thought I would be teaching so much when I came to Paraguay as an Environmental Education Volunteer, but it is my belief that as a volunteer it is important to work towards the needs of the community instead of working towards a set of premade goals. This past week I was a proud teacher and was able to give out 70 Certificates to one of my schools where I have taught computation for about 6 months. Certificates are a big deal in Paraguay and are essentially diplomas that show the holder has received some sort of technical training. The kids were super excited and the school principals and parents committee through together a little ceremony with food and drinks and picture taking while I made a power point presentation showing everyone the work that the kids had done over the past few months. After I got up and said a few words they even asked me to come back and teach more next year and possibly 2 days a week to cover other areas such as working in the garden as well as an English course. It is hard to commit to those things right now but I will see where the next year takes me. Now that summer is here I plan on continuing one of my computer courses for a few more weeks and then throw together some summer camps and get back to working in the fields with the farmers. I currently have 25 watermelon plants in Karai Nelson’s field that we are taking care of together and I recently obtained a bunch of Moringa seeds for my old host family that I will help with in directing the planting and maintenance (Moringa is currently a huge deal in PY and is mainly used as a medicinal herb in terere but in other parts of the world is described as the miracle tree as it acts as a green manure, cures all sorts of diseases and provides an excellent source of nutrition). The price of seed in Paraguay has skyrocketed from about $60 to $300 for 2 lbs. Just insane but since the seeds are so hard to come by people are willing to pay that price and the current potential for income is huge with people raking in lots of money from trees they planted only a year ago. I just hope that the moringa bubble isn’t on the verge of popping for the sake of a lot of people. I am also working with a women’s group who is about to receive a bunch of special egg-laying chickens that will produce a high quality egg that can be sold to local markets. The other project coming back into the picture is bee-keeping which I am sure my family will be super excited about. I have about twice as many farmers who want to start working with bees now and need help capturing a wild hive. Hopefully, I don’t have any incidents as bad as last year and if I do I will be sure not to post pictures on facebook. My first one will be tomorrow and possibly 2 more next week. At least I will get some free honey out of it!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In Paraguay, Thanksgiving is an unknown holiday that we crazy Americans celebrate. Yet at the same time one that they can appreciate as for us it is a time of sharing with family and being thankful for what we have and the people that we have in our lives. So to celebrate a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers congregated in a small town called La Colmena (a town with a large population of Japanese) and celebrated Thanksgiving first by going to a beautiful waterfall way of the beaten path and spending the day cliff jumping and lounging around drinking wine and sharing with friends and then going back to town and having a Japanese food feast provided by the hotel. The next day we all travelled to another volunteers site and prepared our own more American style feast and spent most of the day chopping, baking, grilling, and drinking. The result was more food than 40 Americans could eat and an opportunity to share Thanksgiving with the community and going to various neighbors houses with heaping plates of food. It was a great time and a wonderful way to pass a holiday where all of us were missing our families back home. Tragically, after another Thanksgiving gathering in a different part of the country another volunteer was killed in a car accident. This terribly sad event has shocked all of us who knew her as well of those who did not and all of our thought and prayers this past week have been with her family back home in the States. <o:p></o:p></div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-9092025226876675692011-10-23T10:02:00.000-03:002011-10-26T12:28:27.893-03:00Buenos AiresOctober in the US is a time for pumpkin carving, raking leaves, football, and playoff baseball; in Paraguay October means that school is wrapping up, the temperature is getting hot, and people are planting their cash crops. For me this past month has brought a vacation to Buenos Aires and a security situation that created a lot of uncertainty about the future of my job. It all started around the end of September when rumors were going around about a State of Exception in some areas of Paraguay. Initially these rumors were determined to be unlikely but a week later, in the midst of my time in Buenos Aires, a State of Exception was put into place. The cause of this state of martial law was the killing of some Police in my state of San Pedro and growing political unrest in the northern States of the country. The State of Exception allows the police and military to rule with more or less a free hand, they can search anyone at anytime and detain whoever they like. So with such an infringement of legal rights Peace Corps was just about ready to evacuate all volunteers in San Pedro to Asuncion. But before this happened they put in place a standfast in which it was necessary for volunteers to stay put in their communities. The justification for this procedure is that we are integrated within our community and our neighbors will help and protect us in case of trouble. About 2 weeks into this standfast, after seeing no problems coming from the State of Exception, we can now travel again and life is pretty much as normal as it gets here in Paraguay. So a slightly stressful situation resolved itself with few repercussions and life will go on normally.<br />
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When the State of Exception was put into place I was in the middle of my vacation to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Five other volunteers and myself traveled down via an 18 hour bus ride to the 2nd largest city on the South American continent. The reason for our travels at this time was that half of our group was running the BA Marathon and the rest of us tagged along to support them and have as much fun as possible in the process. We stayed in a place called Giorgio's House in the heart of Buenos Aires and were within a subte (subway) or bus ride of everything that we wanted to see. The house itself is an apartment that is rented out on a day to day basis on the top floor of an office building. It has a kitchen that we utilized several times, several patios that we enjoyed for grilling and chilling whenever it was not raining, and high speed internet that allowed us to fall back in love with youtube. The house concierge, Anastasia, was extremely friendly and helpful and guided us through our options in order to enjoy her city as much as we could during our stay. The first day she informed us that everything happens in BA at night and almost nothing happens in the morning as people generally start to head home from their late night