I hope you are all enjoying being together for the Holidays. I miss you all and wish i could be with my family too! I will be with my host family on Christmas playing with fireworks, eating a lot, drinking a lot of this sangria-like drink and trying to stay cool. Today my host family is killing a pig and will be roasting it all day. I snuck out of the house early this morning and came to Concepcion to do some shopping so that I wouldn´t have to witness the butchering. They are going to tease me about it but at least I won´t have to be there to see it. They kept joking and telling me I was going to have to hold it down and that I have to eat some tonight. They will probably hang the pig head outside my door or something but I´ll get them back somehow. It´s also my host brother´s bday tomorrow so we will be having a good time and they´ll be eating pig all week. It´s doesn´t really feel like Christmas here but I am glad I am getting the opportunity to see how Paraguayans spend their holidays. One reason it doesn´t feel like Christmas is because it´s summer here. Here is a little peak at the the weather forecase for Dec 25th 2007.
Day
Partly Cloudy High
96°F
Precip
20%
Wind: SSE 5 mph
Max. Humidity: 60%
UV Index: 10+ Extreme
Sunrise: 6:02 AM Local Time
Avg. High: 91°F
Record High: N/A
Night
Partly Cloudy Overnight Low
75°F
Precip
20%
Wind: E 5 mph
Max. Humidity: 80%
Sunset: 7:37 PM Local Time
Avg. Low: 72°F
Record Low: N/A
Monday, December 24, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thanksgiving
This is an entry from another volunteer's blog. I thought it expressed many of the same thoughts I and many other peace corps volunteers have and wanted to share it with everyone. It's an entry about gratitude for the things we have, in the honor of Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a wondeful Thanksgiving. I will be spending it with the 100 or so other volunteers in Paraguay at a resort in the south of the country, sitting by a pool, eating a real Thanksgiving meal, performing firedancing in the talent show and of course having a few drinks and catching up with my friends that are placed all over the country. I have 2 new entries that can be found below this one. Enjoy!
Thanks Giving- By Sarah Geiger
“Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton
Being a Peace Corps Volunteer affords many valuable, hard-won lessons. I am grateful for them all. Volunteers are sent to places that suffer the absence of basic things that contribute to quality of living. That means you can bet life is harder there for everyone, including volunteers.
When some aspect of my life or work is difficult I try to remind myself of this: that whether or not I can see it at the time, there is a lesson disguised in there that will become obvious with time. This is what keeps me from becoming overwhelmed by what is missing here in Paraguay.
The lessons take many forms, but usually they just boil down to the same things: becoming aware of how much I don’t know, and discovering how much I really have. The lesson I am most grateful for is the most simple: always be grateful.
If you have never lived outside of your own culture it is hard to have perspective on what is and isn’t really there. In Paraguay the real problem is that people are so used to accepting hardship and powerlessness that they can’t imagine a better life or believe they can improve their own lives. In America we have so many blessings the real problem is remembering or noticing them all. Let me show you how it looks from my perspective.
As an American I am grateful for:
Paved roads—and the trucks that use them to bring things to our stores, and the cars that use them to take people to jobs and schools, which means income and education, which means empowerment and connection to the larger world, which means hope and broadening of minds; roads that may hurt our environment in many ways but also are the backbone of our municipal trash collection, which makes our world less littered and less toxic because we don’t have to burn or bury our trash at home; roads that bring ambulances and fire trucks when we need them, and the peace of mind of knowing that they could come at a moment’s notice even when we don’t need them; roads that keep people moving around, learning about and coming to appreciate different places and opportunities and lifestyles, that let us meet and know so many more people than just a few close neighbors, which teaches us to not fear the differences.
Electricity—that doesn’t go out every day and spoil everything in our refrigerators, that lights up our streets at night so we can leave our house after sunset and not be afraid, that powers our computers and vacuum cleaners and keeps us from freezing in the winter and baking in the summer, that always brings us cold drinks and cooks us hot food, that helps us open cans at the touch of a button and reheat our food without burning wood, that lets us bathe with warm water, that keeps people’s hearts beating in hospitals and premature babies alive and growing, and that is so important and omnipresent that we only notice it when it fails us, and that also does a lot of frivolous stuff we probably don’t need.
Running water—that lets us clean our bodies, things and homes, that brings us water that is safe to drink without boiling and doesn’t taste terrible, that waters the crops we rely on for our food and keeps pets and livestock from relying on ponds and puddles, that doesn’t go out without warning in the middle of a shower or stay broken for days, that lets us easily maintain good health and hygiene, and makes our world more beautiful by making flowers and lawns and landscaping even possible, to say nothing of golf courses, swimming pools, and fire hydrants.
Washing machines—and other radical instruments of women’s liberation; because I spend SO much time washing my clothes by hand here, because I know that Whirpool did as much to free women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Betty Friedan combined, because if we still had to wash clothes by hand like they do in Paraguay, women might not have discovered yet the historically and culturally alarming fact that, hiding right behind their eyes and between their ears, is a fully functioning brain should they care to use it. Because it kills me that the women here are so busy cooking and washing clothes and doing dishes and sweeping the dirt and feeding the chickens and nursing the kids and shelling the corn that it seems like they don’t ever have time to think about anything else. Because it kills me that it seems like the women here are almost as invested in machismo as the men. Because I sometimes wonder what the women here would do with themselves if all of the sudden they didn’t have to do all of that, and I think it would terrify them and many in this generation would do it anyway because that’s their comfort zone; it’s all they know. But hopefully a few of them would discover they have a brain too. I’m grateful that I discovered this fact early on, which I now attribute in part to early exposure to washing machines and electric stoves.
Schools—which people gripe endlessly about but are unimaginably much better than they could be, which have teachers who generally know what they are teaching and are expected to do more than make students just copy lines verbatim for every subject and call that learning, which encourage kids to actually think critically and turn into adult citizens instead of just adults, which on the whole expose kids to a world of things they might be good at and enjoy, which usually have books (thought they may be old) and paper and maps and on-site lunches (though they may be unhealthy), which still expect kids to hope for something by telling them they can be anything they want to be if they apply themselves (though they may be building false hope for some, at least they aren’t denying it to all).
Supermarkets—where you can go and get whatever food you want and thus not worry about being malnourished or even getting bored with the same thing all the time, where you can walk in with a purse or a bag and not have to check it at the desk because the manager thinks you’re going to steal something if you keep it with you, where your biggest problem is choosing between 93 kinds of salad dressing rather than not even finding the white vinegar that you were going to use to make it from scratch.
Computers—Especially access to the internet and early childhood exposure to computers, which teach kids without them even knowing it what a window is, a cursor, and a keyboard, which connects us to information and gives us a truly revolutionary belief: that if we want to know something, we can find it out. That changes everything.
Bookstores—Barnes & Noble is a triumph of civilization. All that knowledge in one place, all those people who can and want to read who make it economically possible, and a culture that understands that reading can be a leisure activity. Not to mention the good coffee. I can’t tell you how much I want to take my 14-year-old Paraguayan host sister by the hand and walk her through the foyer and polished wood and brass doors of Barnes & Noble; I can’t tell you how much I want to see the look on her face as she sees that many books.
The Home Depot—Another triumph of civilization. Where you can build absolutely anything you want. It’s all there, and there are even trucks that can take advantage of our paved roads and deliver it right to your house.
Window screens—Because life is better when you’re not covered in flies and mosquitoes.
Restaurants—Because we know what things taste like everywhere, because half the time when I share “American” food (which is to say food I eat in America that Paraguayans don’t know of) it’s really Italian or Asian or Mexican or something. Because we enjoy the gastronomic riches of the whole world and the only reason we don’t have Paraguayan restaurants is that the food isn’t all that great here.
Art—Because we also get exposed to all kinds of music, and there are things like art museums and theaters (movies) and theatres (stage plays), and performing arts of all kinds, because our kids get to play with crayons and markers and some of them even grow up to make objects of breathtaking beauty, which they then share with us all.
Hospitals—Where we have equipment and supplies and real doctors, and where you don’t have to bring your own plates and silverware if you want something to eat like you do here in Paraguay.
And above all else:
Democracy—Because we got the whole modern experiment started and as a result our culture has never been brainwashed to blindly and without question accept the whims of a dictator, because instead we’ve been raised to believe in civic responsibility and accountability of government to the people, because we can complain out loud and do often, because when a whole culture believes in self-determination and the possibility of progress people start believing that about themselves as individuals too, and when that happens people learn to improve their own lives and the whole thing takes on it’s own momentum.
But we’re just learning that our wonderful democracy works so well because we have an equally wonderful history that makes it uniquely like it is. The biggest challenge of this century will be discovering how democracy can really take hold in places with very different histories. Dictators create cultures where people learn to look to others to tell them what to do, and to respect people who command fear and make their own rules. Paraguay has officially had democracy for 18 years now, but with a few hundred years of dictatorship under its cultural belt, it really doesn’t have a clue what to do with it. Americans can’t tell them (or anyone else) what to do with it by commanding respect and making the rules; how would that be different for them than being told what to do by a dictator? Democracy is about people figuring out on their own what they need to do about their lives. This is a mindset that must be learned; the desire for freedom may be universal but the skills to make responsible use of it is not. We are lucky as Americans because we both have democracy and a clue what to do with it. Remember your high-school history and civics teachers? I do. Thank you, all the Mrs. Meadors of the world. I’ll think of you when I’m eating turkey this year.
Thanks Giving- By Sarah Geiger
“Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton
Being a Peace Corps Volunteer affords many valuable, hard-won lessons. I am grateful for them all. Volunteers are sent to places that suffer the absence of basic things that contribute to quality of living. That means you can bet life is harder there for everyone, including volunteers.
When some aspect of my life or work is difficult I try to remind myself of this: that whether or not I can see it at the time, there is a lesson disguised in there that will become obvious with time. This is what keeps me from becoming overwhelmed by what is missing here in Paraguay.
The lessons take many forms, but usually they just boil down to the same things: becoming aware of how much I don’t know, and discovering how much I really have. The lesson I am most grateful for is the most simple: always be grateful.
If you have never lived outside of your own culture it is hard to have perspective on what is and isn’t really there. In Paraguay the real problem is that people are so used to accepting hardship and powerlessness that they can’t imagine a better life or believe they can improve their own lives. In America we have so many blessings the real problem is remembering or noticing them all. Let me show you how it looks from my perspective.
As an American I am grateful for:
Paved roads—and the trucks that use them to bring things to our stores, and the cars that use them to take people to jobs and schools, which means income and education, which means empowerment and connection to the larger world, which means hope and broadening of minds; roads that may hurt our environment in many ways but also are the backbone of our municipal trash collection, which makes our world less littered and less toxic because we don’t have to burn or bury our trash at home; roads that bring ambulances and fire trucks when we need them, and the peace of mind of knowing that they could come at a moment’s notice even when we don’t need them; roads that keep people moving around, learning about and coming to appreciate different places and opportunities and lifestyles, that let us meet and know so many more people than just a few close neighbors, which teaches us to not fear the differences.
Electricity—that doesn’t go out every day and spoil everything in our refrigerators, that lights up our streets at night so we can leave our house after sunset and not be afraid, that powers our computers and vacuum cleaners and keeps us from freezing in the winter and baking in the summer, that always brings us cold drinks and cooks us hot food, that helps us open cans at the touch of a button and reheat our food without burning wood, that lets us bathe with warm water, that keeps people’s hearts beating in hospitals and premature babies alive and growing, and that is so important and omnipresent that we only notice it when it fails us, and that also does a lot of frivolous stuff we probably don’t need.
Running water—that lets us clean our bodies, things and homes, that brings us water that is safe to drink without boiling and doesn’t taste terrible, that waters the crops we rely on for our food and keeps pets and livestock from relying on ponds and puddles, that doesn’t go out without warning in the middle of a shower or stay broken for days, that lets us easily maintain good health and hygiene, and makes our world more beautiful by making flowers and lawns and landscaping even possible, to say nothing of golf courses, swimming pools, and fire hydrants.
Washing machines—and other radical instruments of women’s liberation; because I spend SO much time washing my clothes by hand here, because I know that Whirpool did as much to free women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Betty Friedan combined, because if we still had to wash clothes by hand like they do in Paraguay, women might not have discovered yet the historically and culturally alarming fact that, hiding right behind their eyes and between their ears, is a fully functioning brain should they care to use it. Because it kills me that the women here are so busy cooking and washing clothes and doing dishes and sweeping the dirt and feeding the chickens and nursing the kids and shelling the corn that it seems like they don’t ever have time to think about anything else. Because it kills me that it seems like the women here are almost as invested in machismo as the men. Because I sometimes wonder what the women here would do with themselves if all of the sudden they didn’t have to do all of that, and I think it would terrify them and many in this generation would do it anyway because that’s their comfort zone; it’s all they know. But hopefully a few of them would discover they have a brain too. I’m grateful that I discovered this fact early on, which I now attribute in part to early exposure to washing machines and electric stoves.
Schools—which people gripe endlessly about but are unimaginably much better than they could be, which have teachers who generally know what they are teaching and are expected to do more than make students just copy lines verbatim for every subject and call that learning, which encourage kids to actually think critically and turn into adult citizens instead of just adults, which on the whole expose kids to a world of things they might be good at and enjoy, which usually have books (thought they may be old) and paper and maps and on-site lunches (though they may be unhealthy), which still expect kids to hope for something by telling them they can be anything they want to be if they apply themselves (though they may be building false hope for some, at least they aren’t denying it to all).
Supermarkets—where you can go and get whatever food you want and thus not worry about being malnourished or even getting bored with the same thing all the time, where you can walk in with a purse or a bag and not have to check it at the desk because the manager thinks you’re going to steal something if you keep it with you, where your biggest problem is choosing between 93 kinds of salad dressing rather than not even finding the white vinegar that you were going to use to make it from scratch.
Computers—Especially access to the internet and early childhood exposure to computers, which teach kids without them even knowing it what a window is, a cursor, and a keyboard, which connects us to information and gives us a truly revolutionary belief: that if we want to know something, we can find it out. That changes everything.
Bookstores—Barnes & Noble is a triumph of civilization. All that knowledge in one place, all those people who can and want to read who make it economically possible, and a culture that understands that reading can be a leisure activity. Not to mention the good coffee. I can’t tell you how much I want to take my 14-year-old Paraguayan host sister by the hand and walk her through the foyer and polished wood and brass doors of Barnes & Noble; I can’t tell you how much I want to see the look on her face as she sees that many books.
The Home Depot—Another triumph of civilization. Where you can build absolutely anything you want. It’s all there, and there are even trucks that can take advantage of our paved roads and deliver it right to your house.
Window screens—Because life is better when you’re not covered in flies and mosquitoes.
Restaurants—Because we know what things taste like everywhere, because half the time when I share “American” food (which is to say food I eat in America that Paraguayans don’t know of) it’s really Italian or Asian or Mexican or something. Because we enjoy the gastronomic riches of the whole world and the only reason we don’t have Paraguayan restaurants is that the food isn’t all that great here.
Art—Because we also get exposed to all kinds of music, and there are things like art museums and theaters (movies) and theatres (stage plays), and performing arts of all kinds, because our kids get to play with crayons and markers and some of them even grow up to make objects of breathtaking beauty, which they then share with us all.
Hospitals—Where we have equipment and supplies and real doctors, and where you don’t have to bring your own plates and silverware if you want something to eat like you do here in Paraguay.
And above all else:
Democracy—Because we got the whole modern experiment started and as a result our culture has never been brainwashed to blindly and without question accept the whims of a dictator, because instead we’ve been raised to believe in civic responsibility and accountability of government to the people, because we can complain out loud and do often, because when a whole culture believes in self-determination and the possibility of progress people start believing that about themselves as individuals too, and when that happens people learn to improve their own lives and the whole thing takes on it’s own momentum.
But we’re just learning that our wonderful democracy works so well because we have an equally wonderful history that makes it uniquely like it is. The biggest challenge of this century will be discovering how democracy can really take hold in places with very different histories. Dictators create cultures where people learn to look to others to tell them what to do, and to respect people who command fear and make their own rules. Paraguay has officially had democracy for 18 years now, but with a few hundred years of dictatorship under its cultural belt, it really doesn’t have a clue what to do with it. Americans can’t tell them (or anyone else) what to do with it by commanding respect and making the rules; how would that be different for them than being told what to do by a dictator? Democracy is about people figuring out on their own what they need to do about their lives. This is a mindset that must be learned; the desire for freedom may be universal but the skills to make responsible use of it is not. We are lucky as Americans because we both have democracy and a clue what to do with it. Remember your high-school history and civics teachers? I do. Thank you, all the Mrs. Meadors of the world. I’ll think of you when I’m eating turkey this year.
Thanksgiving Joke
If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims!
haha
Happy Thanksgivng Everyone! Eat some mashed potatoes for me!
haha
Happy Thanksgivng Everyone! Eat some mashed potatoes for me!
Lost In the Campo
Last week Nayelli, a rural health volunteer asked me to come out to her site to help her give a workshop with the graduating senior class in her community (there is only one school in her community and only about 25-30 graduating seniors) on job skills. We planned to teach them how to make a resume, how to do a job interview, as well as let them know what their options were for continuing their education in cities like Horqueta (where I live) and Concepcion, the bigger city about an hour from Horqueta. I haven’t yet done any workshops like this in my community so was excited about the chance to practice with her. I made all the preparations and we communicated over the phone how we would organize the workshop. I would start with a small activity relating to values, then cover the topics of resumes and job interviews and she would handle the part about higher education. We made plans for me to arrive at her house in the morning so we would have time to prepare, make lunch and get to the school by 1 in the afternoon. I was feeling really great and ambitious about the whole thing and decided I would bike out to her community from Horqueta. It was only about 30k and I was looking forward to some exercise and picturesque scenery.
