The month of March has flown by here in Paraguay. It finally feels that the weather is getting cooler and it has been raining quite a bit. At night I have been using my sleeping bag (Amazing how cold the low 70's feel all of a sudden)and jeans are becoming much more comfortable to wear during the day. The biggest down side to this type of weather is that when it rains everything shuts down; no school and no bus. When it rains I couldn't leave my site unless I decide to go by bicycle through wet sand and mud (Not a fun time at all). Additionally, this month of March has been filled with work and learning new things!
It all started off with a weekend of fun and and seeing my training family from Guarambare as many of us Peace Corps Volunteers flocked to Asuncion to see Shakira in concert with Ziggy Marley. These weekends in Asuncion tend to be very fun as we take a little vacation from speaking Guarani and Spanish and have a few more drinks than we would if we were in our sites. The concert itself was a blast, although Shakira doesn't actually sing in her performances she still knows how to dance. And then the day after I brought 3 other Volunteers back to my site to work Bees. And so began my new expertise with all things Bee. With this group I did a trasiego (moving a bee hive that is wild or splitting a hive from an existing box into a new bee box) with one of my neighbors in site. This whole experience went very well and took hours. Since then I have done 3 more trasiegos, one time the bees managed to get into my shirt and veil and stung my face resulting in some beautiful swelling. The most unfortunate part about bees getting into your shirt/veil is that you can't take off the suit. You can either try killing them, leave them be, or let them sting you after which they will die. Once the bees sting you the stinger and venom organ stay in your skin and continue to pump venom. Usually, you would just pull these out and no big deal but since I was in the middle of the trasiego they stayed put and emptied all of their venom into my face...good times. My most recent trasiego was yesterday and including taking a wild hive that was 10 feet up in a tree and putting it into one of the bee boxes that I have built. In order to get access we had to cut the tree down and then one by one we cut off the combs and attach them to the bars that sit on top of the bee box. Then in theory the bees will take up residence in that box since that is where all their food and babies are. So far my success rate has been 2 for 3 with the one failure being a severely depleted hive infested with ants, termites, spiders, and moths. So my bee work has been very rewarding to say the least, complete with stings and all, luckily I usually get some fresh honey out of it.
This month I have also begun an English Class at the High School. Every Friday I have an hour long session with the 10th graders to teach them basic phrases in English.To be honest I wasn't entirely excited to start doing this as I was unsure about working with this older group of kids and managing a classroom of 20+ students by myself. But after my first class I am pumped to keep doing it. The kids are really into it and seem to appreciate my teaching style. Typically, a class here is having the students copy notes off a board into their notebooks or listening to lecture nothing more. What I have done, based on my training and my personal preference, is start a class that demands 100% participation and learning what the students want to learn. While this may not be the most efficient way to learn, the reality is that the little that we do cover the kids are going to remember based out of repetition and personal attention. I have been very happy with how the kids support each other, there is a lot of laughing but they are all laughing with each other and when a student struggles their neighbors/friends never hesitate to help them. This class has been one of my favorite parts of my service so far. World Water Day was also this month (March 22nd) and I help activities in the school all day. I taught all the kids from 5th grade up through 12th (about 150 kids) about the world water supply and the water cycle. Then we had an activity that demonstrated what we do as humans that damage our water supply and stresses the importance of water conservation.
The other big project that I had participated in for the month was building fogons (essentially wood burning ovens) in a neighboring community. A fellow volunteer received money from the local government and a development organization to build 14 or so fogons in her community and she has a limited time to complete it so she called upon her neighboring volunteers to help her out so of course as her closest neighbor I was inclined to go. I rode my bike there and back for three days and we built something like 5 or 6 fogons in these days with help from Paraguayans and other volunteers. Prior to having a fogon families cook over a fire on the ground in an enclosed place. This presents health problem to the cooks; bad backs from being hunched over a fire as well as lung damage due to smoke inhalation. The fogons remedy this by placing the cooking platform/ fire above the ground at a comfortable height as well as having a chimney that draws out the smoke instead of filling the room with the smoke.