activities at 4 or 5am. So us campo kids from Paraguay had to go through a crazy transition of our normal bedtimes of 8pm and waking up at 5am to staying out out night and sleeping in until 11 if not noon. It was a rough transition (even rougher coming back) but a necessary one so that we could enjoy the nightlife that BA had to offer. While in BA we did everything from exploring the bar diversity (from a reggae club to freestyle hip-hop), going to the zoo that was full of free ranging animals, learning to tango, drinking a lot of wine, seeing the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, eating a lot of footlong hot dogs, exploring the architecturally beautiful parts of the city, seeing Real Steel, watching a Marathon, drinking some more wine, and thoroughly enjoying the Argentine people that greeted us with nothing but friendliness. The people in Buenos Aires are largely of European descent unlike the largely mestizo population of Paraguay. As a result we encountered the phenomena of people thinking that we were from Argentina and people asked us for directions on the street. For some reason the people of BA get a bad rep for being stuck up and prideful, which may have some truth, but in our personal encounters in a city comparable to NYC, we found nothing but genuine friendliness. On one occasion as we were walking though the rain looking for the dinosaurs we asked an older gentleman for directions and he then insisted on taking us to the museum himself and in the process he spoke some pretty good english to us considering he had been only to New York once and spent almost all his life in BA. The man literally walked a mile out of his way to bring some tourists to their destination. We continued to experience this type of hospitality throughout our trip. Upon leaving we were all dazed and enamored by the city of Buenos Aires and agreed that we had to go back and for me personally I decided it could be one of the few cities that I could live in on a long term basis.<br />
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Once vacation was over it has been back to work. But due to a teachers strike my computer classes has been put on hold only to resume this week. I am now teaching 11th graders english as their teacher is on maternity leave and currently I am spending Monday through Wednesday entirely in the schools. This leaves me Thursday, Friday and the weekend to interact with the rest of the community. This past Thursday I spent the morning with my friend Karai Nelson cooking up breakfast and working in the field a bit with me planting some watermelon that we will hopefully sell to help boost his income. Additionally, I am now working with a recently formed Women's group that is working towards obtaining a chicken project from the government as a way to improve household income. So things have been fairly busy and I am almost to the halfway point of my service which blows my mind. November promises to be an exciting month with Thanksgiving and a wedding to attend. But we will get into that next time around.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-64218823810588111932011-09-12T21:15:00.000-04:002011-09-12T21:15:04.608-04:00Thank You For Your PatienceThe first thing I need to say is that I apologize for not writing in nearly 3 months. I do intend to change this trend as I finally have a functioning computer. I also would like to thank everyone for reading about my life and what I am doing here in Paraguay; while I was back in the States I was amazed as to how many of you are actually reading my posts! So thank you for caring enough to keep up with what I am doing and I promise to be better and give updates more often. As a result of not writing in so long I am sure I could go on forever about my life in Paraguay over the past 3 months and the very cold Paraguayan winter. But I will keep it fairly brief and hit the highlights.<br />
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My home life here in 8.000 Bertoni has not changed all that much but I do have a few new things going on. First off I have a new cat (mbarakaja in Guarani which also strangely means biceps) that I was gifted by the despensa owner. He is a little black thing that I have appropriately named Lobo (wolf to go along with my Lion of a dog) has recently been super obnoxious. When eating he will yowl even while choking down food and any time I go near the refrigerator or kitchen table he will start his yowls. He also is an avid body climber which has brought me many painful moments as he jumps on bare skin to get to my shoulder. My ultimate goal for this little kitten is that he becomes big enough to eat the two giant rats I have living in my house that raid my kitchen looking for crumbs on a nightly basis. So he has a little way to go in order to reach that size. My other house pet, Ears the goat, had her baby while I was in the USA but unfortunately the kid died that same day just before I got back to my site as a result of being born weak and Ears not wanting to nurse it. So after all that hype and waiting my goat milking scheme just did not pan out. I am hoping to get her knocked up soon enough so I can try again. I did not practice milking goats at 3am for nothing! My dog Leon is still doing well and has started to really grow into the role as a Paraguayan Campo dog. He now excels at defending the house at night and chasing cows out of the yard. Unfortunately, he also excels at scavenging for food and has that grossest habit of raiding garbage pits for diapers. But asi es la vida in the campo.<br />
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Here in Paraguay my work continues to be rewarding. Back in July I had a training session with the Amigos de Las Americas, a group of American High School students who volunteer and live in Paraguay for 6 weeks. I trained 50 or so youth on how to plant trees that go along with their fogon building. I did find the work to be extremely rewarding and it was a good exercise in reflection to watch how these kids were reacting to their first few days in Paraguayan culture. The other volunteers and myself had the opportunity to talk with the Amigos in small group sessions and answer their questions and hear their excitement and preoccupations about their 6 weeks in Paraguay. Their thoughts were not much different than mine when I first got to Paraguay. It is amazing how fast things that were once shocking and inconceivable become part of daily life. And even in their 6 weeks in the country they developed that acclimatization as well.<br />
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My computer class continues to be a strong point and while I was away I gave my students a project about the Paraguayan Myths in order to celebrate the National Folklore Day. It was a two part project that consisted of a typed description of one of the mythological characters and a drawing of that character using Paint. I was worried what would happen over my 3 week absence but now that I have received their projects I am very impressed with their work and creativity. Today I have been working on compiling all of the students work from my time there in order to present to their parents and other teachers. The school has a functioning projector and a new community meeting room that I hope to take advantage of to the end of showing off the kids' work. <br />
