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!
Monday, January 2, 2012
Friday, December 2, 2011
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.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, September 12, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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!
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!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)