One other big event that happened this month was the death of my host father's mother (my host grandmother). This happened about 2 weeks ago and has shown me an interesting aspect of Paraguayan culture: How they deal with death. The death rituals here are very different than those of the US. Once a person dies and they have their prayers and interment they continue to have 9 days of prayer. So for each day after the death they go to the house of the loved one and say prayers with all the family there. Then on the day before the noveno (9th day of prayer) they make chipa all day (a food made of mandioca flour, cheese, and lard). We made over 500 pieces of chipa for this occasion. Then on the ninth day the family goes to the cemetery for prayers and the grave which in Paraguay is in above the ground concrete boxes eventually decorated with tile and a small shrine. On this occasion the mourning was very powerful with several people wailing and screaming. Once this is done the kids all line up and kid a piece of chipa. Then we go to the house of the loved one once again and then most people from the community come (must have been close to 100 people there) and all have their last prayers. After which the kids line up again and get more chipa. Then it is done. The family will continue to have a prayer session at the 6 month, 1 year, 1.5 years, and 2 year anniversaries. Depending on the family they may even do more. This is obviously a bit different from how we do things in the States and I have been inclined to think about which way is a better way to mourn the loss of a loved one. The reality of it is that one isn't better than the other they are just different ways to get to the same end.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
My Daily Life
The count is now at 5 months in Paraguay, just about the longest that I have ever been away from home, and things are going great. I am now just about settled down in site and living on my own in option number 2 from the previous post. Today I was sitting around and thinking how different my life is here than it was in the States. I think the best way to do that is go through a typical day for me here in Paraguay.
I wake up around 6:30am with the sun coming through the cracks in the windows and the roosters already crowing in full force. Occasionally, a neighbor will be blasting Paraguayan electronic polka at this hour (I am pretty sure they play this music on repeat in hell just to give a little insight on how much I enjoy waking up to this).If I am good and in my routine I will now go for an 8km run around the block that goes through 4 different communities and a nice little section of forest where I will usually see some interesting birds. Next it is time for breakfast, I personally drink tea or coffee with the coffee being a Nescafe instant coffee which gets the job done. If I were with Paraguayans I would either drink hot mate or cocido, another mate based drink. This is typically served with bread crackers but I prefer to either eat fruit or have some eggs to get my day started. Next, it is time to sweep my house out from all the dirt that I tracked in the day before and to get rid of all the random dead bugs that end up on the floor during the night. Depending on the day I may also rake the yard to keep it clean from the leaves and whatnot that come of the mango trees and the garbage that blows in from the street. At this hour before it gets too hot I will also start work whether it be work in the field, build a bee box, go to the school or just visit a neighbor.At around 9am Paraguayans have another meal that in some places they call Terere Rupa or Terere Bed (the meal you have before drinking terere). This usually consists of mandioca and tortillas, but not the mexican kind, these tortillas are deep fried bits of flour and water which can be delicious but extremely fattening. Once this meal is over it is back to work until 10am or so when it is time to drink terere where everyone that is with you and drink out of the same cup-"guampa" and drink through a bombilla-"special straw with filter on end" and the drink is just ice cold water poured over yerba mate and usually some sort of medicinal herbs mixed into the water. This is one of my favorite activities and generally a culturally significant activity as you are expected to drink it whenever you go. In fact the tradition is that either the host or the youngest in the group serves everyone else. Recently I have visited some of my neighbors and I am now expected to serve since I am the youngest which means I am no longer considered the guest but a friend. After terere it is time for more work until 11 when it is time for lunch and siesta. Lunch during the summer was almost always some sort of hot soup and mandioca (blows my mind that on the hottest days of the year you eat soup at the hottest part of the day). Then Paraguayans typically pass out for a few hours and I would join them if I had been working hard that morning. But if not I will get to other stuff such as washing my laundry, all by hand, which can take a few hours. Around 3pm work can start again and will go until 6 or so. Then it is time to go back home and relax. But since I live on my own I will go home start getting dinner ready and take a nice cold shower and do one more cleanup of the house. A Paraguayan dinner tends to be fairly light usually being some sort of leftover variation of lunch but sometimes could just be peanuts or popcorn. Then bedtime is at 9pm and all the lights are out and I will go outside to brush my teeth and pee and I look up the sky and if it is clear the stars are fantastic with the milky way stretching from horizon to horizon.
More or less that is a typical day for me in Paraguay. Since I have moved out of a Paraguayan home I have taken up a few more American habits such as staying up a little later and sleeping in a little later. I have also cut out the midmorning meal and tend to eat lighter for all my meals with my food being less carb heavy and more veggie heavy. All of my food comes from Santani the nearest big town that is a 2 hour bus ride away at 5am or from the random veggie trucks that drive through town once a week. But living on my own has also meant a lot more time being spent in the house to keep it maintained and clean as well as preparing my own meals.