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This past weekend I also hosted another volunteer in my site that is working on his thesis for his masters back in the States. His project is focusing on small farmers who have planted Eucalyptus on their property. My community actually has a fairly large number of families who have planted this exotic tree on their land as a result of the tobacco drying facility in town. Eucalyptus is an appealing tree to plant as a result of its very fast growth rate and in my community is used as firewood and for making fruit crates. It is also now being used for light construction as some of the bigger trees are being harvested. However, there are drawbacks to planting this non native species as some of the farmers commented to us. One is that it supposedly dries out the soil, one man said his well actually dropped a considerable amount, another drawback is that it has a tendency to affect the soil chemistry and stunt the growth of other plants around it (an allelopathic effect). But the growth rate tends to outweigh the negative observations and it is an important tree in reforestation efforts as it can be harvested earlier than the slower growing native trees that can be left to grow. My counterpart focused his research on these issues and through his questions we learned the above information from the farmers themselves. In the future he plans to submit his thesis to the State Organizations and other NGO's that deal in Eucalypti in order to improve their knowledge of why producers in Paraguay are planting these trees and what further resources they need to be more successful at it.<br />
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A little over a month ago I celebrated my 24th birthday here in site just before I left to go to the States for a 2 week vacation. So essentially I threw myself a party. I invited all of my closest friends from the community, found some Caballito Blanco (White Horse a good scottish whisky), and bought about 15 lbs of meat. Unfortunately, my birthday in Paraguay takes place in the winter time and we ended up with a very cold night and were all huddled around the grill all night. But it was a success and we all had fun and were able to share some good conversation and good company. The only bad thing that happened was my favorite person in site cut his finger open while slicing up the meat and I had to do some first aid to stop the bleeding. Then early the next day I got on my local bus and headed to Asuncion for a few days of relaxation before my flight back to the States. After nearly a year of nothing but bus travel I was surprised to find how bad I was at air travel. I first ended up in the wrong line when checking in and waited there for 30 minutes in a very long line only to realize it was the wrong airline and my airline had nobody in line. Then I found myself struggling to speak straight spanish with the airport and security attendants and got crazy looks from them. Then of course the time zone changes gave me some serious scares as my flights were generally an hour between arrival and departure. But overall it was not a bad trip, 16 hours of airplane travel all with window seats which afforded beautiful views of the Andes on our approach to Lima, Peru. The next stop was San Salvador, El Salvador and then JFK in NYC. It was absolutely awesome to see my family again and we spent a great couple of weeks together. My time home included a Yankees game in which they won, a couple of family reunions, time at the horse track, the beach, six flags, and a lot of quality time with the people I care about the most. And then it was time to come back to Paraguay and ended up being an extremely long trip that was made seemingly longer as a result of a head cold and stuffed up ears that made my head feel like it was going to explode every time the plane gained or reduced altitude. Then after backtracking my layovers I got into Asuncion around 2:30 am and spent a couple of very cold hours in the Peace Corps office then jumped on a bus at 6am to get back to site. Essentially, ended up being around 28 hours of travel time and took a hit on my immune system as I was laid up with a flu for the next week. The more tragic things that have happened since that return journey have occurred back in the USA. That same day I left a minor earthquake hit the east coast and then Irene hit upstate NY causing my family and neighbors to be evacuated from their homes. Luckily, thank God, my family's home avoided devastation, but barely as the flood waters reached within 20 feet of my house. My community and neighbors were not so fortunate with many losing everything they own and their houses have become condemned. Then to add even more stress the river flooded again this past week as another tropical storm made its way up the east coast but no additional damage was done to houses only severely damaging a bridge and cutting off the gas supply line meaning that my family will have a bit more of Paraguay in their lives; line drying their clothes, cold water showers, and no heat. But all joking aside, my prayers continue to be with all those affected by this tragedy and bless all those that are giving their time to help those families in their time of need.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-21558637560681671992011-06-22T08:40:00.000-04:002011-06-22T08:40:51.347-04:00The 6 month markThe Parguayan winter is officially here and what better way to wlecome it than with 90 degree temperatures. To be fair there was a good stretch of days where it dipped into the 40´s at night that may not sound to cold by northern US standards but believe me it was cold and every night I was wrapped up in my 15 degree sleeping bad after drinking boiling hot maté. I must say that I do prefer the cold to the heat although my dog León would not agree. During these cold days he would beg to come inside at night and when I did he would fall asleep under my bed but to my surprise somehow ended up under my sleeping bag on the bad in the morning. Poor thing...To say the least he isn´t allowed to sleep inside anymore. These Paraguayan dogs are dirty and while I give my León baths every few weeks he still has the nasty habit of eating old diapers and goat poop...therefore not allowed in my bed. My goat is still very pregnant and is doing well. This past we we had our In Service Training where I even had the opportunity to practice milking goats but this unfortnately meant waking up at 3am to do it. It was quite the experience and a lot of fun, there were 15 or so goats to be milked at each gave 2 liters. These mother goats were so eager to be milked that they got in line and ran straight to their milking platform and put there heads in the securing contraption that holds them in place. The best part of this experience was feeding the baby goats aka kids afterwards. These little creatures are the size of small dogs and super cute. I now feel that I am prepared to milk and manage my goat when she has her kid.<br />
