Saying Goodbye

The 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.

The official countdown 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.

Now it is time to go home and be with my family and friends for the holidays. After that.....the sky is the limit.

To the First World and Back

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.

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.

Immediately after this conference I had the opportunity to go to some Jesuit Ruins in the southern part of the country. I went to Trinidad where I visited another volunteer and saw the remains of a Jesuit ruin dating back to the 15^th 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 passion fruit flower. 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.

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.

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. 

A Month of Firsts

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

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

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

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

Agosto Poty, Vaka Piru

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh yeah, it is also my Birthday this Saturday and as I turn 25 I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a quarter of a century in age. A friend directed me to this page, 25 things to do before you turn 25. I feel that I have done the vast majority of things on the list. Number 23 is one of my favorites: Leave the country under the premise of ‘finding yourself’ …. and go home when you start to miss it. The one about buying a Macbook Pro will never happen and I don’t feel the least bit bad about it. To say the least, I feel pretty accomplished for my first 25 years of life and I have to thank my family and friends for supporting me in my journey to get where I am today. I have been on a lot of adventures that span the Western Hemisphere with different pretenses for each trip along the way I have learned a lot about the world as well as myself. I have learned that: 

• People are people, no matter where you go there will always be good and bad.
• It is important to always be open to trying new things and taking advantage of all the opportunities presented to you, as you never know if you will ever have the chance to do it again.
•  The world is full of beautiful and amazing places but the places that you tend to miss the most are the ones closest to the place you grew up.
• The most important thing is to be happy with your life and if you realize that you are not, you must to do something to change that. 

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

The Aftermath

In the time since Goatgate 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 terere 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 terere (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 tranquilo 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.

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. 

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 pique free and keep my toenails from permanently taking on the red color from the soil. In case you were wondering, pique 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 pique for them. Another life skill learned.

Speaking of life skills, a few weeks back I received a phone call from Karai Nelson, one of my neighbors, he says, “Gregorio, come here right now! I just killed two Jarara, 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 Jarara hanging from the fence but I don’t see him.  I take a couple of pictures and go into the ka’aguy (woods) to find Nelson where I find him cutting down some trees. He asks me if I saw the Jarara 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 Jarara blood and of course he doesn’t. Grudgingly, I place the two 6 foot long Jarara in my backpack and take them home (a jarara, 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 jarara in my house and am trying to decide what to do with them; my predecessor famously ate a jarara 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.

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.

GOATGATE 2012

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

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

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

Winter is Coming

It’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.

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.

Semana Santa and When Being Literate is not a Good Thing

Happy Easter! The past few days have been spent with my Paraguayan family/neighbors for Semana Santa 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 chipa 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 Viernes Santo or Good Friday when meat cannot be consumed and chipa is the main course. This preparation means washing all the laundry, getting the house in its cleanest state, and making lots and lots of chipa and sopa. Chipa 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 tatakuaa or wood fired oven. Once it comes out the chipa is at its softest most delicious state. Then once Friday comes around when chipa is the primary meal for the day the chipa is rock hard. On Thursday a giant meal is prepared for the Last Supper and is generally and asado, sopa, 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.

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^rd grade as well as my traditional 4^th grade through 9^th. 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.

Cultural Integration Note: In Paraguay, a popular term that is often thrown around is letrado 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 letrado 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 letrado. Inevitably, every conversation comes to the topic of women and then letrado becomes a completely different word and refers to be sneaky or even womanizing. In this context letrado can be a damaging term as it can lead to mistrust. In my personal experience the use of letrado 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 letrado on cue, essentially whenever I get off the bus he will say, ‘Gregorioooo letradooo.’ All you can do is laugh. In other contexts the best response is to laugh it off and say, ‘I am not letrado, 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. 

Chicken and Fish

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.

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.

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 pan casero 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 despensa (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.

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. 

Passing the Holidays

The 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.

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.

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.

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!

Thanksgiving in the Summertime

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.

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!

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. 

Buenos Aires

October 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.

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.

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.

Thank You For Your Patience

The 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The 6 month mark

The 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.

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.


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.

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!

G34_ The Journey Begins

200 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!

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, eguapy, he will and then also give me his po 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!

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.