Since my last post I have had a summer camp, had my site presentation, done bee work, worked in a Tobacco drying facility, and moved out right before school started this past week. The summer camp went very well and there are pictures posted in Flickr we covered themes of garbage management, general personal hygiene, and dental health. But overall we just had fun and entertained the kids for a few hours where they would normally be at home doing very little. My Site Presentation also went well and my supervisors came up took me out to lunch and then had our meeting with the town which was a success and got people excited about some of the tools that I can bring to the community such as worm composting, homemade pesticides, better agricultural practices and soil conservation. I also got my bicycle which has been very useful in making visits to places that are a little further away. Another day I spent working with the employees of one of the many tobacco drying facilities in my community to see what that was all about. And it turns out it is very tedious and dirty work. I started off working in the seed beds with the men and pruning the baby tobacco plants and then went to do tobacco classification with the women. Essentially sorting out the dried tobacco leaves by quality and then bundling them up. The dust from this whole process managed to bother me even from working for a few hours and these women and children do it day in and out. My plan is to work with them some more and help them to create their own source of lumber for the drying process and maybe even get them some respiratory protection for their work.
Finally, a week ago was the big move into the house more or less across the street form my host families house. I brought all the stuff I could carry over first and then we loaded up a horse cart with all the bigger stuff that was in the school such as my red stove and a book shelf. It seemed like a ton of stuff and I am sure everyone in town is wondering where it all came from since I arrived in town with only two bags in hand. Really, a lot of it is what the previous volunteer left for me. But now I am all moved in, I had a modern bathroom put in already that took 3 days to do. So I also have a working toilet and sink in the bathroom instead of using the squat latrine that is in questionable shape. I had the bathroom done mainly because I am not paying rent for my time here and I felt I should make some improvement to the house in exchange so really its a win win situation. I have also been working in my garden and have even started planting now I can only hope that they will germinate and grow!
I wake up around 6:30am with the sun coming through the cracks in the windows and the roosters already crowing in full force. Occasionally, a neighbor will be blasting Paraguayan electronic polka at this hour (I am pretty sure they play this music on repeat in hell just to give a little insight on how much I enjoy waking up to this).If I am good and in my routine I will now go for an 8km run around the block that goes through 4 different communities and a nice little section of forest where I will usually see some interesting birds. Next it is time for breakfast, I personally drink tea or coffee with the coffee being a Nescafe instant coffee which gets the job done. If I were with Paraguayans I would either drink hot mate or cocido, another mate based drink. This is typically served with bread crackers but I prefer to either eat fruit or have some eggs to get my day started. Next, it is time to sweep my house out from all the dirt that I tracked in the day before and to get rid of all the random dead bugs that end up on the floor during the night. Depending on the day I may also rake the yard to keep it clean from the leaves and whatnot that come of the mango trees and the garbage that blows in from the street. At this hour before it gets too hot I will also start work whether it be work in the field, build a bee box, go to the school or just visit a neighbor.At around 9am Paraguayans have another meal that in some places they call Terere Rupa or Terere Bed (the meal you have before drinking terere). This usually consists of mandioca and tortillas, but not the mexican kind, these tortillas are deep fried bits of flour and water which can be delicious but extremely fattening. Once this meal is over it is back to work until 10am or so when it is time to drink terere where everyone that is with you and drink out of the same cup-"guampa" and drink through a bombilla-"special straw with filter on end" and the drink is just ice cold water poured over yerba mate and usually some sort of medicinal herbs mixed into the water. This is one of my favorite activities and generally a culturally significant activity as you are expected to drink it whenever you go. In fact the tradition is that either the host or the youngest in the group serves everyone else. Recently I have visited some of my neighbors and I am now expected to serve since I am the youngest which means I am no longer considered the guest but a friend. After terere it is time for more work until 11 when it is time for lunch and siesta. Lunch during the summer was almost always some sort of hot soup and mandioca (blows my mind that on the hottest days of the year you eat soup at the hottest part of the day). Then Paraguayans typically pass out for a few hours and I would join them if I had been working hard that morning. But if not I will get to other stuff such as washing my laundry, all by hand, which can take a few hours. Around 3pm work can start again and will go until 6 or so. Then it is time to go back home and relax. But since I live on my own I will go home start getting dinner ready and take a nice cold shower and do one more cleanup of the house. A Paraguayan dinner tends to be fairly light usually being some sort of leftover variation of lunch but sometimes could just be peanuts or popcorn. Then bedtime is at 9pm and all the lights are out and I will go outside to brush my teeth and pee and I look up the sky and if it is clear the stars are fantastic with the milky way stretching from horizon to horizon.
More or less that is a typical day for me in Paraguay. Since I have moved out of a Paraguayan home I have taken up a few more American habits such as staying up a little later and sleeping in a little later. I have also cut out the midmorning meal and tend to eat lighter for all my meals with my food being less carb heavy and more veggie heavy. All of my food comes from Santani the nearest big town that is a 2 hour bus ride away at 5am or from the random veggie trucks that drive through town once a week. But living on my own has also meant a lot more time being spent in the house to keep it maintained and clean as well as preparing my own meals.