I left my house around 8:30am but decided to make a quick stop at the internet café on my way out of town. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to just take a quick peak at my email without getting sucked into the cyber world. At 9:30am I forced myself to leave the internet café and promised myself I would get back to all those emails and front page yahoo headlines about Angelina Jolie’s 20th adoption later. I started to bike out of town and turned on my ipod to some Guns and Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” to get the energy just right. I biked on pavement for about a half hour and was making great time. By 10:00 I had reached the little store Naylli told me to look for. I turned right, and began the second leg of my journey on dirt. I reminded myself that in the U.S people drive for miles to find terrain like this for mountain biking so I should be appreciative that I had the opportunity to ride on trails like this on my way to work.
For awhile, everything was going fine and I was making excellent time. I was on the lookout for the “only T in the road” where I would have to turn left and ride into her community called Cullentrillo. I had been to her house once before, when I had my tear off a straw roof and make a new one in a day adventure. That time I had taken a dusty campo bus and wasn’t paying much attention to anything except the dust flying in the windows and the incredible way in which the driver charged through ditches and over bumps. So, when I approached a “T” much sooner than I expected I wasn’t sure what to do. “This doesn’t seem right” I thought but I turned anyway. I began to bike past a few houses and fields and reassured myself “oh yes, this is right, I remember that field and that cow” Why I thought I that those particular houses and fields looked familiar when every house in the campo has a similar look didn’t cross my mind at that moment.
I continued a few more kilometers until it dawned on me that nothing looked familiar and the road was narrowing and approaching a more deserted area. “This definitely doesn’t seem right” I finally admitted. I saw two women walking towards me, baskets of bananas balanced neatly on their heads and puzzled looks. I reminded myself that I was a sweaty, red faced, white girl, on a mountain bike, with headphone coming out of my ears and sunglasses on. I took out my headphones and removed my sunglasses to reveal my equally puzzled expression and asked them if they could tell me where I was and how to get to Cullentrillo. When they stared at me blankly and then at each other I “thought, “oh yes of course, they don’t speak Spanish……..Moo, optyta Cullentrillo? Ahata cullentrillope ha amba’apota petei voluntaria cuerpo de pazpagua ha ndaikuaai moo “ optya. They smiled and I let out a sigh of relief. What I said must have sounded funny…I said “where is culluentrillo? I am going to cullentrillo and I will work with a peace corp volunteer there and I don’t know where it is” I knew I was a long ways off when they didn’t know who Nayelli was. Usually you can approach anywhere near a volunteer’s community and they will say “oh yes, of course me know her/him” and then they will offer to take you to their house.
I started backtracking and when I got close to the T I had made a wrong turn at I asked another local about my whereabouts. He was a very nice farmer, who I am sure was glad to stop cutting grass with a machete to stop and talk to me. He lifted his head up to reveal a face that had suffered years of working in the sun. He smiled a mostly toothless smile and told me I had made a right turn but I needed to make an immediate right after turning left at the T. So, I set out to find my way to Cullentrillo. Just for fun, I asked about 5 more people for directions. I think I was really enjoying utilizing the guarani and making small talk with the campo people. They are so calm and friendly…just like the difference between farm folk and city folk back home in California.
Eventually I got close enough to Cullentrillo that people started to tell me they knew who Nayelli was. They said “oh yes, she’s the one who is American but doesn’t look American, the brown one” I silently gave props to Nayelli and any other peace corps volunteer who isn’t white with blonde hair who had to constantly explain that Americans come in all shapes, sizes and colors. That is one challenge I don’t have to deal with. I asked them how far I was from her house and they told me to just keep going down the road until I got to a T, then turn left. So, I kept going, and going, and going…….
What seemed like forever later I became really thirsty and stopped riding to take a break. The sun was hitting me full force now and I began to panic a little. I hadn’t seen a single house or person in a long time (which probably had only been about 15 min or so). I was almost out of water and really tired. I had left at 9:30 and it was now 11:30, I was running really late. I called Nayelli to tell her I was lost but she didn’t answer her phone. I left a pathetic sounding message and charged on. I decided to trust the Paraguayans and continue to follow the only directions I had. Sure enough, they were right. I saw the T from a distance, it was a beautiful site. I turned left and 2k later I recognized her house. She greeted me and within an hour, we had made lunch, showered, changed, prepared for the workshop and were on our way to the High School.
The workshop went great. Most of the students had no idea what a resume was or how to make one. I could tell they enjoyed the activities and they were very receptive. Nayelli and I performed a skit to demonstrate what NOT to do in a job interview and how to do a good interview. I talked to them about how they had their whole lives ahead of them, and that now was a good time to start thinking about what was important to them. As simple as those statements were, I could tell no one had said anything like that to them. Nayelli had made a question box for them the week before and their questions were genuine. “what will people in the city think about us because we come from the campo? What does someone have to do to get ahead in life? How much does it cost to live in the city? How do you rent an apartment?” The kids were excited about graduating and also terrified of what their life would be like now. Many plan on saving enough money to go to Spain or Buenos Aires to work but hopefully others will stay and find something close to home that’s worthwhile. Whatever their future holds, at least now they may be able to talk about themselves on paper and in a formal setting. Maybe that will be just what they need to get ahead in life.
We finished the workshop and I spent the night at Nayelli’s house. We made dinner and watched a movie on her portable DVD player and talked about the day. She listened to her voicemail just before she went to bed and laughed about how I was “lost in the campo” and congratulated me on finding my way. I decided I didn’t want to risk any more unwanted adventures so I caught a campo bus at 5:30 the next morning and was back in horqueata by 6:30. As often as I loose myself and as much as I seem lost, I always seem to get where I am going and I always find myself.
I left my house around 8:30am but decided to make a quick stop at the internet café on my way out of town. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to just take a quick peak at my email without getting sucked into the cyber world. At 9:30am I forced myself to leave the internet café and promised myself I would get back to all those emails and front page yahoo headlines about Angelina Jolie’s 20th adoption later. I started to bike out of town and turned on my ipod to some Guns and Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” to get the energy just right. I biked on pavement for about a half hour and was making great time. By 10:00 I had reached the little store Naylli told me to look for. I turned right, and began the second leg of my journey on dirt. I reminded myself that in the U.S people drive for miles to find terrain like this for mountain biking so I should be appreciative that I had the opportunity to ride on trails like this on my way to work.
For awhile, everything was going fine and I was making excellent time. I was on the lookout for the “only T in the road” where I would have to turn left and ride into her community called Cullentrillo. I had been to her house once before, when I had my tear off a straw roof and make a new one in a day adventure. That time I had taken a dusty campo bus and wasn’t paying much attention to anything except the dust flying in the windows and the incredible way in which the driver charged through ditches and over bumps. So, when I approached a “T” much sooner than I expected I wasn’t sure what to do. “This doesn’t seem right” I thought but I turned anyway. I began to bike past a few houses and fields and reassured myself “oh yes, this is right, I remember that field and that cow” Why I thought I that those particular houses and fields looked familiar when every house in the campo has a similar look didn’t cross my mind at that moment.
I continued a few more kilometers until it dawned on me that nothing looked familiar and the road was narrowing and approaching a more deserted area. “This definitely doesn’t seem right” I finally admitted. I saw two women walking towards me, baskets of bananas balanced neatly on their heads and puzzled looks. I reminded myself that I was a sweaty, red faced, white girl, on a mountain bike, with headphone coming out of my ears and sunglasses on. I took out my headphones and removed my sunglasses to reveal my equally puzzled expression and asked them if they could tell me where I was and how to get to Cullentrillo. When they stared at me blankly and then at each other I “thought, “oh yes of course, they don’t speak Spanish……..Moo, optyta Cullentrillo? Ahata cullentrillope ha amba’apota petei voluntaria cuerpo de pazpagua ha ndaikuaai moo “ optya. They smiled and I let out a sigh of relief. What I said must have sounded funny…I said “where is culluentrillo? I am going to cullentrillo and I will work with a peace corp volunteer there and I don’t know where it is” I knew I was a long ways off when they didn’t know who Nayelli was. Usually you can approach anywhere near a volunteer’s community and they will say “oh yes, of course me know her/him” and then they will offer to take you to their house.
I started backtracking and when I got close to the T I had made a wrong turn at I asked another local about my whereabouts. He was a very nice farmer, who I am sure was glad to stop cutting grass with a machete to stop and talk to me. He lifted his head up to reveal a face that had suffered years of working in the sun. He smiled a mostly toothless smile and told me I had made a right turn but I needed to make an immediate right after turning left at the T. So, I set out to find my way to Cullentrillo. Just for fun, I asked about 5 more people for directions. I think I was really enjoying utilizing the guarani and making small talk with the campo people. They are so calm and friendly…just like the difference between farm folk and city folk back home in California.
Eventually I got close enough to Cullentrillo that people started to tell me they knew who Nayelli was. They said “oh yes, she’s the one who is American but doesn’t look American, the brown one” I silently gave props to Nayelli and any other peace corps volunteer who isn’t white with blonde hair who had to constantly explain that Americans come in all shapes, sizes and colors. That is one challenge I don’t have to deal with. I asked them how far I was from her house and they told me to just keep going down the road until I got to a T, then turn left. So, I kept going, and going, and going…….
What seemed like forever later I became really thirsty and stopped riding to take a break. The sun was hitting me full force now and I began to panic a little. I hadn’t seen a single house or person in a long time (which probably had only been about 15 min or so). I was almost out of water and really tired. I had left at 9:30 and it was now 11:30, I was running really late. I called Nayelli to tell her I was lost but she didn’t answer her phone. I left a pathetic sounding message and charged on. I decided to trust the Paraguayans and continue to follow the only directions I had. Sure enough, they were right. I saw the T from a distance, it was a beautiful site. I turned left and 2k later I recognized her house. She greeted me and within an hour, we had made lunch, showered, changed, prepared for the workshop and were on our way to the High School.
The workshop went great. Most of the students had no idea what a resume was or how to make one. I could tell they enjoyed the activities and they were very receptive. Nayelli and I performed a skit to demonstrate what NOT to do in a job interview and how to do a good interview. I talked to them about how they had their whole lives ahead of them, and that now was a good time to start thinking about what was important to them. As simple as those statements were, I could tell no one had said anything like that to them. Nayelli had made a question box for them the week before and their questions were genuine. “what will people in the city think about us because we come from the campo? What does someone have to do to get ahead in life? How much does it cost to live in the city? How do you rent an apartment?” The kids were excited about graduating and also terrified of what their life would be like now. Many plan on saving enough money to go to Spain or Buenos Aires to work but hopefully others will stay and find something close to home that’s worthwhile. Whatever their future holds, at least now they may be able to talk about themselves on paper and in a formal setting. Maybe that will be just what they need to get ahead in life.
We finished the workshop and I spent the night at Nayelli’s house. We made dinner and watched a movie on her portable DVD player and talked about the day. She listened to her voicemail just before she went to bed and laughed about how I was “lost in the campo” and congratulated me on finding my way. I decided I didn’t want to risk any more unwanted adventures so I caught a campo bus at 5:30 the next morning and was back in horqueata by 6:30. As often as I loose myself and as much as I seem lost, I always seem to get where I am going and I always find myself.
School’s Out for Summer
The school year is coming to a close; this is the last week I will be working in schools until the school year starts again in 2008. Although the last day of school is officially November 30th, it has been difficult to keep my routine in the schools for the past month. It seems that the only time of the year when classes seem to be busy is when they are taking exams the last few weeks of the year. Teachers who once seemed thrilled to have me come to their class to give life skills lessons (so they could leave the classroom and take a break it) have recently been reluctant to let me come even once a week. Almost every time I have showed up on my normal schedule the principal has told me that the students are busy taking exams or doing a project and they don’t have time for me. She assured me this was nothing personal and that they loved their time with me, it just wasn’t a good time. She would then ask me to give lessons in other classes. I wouldn’t have minded this if it was something I had planned for, but on several occasions what I had planned wasn’t appropriate for the random class I had been assigned.
I had been working with 3 different classes and was doing basically the same lessons with all of them but some were farther along than others. One day I came to give a lesson on values to the seniors and she wanted me to give a lesson to the sophomores. I had already done the values lesson with them and she still sent me in the classroom and said “just do anything with them; they’re not doing anything right now anyways”. While part of me was really annoyed that she didn’t understand we had made a plan together and she was ruining it and that she didn’t understand my lessons were things that needed to be prepared for, another part of me was aware that these kids really were just sitting outside under a tree doing literally nothing in their hour of life skills class. If I didn’t pull something out of thin air, they would just sit and play with their cell phones the entire hour, and what was that doing to educate them? These kids have the technology of cell phones in their lives but they don’t know what a resume is, don’t know what HIV or AIDS is and they have never heard the phrase self esteem.
So, it began….every Tuesday and sometimes Thursdays for the last month of school I have been showing up and expecting to be thrown into random classes. I come prepared both for working with the same students I have been working with for months and for students I have never met before. I am like a walking collection of ice breakers and activities. I’ve gotten really good at winging it. It’s been fun and I have learned a lot about working in schools in Paraguay. You have to be flexible, stern, and persistent and know that if it rains, looks like its going to rain or rained yesterday school is probably cancelled. A volunteer once counted how many days of school there are in Paraguay and I think they found out there was almost as many days of school as there were vacations days or holidays. When there is school, it starts late, lets out early and the time that’s spent in class isn’t spent well.
The analysis of the entire problem could start with the teachers and the training they receive. There are very few jobs in Paraguay; teaching is a very secure job with a nice paycheck. This is what draws most teachers, not the fact they love kids or have a talent for teaching. When Paraguay was still ruled by a dictator (until fairly recently) he was the one that chose the entire curriculum. This has surely contributed to the poor quality in education materials. Add that to the fact teachers are trained to copy things from teacher’s manuals onto the chalkboard without any real stimulating lesson plan and we see the result in classrooms.
I see the results in the students, I see the results in society and in this country’s entire way of being. This is what a typical class setting looks like: teacher walks into a barren, undecorated classroom, barely greets students, begins to copy things onto the board. She or he will copy things perfectly, in handwriting so beautiful it looks like it was printed by a machine. She will even use a yard stick to underline things. This wastes a lot of time but she does it because she expects her student to as well. Teacher then instructs students to copy the board into their notebooks. When they are done, the lesson is considered complete. I am not exaggerating. If student’s writing is not pretty enough they will be told so in front of everyone and instructed to do it again.
There is no concept of creativity, reflection, thinking for yourself. This is the school system Paraguayans go through. Most don’t go past high school education, many don’t finish 9th grade. Students aren’t disciplined, they seem to be able to leave and enter class as they please. Absence isn’t ever discussed; it’s almost expected, because there is no roll taken. When problems are addressed they aren’t addressed in appropriate ways. I have seen the principal point out a particular student in front of the entire class and tell me “that one there is horrible, he needs help, even his mother came to school and told me she doesn’t know what to do with him” I encouraged her to talk to me in private about things like that. Then I did an activity relating to self esteem with that class.
From a distance the schools seem fine. The actual school grounds are fairly nice. Students show up in nicely ironed catholic uniforms. Their notebooks are beautifully written, filled with notes. But there is no teaching going on inside schools, no real teaching and therefore no real learning. Most students can’t tell you where The United States is, or where Europe is. When I ask them about things written in their notebooks they rarely can tell me what they know about it.
My job is not to change curriculums, nor teach teachers how to teach. My job is to demonstrate to teachers that there are social problems that exist among youth and that there are things that can be done to address these problems at school. My job is to show up at school and do my activities that will give student skills they will need to survive and get ahead in life. The change that needs to come in Paraguay will most likely come from the youth that choose to fight for a better life for themselves and their children. It is the youth that will hopefully remember that a tall, white redhead taught them how to communicate better with their family and friends, who taught them how to make a resume, who made them think about values and what was important to them and who made them realize that they can’t love or respect anyone else if they cannot love and respect themselves first. This is a change I hope occurs in at least a handful of teens that I am working with during these 2 years.
The school system isn’t perfect and it doesn’t seem to be teaching them any of these things, but it is the perfect place for me to find a handful of minds, gathered, bored and thirsty for stimulation. For this reason, I continue to show up, despite the frustrations. Where there is imperfection there is room for growth and improvement and I know I am helping to make a small impact on that growth. I have 3 months of summer vacation to think of new and better ways to impact that growth and I look forward to another school year, one that will hopefully be a little more consistent and maybe with a few less holidays.
I had been working with 3 different classes and was doing basically the same lessons with all of them but some were farther along than others. One day I came to give a lesson on values to the seniors and she wanted me to give a lesson to the sophomores. I had already done the values lesson with them and she still sent me in the classroom and said “just do anything with them; they’re not doing anything right now anyways”. While part of me was really annoyed that she didn’t understand we had made a plan together and she was ruining it and that she didn’t understand my lessons were things that needed to be prepared for, another part of me was aware that these kids really were just sitting outside under a tree doing literally nothing in their hour of life skills class. If I didn’t pull something out of thin air, they would just sit and play with their cell phones the entire hour, and what was that doing to educate them? These kids have the technology of cell phones in their lives but they don’t know what a resume is, don’t know what HIV or AIDS is and they have never heard the phrase self esteem.