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This past month I have also started a youth group in my school which hopefully will become a tool to start bigger projects in the community. The kids are great and full of good ideas, but as the professors warned me it seems that they do need a bit of guidance. This past week they had planned out a raffle as a fundraiser, they had all the details nailed down but it never took place. I unfortunately was away for the whole of it and figured I would leave them to it to see what they would do but I now have this to build off from as a learning experience. Additionally, our group of volunteers that are located in my general area of the country coordinated to have an Environment Day event in Santaní. We had about 12 volunteers that brought a ton of information to cover everything environment; garbage, recycled art, deforestation, gardens, climate change, and inforamation about bee keeping and venemous snakes. The snake talk was a hit and as I have done the charla before I presented the information to the public of Santaní everyone thought that the snake (jarara) in the formaldehyde jar was still alive and so I was inclined to scare a few of them by throwing a rubber snake at their feet...hilarity ensued. But really it was a great informational day and I got to teach a few people that there are only 3 varieties of venemous snake in Paraguay and that just becuase you see a snake does not mean that you need to kill it.<br />
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One other big event this past month was the fiesta de San Juan. This party is held at every school in the month of June and is an extremely intriguing bit of cultural heritage. So what happens is that the whole community comes to the school at night and there they listen to a bit of music and eat some traditional food. Then these things called kamba show up, and these are kids that are dressed up in rags with cloth covering their faces and some dressed as scantily clad women. These characters then begin to dance and occasionally drag some poor bystander (aka me) in to dance with them and then but them a drink. Then they start to jump through a hoop that is lit on fire. Then they climp this 20 foot pole that has a ring of chipa on top, and finally a couple of them put this cardboard ´bull´ on their backs with a real cow school in the front and then light the horns on fire and charge at all the other kamba. A real interesting cultural event that is hard to explain. And all the while the high school girls dressed in their shortest skirts are coming around arresting people and they have to pay their own bail. I personally can´t even begin to explain this crazy fiesta and am not sure that I want to dig too deep.<br />
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That is all for now, I will try to add some more about my life soon but the good news is that I will be coming home in about 6 weeks for a vacation!Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-18916457109794871492011-05-11T10:29:00.000-04:002011-05-11T10:29:45.511-04:00G34_ The Journey Begins<iframe width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jgbSuk15B3o?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-14863203612127214102011-05-11T10:24:00.000-04:002011-05-11T10:24:09.599-04:00200 Years!The month of April marks the beginning of fall for Paraguay. So while it is getting warmer in the States and all of your snow is eventually disappearing here in Paraguay the people are starting to drink hot scalding maté and wearing jackets as the nights dip into the unbelievable cold 14 degree celsius range also known as the 50´s. While it sounds ridiculous that 50 degrees is cold I have found that my Upstate New York blood also finds it to be quite cold. The reason for this is that there is no insulation in any buildings so there is no escape from the slightly cool temperatures. I have gone on my share of subzero snowy hikes where my clothes get frozen and I am walking in thigh deep snow but that was an active actvity and there was always the promise of a warm house/car and hot chocolate when all was said and done. Here in Paraguay when I start to feel chilly all I can do is put on some layers, drink some scalding maté through a metal straw and get under my 15 degree down sleeping bag. Unfortunately, it will only get colder and I will have to do as the Paraguayans and sit around a fogon drinking maté and go to bed at 7pm as it now gets dark at the absurdly early hour of 5:30. But in reality the change in climate has been very nice and it is extremely enjoyable to walk across town without dripping sweat and soaking through my clothes. Plus now it is planting season!<br />
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This past month my garden has been taking off; my lettuce, cabbage, abonos verdes, and tomato are all growing strong in addition to the 5 varieties of trees that I am headstarting. My goat, Ears, has gotten super pregnant and I expect her to give birth within the month which means I get to learn how to milk a goat as well as make goat cheese! I recently adopted an adult dog named León from another volunteer that just left Paraguay and he has been great! The Paraguayans love him becuase he knows commands in Guaraní whenever I tell him to sit, <i><i>eguapy</i></i>, he will and then also give me his <i>po</i> or paw. He is a very sweet dog and loves to ´play´ with the goat which usually involves him getting headbutted. The only thing left to teach him is to chase the cows out of my yard. As far as work goes I have been kept fairly busy with planning out some future project in the community which I will write about once the process moves further along. I also have started up a computation course for a local school about 8km from my house that has 8 computers but no one to teach how to use them. So coincidentally I met up with the Directora of the school while visiting a local NGO and here I am teaching 9 classes of basic computation for 130 or so students. While I enjoy teaching these kids it really adds up to a really long day followed by a strenuous bike ride back home racing to get home before it gets dark. Plus it is not a truly sustainable practice because when I leave there will be no one to teach the course. My plan is to train a couple of teachers to continue the course to carry on once I am done. But I don´t feel too bad about the course because teaching kids to use computers in itself does make a big difference here. These kids will have a big step up from their peers that don´t have access to computers when it comes to finding jobs in the future. Plus they are getting this training for free!<br />
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The past month has also been a fairly interesting time in my communty as we had semana santa, a rodeo, the bicentennial celebration fast approaching and a death. Semana Santa was a pretty lazy time for me that mostly consisted of hanging out, eating chipa, drinking beers, and feasting on a pig roast. Not a bad way to celebrate holy week by any means. However, I did commit one big sin and ate food on the one day where it was not allowed...I am definitely going to hell. I also had a very enjoyable Saturday at a family reunion where I played Official Photographer and captured all the special family moments of a good friend Karai Victor as well as enjoyed the local bands that played some good Paraguayan Polka. The following week was my training groups Reconnect where we all went back to Guarambare on Easter Sunday and received more training in language and a few other topics of our choice with one being how to do citrus grafting (a very cool and valuable skill to have). Once the week was over I had the opportunity to go to an Olympia v. Cerro Porteño game in Asuncion (the equivalent of a Yankees-Red Sox game) so I of course had to go. Another volunteer, a