Since my last post I have had a summer camp, had my site presentation, done bee work, worked in a Tobacco drying facility, and moved out right before school started this past week. The summer camp went very well and there are pictures posted in Flickr we covered themes of garbage management, general personal hygiene, and dental health. But overall we just had fun and entertained the kids for a few hours where they would normally be at home doing very little. My Site Presentation also went well and my supervisors came up took me out to lunch and then had our meeting with the town which was a success and got people excited about some of the tools that I can bring to the community such as worm composting, homemade pesticides, better agricultural practices and soil conservation. I also got my bicycle which has been very useful in making visits to places that are a little further away. Another day I spent working with the employees of one of the many tobacco drying facilities in my community to see what that was all about. And it turns out it is very tedious and dirty work. I started off working in the seed beds with the men and pruning the baby tobacco plants and then went to do tobacco classification with the women. Essentially sorting out the dried tobacco leaves by quality and then bundling them up. The dust from this whole process managed to bother me even from working for a few hours and these women and children do it day in and out. My plan is to work with them some more and help them to create their own source of lumber for the drying process and maybe even get them some respiratory protection for their work.
Finally, a week ago was the big move into the house more or less across the street form my host families house. I brought all the stuff I could carry over first and then we loaded up a horse cart with all the bigger stuff that was in the school such as my red stove and a book shelf. It seemed like a ton of stuff and I am sure everyone in town is wondering where it all came from since I arrived in town with only two bags in hand. Really, a lot of it is what the previous volunteer left for me. But now I am all moved in, I had a modern bathroom put in already that took 3 days to do. So I also have a working toilet and sink in the bathroom instead of using the squat latrine that is in questionable shape. I had the bathroom done mainly because I am not paying rent for my time here and I felt I should make some improvement to the house in exchange so really its a win win situation. I have also been working in my garden and have even started planting now I can only hope that they will germinate and grow!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Work, Food, and Home
I have now been in Paraguay over four months and things are really starting to pick up. About a week ago I travelled to another Volunteers site to help with a summer camp that was 3 days long. The theme of the camp was health, so we taught the kids all about exercise, dental hygiene, healthy foods, and how to avoid getting parasites. Each day we had around 30 or so kids whom we entertained for 3 hours in the morning before it got too hot at mid-day. In addition to entertaining the children we fed them every day and gave them plenty to drink because it was easily in the 90’s by 11am. To say the least we all had a blast, the kids were great and we had a fun time teaching them and they even taught us a few new games as well. In addition we made up a 3 part skit to demonstrate hygiene called Amor Ky’a (Dirty Love). This skit was modeled after the generic Latin American Telenovela and involved a handsome man (me) and two lovely ladies. This handsome man was switching his love interest between two women as a result of their physical condition at one point one woman had horrible diarrhea due to bad hygiene and at another point the other woman had disgusting teeth. But of course karma would come back and get this handsome man as the skit ended with the women losing interest in him as he had let himself go and was fat, had horrible teeth, as well as chivivi (diarrhea). The kids loved it! Over the next few days I would walk around the community and I would hear, ‘Gregorio! Amor Ky’a!’ The last day of the camp we had a review of everything that we had learned as well as a giant water fight; definitely a great way to cool off on another really hot day.
The week before my summer camp I was struck down by Paraguayan beliefs and luckily I came out alive. The first thing that happened was a bit of flu that had me laid out for about 5 days with fever and dizziness which of course was attributed to me having grown a mustache and when I cut it off the illness was gone. Next was a slight concussion that occurred after I fell playing a bit of soccer on wet grass, I woke up the next day just feeling completely sleepy and all day long, there was nothing I could do to wake up and the family noticed and their explanation was that I had slept the night before with the fan on all night and therefore I was lazy…actually it was a concussion. In reality it isn’t that different from what we do in the states, we also try to find reasons for why we are sick. Whether we attribute getting a cold to a stressful situation or a bad stomach to a specific meal we do attribute blame but we tend to blame things that actually affect our physical/emotional state not electric fans or mustaches. But there are a lot of food rules that do exist that any outsider coming to Paraguay would find surprising and likely break. Here is the list that I have compiled in my first 4 months I am sure there are many more to come:
1. Eating Peanuts after Beer will cause diarrhea.
2. Drinking water after eating anything pig will cause diarrhea.
3. Drinking milk while eating onions will cause diarrhea.
4. Eating ice cream after drinking milk with cause diarrhea.
5. Eating watermelon/ melon before drinking terere will cause death by explosion.
What makes me most curious about these things is their origin. Who decided one day that these things were prohibited, it had to have been one bad experience that was blamed on doing that action. Luckily as an outsider I have found that I can get away with eating some peanuts with my beer by say I am accustomed to it and everything is fine. In fact it has turned out that if you run into any sort of culture clash you can just say acostumbrado and it will fly but they will also watch you and if you go to the bathroom anytime soon afterwards it will be assumed that you have diarrhea.