So, it began….every Tuesday and sometimes Thursdays for the last month of school I have been showing up and expecting to be thrown into random classes. I come prepared both for working with the same students I have been working with for months and for students I have never met before. I am like a walking collection of ice breakers and activities. I’ve gotten really good at winging it. It’s been fun and I have learned a lot about working in schools in Paraguay. You have to be flexible, stern, and persistent and know that if it rains, looks like its going to rain or rained yesterday school is probably cancelled. A volunteer once counted how many days of school there are in Paraguay and I think they found out there was almost as many days of school as there were vacations days or holidays. When there is school, it starts late, lets out early and the time that’s spent in class isn’t spent well.
The analysis of the entire problem could start with the teachers and the training they receive. There are very few jobs in Paraguay; teaching is a very secure job with a nice paycheck. This is what draws most teachers, not the fact they love kids or have a talent for teaching. When Paraguay was still ruled by a dictator (until fairly recently) he was the one that chose the entire curriculum. This has surely contributed to the poor quality in education materials. Add that to the fact teachers are trained to copy things from teacher’s manuals onto the chalkboard without any real stimulating lesson plan and we see the result in classrooms.
I see the results in the students, I see the results in society and in this country’s entire way of being. This is what a typical class setting looks like: teacher walks into a barren, undecorated classroom, barely greets students, begins to copy things onto the board. She or he will copy things perfectly, in handwriting so beautiful it looks like it was printed by a machine. She will even use a yard stick to underline things. This wastes a lot of time but she does it because she expects her student to as well. Teacher then instructs students to copy the board into their notebooks. When they are done, the lesson is considered complete. I am not exaggerating. If student’s writing is not pretty enough they will be told so in front of everyone and instructed to do it again.
There is no concept of creativity, reflection, thinking for yourself. This is the school system Paraguayans go through. Most don’t go past high school education, many don’t finish 9th grade. Students aren’t disciplined, they seem to be able to leave and enter class as they please. Absence isn’t ever discussed; it’s almost expected, because there is no roll taken. When problems are addressed they aren’t addressed in appropriate ways. I have seen the principal point out a particular student in front of the entire class and tell me “that one there is horrible, he needs help, even his mother came to school and told me she doesn’t know what to do with him” I encouraged her to talk to me in private about things like that. Then I did an activity relating to self esteem with that class.
From a distance the schools seem fine. The actual school grounds are fairly nice. Students show up in nicely ironed catholic uniforms. Their notebooks are beautifully written, filled with notes. But there is no teaching going on inside schools, no real teaching and therefore no real learning. Most students can’t tell you where The United States is, or where Europe is. When I ask them about things written in their notebooks they rarely can tell me what they know about it.
My job is not to change curriculums, nor teach teachers how to teach. My job is to demonstrate to teachers that there are social problems that exist among youth and that there are things that can be done to address these problems at school. My job is to show up at school and do my activities that will give student skills they will need to survive and get ahead in life. The change that needs to come in Paraguay will most likely come from the youth that choose to fight for a better life for themselves and their children. It is the youth that will hopefully remember that a tall, white redhead taught them how to communicate better with their family and friends, who taught them how to make a resume, who made them think about values and what was important to them and who made them realize that they can’t love or respect anyone else if they cannot love and respect themselves first. This is a change I hope occurs in at least a handful of teens that I am working with during these 2 years.
The school system isn’t perfect and it doesn’t seem to be teaching them any of these things, but it is the perfect place for me to find a handful of minds, gathered, bored and thirsty for stimulation. For this reason, I continue to show up, despite the frustrations. Where there is imperfection there is room for growth and improvement and I know I am helping to make a small impact on that growth. I have 3 months of summer vacation to think of new and better ways to impact that growth and I look forward to another school year, one that will hopefully be a little more consistent and maybe with a few less holidays.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Fires In Paraguay
In case you haven´t heard there have been a lot of wildfires in Paraguay in the past month. It made international news and someone back in the U.S was able to find an article about it in the L.A times:
Paraguay fires scorch millions of acres
The wind-fueled blazes forced 15,000 people to evacuate. The widespread practice of burning land for agriculture is blamed in part.
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- -- Wind-blown fires scorching the parched Paraguayan countryside have scarred almost 3 million acres of forest, brush, pasture and farmland, officials said Friday, forcing the evacuation of 15,000 people and threatening nature reserves.
A protracted drought and the common practice of burning land for agriculture have contributed to the disaster, which some authorities have called the worst fires in Paraguay's history.
"The complexity of the situation is well beyond human control," Jose Key Kanasawa, chief of the National Emergency Secretariat, told Inter Press Service. "The only thing we can do is contain it, resist it, stop it from spreading and pray that the rain comes."
Authorities have blamed an explosion of separate blazes largely on peasants who routinely use fires to clear pasture and farmland, especially to plant export crops such as soy beans and cotton. Hot, dry and windy weather has fanned the blazes.
But experts cite other culprits: illegal loggers seeking access to protected forest areas, clandestine marijuana farmers and illicit hunters opening paths. Many of the affected regions have few police officers or other authorities.
"These fires are all set in an illegal fashion," noted Maria del Carmen Fleytas, Paraguay coordinator for the Moises Bertoni Foundation, an environmental group. "Then they lose control and the fires spread. It's hard for the state to stop this in vast sections of the country."
Several fires are nearing the sprawling Mbaracayu Forest Nature Reserve, home to numerous threatened mammal, bird and plant species, the foundation said.
Hundreds of blazes have raged in the landlocked South American nation in recent weeks, mostly in sparsely populated regions to the north and east of the capital, Asuncion. Thick smoke has caused some flights to be diverted from Asuncion.
Officials declared a national emergency in four provinces this week amid fierce criticism that the government of President Nicanor Duarte Frutos had failed to recognize the severity of the threat. The current scenario is grave, the president acknowledged.
"The reaction of the government has been very slow," Fleytas said. "Now it's very late, and much of the eastern region is burning."
The specter of smoke and flames has prompted considerable national reflection about using fire to clear land, a widespread custom in South America.
"Paraguay is dry and in flames," the columnist Andres Colman Gutierrez wrote on the website of the newspaper Ultima Hora.
"We Paraguayans were born in a land that appears to be a paradise, but we do everything possible to make it into a hell."
Meteorologists have predicted no letup in the dry and windy conditions.
Authorities in neighboring Brazil have contributed four water-tanker aircraft to aid in firefighting, officials said. The Paraguayan government had also sought to rent a Russian air tanker capable of dropping more than 10,000 gallons of water per flight, but the craft was called to firefighting duties in Russia.
The media have reported only one fatality: Wilder Smith, 40, a farmer who died when a tree fell on top of him as he was trying to put out a fire on his land about 100 miles east of Asuncion.
The other day Peace Corps called me and told me I should prepare myself for evacuation from my site just in case and they told me if i felt unsafe i could go stay in a hotel in Asuncion. I really didn´t realize the fires were that close to Horqueta until that phone call but they never came to Horqueta and things seem to be getting better.
The volunteers in my area and I are doing our part to educate Paraguayans and raise awareness about this topic. Two other volunteers and I have a radio show every wednesday evening. I´ve done a lot of research on deforestation in Paraguay and have gotten a lot of information from environmental education and agroforestry volunteers. I´ve written up a radio show about deforestation and tomorrow we are dedicating the show to talking about the fires, talking about the causes of fires, educating people about why burning fields is bad and what people can do to fight against deforestation en general. It´s not really a topic people talk about. I read that 86% of Paraguay´s original forests are gone now, there are many endangered species here including the jaguar due to lack of natural habitat and many other problems that come along with deforestation. When I told my host mom that i was going to talk about the problem of deforestation, she kind of looked at me like she was thinking "there´s a problem of deforestation in Paraguay?" I got some really good tips from people about how to get Paraguayans to think about the issue, such as making them realize how much further they are having to go to get their wood to cook with and to ask them where the closest forest is and how big it is. When they realize these things are becoming harder to obtain than they were 10 years ago, maybe they will be ready to listen. People watch logging trucks drive through town almost everyday filled with trees that came from protected reserves and they KNOW where they are coming from. What they fail to realize is, what a big problem it is and that it is something they can change. We hope to at least bring up the topic right now in a time when the country is in a state of natural disaster. There is no better time to create change than when people have just seen the effects of their actions, or lack thereof.
Paraguay fires scorch millions of acres
The wind-fueled blazes forced 15,000 people to evacuate. The widespread practice of burning land for agriculture is blamed in part.
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- -- Wind-blown fires scorching the parched Paraguayan countryside have scarred almost 3 million acres of forest, brush, pasture and farmland, officials said Friday, forcing the evacuation of 15,000 people and threatening nature reserves.
A protracted drought and the common practice of burning land for agriculture have contributed to the disaster, which some authorities have called the worst fires in Paraguay's history.
"The complexity of the situation is well beyond human control," Jose Key Kanasawa, chief of the National Emergency Secretariat, told Inter Press Service. "The only thing we can do is contain it, resist it, stop it from spreading and pray that the rain comes."
Authorities have blamed an explosion of separate blazes largely on peasants who routinely use fires to clear pasture and farmland, especially to plant export crops such as soy beans and cotton. Hot, dry and windy weather has fanned the blazes.
But experts cite other culprits: illegal loggers seeking access to protected forest areas, clandestine marijuana farmers and illicit hunters opening paths. Many of the affected regions have few police officers or other authorities.
"These fires are all set in an illegal fashion," noted Maria del Carmen Fleytas, Paraguay coordinator for the Moises Bertoni Foundation, an environmental group. "Then they lose control and the fires spread. It's hard for the state to stop this in vast sections of the country."
Several fires are nearing the sprawling Mbaracayu Forest Nature Reserve, home to numerous threatened mammal, bird and plant species, the foundation said.
Hundreds of blazes have raged in the landlocked South American nation in recent weeks, mostly in sparsely populated regions to the north and east of the capital, Asuncion. Thick smoke has caused some flights to be diverted from Asuncion.
Officials declared a national emergency in four provinces this week amid fierce criticism that the government of President Nicanor Duarte Frutos had failed to recognize the severity of the threat. The current scenario is grave, the president acknowledged.
"The reaction of the government has been very slow," Fleytas said. "Now it's very late, and much of the eastern region is burning."
The specter of smoke and flames has prompted considerable national reflection about using fire to clear land, a widespread custom in South America.
"Paraguay is dry and in flames," the columnist Andres Colman Gutierrez wrote on the website of the newspaper Ultima Hora.
"We Paraguayans were born in a land that appears to be a paradise, but we do everything possible to make it into a hell."
Meteorologists have predicted no letup in the dry and windy conditions.
Authorities in neighboring Brazil have contributed four water-tanker aircraft to aid in firefighting, officials said. The Paraguayan government had also sought to rent a Russian air tanker capable of dropping more than 10,000 gallons of water per flight, but the craft was called to firefighting duties in Russia.
The media have reported only one fatality: Wilder Smith, 40, a farmer who died when a tree fell on top of him as he was trying to put out a fire on his land about 100 miles east of Asuncion.
The other day Peace Corps called me and told me I should prepare myself for evacuation from my site just in case and they told me if i felt unsafe i could go stay in a hotel in Asuncion. I really didn´t realize the fires were that close to Horqueta until that phone call but they never came to Horqueta and things seem to be getting better.
The volunteers in my area and I are doing our part to educate Paraguayans and raise awareness about this topic. Two other volunteers and I have a radio show every wednesday evening. I´ve done a lot of research on deforestation in Paraguay and have gotten a lot of information from environmental education and agroforestry volunteers. I´ve written up a radio show about deforestation and tomorrow we are dedicating the show to talking about the fires, talking about the causes of fires, educating people about why burning fields is bad and what people can do to fight against deforestation en general. It´s not really a topic people talk about. I read that 86% of Paraguay´s original forests are gone now, there are many endangered species here including the jaguar due to lack of natural habitat and many other problems that come along with deforestation. When I told my host mom that i was going to talk about the problem of deforestation, she kind of looked at me like she was thinking "there´s a problem of deforestation in Paraguay?" I got some really good tips from people about how to get Paraguayans to think about the issue, such as making them realize how much further they are having to go to get their wood to cook with and to ask them where the closest forest is and how big it is. When they realize these things are becoming harder to obtain than they were 10 years ago, maybe they will be ready to listen. People watch logging trucks drive through town almost everyday filled with trees that came from protected reserves and they KNOW where they are coming from. What they fail to realize is, what a big problem it is and that it is something they can change. We hope to at least bring up the topic right now in a time when the country is in a state of natural disaster. There is no better time to create change than when people have just seen the effects of their actions, or lack thereof.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Making a Garden
I’ve always been fascinated with plant life but never really appreciated the beauty of the cycle plant life goes through until living in rural northern California. In northern California, for the first time I could witness real seasons make noticeable changes in the plant and tree life and I could watch many of things I enjoyed eating growing on trees and on the surrounding land. Until living in small town Chico, I had never met people who called themselves farmers and actually meant that they lived and worked on a farm, I never knew that farmers markets were markets that actually sold food that was grown locally. I didn’t know it was possible to supply your fridge with fruits and vegetables for a week without stepping foot in the produce section of a grocery store. I felt ignorant when I realized real organic vegetables aren’t freakishly large and when I realized there were some vegetables I didn’t even recognize because they were grown naturally. Until living in Chico, a world of orchards, gardens, and farming was only something I was interested in but never thought I could be part of. I knew I was always more interested in receiving my food from something that came from a seed rather than an animal or some processed mystery that came in a box but I didn’t have a clue how to grow that food myself. I remember the tomatoes from my uncle’s garden always tasting so much sweeter than store bought ones and I used to love helping my neighbors across the street harvest their vegetables when I was growing up but the world of gardening was always a beautiful mystery to me, until I came to Paraguay.
In Paraguay there are no grocery stores, not like the ones in the U.S anyways. That doesn’t mean there is a shortage of food though. Everywhere you look there are fruit trees in people’s backyards. When I first arrived in Paraguay it was banana and mango season. I was more than fascinated seeing bananas and mango plucked from our trees and put on the kitchen table. I kept telling people “I’ve never seen a banana tree before, we don’t have them in the U.S” and they would look so surprised and a little bit proud that their land was able to grow something mine wasn’t. We laughed when we discovered the only common word between the indigenousness language of Guarani and English was grapefruit, though they continue to tell me I cannot pronounce it correctly the Guarani way. I was completely amused watching Paraguayans peel a grapefruit with a knife so that its skin came off in one perfect spiral, then cut a hole in the top and suck the juice out. It’s taken some practice but I can now eat grapefruits like that too! Just like my neighborhood did at home in Glendora, people share their fruit with their neighbors. During the season of bananas and mangos and avocados there is abundance and it would kill me to see piles of avocados laying the streets because there were too many to be eaten. I tried to pass on the glory of guacamole to this country but sadly most Paraguayans don’t seem to like it but Paraguayans are really great about making lots of uses out of each fruit or vegetable. Here, you eat whatever is in season and you eat it all season. I suppose having a lack of ingredients teaches you to be a better cook because you are forced to be creative.
Many people compliment their fruit trees with a family garden however gardens are a lot more work than a fruit tree and many people don’t have running water so they are difficult to maintain. During training we were encouraged to make a garden because it sets a good example of how to improve nutrition in your community, gives you something to do your first few months in site when you are feeling kind of lost and bored and shows the people in your community that you know how to work. I was given a small manual from Peace Corps with basic information about how to make compost, prepare the soil, pick vegetables that were season appropriate in Paraguay, and how to plant, transplant and harvest. After thumbing through it, I realized gardening was more complicated than I thought. It was more than just a hobby, it was hard work and there was an art to it. Gardening is a way of life and I was ready to begin.
I started by clearing away a place in the yard where my host mom used to keep 30 or so pigs when she was in the pig business. Needless to say it was a messy job. I kept finding a lot of trash when I was digging up soil and when I asked her about it she told me after the era of the pigs they used to put their trash there! For a moment I questioned whether or not I wanted to grow food in what used to be a mini landfill and pig pen! I decided it was my only option and restoring this little piece of land was already very satisfying work.
Once the land was cleared away, I asked Sarah, a beekeeping/agriculture volunteer in my area to make a visit to Horqueta to help me get started. Sarah has a garden at her house the size of Texas and was a master gardener in the states so she was the perfect person to take me by the hand and get me started on my gardening way. Before she arrived in Horqueta she gave me instructions on what to do before she got there. I started by sterilizing the soil. I boiled 4 huge pots of water on an outdoor stove and sanitized the beds with this to kill on the icky living creatures that could harm the baby veggies. My host mom asked my 11 year old host brother, Gino to help me and while we carried over big pots of boiling water to the garden it dawned on me that no one would ever let a child do this in the states! Yet, he did an excellent job of not burning himself and I had a little helper. I decided the fact I was teaching him a valuable skill and was spending quality time with him outweighed the risks. Sarah told me to leave the beds alone overnight and she would arrive the next day to help me plant but I needed one more thing before she arrived.…..manure!