random Frenchman and myself managed to scalp some tickets for a semi-reasonable price and we got essentially bleacher tickets for the Olympia section. On the way in the Police tried to take our belts away as these games have a history of violence but once they realized we were Americans they let us go through and pulled us aside to give us a very concerned warning to be careful and that we probably did not want to be sitting where we were (my guess is that they let us have our belts for self defense...haha). How bad could it possibly be? It wasn´t bad at all...while we were standing the entire game jumping up and down singing the Olympia battle songs it was a very enjoyable time. Unfortunately, Olympia lost 2-0 and as a result the fans became dejected, but we decided to leave a little bit early to avoid the mob of people leaving as well as any possible confrontations between the two groups of fans that the ploice and riot squads were all to prepared to face. After the game it was time to go back to site and the next thing I know a member of my community died, a very kind older women Ña Aquilina. It was a shock to the entire community of 8.000 Bertoni and everything shut down including the school. Currently, we are in the midst of the 9 days of prayers and the final day also falls on the Bicentennial celebration this Sunday. But things are looking up, I have been very busy. I am planning a trip home in August. I am going to another rodeo this Friday to watch some bull riders. But unfortunately my laptop has broken down which will make communication difficult. But asi es la vida.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-46899525217780237412011-03-31T10:52:00.000-03:002011-03-31T10:52:34.136-03:00Busy as A BeeThe 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! <br />
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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.<br />
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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. <br />
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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.<br />
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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.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-15224333263453432902011-03-01T23:24:00.000-03:002011-03-01T23:24:00.269-03:00My Daily LifeThe count is now at 5 months in Paraguay, just about the longest that I have ever been away from home, and things are going great. I am now just about settled down in site and living on my own in option number 2 from the previous post. Today I was sitting around and thinking how different my life is here than it was in the States. I think the best way to do that is go through a typical day for me here in Paraguay.<br />
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I wake up around 6:30am with the sun coming through the cracks in the windows and the roosters already crowing in full force. Occasionally, a neighbor will be blasting Paraguayan electronic polka at this hour (I am pretty sure they play this music on repeat in hell just to give a little insight on how much I enjoy waking up to this).If I am good and in my routine I will now go for an 8km run around the block that goes through 4 different communities and a nice little section of forest where I will usually see some interesting birds. Next it is time for breakfast, I personally drink tea or coffee with the coffee being a Nescafe instant coffee which gets the job done. If I were with Paraguayans I would either drink hot mate or cocido, another mate based drink. This is typically served with bread crackers but I prefer to either eat fruit or have some eggs to get my day started. Next, it is time to sweep my house out from all the dirt that I tracked in the day before and to get rid of all the random dead bugs that end up on the floor during the night. Depending on the day I may also rake the yard to keep it clean from the leaves and whatnot that come of the mango trees and the garbage that blows in from the street. At this hour before it gets too hot I will also start work whether it be work in the field, build a bee box, go to the school or just visit a neighbor.At around 9am Paraguayans have another meal that in some places they call Terere Rupa or Terere Bed (the meal you have before drinking terere). This usually consists of mandioca and tortillas, but not the mexican kind, these tortillas are deep fried bits of flour and water which can be delicious but extremely fattening. Once this meal is over it is back to work until 10am or so when it is time to drink terere where everyone that is with you and drink out of the same cup-"guampa" and drink through a bombilla-"special straw with filter on end" and the drink is just ice cold water poured over yerba mate and usually some sort of medicinal herbs mixed into the water. This is one of my favorite activities and generally a culturally significant activity as you are expected to drink it whenever you go. In fact the tradition is that either the host or the youngest in the group serves everyone else. Recently I have visited some of my neighbors and I am now expected to serve since I am the youngest which means I am no longer considered the guest but a friend. After terere it is time for more work until 11 when it is time for lunch and siesta. Lunch during the summer was almost always some sort of hot soup and mandioca (blows my mind that on the hottest days of the year you eat soup at the hottest part of the day). Then Paraguayans typically pass out for a few hours and I would join them if I had been working hard that morning. But if not I will get to other stuff such as washing my laundry, all by hand, which can take a few hours. Around 3pm work can start again and will go until 6 or so. Then it is time to go back home and relax. But since I live on my own I will go home start getting dinner ready and take a nice cold shower and do one more cleanup of the house. A Paraguayan dinner tends to be fairly light usually being some sort of leftover variation of lunch but sometimes could just be peanuts or popcorn. Then bedtime is at 9pm and all the lights are out and I will go outside to brush my teeth and pee and I look up the sky and if it is clear the stars are fantastic with the milky way stretching from horizon to horizon.<br />
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More or less that is a typical day for me in Paraguay. Since I have moved out of a Paraguayan home I have taken up a few more American habits such as staying up a little later and sleeping in a little later. I have also cut out the midmorning meal and tend to eat lighter for all my meals with my food being less carb heavy and more veggie heavy. All of my food comes from Santani the nearest big town that is a 2 hour bus ride away at 5am or from the random veggie trucks that drive through town once a week. But living on my own has also meant a lot more time being spent in the house to keep it maintained and clean as well as preparing my own meals. <br />