My next few weeks are also looking to be very busy, tomorrow I am having my first community meeting which I have spent the past few days advertising by handing out fliers house by house as well as getting an announcement made on the local radio. My hope is that a decent amount of people show up and we can have a productive conversation about what we can work on in the community and hopefully form a Neighbors group that will make achieving any larger scale goals much more feasible. In addition I plan on planting the idea of a women’s group where I can also help to promote healthy practices and help the people find another source of income for economic improvement. Then next week is my own summer camp that I am holding with some environmental and health themes. Then I have my site presentation where my boss will come to my site and introduce me formally and help to explain what the Peace Corps is as well as bring my bicycle and other luggage that has been sitting in Asuncion. Then after that I will hopefully be living in my future house all on my own. Currently, I have three options. One is living in the school where the previous volunteer lived, it is a big space and just about everything I will need is there but it will mean kids constantly coming in and out of my living space, and a bathroom that isn’t currently functioning. The second option is across the street from where I am living now, it is one of the nicest houses in town and empty, it has a modern bathroom and everything I would need as well but I feel living there would also make me look like a rich American. The third option is in a different part of town where the previous volunteer did not spend much time; it is probably the least ‘nice’ of the houses and will require some fixing up. To be honest I am leaning towards my third option and as long as I can get permission to live there I would be more than happy to put in whatever work needs to be done to make it livable. But this is all up in the air still, the school is the sure thing, but I still have to wait a bit before I can move out but I am starting to get antsy to live on my own.
The week before my summer camp I was struck down by Paraguayan beliefs and luckily I came out alive. The first thing that happened was a bit of flu that had me laid out for about 5 days with fever and dizziness which of course was attributed to me having grown a mustache and when I cut it off the illness was gone. Next was a slight concussion that occurred after I fell playing a bit of soccer on wet grass, I woke up the next day just feeling completely sleepy and all day long, there was nothing I could do to wake up and the family noticed and their explanation was that I had slept the night before with the fan on all night and therefore I was lazy…actually it was a concussion. In reality it isn’t that different from what we do in the states, we also try to find reasons for why we are sick. Whether we attribute getting a cold to a stressful situation or a bad stomach to a specific meal we do attribute blame but we tend to blame things that actually affect our physical/emotional state not electric fans or mustaches. But there are a lot of food rules that do exist that any outsider coming to Paraguay would find surprising and likely break. Here is the list that I have compiled in my first 4 months I am sure there are many more to come:
1. Eating Peanuts after Beer will cause diarrhea.
2. Drinking water after eating anything pig will cause diarrhea.
3. Drinking milk while eating onions will cause diarrhea.
4. Eating ice cream after drinking milk with cause diarrhea.
5. Eating watermelon/ melon before drinking terere will cause death by explosion.
What makes me most curious about these things is their origin. Who decided one day that these things were prohibited, it had to have been one bad experience that was blamed on doing that action. Luckily as an outsider I have found that I can get away with eating some peanuts with my beer by say I am accustomed to it and everything is fine. In fact it has turned out that if you run into any sort of culture clash you can just say acostumbrado and it will fly but they will also watch you and if you go to the bathroom anytime soon afterwards it will be assumed that you have diarrhea.