I wasn’t exactly sure where to get manure. I couldn’t just drive down to Lowe’s, walk into the gardening section and walk out with a sack of manure. I asked Francisco my gardening friend at the school where I could find manure and he pointed to a house across the street. I walked over, clapped at their gate and when a young man approached me I said “ I heard you can get me some manure!” He smiled and said he didn’t have any right then but then pointed to a pile of crap in front of his house and said “that right there is horse manure…it’s not as good as cow manure but you can take it if you want”. At that moment I realized tracking down manure in Paraguay was definitely not like buying it in the states. I stood their for a moment pretending to admire the pile of horse dung and mumbled something like “yep, that’s some good horse dung alright” and when he realized I wasn’t about to shovel it into my backpack and take it home, he said “if you really want cow manure my grandpa and bring some to your house tomorrow”. I told him I was going to try to find some that day and that I would come back if I was unsuccessful. I went back to talk to Francisco and Francisco said he would talk to a guy and get me some really great manure delivered that afternoon. Well, the afternoon came and went and no manure was delivered. I assumed Francisco was unsuccessful as well so the next morning I went back to my manure house and told the guy I would love it if his grandpa could bring me some manure. Sarah arrived shortly after and I assured her that I had followed instructions and we would be getting some great manure delivered any minute.
A few hours later, a horse drawn cart pulled up in front of my house with an entire cart filled with manure! I figured I could just tell the man how much I wanted but when I realized he was backing up his cart in front of my house to dump the entire cart in front of my house I started to panic a little. “how much is this going to cost me?” I asked my host mother and “what am I going to do with all of this manure?” she laughed and said we would just shovel it into sacks and put it in the backyard. I nervously asked the man how much the price was and realized there was nothing I could do if the price was too much. I couldn’t just return my purchase when it came to my house on a horse and cart! When he responded 1o,oooo guarani (the equivalent of $2.00) I started laughing. Sarah and I started making jokes in English about what a good pile of shit this was and started shoveling it into sacks.
We finished digging the beds, then added the manure and mixed it in with the soil. We now had oxygen rich, nutrient rich, and wonderful soil to plant in. I evened out the beds with my rake and we planted various vegetable seeds in pairs ( so that the weak seedlings could be weeded out later and at least one was bound to sprout) We planted lettuce, beats, tomatoes, green pepper, yellow squash, green onion and a few carrots. After everything was planted it dawned on me I had one small problem, chickens.
Chickens like to get into everything and could easily ruin all of my hard work and turn the garden into an all you can eat buffet. I took a quick trip to the hardware store to see how much it would cost to construct some sort of fencing over the top of the beds to keep the chickens from getting in. When I discovered fencing was not as cheap as manure, Sarah came up with an idea for the most ridiculous chicken resistant system ever heard of. She assured me it would be possible to construct something that would confuse and discourage the chickens from entering into the garden beds using only sticks and string. I agreed to give it a try so we roamed around the neighborhood collecting sticks, once again entertaining the neighbors with our weird American ideas. Our invention came to life and we did rig up a very inexpensive web of string that has so far protected my garden from not only chickens, but small children and other house pets.
In another two months I should be filling my plate with food grown right in my own backyard. I cannot wait to eat the first vegetable and I look forward to having such an abundance of veggies I can just graze in the garden like a cow but already I have found gardening to be a very rewarding way to spend my time and energy. Everyday, I start my day by watering the seedlings with my host mom, they are still small but they have sprouted and are growing bigger everyday. It is a great way to bond with her since neither one of us has any experience with gardening. We are learning together and we get to have a small celebration every time we see something new sprout. We usually look at each other and say “what is it?” and the other one responds “I don’t know…It’s probably a weed” and then we laugh and congratulate ourselves for having a successful garden. In fact my host mother has become so proud and so motivated by the garden, she has prepared two more beds in another part of the yard and tomorrow we are going to plant more seeds. I now understand why gardeners are such proud people, and why it brings them so much joy to share their veggies with others. It’s hard work, it’s fun to watch things grow and it’s very rewarding to see the final product of months of constant attention. Gardening is a fantastic hobby that I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t tried it, or to anyone who has tried it and given up. If digging in the dirt isn’t your cup of tea, I at least recommend taking a moment to think about where your food comes from. I recommend supporting your local farmers, and your gardening friends. If it weren’t for them, we’d be eating nothing but freakishly large vegetables and mysteries in boxes.
In Paraguay there are no grocery stores, not like the ones in the U.S anyways. That doesn’t mean there is a shortage of food though. Everywhere you look there are fruit trees in people’s backyards. When I first arrived in Paraguay it was banana and mango season. I was more than fascinated seeing bananas and mango plucked from our trees and put on the kitchen table. I kept telling people “I’ve never seen a banana tree before, we don’t have them in the U.S” and they would look so surprised and a little bit proud that their land was able to grow something mine wasn’t. We laughed when we discovered the only common word between the indigenousness language of Guarani and English was grapefruit, though they continue to tell me I cannot pronounce it correctly the Guarani way. I was completely amused watching Paraguayans peel a grapefruit with a knife so that its skin came off in one perfect spiral, then cut a hole in the top and suck the juice out. It’s taken some practice but I can now eat grapefruits like that too! Just like my neighborhood did at home in Glendora, people share their fruit with their neighbors. During the season of bananas and mangos and avocados there is abundance and it would kill me to see piles of avocados laying the streets because there were too many to be eaten. I tried to pass on the glory of guacamole to this country but sadly most Paraguayans don’t seem to like it but Paraguayans are really great about making lots of uses out of each fruit or vegetable. Here, you eat whatever is in season and you eat it all season. I suppose having a lack of ingredients teaches you to be a better cook because you are forced to be creative.
Many people compliment their fruit trees with a family garden however gardens are a lot more work than a fruit tree and many people don’t have running water so they are difficult to maintain. During training we were encouraged to make a garden because it sets a good example of how to improve nutrition in your community, gives you something to do your first few months in site when you are feeling kind of lost and bored and shows the people in your community that you know how to work. I was given a small manual from Peace Corps with basic information about how to make compost, prepare the soil, pick vegetables that were season appropriate in Paraguay, and how to plant, transplant and harvest. After thumbing through it, I realized gardening was more complicated than I thought. It was more than just a hobby, it was hard work and there was an art to it. Gardening is a way of life and I was ready to begin.
I started by clearing away a place in the yard where my host mom used to keep 30 or so pigs when she was in the pig business. Needless to say it was a messy job. I kept finding a lot of trash when I was digging up soil and when I asked her about it she told me after the era of the pigs they used to put their trash there! For a moment I questioned whether or not I wanted to grow food in what used to be a mini landfill and pig pen! I decided it was my only option and restoring this little piece of land was already very satisfying work.
Once the land was cleared away, I asked Sarah, a beekeeping/agriculture volunteer in my area to make a visit to Horqueta to help me get started. Sarah has a garden at her house the size of Texas and was a master gardener in the states so she was the perfect person to take me by the hand and get me started on my gardening way. Before she arrived in Horqueta she gave me instructions on what to do before she got there. I started by sterilizing the soil. I boiled 4 huge pots of water on an outdoor stove and sanitized the beds with this to kill on the icky living creatures that could harm the baby veggies. My host mom asked my 11 year old host brother, Gino to help me and while we carried over big pots of boiling water to the garden it dawned on me that no one would ever let a child do this in the states! Yet, he did an excellent job of not burning himself and I had a little helper. I decided the fact I was teaching him a valuable skill and was spending quality time with him outweighed the risks. Sarah told me to leave the beds alone overnight and she would arrive the next day to help me plant but I needed one more thing before she arrived.…..manure!
I wasn’t exactly sure where to get manure. I couldn’t just drive down to Lowe’s, walk into the gardening section and walk out with a sack of manure. I asked Francisco my gardening friend at the school where I could find manure and he pointed to a house across the street. I walked over, clapped at their gate and when a young man approached me I said “ I heard you can get me some manure!” He smiled and said he didn’t have any right then but then pointed to a pile of crap in front of his house and said “that right there is horse manure…it’s not as good as cow manure but you can take it if you want”. At that moment I realized tracking down manure in Paraguay was definitely not like buying it in the states. I stood their for a moment pretending to admire the pile of horse dung and mumbled something like “yep, that’s some good horse dung alright” and when he realized I wasn’t about to shovel it into my backpack and take it home, he said “if you really want cow manure my grandpa and bring some to your house tomorrow”. I told him I was going to try to find some that day and that I would come back if I was unsuccessful. I went back to talk to Francisco and Francisco said he would talk to a guy and get me some really great manure delivered that afternoon. Well, the afternoon came and went and no manure was delivered. I assumed Francisco was unsuccessful as well so the next morning I went back to my manure house and told the guy I would love it if his grandpa could bring me some manure. Sarah arrived shortly after and I assured her that I had followed instructions and we would be getting some great manure delivered any minute.
A few hours later, a horse drawn cart pulled up in front of my house with an entire cart filled with manure! I figured I could just tell the man how much I wanted but when I realized he was backing up his cart in front of my house to dump the entire cart in front of my house I started to panic a little. “how much is this going to cost me?” I asked my host mother and “what am I going to do with all of this manure?” she laughed and said we would just shovel it into sacks and put it in the backyard. I nervously asked the man how much the price was and realized there was nothing I could do if the price was too much. I couldn’t just return my purchase when it came to my house on a horse and cart! When he responded 1o,oooo guarani (the equivalent of $2.00) I started laughing. Sarah and I started making jokes in English about what a good pile of shit this was and started shoveling it into sacks.
We finished digging the beds, then added the manure and mixed it in with the soil. We now had oxygen rich, nutrient rich, and wonderful soil to plant in. I evened out the beds with my rake and we planted various vegetable seeds in pairs ( so that the weak seedlings could be weeded out later and at least one was bound to sprout) We planted lettuce, beats, tomatoes, green pepper, yellow squash, green onion and a few carrots. After everything was planted it dawned on me I had one small problem, chickens.
Chickens like to get into everything and could easily ruin all of my hard work and turn the garden into an all you can eat buffet. I took a quick trip to the hardware store to see how much it would cost to construct some sort of fencing over the top of the beds to keep the chickens from getting in. When I discovered fencing was not as cheap as manure, Sarah came up with an idea for the most ridiculous chicken resistant system ever heard of. She assured me it would be possible to construct something that would confuse and discourage the chickens from entering into the garden beds using only sticks and string. I agreed to give it a try so we roamed around the neighborhood collecting sticks, once again entertaining the neighbors with our weird American ideas. Our invention came to life and we did rig up a very inexpensive web of string that has so far protected my garden from not only chickens, but small children and other house pets.
In another two months I should be filling my plate with food grown right in my own backyard. I cannot wait to eat the first vegetable and I look forward to having such an abundance of veggies I can just graze in the garden like a cow but already I have found gardening to be a very rewarding way to spend my time and energy. Everyday, I start my day by watering the seedlings with my host mom, they are still small but they have sprouted and are growing bigger everyday. It is a great way to bond with her since neither one of us has any experience with gardening. We are learning together and we get to have a small celebration every time we see something new sprout. We usually look at each other and say “what is it?” and the other one responds “I don’t know…It’s probably a weed” and then we laugh and congratulate ourselves for having a successful garden. In fact my host mother has become so proud and so motivated by the garden, she has prepared two more beds in another part of the yard and tomorrow we are going to plant more seeds. I now understand why gardeners are such proud people, and why it brings them so much joy to share their veggies with others. It’s hard work, it’s fun to watch things grow and it’s very rewarding to see the final product of months of constant attention. Gardening is a fantastic hobby that I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t tried it, or to anyone who has tried it and given up. If digging in the dirt isn’t your cup of tea, I at least recommend taking a moment to think about where your food comes from. I recommend supporting your local farmers, and your gardening friends. If it weren’t for them, we’d be eating nothing but freakishly large vegetables and mysteries in boxes.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Working in High Schools
After 4 months of observing classes and drinking tereré (yerba mate) with Directoras (principals) of the schools, i finally was able to make a plan to give my charlas (lessons, activities) on lifeskills in one of the schools. The plan consisted of giving two charlas in the morning with two different classes and one in the afternoon. I would start with the topic of good comunication skills, then to self esteem, values, employment skills, etc all the way to sexuality and AIDS education. The Directora seemed very excited to work with me, the students seemed relieved they would be doing something in class other than listening to lecture and copying things from the board and the teachers were probably appreciative they could sit back, chill out and tereré for awhile while I did my thing (even though I would be thrilled if they helped and got involved with what I was doing) I laid out a 9 week plan to get through all the topics, decided on Tuesdays and Thursdays and picked the classes I would work with. I was thrilled to finally be starting work with teens. Since being in site, i have done a lot of work with little kids and while singing songs, having a reading club, making arts and crafts was a blast, I was now ready to take on the challenge of reaching those human beings that are in their most awkward phase of life!
I showed up at 8:20am on the dot to discover the Directora´s office was closed and I could not find anyone to talk to or show me to the classroom. I waited patiently, surrounded by little kids (because this school is an elementary school and high school) answering their questions about where i was from, what language they speak in my country, how old I was, did i have kids of my own, what was I doing here, etc. Finally a teacher approached me and in Spanish of course asked me "are you here to give a charla?" I said "yes, I am, do you knmow where the directora is?" She said what paraguayans always say " oh she´ll be here in a second" which means anywhere from 5 min to 2 hours. She then pointed to a huge auditorium size room and said "they are waiting for you in there". I thought "that´s weird, why would they be in there and not waiting for me in their classroom?" Then as i got closer I could hear the rumbling noise of what sounded like the moments just before a school assembly in the U.S before someone took a microfone and told everyone to shut up and be quiet. I also saw kids piling in the room and I could feel my heart stop and my face turn white. I planted my feet in the ground the way I did when I was a stubborn toddler refusing to take a step further. I looked at the teacher and said "who is they......the senior class right?" Yes" she said...."and the junior and sophmore class too" I told her my charla was not designed for this many people and she assured me there were not many. I don´t know why I half believed her but any hope i had of having the ideal group size of 15-20 diminshed the moment I stepped into the room and saw that 50 or so faces staring back at me. When I turned around, the teacher was gone and so I took a deep breath and tried to look as confident as possible as I walked to the front of the room.
As I stood at the front of the room, it dawned on me that to Paraguayans to give a charla, or lesson means someone is going to stand up and lecture for an hour. There is no concept of what I had planned to do with the students that day. My charla actually consisted of breaking into small groups first for an ice breaker activity. I had made a model structure using matchboxes, two pieces of tape and a paper clip. Each group then gets the same materials and one member from the group is allowed 30 seconds to look at the model. They then return to the group and are not allowed to touch the materials, they have to verbally explain to their members how to build it. I only had enough materials for 3 groups and I did divide them into 3 groups, 3 HUGE groups and somehow the activity worked fairly well, except for the discussion part afterward. Nobody wanted to speak up and talk about what was difficult about it, was it easier for the person giving instructions or for the people building, etc....I ended up answering my own questions and was stared at my a bunch of blank faces.
After that activity we moved on to the topic of what good comunication is in general and with who you comunicate on a daily basis, etc. The main activity required every student to write their own instructions on how to make a PB & J sandwhich (they don´t make those here so I did jelly and butter) After everyone writes their instructions, they are folded put into a hat and two volunteers have to make the sandwhich according to the instructions. So, if they say put the butter on the bread and forget the part about taking the knife......the volunteer has to use his finger. After they get the idea as a class you write instructions that are more specific together and talk about how while everyone knows how to make a sandwhich, if it was something like flying a plane or opertating a computer, you would need to be very detailed.
As the students were doing the matchbox activity, i realized they did not have their backpacks with them, so nobody had pencils or paper. I sent a student to get me some and he came back with one piece of paper and one pencil. I said "we need more" and he said "how much more, like 3?" and I said "no, for everybody" so he came back with like 5 and I had each of the huge groups write 2 instructions.
Two female students volunteered and made the sandwhich and I realized Paraguayans don´t make sandwhiches with butter and jelly any more than they do with peanut butter and jelly so i should have picked something more common in their culture.
Overall the charla went well, they were respectful and one kid even came up to me afterwards and said "we had a really good time" and that made it worth it to me. I did find the Directora afterwards and told her I only wanted ONE class at a time from now on and she made me a promise. I went back in the afternoon and did the same charla with another class and it went really well. The teacher even stayed in the room and watched, instead of considering it her one hour break to go chat it up with other teachers.
I went to the school today for my second day and was told that the classes I am working with took a field trip to the Expo (which is kind of like our state fairs) I smiled and said that was fine, i would come back in the afternoon. Why nobody told me on Tuesday that there would be a field trip on Thursday and I didnt need to come I will never understand. It is just typical of paraguayan culture and I´m getting really good at letting things slide of my back and go with the flow. I smiled because I knew I could now use that time to come write a blog about all of this and that tomorrow I am going to go to the Expo and see what a Paraguayan State Fair is like :)
I showed up at 8:20am on the dot to discover the Directora´s office was closed and I could not find anyone to talk to or show me to the classroom. I waited patiently, surrounded by little kids (because this school is an elementary school and high school) answering their questions about where i was from, what language they speak in my country, how old I was, did i have kids of my own, what was I doing here, etc. Finally a teacher approached me and in Spanish of course asked me "are you here to give a charla?" I said "yes, I am, do you knmow where the directora is?" She said what paraguayans always say " oh she´ll be here in a second" which means anywhere from 5 min to 2 hours. She then pointed to a huge auditorium size room and said "they are waiting for you in there". I thought "that´s weird, why would they be in there and not waiting for me in their classroom?" Then as i got closer I could hear the rumbling noise of what sounded like the moments just before a school assembly in the U.S before someone took a microfone and told everyone to shut up and be quiet. I also saw kids piling in the room and I could feel my heart stop and my face turn white. I planted my feet in the ground the way I did when I was a stubborn toddler refusing to take a step further. I looked at the teacher and said "who is they......the senior class right?" Yes" she said...."and the junior and sophmore class too" I told her my charla was not designed for this many people and she assured me there were not many. I don´t know why I half believed her but any hope i had of having the ideal group size of 15-20 diminshed the moment I stepped into the room and saw that 50 or so faces staring back at me. When I turned around, the teacher was gone and so I took a deep breath and tried to look as confident as possible as I walked to the front of the room.