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Since my last post I have had a summer camp, had my site presentation, done bee work, worked in a Tobacco drying facility, and moved out right before school started this past week. The summer camp went very well and there are pictures posted in Flickr we covered themes of garbage management, general personal hygiene, and dental health. But overall we just had fun and entertained the kids for a few hours where they would normally be at home doing very little. My Site Presentation also went well and my supervisors came up took me out to lunch and then had our meeting with the town which was a success and got people excited about some of the tools that I can bring to the community such as worm composting, homemade pesticides, better agricultural practices and soil conservation. I also got my bicycle which has been very useful in making visits to places that are a little further away. Another day I spent working with the employees of one of the many tobacco drying facilities in my community to see what that was all about. And it turns out it is very tedious and dirty work. I started off working in the seed beds with the men and pruning the baby tobacco plants and then went to do tobacco classification with the women. Essentially sorting out the dried tobacco leaves by quality and then bundling them up. The dust from this whole process managed to bother me even from working for a few hours and these women and children do it day in and out. My plan is to work with them some more and help them to create their own source of lumber for the drying process and maybe even get them some respiratory protection for their work. <br />
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Finally, a week ago was the big move into the house more or less across the street form my host families house. I brought all the stuff I could carry over first and then we loaded up a horse cart with all the bigger stuff that was in the school such as my red stove and a book shelf. It seemed like a ton of stuff and I am sure everyone in town is wondering where it all came from since I arrived in town with only two bags in hand. Really, a lot of it is what the previous volunteer left for me. But now I am all moved in, I had a modern bathroom put in already that took 3 days to do. So I also have a working toilet and sink in the bathroom instead of using the squat latrine that is in questionable shape. I had the bathroom done mainly because I am not paying rent for my time here and I felt I should make some improvement to the house in exchange so really its a win win situation. I have also been working in my garden and have even started planting now I can only hope that they will germinate and grow!Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-86967078042960369102011-02-02T16:49:00.000-03:002011-02-02T16:49:09.075-03:00Work, Food, and HomeI 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. <br />
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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:<br />
1. Eating Peanuts after Beer will cause diarrhea.<br />
2. Drinking water after eating anything pig will cause diarrhea.<br />
3. Drinking milk while eating onions will cause diarrhea.<br />
4. Eating ice cream after drinking milk with cause diarrhea.<br />
5. Eating watermelon/ melon before drinking terere will cause death by explosion.<br />
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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. <br />
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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.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-16259420655992164152011-01-12T08:21:00.003-03:002011-01-12T08:21:58.096-03:00Paraguayan CultureI have been in site for just about one month now and while I have not done a ton of ‘work’ work I have done a lot of things. For the first three months of being in site a volunteer is not expected to have a ton of projects but more to get accustomed to the community, get to know the people living there, learn Guarani, and just get a general feel for the needs of the community. For me getting adjusted to the community has been more or less difficult. And by community I mean the Paraguayan lifestyle and customs. I truly feel that the family I live with is an exception to the rule where Paraguayans are easygoing and laidback. This family gets up at 5am everyday and starts working and don’t come back from their fields until 6 at night. It is a crazy amount of work that I just cannot keep up with and even during their breaks they are doing something whether it be building an enclosure for their turkeys or butchering a pig. The non- stop action that can be to say the least overwhelming. Now throw on top of this the constant Paraguayan beliefs that are thrown in your face that causes a constant fear of getting diarrhea, becoming morally ill, or having your arms explode simply by washing your hands, consuming the wrong combinations of food, or bathing at the wrong times. While as an outsider these beliefs seem absurd I still must abide by them as long as I am in the company of Paraguayans so as not to suffer an ‘I told you so incident.’ One of my other favorite beliefs that I have fully embraced are the mythological creatures of Paraguay. Some of these characters include Pombrero or Karai Pyhareve who tends to be mischievous and causes bad things to happen and is easily provoked by whistling at night. A funny ongoing joke here is that I believe in these creatures and yell at my family, who tend not to believe these creatures, when they do something to provoke them. Another good one is Ao Ao (clothes clothes) who is essentially a bigfoot and the only way to avoid him is climb a certain tree. The joke with the family I have is that he is really Ao Ao sin Ao (clothes clothes without clothes). And of course there is Jasy Jatere aka Me who is the blond, light skinned man who kidnaps children and is able to disappear using his golden staff. In this country having red hair may as well be as if I had blond hair. But this is one creature that my family does believe as many Jasy Jatere’s will show up in the month of September (We will have to see what this means exactly). I do not intend to make fun of these beliefs only to draw attention to them as a truly rich part of the culture here that makes Paraguayans Paraguayan. While I may not personally believe the same things, I do know it is important to respect them. And the reality of it is that these examples are only the tip of the iceberg and it is all part of getting to know a new culture.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-42357113744392263962010-12-31T19:14:00.000-03:002010-12-31T19:14:26.412-03:00The New Site and the New Year<div class="MsoNormal">Since my site assignment life has been very eventful and constantly changing. Back in our training community we tied up our technical training with the things that would help us get through our first few months in site and had our closing language interviews. Then it was Swear-in weekend and time to say goodbye to the family that had taken care of us for the first 10 weeks in Paraguay. Luckily this didn’t have to be a long-term goodbye as I can always just pop down to Guarambare to visit. Swear-in weekend was a huge break from daily life in Paraguay. We all travelled to Asuncion together for the ceremony which in itself only took an hour maybe two. It essentially consisted of us listening to several speeches by the US Ambassador to Paraguay, the Paraguayan Secretary of Tourism, the Paraguayan President of the World Wildlife Foundation, and some of the Peace Corps Staff as well as repeating the oath to service to the United States of America. Afterwards we were given our cell phones, ATM cards and set free to go crazy in Asuncion for a few days. So that is exactly what we did to inaugurate ourselves as official volunteers in the Peace Corps. Those few days were truly a break from our Paraguayan lifestyles; we lived in hotels for a few days, swimming in pools, speaking English with other volunteers, sleeping in until whenever we wanted, and of course enjoying the night scene to its fullest. But once the weekend was over we had until that Tuesday to be in our sites and start our duty as volunteers. I made the trek up towards my site a day early so that I could get a night in San Estanislao to decompress from the craziness of Asuncion and prepare mentally for full time Paraguay. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The past few weeks of living in site have been much busier than I had imagined they would be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The host family I live with is an extremely guapo/hardworking family (almost unusually so by the Paraguayan standards that I know) and as a result I have been constantly working with the brothers in the kokue (fields) for the pineapple harvest and general maintenance of the fields. I can now say that I am proficient in using a hoe, machete, and the art of maintaining banana plants. However, what I have found is that at the same time I am working alongside the brothers I get the most work done that pertains to my actual job here which is environmental education and agro forestry. In this regard I have been able to have conversations about environmental issues, how to implement trees into their agricultural operation and even sparked interest about the possibility of abonos verdes (plants that fix nitrogen for the soil) but these topics all come in between constant harassment from the ‘guys’ about my love life. I suppose that it is a fair enough tradeoff. In addition to working in the fields I have gone around visiting some of the neighbors to get to know them better and for them to know who I am. In this little chats over terere I have been able to identify other possible projects and community needs that people have genuine interest in. I even learned that the area in which I am living used to have capybara (world’s largest rodent); that is until they were hunted to local extinction for food. In addition I have been accumulating tree and vegetable seeds to plant in people’s gardens and on their land in order to provide a free supply of seeds. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have also had the privilege to spend Christmas in Paraguay which is to say the least different from the US. Instead of Christmas eve church services, gifts, trees, family gatherings, and Christmas carols we have a constant barrage of fireworks (I was definitely hit in the chest by a roman candle not to mention 3 other close calls), a Christmas shrine that includes a baby Jesus among lawn gnomes and magical mushrooms, a lot of drinking, and of course the barbecue meat. Christmas morning consists of hangovers for most and little else. But I did enjoy Christmas because I was with friends and family and really when it comes down to it that is the most important thing. Now all that is left is to celebrate the New Year which also is a lot of drinking here and another bbq. Not to mention that I had to hand wash all of my clothes in order to have all clean clothes for the New Year. It should be another good celebration and I am planning on making this a bit of an international celebration with a coordinated ‘’ties that bind’’ and an official leap into the New Year. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So have a feliz año nuevo I hope that 2011 treats you all very well. </div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-58111485769713995332010-11-23T11:45:00.000-03:002010-11-23T11:45:45.702-03:00Site AssignmentThe news is in... I got my site assignment: 8000 Bertoni in the Department of San Pedro. This also happens to be the same site that I visited for my volunteer visit in October. I will be a follow up volunteer in the site replacing the other Gregorio that is there now. I plan to go by Cooper in order to eliminate any confusion and so far it seems to be working. The site is very rural and about 15km away from the nearest paved road. In order to leave town one either needs to find one of the few people with a car and ask for a ride or get up at 5am and wait for the one and only bus out of town. If it rains forget about it...no one will get in or out of site. The family I will be living with for the first 3 months are extremely friendly and consists of a mom, dad, and about 8 kids. I will be the oldest ´son´ living in the house since the oldest brother is 22. This family makes their living off of pineapple and banana production. They are actually one of the most well off families in town because they are part of a cooperative that exports the fruit to Argentina and Brazil. The house has a modern bathroom, a computer with less than reliable internet, and its own soccer field. So even though it is a rural site I have cush accomodations. Once I move out from the host families house I will have an apartment attached to the local school that has a living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and a random storage room. The site itself is beautiful with nice rolling hills, lots of streams, patches of forest, and at night the stars are incredible.<br />
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This past weekend was my future site visit, so I was able to meet my community contact, meet the family I would be living with and get general ideas for future projects. This biggest goal that whey want me to attain is to get funding for a new building to house the library and hopefully some computers for the school. The Greg before me had already got books for the library and has them in the teachers lounge for the kids to take out. Since the kids have expressed interest in reading and are taking out books to bring home the school has decided that they want an upgrade. In addition to this I was also invited to a dedication of a banana packaging plant that was partially funded by USAID. At this meeting I met some of the people in charge who are Americans and was told about some of the initiatives that they have funding for as well as their contact information that could get me funding for whatever project that I come up with. The idea that they were most interested in is working with a womens group that another volunteer had started up in a neighboring town. Since their is no volunteer there now I could be the contact that could coordinate any improvement to this group of women who were trained to make traditional Paraguayan dress shirts but currently lack resources to get them to market to sell.<br />