My next few weeks are also looking to be very busy, tomorrow I am having my first community meeting which I have spent the past few days advertising by handing out fliers house by house as well as getting an announcement made on the local radio. My hope is that a decent amount of people show up and we can have a productive conversation about what we can work on in the community and hopefully form a Neighbors group that will make achieving any larger scale goals much more feasible. In addition I plan on planting the idea of a women’s group where I can also help to promote healthy practices and help the people find another source of income for economic improvement. Then next week is my own summer camp that I am holding with some environmental and health themes. Then I have my site presentation where my boss will come to my site and introduce me formally and help to explain what the Peace Corps is as well as bring my bicycle and other luggage that has been sitting in Asuncion. Then after that I will hopefully be living in my future house all on my own. Currently, I have three options. One is living in the school where the previous volunteer lived, it is a big space and just about everything I will need is there but it will mean kids constantly coming in and out of my living space, and a bathroom that isn’t currently functioning. The second option is across the street from where I am living now, it is one of the nicest houses in town and empty, it has a modern bathroom and everything I would need as well but I feel living there would also make me look like a rich American. The third option is in a different part of town where the previous volunteer did not spend much time; it is probably the least ‘nice’ of the houses and will require some fixing up. To be honest I am leaning towards my third option and as long as I can get permission to live there I would be more than happy to put in whatever work needs to be done to make it livable. But this is all up in the air still, the school is the sure thing, but I still have to wait a bit before I can move out but I am starting to get antsy to live on my own.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Paraguayan Culture
I have been in site for just about one month now and while I have not done a ton of ‘work’ work I have done a lot of things. For the first three months of being in site a volunteer is not expected to have a ton of projects but more to get accustomed to the community, get to know the people living there, learn Guarani, and just get a general feel for the needs of the community. For me getting adjusted to the community has been more or less difficult. And by community I mean the Paraguayan lifestyle and customs. I truly feel that the family I live with is an exception to the rule where Paraguayans are easygoing and laidback. This family gets up at 5am everyday and starts working and don’t come back from their fields until 6 at night. It is a crazy amount of work that I just cannot keep up with and even during their breaks they are doing something whether it be building an enclosure for their turkeys or butchering a pig. The non- stop action that can be to say the least overwhelming. Now throw on top of this the constant Paraguayan beliefs that are thrown in your face that causes a constant fear of getting diarrhea, becoming morally ill, or having your arms explode simply by washing your hands, consuming the wrong combinations of food, or bathing at the wrong times. While as an outsider these beliefs seem absurd I still must abide by them as long as I am in the company of Paraguayans so as not to suffer an ‘I told you so incident.’ One of my other favorite beliefs that I have fully embraced are the mythological creatures of Paraguay. Some of these characters include Pombrero or Karai Pyhareve who tends to be mischievous and causes bad things to happen and is easily provoked by whistling at night. A funny ongoing joke here is that I believe in these creatures and yell at my family, who tend not to believe these creatures, when they do something to provoke them. Another good one is Ao Ao (clothes clothes) who is essentially a bigfoot and the only way to avoid him is climb a certain tree. The joke with the family I have is that he is really Ao Ao sin Ao (clothes clothes without clothes). And of course there is Jasy Jatere aka Me who is the blond, light skinned man who kidnaps children and is able to disappear using his golden staff. In this country having red hair may as well be as if I had blond hair. But this is one creature that my family does believe as many Jasy Jatere’s will show up in the month of September (We will have to see what this means exactly). I do not intend to make fun of these beliefs only to draw attention to them as a truly rich part of the culture here that makes Paraguayans Paraguayan. While I may not personally believe the same things, I do know it is important to respect them. And the reality of it is that these examples are only the tip of the iceberg and it is all part of getting to know a new culture.
Friday, December 31, 2010
The New Site and the New Year
Since my site assignment life has been very eventful and constantly changing. Back in our training community we tied up our technical training with the things that would help us get through our first few months in site and had our closing language interviews. Then it was Swear-in weekend and time to say goodbye to the family that had taken care of us for the first 10 weeks in Paraguay. Luckily this didn’t have to be a long-term goodbye as I can always just pop down to Guarambare to visit. Swear-in weekend was a huge break from daily life in Paraguay. We all travelled to Asuncion together for the ceremony which in itself only took an hour maybe two. It essentially consisted of us listening to several speeches by the US Ambassador to Paraguay, the Paraguayan Secretary of Tourism, the Paraguayan President of the World Wildlife Foundation, and some of the Peace Corps Staff as well as repeating the oath to service to the United States of America. Afterwards we were given our cell phones, ATM cards and set free to go crazy in Asuncion for a few days. So that is exactly what we did to inaugurate ourselves as official volunteers in the Peace Corps. Those few days were truly a break from our Paraguayan lifestyles; we lived in hotels for a few days, swimming in pools, speaking English with other volunteers, sleeping in until whenever we wanted, and of course enjoying the night scene to its fullest. But once the weekend was over we had until that Tuesday to be in our sites and start our duty as volunteers. I made the trek up towards my site a day early so that I could get a night in San Estanislao to decompress from the craziness of Asuncion and prepare mentally for full time Paraguay.
The past few weeks of living in site have been much busier than I had imagined they would be. The host family I live with is an extremely guapo/hardworking family (almost unusually so by the Paraguayan standards that I know) and as a result I have been constantly working with the brothers in the kokue (fields) for the pineapple harvest and general maintenance of the fields. I can now say that I am proficient in using a hoe, machete, and the art of maintaining banana plants. However, what I have found is that at the same time I am working alongside the brothers I get the most work done that pertains to my actual job here which is environmental education and agro forestry. In this regard I have been able to have conversations about environmental issues, how to implement trees into their agricultural operation and even sparked interest about the possibility of abonos verdes (plants that fix nitrogen for the soil) but these topics all come in between constant harassment from the ‘guys’ about my love life. I suppose that it is a fair enough tradeoff. In addition to working in the fields I have gone around visiting some of the neighbors to get to know them better and for them to know who I am. In this little chats over terere I have been able to identify other possible projects and community needs that people have genuine interest in. I even learned that the area in which I am living used to have capybara (world’s largest rodent); that is until they were hunted to local extinction for food. In addition I have been accumulating tree and vegetable seeds to plant in people’s gardens and on their land in order to provide a free supply of seeds.