As I stood at the front of the room, it dawned on me that to Paraguayans to give a charla, or lesson means someone is going to stand up and lecture for an hour. There is no concept of what I had planned to do with the students that day. My charla actually consisted of breaking into small groups first for an ice breaker activity. I had made a model structure using matchboxes, two pieces of tape and a paper clip. Each group then gets the same materials and one member from the group is allowed 30 seconds to look at the model. They then return to the group and are not allowed to touch the materials, they have to verbally explain to their members how to build it. I only had enough materials for 3 groups and I did divide them into 3 groups, 3 HUGE groups and somehow the activity worked fairly well, except for the discussion part afterward. Nobody wanted to speak up and talk about what was difficult about it, was it easier for the person giving instructions or for the people building, etc....I ended up answering my own questions and was stared at my a bunch of blank faces.
After that activity we moved on to the topic of what good comunication is in general and with who you comunicate on a daily basis, etc. The main activity required every student to write their own instructions on how to make a PB & J sandwhich (they don´t make those here so I did jelly and butter) After everyone writes their instructions, they are folded put into a hat and two volunteers have to make the sandwhich according to the instructions. So, if they say put the butter on the bread and forget the part about taking the knife......the volunteer has to use his finger. After they get the idea as a class you write instructions that are more specific together and talk about how while everyone knows how to make a sandwhich, if it was something like flying a plane or opertating a computer, you would need to be very detailed.
As the students were doing the matchbox activity, i realized they did not have their backpacks with them, so nobody had pencils or paper. I sent a student to get me some and he came back with one piece of paper and one pencil. I said "we need more" and he said "how much more, like 3?" and I said "no, for everybody" so he came back with like 5 and I had each of the huge groups write 2 instructions.
Two female students volunteered and made the sandwhich and I realized Paraguayans don´t make sandwhiches with butter and jelly any more than they do with peanut butter and jelly so i should have picked something more common in their culture.
Overall the charla went well, they were respectful and one kid even came up to me afterwards and said "we had a really good time" and that made it worth it to me. I did find the Directora afterwards and told her I only wanted ONE class at a time from now on and she made me a promise. I went back in the afternoon and did the same charla with another class and it went really well. The teacher even stayed in the room and watched, instead of considering it her one hour break to go chat it up with other teachers.
I went to the school today for my second day and was told that the classes I am working with took a field trip to the Expo (which is kind of like our state fairs) I smiled and said that was fine, i would come back in the afternoon. Why nobody told me on Tuesday that there would be a field trip on Thursday and I didnt need to come I will never understand. It is just typical of paraguayan culture and I´m getting really good at letting things slide of my back and go with the flow. I smiled because I knew I could now use that time to come write a blog about all of this and that tomorrow I am going to go to the Expo and see what a Paraguayan State Fair is like :)
Monday, July 30, 2007
The Life of Pigs and Dogs
It was made clear to me yesterday just how desensitized I am becoming as a result of being in Paraguay 6 months. Yesterday I was having a lovely, lazy Sunday in my casita (my little house) all day. Another volunteer, Bee (sarah but i call her bee because she is a beekeeper and there are so many sarahs in the peace corps) was visiting me for the weekend and we were having a great time making breakfast, playing guitar, drinking terere and doing other things that entertain us in Paraguay such as admire my bannnana trees and compost pile when two things happened that made me think how much I had adapted to life here.
First, my family´s dog walked by my yard and was limping pretty badly. When Bee asked why it was limping I said "i don´t know, i think they said it broke it´s leg but I think it´s just sprained" I said it so matter of factly, and though we did sit for a few moments in silence letting out heavy sighs of sympathy and frustration we both just accepted the situation. This family was not going to do anything about the break/sprain and the dog would just have to limp for the rest of it´s life and heal on his own. There are veternarians in town but no average Paraguayan family can really afford to treat their sick animals. Most Paraguayans are struggling to feed their children and themselves. Dogs here are seen as things that provide protection from tresspassers, not as family members. They eat scraps from the table and whatever they can find, they aren´t fed dog food. This is why 97% of the dogs I see are so skinny you can see their ribs and hip bones poking out. My family´s dog is skinny but well fed. Most dogs, even if they are eating a lot have parasites that are causing them to be malnurished.With parasites you will never be well fed because your worms are eating all your food.
Dogs are everywhere, wandering the streets and though i want to save them all, i would go insane if I tried or if i constantly thought about how sad their lives are here. They are not petted, not loved and played with and therefore their personalities are so much different than dogs in the states. They have no personalities, they are shadows of what a dog should be. They cower in your presence because they´ve been kicked so much, they can be very aggresive for no reason, they are just more.....wild. Think dogs in the pound......times 3. Don´t get me wrong, some Paraguayans do treat their dogs really well and similar to we do in the states, and even if they treat them the way i was just describing there is a bond between the dog and the families, it´s the only connection they´ve ever known. If i blamed Paraguayans for the way they treat animals I would go insane from this as well and would be incredibly unhappy living with these people. That´s story 1.
Story 2 begins a few hours later when the pig screaming started. I am so used to pig screaming now, because well, my family and many families around my neighborhood raise pigs. Though my eyes got big and I stopped mid-sentence and had a very squeemish look on my face I calmly asked her, "do you think they are killing it or selling it?" (When a pig is killed, 3 men usually hold it down while one stabs it in the throat/chest area. The screams are horrible but eventually they end, because well..... the pig dies. When they sell a pig, the pig is held down by 3 men and it´s legs are tied together and it thrown into the back of an ox-drawn cart and hauled off to a family that will most likely kill it that day or soon after for someone´s b-day dinner or other special occasion. The screaming when they sell it is almost worst because it never stops until the cart is far enough away you can´t hear it anymore. ) So....Bee being the stronger one says "do you want me to go look and tell you?" I said I did so she went outside and for a moment had a puzzled look on her face and i kept asking her "what, what?" She finally said "they are castrating it". There were 3 men holding it down and she couldn´t figure out why the man with the knife was at the other end of the pig. I know now what is worst than selling, or killing.....chopping the poor pig´s balls off with a kitchen knife!
The entire day the poor pig looked miserable and the blood running down it´s legs broke my heart but at the same time I totally accepted the situation. In order for the pig to be able to roam free and come and go to the house as he pleases for the next year he needs to not be tempted to go off looking for ladies. He needs to know this is his home and feel loyal to it instead of his hormones. I debated slipping the pig some pain relivers but decided against it. I can´t always be the crazy white girl doing weird things. I am already made fun of for trying to save puppies and for crying when they die. (i had two month old puppies that both died last week)
Nope, no crazy, out of the norm behavior for me. I will never like it, I will never agree with it and it will always be sad to me but it´s dawned on me that it´s not affecting me as much as it did 6 months ago. I am hardening up a little bit, more than i thought my vegetarian, animal-loving soul ever could to situations like this. I really am worried about what I will be like in 2 years, I mean, what will I be used to 21 months down the road?? I see it in other volunteers when i hear stories about volunteers actually being the one to kill the pigs or twist the necks of the chickens just to experience the culture and integrate more! Americans in my opinion shouldn´t try that, since most stories end with "yeah....i kept twisting it´s neck but i was doing it so slow, it wouldn´t break and finally my host mom and to grab it out of my hand and finish!" Or worse stories like my friend Chris who tried to kill a pig for the going away party of another pig and he kept stabbing it but wasn´t reaching the heart (since there is no easy way to reach a pib heart) and so the poor thing kept gurgling and gurgling till it´s slow death came to an end. The stories are great to tell I suppose but for Pete´s sake people, we don´t know how to kill pigs, most of us grew up in cities and we buy our meat pre packaged in the grocery store! That will never be me since I won´t even eat the damn things!!
I´m going to try to get another puppy, hopefully one a little older and I´ll try motherhood again. I will treat my dog like gold and being an example that it can be another way and a dog can learn tricks and be trained and fat and happy is the only thing i can do to cause change in a very small, unoticable way. And of course my diet has always been my peace of mind about the way animals are treated both here and at home. I may be becoming more and more savage and immune but I still have a concious......
Time to end this blog now and get home for lunch....i think we´re having pig balls....
First, my family´s dog walked by my yard and was limping pretty badly. When Bee asked why it was limping I said "i don´t know, i think they said it broke it´s leg but I think it´s just sprained" I said it so matter of factly, and though we did sit for a few moments in silence letting out heavy sighs of sympathy and frustration we both just accepted the situation. This family was not going to do anything about the break/sprain and the dog would just have to limp for the rest of it´s life and heal on his own. There are veternarians in town but no average Paraguayan family can really afford to treat their sick animals. Most Paraguayans are struggling to feed their children and themselves. Dogs here are seen as things that provide protection from tresspassers, not as family members. They eat scraps from the table and whatever they can find, they aren´t fed dog food. This is why 97% of the dogs I see are so skinny you can see their ribs and hip bones poking out. My family´s dog is skinny but well fed. Most dogs, even if they are eating a lot have parasites that are causing them to be malnurished.With parasites you will never be well fed because your worms are eating all your food.
Dogs are everywhere, wandering the streets and though i want to save them all, i would go insane if I tried or if i constantly thought about how sad their lives are here. They are not petted, not loved and played with and therefore their personalities are so much different than dogs in the states. They have no personalities, they are shadows of what a dog should be. They cower in your presence because they´ve been kicked so much, they can be very aggresive for no reason, they are just more.....wild. Think dogs in the pound......times 3. Don´t get me wrong, some Paraguayans do treat their dogs really well and similar to we do in the states, and even if they treat them the way i was just describing there is a bond between the dog and the families, it´s the only connection they´ve ever known. If i blamed Paraguayans for the way they treat animals I would go insane from this as well and would be incredibly unhappy living with these people. That´s story 1.
Story 2 begins a few hours later when the pig screaming started. I am so used to pig screaming now, because well, my family and many families around my neighborhood raise pigs. Though my eyes got big and I stopped mid-sentence and had a very squeemish look on my face I calmly asked her, "do you think they are killing it or selling it?" (When a pig is killed, 3 men usually hold it down while one stabs it in the throat/chest area. The screams are horrible but eventually they end, because well..... the pig dies. When they sell a pig, the pig is held down by 3 men and it´s legs are tied together and it thrown into the back of an ox-drawn cart and hauled off to a family that will most likely kill it that day or soon after for someone´s b-day dinner or other special occasion. The screaming when they sell it is almost worst because it never stops until the cart is far enough away you can´t hear it anymore. ) So....Bee being the stronger one says "do you want me to go look and tell you?" I said I did so she went outside and for a moment had a puzzled look on her face and i kept asking her "what, what?" She finally said "they are castrating it". There were 3 men holding it down and she couldn´t figure out why the man with the knife was at the other end of the pig. I know now what is worst than selling, or killing.....chopping the poor pig´s balls off with a kitchen knife!
The entire day the poor pig looked miserable and the blood running down it´s legs broke my heart but at the same time I totally accepted the situation. In order for the pig to be able to roam free and come and go to the house as he pleases for the next year he needs to not be tempted to go off looking for ladies. He needs to know this is his home and feel loyal to it instead of his hormones. I debated slipping the pig some pain relivers but decided against it. I can´t always be the crazy white girl doing weird things. I am already made fun of for trying to save puppies and for crying when they die. (i had two month old puppies that both died last week)
Nope, no crazy, out of the norm behavior for me. I will never like it, I will never agree with it and it will always be sad to me but it´s dawned on me that it´s not affecting me as much as it did 6 months ago. I am hardening up a little bit, more than i thought my vegetarian, animal-loving soul ever could to situations like this. I really am worried about what I will be like in 2 years, I mean, what will I be used to 21 months down the road?? I see it in other volunteers when i hear stories about volunteers actually being the one to kill the pigs or twist the necks of the chickens just to experience the culture and integrate more! Americans in my opinion shouldn´t try that, since most stories end with "yeah....i kept twisting it´s neck but i was doing it so slow, it wouldn´t break and finally my host mom and to grab it out of my hand and finish!" Or worse stories like my friend Chris who tried to kill a pig for the going away party of another pig and he kept stabbing it but wasn´t reaching the heart (since there is no easy way to reach a pib heart) and so the poor thing kept gurgling and gurgling till it´s slow death came to an end. The stories are great to tell I suppose but for Pete´s sake people, we don´t know how to kill pigs, most of us grew up in cities and we buy our meat pre packaged in the grocery store! That will never be me since I won´t even eat the damn things!!
I´m going to try to get another puppy, hopefully one a little older and I´ll try motherhood again. I will treat my dog like gold and being an example that it can be another way and a dog can learn tricks and be trained and fat and happy is the only thing i can do to cause change in a very small, unoticable way. And of course my diet has always been my peace of mind about the way animals are treated both here and at home. I may be becoming more and more savage and immune but I still have a concious......
Time to end this blog now and get home for lunch....i think we´re having pig balls....
Monday, July 23, 2007
Land Of Parasites!
Today as I was walking all over town, I felt a dull pain in the bottom of my foot. It felt like a splinter and a thought came into my head that I may finally have what everyone has been talking about. Something no one likes getting but that sometimes is unavoidable no matter how much you wear your shoes and scrub your feet. Something that finds you, especially when it´s been really dry and there´s no rain to wash them away. Something that is a little painful but it´s not the pain that bothers you, it´s the fact that it invades you and makes a nest out of your foot......a parasite called Pique. (prounounced Peekay)
Pique is a tiny black insect that crawls into your foot, whereever it wants. It plants inself below your skin, makes an egg sack and then lays it´s eggs in your foot. When the eggs form a white circle around the black spot and this is how you know you have it. When the eggs hatch, they crawl out of your foot and find new hosts to lay more eggs. This is why it´s always a good idea to never go barefoot. I don´t think I have gone barefoot but it is still possible to get them wearing sandals.
When I got home, i took off my shoes and inspected my foot. I was disturbed to see the black dot with the white egg sack but kind of excited at the same time. All the fear and suspense of getting this dreaded parasite and here I finally had it and it wasn´t that bad after all. I went into my host family´s house and showed it to my host mom. She started laughing and said "yep, it´s pique, i´ll take it out for you". I debated whether or not i should let her take it out or wait until i went into Asuncion next week and have the Peace Corp doctor take it out. I decided with 5 kids she must be pro at taking these things out so i let her.
She told me not to worry because i had it in the best possible spot, the middle of my sole. Between the toenails would be a lot more painful. I steralized a needle and within a few min she had the the little sucker out. I put some neosporin on it and am parasite free once again. There was something very satisfying about taking it out, and I almost kinda liked it. I am not going to go out of my way to get more but i have heard about volunteers having competitions to see who can get the most! Animals carry these little parasites and the fact that we raise pigs tells me it´s very likely i will be getting many more during the next 2 years.
My host sister actually has pique right now as well but doesn´t want to take it out yet. She wants the eggs to grow a bit bigger so she can see it puss out when she takes it out! Pique can be very entertaining when there is nothing to do for fun around here.....haha. If there are any volunteers reading this right now in Paraguay.......Pique competition anyone????
Pique is a tiny black insect that crawls into your foot, whereever it wants. It plants inself below your skin, makes an egg sack and then lays it´s eggs in your foot. When the eggs form a white circle around the black spot and this is how you know you have it. When the eggs hatch, they crawl out of your foot and find new hosts to lay more eggs. This is why it´s always a good idea to never go barefoot. I don´t think I have gone barefoot but it is still possible to get them wearing sandals.
When I got home, i took off my shoes and inspected my foot. I was disturbed to see the black dot with the white egg sack but kind of excited at the same time. All the fear and suspense of getting this dreaded parasite and here I finally had it and it wasn´t that bad after all. I went into my host family´s house and showed it to my host mom. She started laughing and said "yep, it´s pique, i´ll take it out for you". I debated whether or not i should let her take it out or wait until i went into Asuncion next week and have the Peace Corp doctor take it out. I decided with 5 kids she must be pro at taking these things out so i let her.
She told me not to worry because i had it in the best possible spot, the middle of my sole. Between the toenails would be a lot more painful. I steralized a needle and within a few min she had the the little sucker out. I put some neosporin on it and am parasite free once again. There was something very satisfying about taking it out, and I almost kinda liked it. I am not going to go out of my way to get more but i have heard about volunteers having competitions to see who can get the most! Animals carry these little parasites and the fact that we raise pigs tells me it´s very likely i will be getting many more during the next 2 years.
My host sister actually has pique right now as well but doesn´t want to take it out yet. She wants the eggs to grow a bit bigger so she can see it puss out when she takes it out! Pique can be very entertaining when there is nothing to do for fun around here.....haha. If there are any volunteers reading this right now in Paraguay.......Pique competition anyone????