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Needless to say I have been very busy talking with people in the community and getting to know this new host family. One of the most memorable experiences of the weekend was participating in the slaughter of a pig, I was there to hold it down and cut it up until it was completely gone. Then the next two days I ate just about every part of that pig, for lunch liver and tenderloin, dinner was the feet, the head and the skin (chicharron) , the next lunch (my host moms bday) was bbq ribs and legs....and this meat consumption continued for the next 3 meals. But of course there are rules to eating pork in Paraguay, essentially you cannot drink water, fruit juice, or milk after eating pig products or else you will get chivivi (diarrhea). What you can drink is beer, whiskey, and terere (essentially just tea). Besides eating pig I also played a whole bunch of soccer and since I am so bad at it I was told that I need to practice before playing again and that I need to run to lose some weight (It isnt meant to be offensive, just the general bluntness of Paraguayan culture). Well, this week we have our Thanksgiving feast at the country directoes house and then after then in 2 short weeks we will be sworn in as official volunteers and then I will be back to 8000 Bertoni for the next 2 years.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-90233278759505014242010-11-16T13:55:00.000-03:002010-11-16T13:55:15.936-03:00Paraguay up to my Site AssignmentThe 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. <br />
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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. <br />
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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.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-21569560911282255332010-10-19T12:45:00.000-03:002010-10-19T12:45:46.831-03:00Life In ParaguayI have been in Paraguay for just about 20 days now and in some ways that feels like forever and in others it feels as if I just got here. The training that I have gone through thus far has been intensive. Everyday has been language training, which for me means learning Guarani. Guarani has been quite interesting, it took me a while to get a grasp of what it was about but I am starting to love how this language is formed and spoken. Most of Paraguayans will speak a mix of Spanish and Guarani called Jopara, however, others out in the campo (countryside) speak almost pure Guarani and many do not even speak Spanish. This past weekend I went for a Volunteer Visit where I went to a site that a volunteer has been working in. In my case it was a volunteer who has just about finished his service (when I swear in he will be swearing out). Anyways, this site is pure campo and while I could speak Spanish to people and they would more or less understand they all used Guarani to communicate. This was my first time seeing the challenge that I have ahead of me. Over the weekend we did a lot and not a lot at the same time. Sunday was a rainy day and here in Paraguay that means that you do nothing and for good reason, the roads all become terrible and it is difficult to walk on them much less drive on them. Yesterday, was a beatiful day and we taught in two different schools to 3 groups of kids. The first session I read a Peter Cottontail in Spanish to some 5th graders while the Volunteer also named Greg asked questions in Guarani. At the second school Greg gave his lecture on Snakes that he has developed as his main project during his service. Essentially it is an interactive talk teaching kids what the dangerous snakes look like and that snakes should not be killed as they are an important part of the ecosytem. It was a great visit all around and I am now reassured that I will want to be placed in the campo in a site not unlike that one. <br />
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Living with a Paraguayan family has been extremely rewarding. I have a big family here, my host mom and dad are in their 60´s and they have 8 children with the youngest being a son my age. There are 4 brothers and 1 sister that live at the house with me and one nephew. In our community just about everyone is related which has caused an ongoing joke between some of us aspirantes (What I am until I swear in). It turns out that one of my host brothers has an aspirante and one of the sisters has a aspirante as well which makes me their uncle. Fun stuff...tio Gregorio. The house I live in is unlike anything in the States, it is very much an outdoor lifestyle. The bulidings on the property are simply bedrooms there is no living room, dining room, or kitchen. There are chairs and tables outside and on the porch and the kitchen is attached to the backside of one of the buildings. Everything is cooked with fire and the water come from a well. We have about 8 milk cows, 2 horses, more chickens than I can count, and no more pigs as both have been slaughtered since I have been down here. The brothers are mostly brickmakers, so there is a big oven on the property that cooks the bricks that the form themselves. The rest of the property is a garden that will soon be planted with corn. In order to get to my training center I have to walk for about an hour (3 miles?) to the nearest big town which also happens to be the same place that I need to go to use the internet. This is essentially what my life looks like right now, and as we go into November we are hitting summer here where it will start to approach 100 degrees. I will try to get some picture in the near future to put up and show you all what I am seeing.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-834184073086666446.post-79994849911984831852010-09-23T21:59:00.000-04:002010-09-23T22:00:02.176-04:00DepartureWell here I am, 5 days away from embarking on my next big adventure. It has been one heck of a roller coaster getting here after getting my nomination only 6 months ago. There has been a lot of paperwork, Dr appointments, and having my Uncle Tom driving me around Charleston, SC looking for the county jail to get fingerprints done for a background check. Truly, an adventurous 6 months! And here I am, only 5 days out and the reality of leaving my home for 27 months is hitting me. It has been a tremendous amount of preparation getting to this point but I know I will never be fully prepared for this next adventure and to me that is an appealing aspect. The unknown. Not knowing where I will be or who I will be with a week from now is really exciting! But challenges I face of getting to know new people, learning a new language, and jumping from place to place are terrifying in their own way. However, I know I can get through that. The ideal of living life in the moment is a necessity; leaving all your baggage behind and being open to a whole new world is the only way to go about a trip like this. <br />
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With that being said, I am really gonna miss everyone back home. It has been great to see all my friends and family over the past few weeks. And in the process I have had a lot of fun whether it be jet skiing up at camp with my friends or partying at John and Gina's wedding this past weekend. It has been a great few weeks to relax and say goodbyes. These goodbyes have been hard to say but at the same time they make me excited for this next adventure with the Peace Corps. It is weird to think that I will miss almost 3 football seasons (Go Giants!) and 2 baseball seasons (Go Yanks!). The fact that I will be 25 by the time my service is over. But 25 isn't that old.....right? Oh well, I have plenty more difficult goodbyes in store and then it is off to Miami next Tuesday. And in just 2 more days I will be placed with my first host family somewhere in Paraguay and thus begins my 10 weeks of intensive training to become an Environmental Educator, and language lessons in both Spanish and Guarani. It's getting real!Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911918956574717501noreply@blogger.com2