I have also had the privilege to spend Christmas in Paraguay which is to say the least different from the US. Instead of Christmas eve church services, gifts, trees, family gatherings, and Christmas carols we have a constant barrage of fireworks (I was definitely hit in the chest by a roman candle not to mention 3 other close calls), a Christmas shrine that includes a baby Jesus among lawn gnomes and magical mushrooms, a lot of drinking, and of course the barbecue meat. Christmas morning consists of hangovers for most and little else. But I did enjoy Christmas because I was with friends and family and really when it comes down to it that is the most important thing. Now all that is left is to celebrate the New Year which also is a lot of drinking here and another bbq. Not to mention that I had to hand wash all of my clothes in order to have all clean clothes for the New Year. It should be another good celebration and I am planning on making this a bit of an international celebration with a coordinated ‘’ties that bind’’ and an official leap into the New Year. So have a feliz año nuevo I hope that 2011 treats you all very well.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Site Assignment
The news is in... I got my site assignment: 8000 Bertoni in the Department of San Pedro. This also happens to be the same site that I visited for my volunteer visit in October. I will be a follow up volunteer in the site replacing the other Gregorio that is there now. I plan to go by Cooper in order to eliminate any confusion and so far it seems to be working. The site is very rural and about 15km away from the nearest paved road. In order to leave town one either needs to find one of the few people with a car and ask for a ride or get up at 5am and wait for the one and only bus out of town. If it rains forget about it...no one will get in or out of site. The family I will be living with for the first 3 months are extremely friendly and consists of a mom, dad, and about 8 kids. I will be the oldest ´son´ living in the house since the oldest brother is 22. This family makes their living off of pineapple and banana production. They are actually one of the most well off families in town because they are part of a cooperative that exports the fruit to Argentina and Brazil. The house has a modern bathroom, a computer with less than reliable internet, and its own soccer field. So even though it is a rural site I have cush accomodations. Once I move out from the host families house I will have an apartment attached to the local school that has a living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and a random storage room. The site itself is beautiful with nice rolling hills, lots of streams, patches of forest, and at night the stars are incredible.
This past weekend was my future site visit, so I was able to meet my community contact, meet the family I would be living with and get general ideas for future projects. This biggest goal that whey want me to attain is to get funding for a new building to house the library and hopefully some computers for the school. The Greg before me had already got books for the library and has them in the teachers lounge for the kids to take out. Since the kids have expressed interest in reading and are taking out books to bring home the school has decided that they want an upgrade. In addition to this I was also invited to a dedication of a banana packaging plant that was partially funded by USAID. At this meeting I met some of the people in charge who are Americans and was told about some of the initiatives that they have funding for as well as their contact information that could get me funding for whatever project that I come up with. The idea that they were most interested in is working with a womens group that another volunteer had started up in a neighboring town. Since their is no volunteer there now I could be the contact that could coordinate any improvement to this group of women who were trained to make traditional Paraguayan dress shirts but currently lack resources to get them to market to sell.
Needless to say I have been very busy talking with people in the community and getting to know this new host family. One of the most memorable experiences of the weekend was participating in the slaughter of a pig, I was there to hold it down and cut it up until it was completely gone. Then the next two days I ate just about every part of that pig, for lunch liver and tenderloin, dinner was the feet, the head and the skin (chicharron) , the next lunch (my host moms bday) was bbq ribs and legs....and this meat consumption continued for the next 3 meals. But of course there are rules to eating pork in Paraguay, essentially you cannot drink water, fruit juice, or milk after eating pig products or else you will get chivivi (diarrhea). What you can drink is beer, whiskey, and terere (essentially just tea). Besides eating pig I also played a whole bunch of soccer and since I am so bad at it I was told that I need to practice before playing again and that I need to run to lose some weight (It isnt meant to be offensive, just the general bluntness of Paraguayan culture). Well, this week we have our Thanksgiving feast at the country directoes house and then after then in 2 short weeks we will be sworn in as official volunteers and then I will be back to 8000 Bertoni for the next 2 years.
This past weekend was my future site visit, so I was able to meet my community contact, meet the family I would be living with and get general ideas for future projects. This biggest goal that whey want me to attain is to get funding for a new building to house the library and hopefully some computers for the school. The Greg before me had already got books for the library and has them in the teachers lounge for the kids to take out. Since the kids have expressed interest in reading and are taking out books to bring home the school has decided that they want an upgrade. In addition to this I was also invited to a dedication of a banana packaging plant that was partially funded by USAID. At this meeting I met some of the people in charge who are Americans and was told about some of the initiatives that they have funding for as well as their contact information that could get me funding for whatever project that I come up with. The idea that they were most interested in is working with a womens group that another volunteer had started up in a neighboring town. Since their is no volunteer there now I could be the contact that could coordinate any improvement to this group of women who were trained to make traditional Paraguayan dress shirts but currently lack resources to get them to market to sell.