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Life is Fragile
Yesterday I got up at 5:00 in the morning to walk about 5k to another volunteer´s site to help out with her winter camp. I did an activity/lesson on self esteem and had two groups rotate through my activity. It went really well. I cut out a big piece of paper and made a sad face out of it. All over it, i wrote insults such as "you´re ugly, you smell, you´re stupid, etc" Of course all in Spanish. I had the kids read them out loud and then asked them "is Fulano, happy or sad right now?.....why is he sad?....are these things nice things to say or mean things.....?" Then, i tore off the pieces of paper that had the mean things written on them and handed them to a few kids, I even went on to say how now Fulano was an incomplete person, etc....I had the kids write on the other side nice things to say to Fulano and then we pasted him back together and when he was taped back together he was smiling because his self esteem was higher. I then passed out blank pieces of paper and had the kids draw themselves and write words or draw symbols of things they liked about themselves around their body. At the end of the activity we got in a circle, held hands and i had them say something nice to the person on their left.
As most teachers probably know....things never quite go excatly as you planned.
First of all, Paraguayan school systems teach kids to copy and not to think creatively or independently (this goes hand in hand with the many years of dicatorship which one day I´ll write a blog on). So the kids loved the fact they got to color but they pretty much copied my example. I drew a tree on mine to symbolize my love of nature and all the kids had trees on theirs! I drew a big heart on my body and they all drew big hearts on their bodies! I was still happy they all shared their drawings with each other and understood the message of Fulano...that you shouldn´t say mean things to people and if you do, apologize and say something nice!
It was even more amusing to watch them compliment each other. This is a very indirect culture and Paraguayans are not used to saying things to each other bluntly. My example to another volunteer was "i think you sing and play guitar really well". Yet, all the kids gave the same 3 compliments. "you´re nice, you´re a good person, or i like your shoes". It was still really great to see them saying these things to each other and overall the camp went really well.
After the camp we had lunch with Ellyn´s host family and then we went to the house where the puppies were. I picked out my puppy amongst 5 very tiny cute little creatures. When i say tiny, i mean smaller than you would ever take a puppy home in the U.S. The mother is not feeding them anymore and they are all full of fleas so I know the puppy was better off going home with me but i still felt it was way too small to be separated from its family! We had just come from a house where there was another litter of pups and two had been thrown down a dry well (the mother would not have been able to nurse them all anyways but yes it´s still horrible) so i didn´t hesitate to take her home. She is dark brown with white feet and a black face. I can hold her in one hand! I carried her in my jacket all the way home and she slept the entire way. I noticed the fleas crawling in and out of her furr and bought some flea shampoo. When I got home, a volunteer that was staying with me last night helped me bathe her. We spent two hours getting the fleas off of her and I still don´t think i have gotten all of them off. I have never seen so many fleas on one thing and she is so small. The poor thing looked so miserable she actually fell asleep when we were picking them out of her furr. After she was clean I fed her some milk and she fell asleep in my arms. I was starting to feel pretty good about saving this little girl and giving her a better life. I shouldn´t have congratulate myself so soon!
I handed her to my friend and then went to my bathroom. A few min later i heard a thud and a very frightened voice that said "oh no....oh no....i think something is really wrong" I came out of the bathroom and saw my puppy lifeless with her tongue sticking out, not breathing, with no hearbeat! I stared at her for a moment, feeling for a pulse and said "she´s dead!" I couldn´t believe it! Turns out my friend had placed her on the bed, turned her back for a moment and she fell off and died. I immediately put my mouth over her snout and started giving her CPR. I administered breaths while my friend pumped her heart. After what seems like forever...she finally took a breath and continued to struggle for life for several minutes. We were successful in reviving her and she still seems to be doing fine. It was a terrifying, yet beautiful experience to witness. I am being extra over protective mom with her now. I can´t wait until she gets fatter and bigger so i don´t have to worry about her so much. My friend feels terrible, yet we were able to actually laugh about it later. I will forever be able to give her shit for it when I want. I said if people ever say you look like someone killed your puppy i can say "well, someone did".
I named the puppy Pilsen. That is actually one of the two main and only brands of beer here in Paraguay. I thought long and hard about cute names in Spanish and Guarani and English and decided Pilsen was a perfect combination and universal language of all 3. I think it´s actually a German beer. I know I am an Urban Youth volunteer and should not be having children repeat a name of a beer when they call my dogs name but Paraguayans appreciate the humor in it and crack up every time i tell them the name. In this culture humor works extremely well with the integration and I am reminded that here no one will get offended about it. The same day I brought my puppy home my family found another puppy in the street and brought it home. They are thinking of keeping it and naming it Brahma the other main beer in Paraguay.
In one day I experienced enough accomplishment, joy, stress and sorrow to last me for awhile. I have my winter camp this afternoon and hope nothing comes close to death afterwards.
As most teachers probably know....things never quite go excatly as you planned.
First of all, Paraguayan school systems teach kids to copy and not to think creatively or independently (this goes hand in hand with the many years of dicatorship which one day I´ll write a blog on). So the kids loved the fact they got to color but they pretty much copied my example. I drew a tree on mine to symbolize my love of nature and all the kids had trees on theirs! I drew a big heart on my body and they all drew big hearts on their bodies! I was still happy they all shared their drawings with each other and understood the message of Fulano...that you shouldn´t say mean things to people and if you do, apologize and say something nice!
It was even more amusing to watch them compliment each other. This is a very indirect culture and Paraguayans are not used to saying things to each other bluntly. My example to another volunteer was "i think you sing and play guitar really well". Yet, all the kids gave the same 3 compliments. "you´re nice, you´re a good person, or i like your shoes". It was still really great to see them saying these things to each other and overall the camp went really well.
After the camp we had lunch with Ellyn´s host family and then we went to the house where the puppies were. I picked out my puppy amongst 5 very tiny cute little creatures. When i say tiny, i mean smaller than you would ever take a puppy home in the U.S. The mother is not feeding them anymore and they are all full of fleas so I know the puppy was better off going home with me but i still felt it was way too small to be separated from its family! We had just come from a house where there was another litter of pups and two had been thrown down a dry well (the mother would not have been able to nurse them all anyways but yes it´s still horrible) so i didn´t hesitate to take her home. She is dark brown with white feet and a black face. I can hold her in one hand! I carried her in my jacket all the way home and she slept the entire way. I noticed the fleas crawling in and out of her furr and bought some flea shampoo. When I got home, a volunteer that was staying with me last night helped me bathe her. We spent two hours getting the fleas off of her and I still don´t think i have gotten all of them off. I have never seen so many fleas on one thing and she is so small. The poor thing looked so miserable she actually fell asleep when we were picking them out of her furr. After she was clean I fed her some milk and she fell asleep in my arms. I was starting to feel pretty good about saving this little girl and giving her a better life. I shouldn´t have congratulate myself so soon!
I handed her to my friend and then went to my bathroom. A few min later i heard a thud and a very frightened voice that said "oh no....oh no....i think something is really wrong" I came out of the bathroom and saw my puppy lifeless with her tongue sticking out, not breathing, with no hearbeat! I stared at her for a moment, feeling for a pulse and said "she´s dead!" I couldn´t believe it! Turns out my friend had placed her on the bed, turned her back for a moment and she fell off and died. I immediately put my mouth over her snout and started giving her CPR. I administered breaths while my friend pumped her heart. After what seems like forever...she finally took a breath and continued to struggle for life for several minutes. We were successful in reviving her and she still seems to be doing fine. It was a terrifying, yet beautiful experience to witness. I am being extra over protective mom with her now. I can´t wait until she gets fatter and bigger so i don´t have to worry about her so much. My friend feels terrible, yet we were able to actually laugh about it later. I will forever be able to give her shit for it when I want. I said if people ever say you look like someone killed your puppy i can say "well, someone did".
I named the puppy Pilsen. That is actually one of the two main and only brands of beer here in Paraguay. I thought long and hard about cute names in Spanish and Guarani and English and decided Pilsen was a perfect combination and universal language of all 3. I think it´s actually a German beer. I know I am an Urban Youth volunteer and should not be having children repeat a name of a beer when they call my dogs name but Paraguayans appreciate the humor in it and crack up every time i tell them the name. In this culture humor works extremely well with the integration and I am reminded that here no one will get offended about it. The same day I brought my puppy home my family found another puppy in the street and brought it home. They are thinking of keeping it and naming it Brahma the other main beer in Paraguay.
In one day I experienced enough accomplishment, joy, stress and sorrow to last me for awhile. I have my winter camp this afternoon and hope nothing comes close to death afterwards.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Being Sick in Paraguay
I am starting to realize the truth to the statement I heard during training "as a foreigner living in a different culture, you will never know what is going on and you will always be the last person to find things out" Just when I think i am starting to understand this culture and feel comfortable with things (after all I have been here 5 months now) something happens that makes me feel humble again and makes me realize I have no clue what's going on.
Saturday I noticed I was starting to feel pretty run down and was probably getting sick. I took it easy and hung out at home most of the day. I made a comment to my host family that I thought i was getting sick. Sunday morning when I woke up, I accepted the fact I had a nasty head cold and was beat. I slept until 11am then woke up, drank some tea and went over to the family's house to eat lunch. Paraguayans normally do not talk during meals. It's a pretty silent deal. You sit down, you eat your food, then you drink your drink (because they don't do both at the same time like we do) and then you leave the table. I normally am chatty cathy during meals and they are used to it but Sunday, i sat in silence as well. I said a couple raspy, snotty words and I think my host mom said something along the lines of "oh, you are stuffed up" and I said "yes, i'm sick". Then I went back to my bungalow and slept the rest of the day and night. I woke up around 8pm and realized no one had checked on me, or offered me any of the medicinal herbs I hear so much about! I started feeling very homesick and unloved. But when i thought about it, i came to the realization that maybe Paraguayans just don't make a big fuss out of colds like Americans do. I mean, if neighbor kids are walking around malnurished, animals are skin and bone, and grandma has a sore on her leg that looks like something she should be in the hospital for and no one is complaining, it is kind of silly for me to expect any sort of response over my sniffles. Nevertheless, I still would have appreciated an offering of yerba mate or something. Maybe they thought I wanted my space, I still will never really know what kind of relationship patterns were set up with the previous volunteer either.
Monday morning I woke up feeling half human again, and realized I had last min preparations to do for the winter camp that started Tuesday. There was some miscommunication between Chris and I about who was taking care of what so I thought i had everything covered. On Tuesday when Chris came up to my house a couple hours before camp was supposed to start we realized neither of us had bought the pasta, food coloring or rubbing alcohol needed to make the pasta necklaces. After a few mins of "you said you were going to buy them...." we got a little panicked. It was siesta time and all the stores were closed and kids were about to show up in an hour or so. Then we got a phone call from another volunteer, Lisa who had just bused in to Horqueta to help us. We asked her to pick up the neccessary items from the plaza from the one store that doesn't close during siesta and she saved the day. When she got to my house, we quickly dyed the pasta and felt like everything would work out. Then it started to rain...
We weren't sure if we should cancel the camp for the day and postpone it until Wednesday. I didn't want to because i had to leave Tuesday night for Asuncion for a conference and was already going to miss Thursday's camp day. I didn't want to miss both days of camp for the week. My host mom said the kids would still come in the rain and we should just use her house to host it. 40 of the 80 kids on the list did show up and we had 3 activities rotating through the patio area and house. We made recycled paper, pasta necklaces and had a singing group. We also threw in a little lesson about recycling and trash management. At the end we gave the kids warm mild and breadsticks for a snack. The "camp" was only 2 hours long but I was sick, it was freezing and I was worn out by the end. All the preparations and clean up was a lot of work but it was worth it. I felt really good afterwards and it went really well. The Spanish volunteer that lives in Horqueta showed up to help too and she had some visitors with her, so they were lifesavers. I will miss Thursday's activities but will be back in Horqueta for next week's camp. I am also going to help with another volunteer's winter camp in a different site on one of my off days.
I am in Asuncion now for a conference for the rest of the week and am enjoying the conveinences of the modern world again. I was just here recently for 4th of July but I can't complain about having heating in the hotel and having the opportunity to go to a movie theater or to a coffee shop if i please! I'm feeling a little better with my sickness and hopefully these few days in Asuncion with other Americans will give me just what I need to get over my spell of homesickness and get over my cold.
Saturday I noticed I was starting to feel pretty run down and was probably getting sick. I took it easy and hung out at home most of the day. I made a comment to my host family that I thought i was getting sick. Sunday morning when I woke up, I accepted the fact I had a nasty head cold and was beat. I slept until 11am then woke up, drank some tea and went over to the family's house to eat lunch. Paraguayans normally do not talk during meals. It's a pretty silent deal. You sit down, you eat your food, then you drink your drink (because they don't do both at the same time like we do) and then you leave the table. I normally am chatty cathy during meals and they are used to it but Sunday, i sat in silence as well. I said a couple raspy, snotty words and I think my host mom said something along the lines of "oh, you are stuffed up" and I said "yes, i'm sick". Then I went back to my bungalow and slept the rest of the day and night. I woke up around 8pm and realized no one had checked on me, or offered me any of the medicinal herbs I hear so much about! I started feeling very homesick and unloved. But when i thought about it, i came to the realization that maybe Paraguayans just don't make a big fuss out of colds like Americans do. I mean, if neighbor kids are walking around malnurished, animals are skin and bone, and grandma has a sore on her leg that looks like something she should be in the hospital for and no one is complaining, it is kind of silly for me to expect any sort of response over my sniffles. Nevertheless, I still would have appreciated an offering of yerba mate or something. Maybe they thought I wanted my space, I still will never really know what kind of relationship patterns were set up with the previous volunteer either.
Monday morning I woke up feeling half human again, and realized I had last min preparations to do for the winter camp that started Tuesday. There was some miscommunication between Chris and I about who was taking care of what so I thought i had everything covered. On Tuesday when Chris came up to my house a couple hours before camp was supposed to start we realized neither of us had bought the pasta, food coloring or rubbing alcohol needed to make the pasta necklaces. After a few mins of "you said you were going to buy them...." we got a little panicked. It was siesta time and all the stores were closed and kids were about to show up in an hour or so. Then we got a phone call from another volunteer, Lisa who had just bused in to Horqueta to help us. We asked her to pick up the neccessary items from the plaza from the one store that doesn't close during siesta and she saved the day. When she got to my house, we quickly dyed the pasta and felt like everything would work out. Then it started to rain...
We weren't sure if we should cancel the camp for the day and postpone it until Wednesday. I didn't want to because i had to leave Tuesday night for Asuncion for a conference and was already going to miss Thursday's camp day. I didn't want to miss both days of camp for the week. My host mom said the kids would still come in the rain and we should just use her house to host it. 40 of the 80 kids on the list did show up and we had 3 activities rotating through the patio area and house. We made recycled paper, pasta necklaces and had a singing group. We also threw in a little lesson about recycling and trash management. At the end we gave the kids warm mild and breadsticks for a snack. The "camp" was only 2 hours long but I was sick, it was freezing and I was worn out by the end. All the preparations and clean up was a lot of work but it was worth it. I felt really good afterwards and it went really well. The Spanish volunteer that lives in Horqueta showed up to help too and she had some visitors with her, so they were lifesavers. I will miss Thursday's activities but will be back in Horqueta for next week's camp. I am also going to help with another volunteer's winter camp in a different site on one of my off days.
I am in Asuncion now for a conference for the rest of the week and am enjoying the conveinences of the modern world again. I was just here recently for 4th of July but I can't complain about having heating in the hotel and having the opportunity to go to a movie theater or to a coffee shop if i please! I'm feeling a little better with my sickness and hopefully these few days in Asuncion with other Americans will give me just what I need to get over my spell of homesickness and get over my cold.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
I´m sure all of you are enjoying the wonderful summer months. We are in the middle of winter here. The weather is pretty crazy. A few weeks ago I was freezing and couldn´t find any way to warm up. My little brick house with my tin roof just isn´t the best insulator for the winter time. Come to think of it, it´s going to heat up like an oven in the summer too!
When it was freezing I didn´t have hot water at first, so I would do as The Paraguayans do and heat up some water on the stove (well, they would heat up on the fire)and then take a bucket bath. There is an art to taking a bucket bath. I have learned that You start with your face, then go head to toe. You can wet your body with just a small handful of water. Then you get your bar of soap and scrub your body (just the important areas is good enough) and then scoop water with your hands and using a sweeping motion and wet and sweep all the soap off you quite easily. With the remaining water in the bucket you can then step in with your dirty feet since you won´t be using it anymore and use a scrub brush to scrub your feet and sandals. Your hair will take an extra bucket, if it´s time to do that. This can all be done with a liter of water! I did this for a couple of weeks at the start of winter and then decided it was rediculous to have a modern bathroom with running water and be taking bucket baths! It cost me about $40 to have hot water installed. 25 feet of cable was run through the family´s house to my house and i had to buy a new shower head. The way hot water works here is you turn on the water and then flip a switch which turns on the electricity through the shower head. The water heats up as it passes through the shower head. So, you are essentially running water through a toaster! The water pressure needs to be low for it to really heat up, but it does work and i am not taking bucket baths anymore unless I am visiting rural volunteers.
The weather is still cold some days but other days it is hot. It hasn´t rained in a long time and farmers are complaining and agricultural and beekeeping volunteers are complaining. I am glad that urban youth doesn´t revolve much around the weather. I met a beekeeping volunteer that lives about 2-3 hours from me. She invited me to come see her site and do a wild hive capture with her. I told her I thought i was allergic to bees, so i may just watch from a distance or help her with her massive garden instead. She came to my site and helped me make a bed for my garden. It´s always really fun to see the sites of other volunteers. We all live with different family situations, different housing situations and different jobs but we all are living in this same, strange little country and are therefore aware of all of our similarities.
I went to a nice 4th of July picnic at the U.S Embassy this weekend. They made us hot dogs, veggies burgers and margaritas. There was even a cotton candy machine and the U.S Marines served beer. It was a really fun day and the weather was beautiful.
The schools are now on winter vacation for 2 weeks and i am continuing with the work the previous volunteer started. Every vacation she did a camp on the soccer field in front of the house. I looked at past schedules she left and with the help of the youth group i work with and Chris (the other volunteer in Horqueta) have planned another camp. San Roque Rocks (san roque is the name of my neighborhood). It will be Tuesday and Thursday from 3-5pm. We´ll have games, activities, educational lessons, reading/singing groups. The kids will be divided into groups by colors and it will be like a 45 min rotation from activity to activity. I am having other volunteers from the area come in and help and the youth group. Sounds easy right? I hope so...
This week I wanted to have a parent´s meeting about it so the parents could be aware of it, learn what we will be doing and hopefully offer to help! I have learned by now that Paraguayans do not need to be informed more than a day before a meeting or they will forget or won´t show up. I went around the day OF the meeting and went door to door, or shall I say fence to fence. Since there are no doorbells and fences surrounding the house, you clap your hands when you are "knocking at the door". I had no idea which houses to go to so I grabbed by 12 year old neighbor and asked her if she wanted to help me with something. She was excited to help and it´s always better to have a Paraguayan with you who speaks the language and reads the culture better. It was a good way for me to meet new people and see the houses I haven´t seen before. It was like doing a million home visits in one day. I now realize that my family is a much more well off family than the neighbors and I thought they had it bad before! I saw one room wood shacks with tarps over the roof to keep out the rain where families of 7 were living. When i came home that day it sunk in how much these kids need this camp. 2 hours later we had 80 kids signed up for the camp and I am getting a little stressed! That is just in my neighborhood, in the 2 streets near my house! I know it will all work out. Chris had the youth group write a letter to ask the mayor to sponsor the costs of providing snacks and the material to make pasta necklaces, etc. They have always covered the costs in the past so it looks like it will happen again. If not, it will probably only cost Chris and I $20 or less. I´ve been told "any camp is better than no camp" and "you could go out on the soccer field and lay down and kids would come and be happy" so I know it will all work out.
I will be getting a puppy next weekend. She will be a little brown, short haired thing with white feet, black snout and a white spot on her nose. I haven´t decided if I will name her in English, Spanish or Guarani. Another volunteer has a dog from the same parents and she is a really cool medium sized dog so when they had puppies again she asked me if i wanted one. It will be good company and Paraguayans often kill the female puppies in the litter so I hope I am saving a life!
That is all the news for now. I will let you know how the camp goes and what I end up naming my dog!.
When it was freezing I didn´t have hot water at first, so I would do as The Paraguayans do and heat up some water on the stove (well, they would heat up on the fire)and then take a bucket bath. There is an art to taking a bucket bath. I have learned that You start with your face, then go head to toe. You can wet your body with just a small handful of water. Then you get your bar of soap and scrub your body (just the important areas is good enough) and then scoop water with your hands and using a sweeping motion and wet and sweep all the soap off you quite easily. With the remaining water in the bucket you can then step in with your dirty feet since you won´t be using it anymore and use a scrub brush to scrub your feet and sandals. Your hair will take an extra bucket, if it´s time to do that. This can all be done with a liter of water! I did this for a couple of weeks at the start of winter and then decided it was rediculous to have a modern bathroom with running water and be taking bucket baths! It cost me about $40 to have hot water installed. 25 feet of cable was run through the family´s house to my house and i had to buy a new shower head. The way hot water works here is you turn on the water and then flip a switch which turns on the electricity through the shower head. The water heats up as it passes through the shower head. So, you are essentially running water through a toaster! The water pressure needs to be low for it to really heat up, but it does work and i am not taking bucket baths anymore unless I am visiting rural volunteers.
The weather is still cold some days but other days it is hot. It hasn´t rained in a long time and farmers are complaining and agricultural and beekeeping volunteers are complaining. I am glad that urban youth doesn´t revolve much around the weather. I met a beekeeping volunteer that lives about 2-3 hours from me. She invited me to come see her site and do a wild hive capture with her. I told her I thought i was allergic to bees, so i may just watch from a distance or help her with her massive garden instead. She came to my site and helped me make a bed for my garden. It´s always really fun to see the sites of other volunteers. We all live with different family situations, different housing situations and different jobs but we all are living in this same, strange little country and are therefore aware of all of our similarities.
I went to a nice 4th of July picnic at the U.S Embassy this weekend. They made us hot dogs, veggies burgers and margaritas. There was even a cotton candy machine and the U.S Marines served beer. It was a really fun day and the weather was beautiful.
The schools are now on winter vacation for 2 weeks and i am continuing with the work the previous volunteer started. Every vacation she did a camp on the soccer field in front of the house. I looked at past schedules she left and with the help of the youth group i work with and Chris (the other volunteer in Horqueta) have planned another camp. San Roque Rocks (san roque is the name of my neighborhood). It will be Tuesday and Thursday from 3-5pm. We´ll have games, activities, educational lessons, reading/singing groups. The kids will be divided into groups by colors and it will be like a 45 min rotation from activity to activity. I am having other volunteers from the area come in and help and the youth group. Sounds easy right? I hope so...
This week I wanted to have a parent´s meeting about it so the parents could be aware of it, learn what we will be doing and hopefully offer to help! I have learned by now that Paraguayans do not need to be informed more than a day before a meeting or they will forget or won´t show up. I went around the day OF the meeting and went door to door, or shall I say fence to fence. Since there are no doorbells and fences surrounding the house, you clap your hands when you are "knocking at the door". I had no idea which houses to go to so I grabbed by 12 year old neighbor and asked her if she wanted to help me with something. She was excited to help and it´s always better to have a Paraguayan with you who speaks the language and reads the culture better. It was a good way for me to meet new people and see the houses I haven´t seen before. It was like doing a million home visits in one day. I now realize that my family is a much more well off family than the neighbors and I thought they had it bad before! I saw one room wood shacks with tarps over the roof to keep out the rain where families of 7 were living. When i came home that day it sunk in how much these kids need this camp. 2 hours later we had 80 kids signed up for the camp and I am getting a little stressed! That is just in my neighborhood, in the 2 streets near my house! I know it will all work out. Chris had the youth group write a letter to ask the mayor to sponsor the costs of providing snacks and the material to make pasta necklaces, etc. They have always covered the costs in the past so it looks like it will happen again. If not, it will probably only cost Chris and I $20 or less. I´ve been told "any camp is better than no camp" and "you could go out on the soccer field and lay down and kids would come and be happy" so I know it will all work out.
I will be getting a puppy next weekend. She will be a little brown, short haired thing with white feet, black snout and a white spot on her nose. I haven´t decided if I will name her in English, Spanish or Guarani. Another volunteer has a dog from the same parents and she is a really cool medium sized dog so when they had puppies again she asked me if i wanted one. It will be good company and Paraguayans often kill the female puppies in the litter so I hope I am saving a life!
That is all the news for now. I will let you know how the camp goes and what I end up naming my dog!.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
A Weekend in Rural Life
One of the theories behind Peace Corps placing volunteers in a "nucleus" is that volunteers from various projects live close enough to each other to collaborate and work together when they choose to. I can have someone help me give a lesson on how to avoid getting some nasty parasites or build a sanitary latrine that won´t breed flies or smell bad all the time and I can help someone do activities to improve leadership skills and self esteem! I already convined Luke and Nayelli, two health volunteers in my area to help me give a dental lesson next week to 35 kids! Nayelli in turn decided to ask a favor of Luke and I-to come out to her site for a weekend and help her re-do her roof! Surely putting on a new roof was thrown into my Urban Youth training someone inbetween learning songs and games to do with children!
Luke and I took a bus out to Nayelli´s site on Friday afternoon, which is about abou hour from Horqueta. We rode on pavement for about half the time, then turned off onto a random dirt road and rode a very bumpy, dusty ride until we got to her site, in the middle of nowhere! Health volunteers live in VERY rural sites, often with no running water. This was my first time experiencing rural life.
Nayelli greeted us and gave us a tour of her house, literally a little wood hut with a straw roof. It is really cute and it´s on the property of a family, kind of like my set up. I kept telling her "open up or i´ll huff and I´ll puff and I´ll blow your house down" since it was built with minimal materials.
Sat morning we woke up early and began work. The first thing we did was move all of her stuff out onto the lawn (and by lawn i mean dirt) Her family just stared as we kept pulling out more and more stuff. It´s amazing how even an American living in the Peace Corps for one year will have aquired more stuff than a Paraguayan will in a lifetime! She told her family she needed help and that whoever showed up to help would get free beer and caña (strong booze). Eight Paraguayan men showed up at 8am to help! That was more than she needed since Luke and I were there too but a promise is a promise and they showed up. About 6 of us were on the roof tearing down the old straw. Tearing off a roof made of straw is about as easy as it sounds-what´s harder is knowing where you can and can´t put your foot without falling through! I had a lot of fun tearing off bundles of straw and throwing it on the ground below, making grunting noises and laughing a lot while I watched the faces of the Paraguayans below. They must have really got a kick out of watching the North Americans do this kind of work, especially women enjoying getting dirty and doing this kind of labor.
After the roof was off we got to stand knee deep in mud and dip the tips of the new straw into the mud, then pass them to a guy who then handed them up to the men on the roof to lay down. It was an incredibly simple process that cost about $50 dollars to do. They say the new roof will last about 5-6 years, i´d say that´s worth it. Nayelli liked the way the house looked with two feet of extra straw hanging off the ends because it gave it a tropical look. I agreed it looked cute so she didn´t want the men to cute off the ends like they nomrally do. They kind of shrugged and laughed but didn´t flat out tell her it was a stupid idea. That night we heard a noise and looked out the window to see one of the oxen eating the straw and therefore pulling off pieces of her roof! Now we know why paraguayans don´t leave it that way!
After the roof was finished a bunch of the men started drinking caña and I had the opportunity to practice my Guarani after a few beers becaue many of the eople in the rural parts of Paraguay don´t speak any Spanish. I was conversing with someone for about 15 min using the little Guarani i know and a lot of hand gestures. Nayelli walked by and I enthusiastically said "i´ve been talking to him for 15 min in Guarani!" She then said something to him along the lines of "oh, you guys are conversing in Guarani?" and he then replied "yeah...but i don´t understand anything she´s saying!" When Nayelli started laughing and told me what he said i responded "well tell him i don´t understand him either" and then we all started laughing and continued our "conversation". Paraguayans have great a great sense of humor.
Luke left that afternoon to head back to his site and i tought it would be a good idea to head back to Horqueta too. I brought my bike with me so was going to ride the 2 1/2 hour ride to work off some calories. When i started riding my brakes suddenly broke and so did my back axle! I had to walk the bike back to Nayelli´s house (luckily i hadn´t gone far) and said well i guess i´ll stay another night. On Sunday some little kids tried to fix the bike and it looked dependable to I made another attempt and it broke again. since there are no buses on sunday i was stuck yet another night. Finally Monday morning I woke up at 5am to catch the only bus that leaves her town. Since there is only one road we could see the bus come from her window and so we just waited.....and waited....and waited.... The bus never came and it was 7am now. I wasn´t feeling well so went back to sleep and told her to wake me up when it came. She assured me this never happens and sent her host brother to the bus driver´s house to see what happened. Her brother came back and reported the driver was hungover from drinking too much the night before while he watched the soccer game. we couldn´t do anything but laugh and i was starting to wonder if I´d ever get back to Horqueta. Finally close to 9am the bus came and Nayelli had to chase it down in her long underwear and socks because i was getting my stuff together in a hurry.
I made it back to Horqueta finally and was glad to be back in the "city". I am now thankful that i have running water in my house, a toilet and hot water. I used a latrine for 4 days and bucket bathed outside and i have great admiration for the volunteers that live much worse than I do!
Luke and I took a bus out to Nayelli´s site on Friday afternoon, which is about abou hour from Horqueta. We rode on pavement for about half the time, then turned off onto a random dirt road and rode a very bumpy, dusty ride until we got to her site, in the middle of nowhere! Health volunteers live in VERY rural sites, often with no running water. This was my first time experiencing rural life.
Nayelli greeted us and gave us a tour of her house, literally a little wood hut with a straw roof. It is really cute and it´s on the property of a family, kind of like my set up. I kept telling her "open up or i´ll huff and I´ll puff and I´ll blow your house down" since it was built with minimal materials.
Sat morning we woke up early and began work. The first thing we did was move all of her stuff out onto the lawn (and by lawn i mean dirt) Her family just stared as we kept pulling out more and more stuff. It´s amazing how even an American living in the Peace Corps for one year will have aquired more stuff than a Paraguayan will in a lifetime! She told her family she needed help and that whoever showed up to help would get free beer and caña (strong booze). Eight Paraguayan men showed up at 8am to help! That was more than she needed since Luke and I were there too but a promise is a promise and they showed up. About 6 of us were on the roof tearing down the old straw. Tearing off a roof made of straw is about as easy as it sounds-what´s harder is knowing where you can and can´t put your foot without falling through! I had a lot of fun tearing off bundles of straw and throwing it on the ground below, making grunting noises and laughing a lot while I watched the faces of the Paraguayans below. They must have really got a kick out of watching the North Americans do this kind of work, especially women enjoying getting dirty and doing this kind of labor.
After the roof was off we got to stand knee deep in mud and dip the tips of the new straw into the mud, then pass them to a guy who then handed them up to the men on the roof to lay down. It was an incredibly simple process that cost about $50 dollars to do. They say the new roof will last about 5-6 years, i´d say that´s worth it. Nayelli liked the way the house looked with two feet of extra straw hanging off the ends because it gave it a tropical look. I agreed it looked cute so she didn´t want the men to cute off the ends like they nomrally do. They kind of shrugged and laughed but didn´t flat out tell her it was a stupid idea. That night we heard a noise and looked out the window to see one of the oxen eating the straw and therefore pulling off pieces of her roof! Now we know why paraguayans don´t leave it that way!
After the roof was finished a bunch of the men started drinking caña and I had the opportunity to practice my Guarani after a few beers becaue many of the eople in the rural parts of Paraguay don´t speak any Spanish. I was conversing with someone for about 15 min using the little Guarani i know and a lot of hand gestures. Nayelli walked by and I enthusiastically said "i´ve been talking to him for 15 min in Guarani!" She then said something to him along the lines of "oh, you guys are conversing in Guarani?" and he then replied "yeah...but i don´t understand anything she´s saying!" When Nayelli started laughing and told me what he said i responded "well tell him i don´t understand him either" and then we all started laughing and continued our "conversation". Paraguayans have great a great sense of humor.
Luke left that afternoon to head back to his site and i tought it would be a good idea to head back to Horqueta too. I brought my bike with me so was going to ride the 2 1/2 hour ride to work off some calories. When i started riding my brakes suddenly broke and so did my back axle! I had to walk the bike back to Nayelli´s house (luckily i hadn´t gone far) and said well i guess i´ll stay another night. On Sunday some little kids tried to fix the bike and it looked dependable to I made another attempt and it broke again. since there are no buses on sunday i was stuck yet another night. Finally Monday morning I woke up at 5am to catch the only bus that leaves her town. Since there is only one road we could see the bus come from her window and so we just waited.....and waited....and waited.... The bus never came and it was 7am now. I wasn´t feeling well so went back to sleep and told her to wake me up when it came. She assured me this never happens and sent her host brother to the bus driver´s house to see what happened. Her brother came back and reported the driver was hungover from drinking too much the night before while he watched the soccer game. we couldn´t do anything but laugh and i was starting to wonder if I´d ever get back to Horqueta. Finally close to 9am the bus came and Nayelli had to chase it down in her long underwear and socks because i was getting my stuff together in a hurry.
I made it back to Horqueta finally and was glad to be back in the "city". I am now thankful that i have running water in my house, a toilet and hot water. I used a latrine for 4 days and bucket bathed outside and i have great admiration for the volunteers that live much worse than I do!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Drinking Beer With The Ambassador
I have been in site for about 3 weeks now, it's gone by really fast. May has been a pretty busy month in Horqueta so I haven't felt that "lonely, bored feeling" that I was told I would feel my first few weeks in site. Maybe that will be next month.
The country director came up for the inauguration of the town's 1st and only public library (that two other previous volunteers and the youth group helped create) , then I got to go to Luke's site presentation (he is my closest neighbor 5 k away-that's where our boss comes up and introduces you to the community and explains what Peace Corps is, etc) Then there was the anniversary of Horqueta so there was a parade and parties for that, then mother's day was another holiday where there was no school and this week I got to meet with the ambassador.