Needless to say I have been very busy talking with people in the community and getting to know this new host family. One of the most memorable experiences of the weekend was participating in the slaughter of a pig, I was there to hold it down and cut it up until it was completely gone. Then the next two days I ate just about every part of that pig, for lunch liver and tenderloin, dinner was the feet, the head and the skin (chicharron) , the next lunch (my host moms bday) was bbq ribs and legs....and this meat consumption continued for the next 3 meals. But of course there are rules to eating pork in Paraguay, essentially you cannot drink water, fruit juice, or milk after eating pig products or else you will get chivivi (diarrhea). What you can drink is beer, whiskey, and terere (essentially just tea). Besides eating pig I also played a whole bunch of soccer and since I am so bad at it I was told that I need to practice before playing again and that I need to run to lose some weight (It isnt meant to be offensive, just the general bluntness of Paraguayan culture). Well, this week we have our Thanksgiving feast at the country directoes house and then after then in 2 short weeks we will be sworn in as official volunteers and then I will be back to 8000 Bertoni for the next 2 years.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Paraguay up to my Site Assignment
The past month has been filled with training and language learning. I have learned many many things about trees, gardens, schools, Paraguayan culture, and the Guarani language.I can officially name and identify at least 15 different Paraguayan trees, both native and non native, and can harvest and treat the seeds for planting. For some education practice we have been working in the local school in my town. We have done many activities regarding garbage. The garbage situation here in Paraguay is horrendous and generally people will just burn plastic before it rains or else just throw it in the street. The school expressed interest in garbage education so we designed some lessons addressing the situation. Teaching the kids that gargbage will remain for a long time if we just leave it in the streets and that burning plastic pollutes the air. In the end we dug a pit in which garbage will be buried, which is the best option here in Paraguay. We also did some projects with some of the younger kids to think of ways to recycle garbage such as reusing plastic bottles, using milk cartons to plant trees in, and making plastic bottles into art. This series culminated in the kids making flowers out of plastic bottles and painting them.
Last week we had our long field practice where we went to another volunteers site, Jacob, to work with the people there. In his site we planted some trees and transpanted others, we taught the school kids, both elementary students and high school students about some environmental issues including garbage, and did a review with some of the kids he has been teaching about the rapidly degrading Atlantic Forest. This site was in a beautiful rural part of the country with many low hills with streams running between. Every family here has a piece of land where the plant and harvest only enough food to feed themselves and there livestock. The livestock of choice in this region are cattle and pig which roam the streets freely grazing and feeding wherever they can find food. I lived with two younger brothers in their late 20´s who ran a butcher shop, which during the week I was there was completely out of meat. Their house was also the site of the town volleyball court where all the male village youth would come every night to play, talk, and drink wine and coke (It´s a big thing down here). This exposed me to a ton of Guarani and to being on the outside of many funny conversations. But these were very nice people and we had some fun interactions exchanging Guarani words for words in english.
This past month has been very rewarding and full of educational experiences all getting us ready for the big day (tomorrow!). Tomorrow we will find out our future sites, the place where we will be working for 2 years... The anticipation is unbelievable but I am optimistic about it.. jahechata.
Last week we had our long field practice where we went to another volunteers site, Jacob, to work with the people there. In his site we planted some trees and transpanted others, we taught the school kids, both elementary students and high school students about some environmental issues including garbage, and did a review with some of the kids he has been teaching about the rapidly degrading Atlantic Forest. This site was in a beautiful rural part of the country with many low hills with streams running between. Every family here has a piece of land where the plant and harvest only enough food to feed themselves and there livestock. The livestock of choice in this region are cattle and pig which roam the streets freely grazing and feeding wherever they can find food. I lived with two younger brothers in their late 20´s who ran a butcher shop, which during the week I was there was completely out of meat. Their house was also the site of the town volleyball court where all the male village youth would come every night to play, talk, and drink wine and coke (It´s a big thing down here). This exposed me to a ton of Guarani and to being on the outside of many funny conversations. But these were very nice people and we had some fun interactions exchanging Guarani words for words in english.
This past month has been very rewarding and full of educational experiences all getting us ready for the big day (tomorrow!). Tomorrow we will find out our future sites, the place where we will be working for 2 years... The anticipation is unbelievable but I am optimistic about it.. jahechata.
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