The ambassador likes to travel around the country a lot and speak with the people. He speaks Guarani really well and is a very down to earth guy. He was in the area up here in the north of the country and wanted to have an informal meeting with Peace Corps volunteers. About 7 of us went and we walked into a hotel lobby where we were surrounded by a bunch of guards with huge guns and a man in a suit and a clipboard said "the ambassador is waiting for you upstairs". We went upstairs and sat down at a table with him. There were snacky foods on the table like cheese and olives and he ordered us a bunch of beer and said "don't make me drink all this myself". Of course 7 starving volunteers were not going pass up free food and drinks. (We ended up seeing him at the same restaurant after the meeting and he sent over a bunch of food to our table and we got a free bottle of wine from the restaurant too). He asked what the main problems were in our sites, gave us 250 parasite pills to distribute in our communities, informed us about some donation and scholarship programs availbable for us to take advantage of and just chatted with us about the different countries he's lived in and how he got involved in foreign service work. He encourage me to write him a letter to request books for the library in my town and computers for the school. I am going to give it a shot. It was really interesting to hear how the U.S Embassy kind of deals with development from the top down and share with him Peace Corp's experience with dealing with it from grassroots level. It's a good thing in my opinion that both are present in this country. It is a country with so much potential but it seems that Paraguayans don't feel they can progress. It's like a country that has the self esteem of a hormonal teenager, with this "we can't do it" attitude. I guess that's what you get after so many years of dictatorship, people that have difficulty thinking outside the box. Even coloring books have one blank page and the other page is the excact drawing with the colors already colored in and children copy it! Children are very good at copying, that's all they do in school, creativity is definately lacking in their minds. That's what makes doing creative projects with them so much fun and challenging at the same time!
So, I am trying to use my creative mind and come up with ideas to do in my community. I have been spending a lot of time at an after/before school program just observing and helping out. Kids from age 3 to 14 go there for 2 hours. They do games for the first hour, get a snack, a shower and the second hour is more or less some kind of learning activity or lesson. The director is a very progressive thinking woman and has become more of an official contact for me. My role there will be to bring in ideas, activities and give lessons to the kids one day a week. That director also helps run a girl's group home and wants me to get involved in that. I have spent a little time there and the 30 teenage girls that live there are wonderful. I am thinking of starting a yoga/excersise class with them and when they get to know me better, start working with them on self esteem, sex education, etc. There is a Spanish volunteer from Barcelona who works at both those places and she is very nice. I love talking to her because she speaks beautiful Spanish, not Spanish mixed with Guarani and it reminds me of my days in Spain.
The kids are really warming up to me. They run up to me and shout my name when they see me coming through the door or up my street and that feels great. Some days I get really sick of being compared to Sarah, the previous volunteer .The other day I was in a store and the woman asked me if i spoke Guarani. I said "no" even though i do speak a little bit. She said "well, sarah spoke Guarani" and I said "well, i want to learn but i've only been here a few weeks. I am sure after 2 years sarah spoke well" she then responded "well sarah spoke it after just one week, so i hope you learn fast" I then said "i am not sarah, i am jill" and then i paid for my food and walked away. For the most part though people are really good about treating me with respect and interest and not assuming I am just like her. In many ways being a follow up is great. My family and neighborhood are already accustomed to the strange ways and hours of an American so it saves me a lot of trouble and starring.
Other than the after school program, group home and watching/helping Chris (the other volunteer in my site) do his radio show I've sat in at a school to watch a class and get to know the teachers(soooo different from U.S classrooms) and have just basically been walking around town meeting various people. I have planted many seeds that could potentially grow into great work projects and now I just need to help water those seeds, cultivate the land and make sure I am not doing it alone. when i leave in 2 years I want to make sure there are many more hands that will continue to farm the land so it can keep producing whatever it is the community decides to grow. Right now, I am still working on finding out what excatly they want from me since it would be silly and a waste of time for me to start in one direction and be growing tomatoes when they want carrots.
It's only been 3 weeks and I have already made a trip into Asuncion this weekend to meet up with friends from my training group and see a Mana concert Sunday night. I'm going to search the Peace Corps office for materials to bring back with me on Monday so it's actually a pleasure/business trip!
The country director came up for the inauguration of the town's 1st and only public library (that two other previous volunteers and the youth group helped create) , then I got to go to Luke's site presentation (he is my closest neighbor 5 k away-that's where our boss comes up and introduces you to the community and explains what Peace Corps is, etc) Then there was the anniversary of Horqueta so there was a parade and parties for that, then mother's day was another holiday where there was no school and this week I got to meet with the ambassador.
The ambassador likes to travel around the country a lot and speak with the people. He speaks Guarani really well and is a very down to earth guy. He was in the area up here in the north of the country and wanted to have an informal meeting with Peace Corps volunteers. About 7 of us went and we walked into a hotel lobby where we were surrounded by a bunch of guards with huge guns and a man in a suit and a clipboard said "the ambassador is waiting for you upstairs". We went upstairs and sat down at a table with him. There were snacky foods on the table like cheese and olives and he ordered us a bunch of beer and said "don't make me drink all this myself". Of course 7 starving volunteers were not going pass up free food and drinks. (We ended up seeing him at the same restaurant after the meeting and he sent over a bunch of food to our table and we got a free bottle of wine from the restaurant too). He asked what the main problems were in our sites, gave us 250 parasite pills to distribute in our communities, informed us about some donation and scholarship programs availbable for us to take advantage of and just chatted with us about the different countries he's lived in and how he got involved in foreign service work. He encourage me to write him a letter to request books for the library in my town and computers for the school. I am going to give it a shot. It was really interesting to hear how the U.S Embassy kind of deals with development from the top down and share with him Peace Corp's experience with dealing with it from grassroots level. It's a good thing in my opinion that both are present in this country. It is a country with so much potential but it seems that Paraguayans don't feel they can progress. It's like a country that has the self esteem of a hormonal teenager, with this "we can't do it" attitude. I guess that's what you get after so many years of dictatorship, people that have difficulty thinking outside the box. Even coloring books have one blank page and the other page is the excact drawing with the colors already colored in and children copy it! Children are very good at copying, that's all they do in school, creativity is definately lacking in their minds. That's what makes doing creative projects with them so much fun and challenging at the same time!
So, I am trying to use my creative mind and come up with ideas to do in my community. I have been spending a lot of time at an after/before school program just observing and helping out. Kids from age 3 to 14 go there for 2 hours. They do games for the first hour, get a snack, a shower and the second hour is more or less some kind of learning activity or lesson. The director is a very progressive thinking woman and has become more of an official contact for me. My role there will be to bring in ideas, activities and give lessons to the kids one day a week. That director also helps run a girl's group home and wants me to get involved in that. I have spent a little time there and the 30 teenage girls that live there are wonderful. I am thinking of starting a yoga/excersise class with them and when they get to know me better, start working with them on self esteem, sex education, etc. There is a Spanish volunteer from Barcelona who works at both those places and she is very nice. I love talking to her because she speaks beautiful Spanish, not Spanish mixed with Guarani and it reminds me of my days in Spain.
The kids are really warming up to me. They run up to me and shout my name when they see me coming through the door or up my street and that feels great. Some days I get really sick of being compared to Sarah, the previous volunteer .The other day I was in a store and the woman asked me if i spoke Guarani. I said "no" even though i do speak a little bit. She said "well, sarah spoke Guarani" and I said "well, i want to learn but i've only been here a few weeks. I am sure after 2 years sarah spoke well" she then responded "well sarah spoke it after just one week, so i hope you learn fast" I then said "i am not sarah, i am jill" and then i paid for my food and walked away. For the most part though people are really good about treating me with respect and interest and not assuming I am just like her. In many ways being a follow up is great. My family and neighborhood are already accustomed to the strange ways and hours of an American so it saves me a lot of trouble and starring.
Other than the after school program, group home and watching/helping Chris (the other volunteer in my site) do his radio show I've sat in at a school to watch a class and get to know the teachers(soooo different from U.S classrooms) and have just basically been walking around town meeting various people. I have planted many seeds that could potentially grow into great work projects and now I just need to help water those seeds, cultivate the land and make sure I am not doing it alone. when i leave in 2 years I want to make sure there are many more hands that will continue to farm the land so it can keep producing whatever it is the community decides to grow. Right now, I am still working on finding out what excatly they want from me since it would be silly and a waste of time for me to start in one direction and be growing tomatoes when they want carrots.
It's only been 3 weeks and I have already made a trip into Asuncion this weekend to meet up with friends from my training group and see a Mana concert Sunday night. I'm going to search the Peace Corps office for materials to bring back with me on Monday so it's actually a pleasure/business trip!
Friday, May 4, 2007
First Week in Site
Friday April 27th I woke up at 5:30am, ate breakfast with my host mom in Guarambaré then quickly got dressed in my fancy dress that I had made for about 10 bucks by the local seamstress (fits like a glove because it´s designed by me and she took my measurements) put on makeup for the first time in months and met the rest of my trainees at 6:30am to go to Asuncion for our swearing in ceremony. We got driven to the Peace Corps office where we were searched and patted down then piled into another van that had been searched as well. We were then driven a few blocks away to the U.S Embassy where we had a short, sweet ceremony to swear us in as volunteers. The U.S Ambassador spoke, our country director spoke, one of our trainees spoke and randomly some important U.S representative that works in foreign affairs was visiting and decided to swing by and give a speech too. The press was there and filmed the whole thing. Doubt any of the footage made it to the states but it did air in Paraguay nationally! We had to stand and raise our right hand and swear to protect the constitution against all enemies....and then we were volunteers!!! Afterwards there was cake and I got to talk to the Ambassador for a good 20 min or so. He is a nice guy. The Embassy has the only nice pool i have ever seen in Paraguay and we get to use it as volunteers!
After the ceremony we went back to the Peace Corps office, got our cells phones. Yes, you heard me I have a cell phone now. What is this Peace Corps or Posh Corps? We all stayed in Asuncion in a nice hotel all weekend and celebrated and spent time together before we all had to split up and go to our sites. It was fun, we went to clubs, danced the night away and enjoyed air conditioning, comfy beds and hot showers in the hotel.
Monday morning I got on a bus and 6 hours later I arrived in my site, Horqueta. I got off the bus at the terminal and realized I had no idea how to get to my house so I used my new cell phone and sent a text message to the Municpality Peace Corps volunteer that lives in my site, Chris. He replied "no I will not help you find your house, that´s part of being a new volunteer" Then he said he was joking 5 min later and came and got me. I took a taxi since I had all my crap with me and arrived at my new home. It´s about as awkward as it sounds just showing up at the house and being like "here I am, I´m moving in for 2 years".
I actually feel pretty lucky that I have another volunteer in my site. He has been a great help since he has been here for 2 years. He will leave in August so for my first few months I´ll have him to help get me started. My initial contact is a very involved, active youth too named Celso and he has been so much help too.
I am living in the same house the previous urban youth volunteer lived in. It is a cute, little house in the back of the family´s house. She didn´t leave any of her furniture so i went to a local carpenter and had him make me a bed, kitchen table with 2 chairs, and two little tables. The furniture is beautiful, when would I ever have furniture like that made in the U.S all for around 300 dollars??? I did get ripped off pretty badly on a mattress but everything else was a good deal. I have a little stove and bought some kitchen utensils so as soon as I figure out where to buy my food I will be able to cook for myself! I plan to eat lunch with the family though and since lunch is the main meal of the day, my dinners will be light.
The house is situated right near a cemetary and a soccer field. what more could a girl want, eh? There are kids everywhere on my street and every evening I play frisbee with them. They watch me wash my clothes, they follow me everywhere and constantly are interested in what I am doing. They are really cute but I have to set boundaries with them like they are not allowed to come in my house and once it is dark they can´t knock on my door. Sounds kind of mean but otherwise they would just never leave me alone.
Chris and the volunteer I followed up had a radio show every Wednesday where they educated the community about various topics and also just had a lot of fun, told jokes, etc. I did the radio show with Chris this week, he just interviewed me and talked about how I am the replacement, etc. We had fun with it so it looks like that will be one of my projects. Next week we will talk about what Urban Youth volunteers do and what my plans are.
So what are my plans??? I still am not sure. Right now I am getting settled in, getting to know people. My first project will be to create a survey to find out what youth do in their spare time in my neighborhood, etc. I am going to have a local youth group help me with it and then report the findings to the Municipality. From that I hope to see what the interests and needs are a bit more clearly. June 5th is Earth Day and I am going to to my first foramal lesson on trash and the environment in a school then. I will talk about what kinds of trash you can burn, what kinds you need to bury and what you can recycle. (here in Paraguay most trash gets burned, plastics and everything). I will bring in a huge bag of trash (clean trash) and dump it on the ground in the classroom and have each student take a piece. After the lesson they will have to come up and put it in the appropriate pile. I then want to follow up by teaching them out to make drinking glasses out of wine bottles. It is easy to do and fun and demonstrates a way to recycle and reuse.
Other than that I am starting to give private English lessons to my youth contact. He already knows a little bit and is very interested in learning. I will do that at the library and I am sure it will progress into a larger English class. Okay, so i guess I do have some plans right now.
I also want to fix up my house and I am going to try and build a garbage pit in my backyard that the family and I can use. There is no garbage collection here, trash is burned in the yard or on the street. At home we use landfills and a garbage pit is a hole a meter deep that acts as a mini landfill. I learned how to make a fence out of bamboo in training to put around it so kids and animals don´t get into it. These are all things that will get me through my first couple months and keep me from being bored. Eventually I hope to be doing work with the girl´s group home and possibly do a yoga class with them or some sort of excersise class, work with them on self esteem activities, team building activities, sex education, etc. That´s all further down the road.
I have a new address here. It is:
Jill Anderson
Barrio San Roque
Horqueta 8820
Paraguay, South America
Thanks to everyone who has mailed me letters and packages. So appreciated! I miss things like starburst, sour patch kids and instant hot chocolate and American chips like cheetos, good tortilla chips and salsa if anyone out there is wondering ;)
That´s all I have to say for now. I´ve only been a real volunteer for about 4 days now. These four days have gone by fast and Chris said it feels like just yesterday he was at his one year mark. That is encouraging. My 27 months is down to 24 now.....and the real challenge and the real fun is about to begin!
After the ceremony we went back to the Peace Corps office, got our cells phones. Yes, you heard me I have a cell phone now. What is this Peace Corps or Posh Corps? We all stayed in Asuncion in a nice hotel all weekend and celebrated and spent time together before we all had to split up and go to our sites. It was fun, we went to clubs, danced the night away and enjoyed air conditioning, comfy beds and hot showers in the hotel.
Monday morning I got on a bus and 6 hours later I arrived in my site, Horqueta. I got off the bus at the terminal and realized I had no idea how to get to my house so I used my new cell phone and sent a text message to the Municpality Peace Corps volunteer that lives in my site, Chris. He replied "no I will not help you find your house, that´s part of being a new volunteer" Then he said he was joking 5 min later and came and got me. I took a taxi since I had all my crap with me and arrived at my new home. It´s about as awkward as it sounds just showing up at the house and being like "here I am, I´m moving in for 2 years".
I actually feel pretty lucky that I have another volunteer in my site. He has been a great help since he has been here for 2 years. He will leave in August so for my first few months I´ll have him to help get me started. My initial contact is a very involved, active youth too named Celso and he has been so much help too.
I am living in the same house the previous urban youth volunteer lived in. It is a cute, little house in the back of the family´s house. She didn´t leave any of her furniture so i went to a local carpenter and had him make me a bed, kitchen table with 2 chairs, and two little tables. The furniture is beautiful, when would I ever have furniture like that made in the U.S all for around 300 dollars??? I did get ripped off pretty badly on a mattress but everything else was a good deal. I have a little stove and bought some kitchen utensils so as soon as I figure out where to buy my food I will be able to cook for myself! I plan to eat lunch with the family though and since lunch is the main meal of the day, my dinners will be light.
The house is situated right near a cemetary and a soccer field. what more could a girl want, eh? There are kids everywhere on my street and every evening I play frisbee with them. They watch me wash my clothes, they follow me everywhere and constantly are interested in what I am doing. They are really cute but I have to set boundaries with them like they are not allowed to come in my house and once it is dark they can´t knock on my door. Sounds kind of mean but otherwise they would just never leave me alone.
Chris and the volunteer I followed up had a radio show every Wednesday where they educated the community about various topics and also just had a lot of fun, told jokes, etc. I did the radio show with Chris this week, he just interviewed me and talked about how I am the replacement, etc. We had fun with it so it looks like that will be one of my projects. Next week we will talk about what Urban Youth volunteers do and what my plans are.
So what are my plans??? I still am not sure. Right now I am getting settled in, getting to know people. My first project will be to create a survey to find out what youth do in their spare time in my neighborhood, etc. I am going to have a local youth group help me with it and then report the findings to the Municipality. From that I hope to see what the interests and needs are a bit more clearly. June 5th is Earth Day and I am going to to my first foramal lesson on trash and the environment in a school then. I will talk about what kinds of trash you can burn, what kinds you need to bury and what you can recycle. (here in Paraguay most trash gets burned, plastics and everything). I will bring in a huge bag of trash (clean trash) and dump it on the ground in the classroom and have each student take a piece. After the lesson they will have to come up and put it in the appropriate pile. I then want to follow up by teaching them out to make drinking glasses out of wine bottles. It is easy to do and fun and demonstrates a way to recycle and reuse.
Other than that I am starting to give private English lessons to my youth contact. He already knows a little bit and is very interested in learning. I will do that at the library and I am sure it will progress into a larger English class. Okay, so i guess I do have some plans right now.
I also want to fix up my house and I am going to try and build a garbage pit in my backyard that the family and I can use. There is no garbage collection here, trash is burned in the yard or on the street. At home we use landfills and a garbage pit is a hole a meter deep that acts as a mini landfill. I learned how to make a fence out of bamboo in training to put around it so kids and animals don´t get into it. These are all things that will get me through my first couple months and keep me from being bored. Eventually I hope to be doing work with the girl´s group home and possibly do a yoga class with them or some sort of excersise class, work with them on self esteem activities, team building activities, sex education, etc. That´s all further down the road.
I have a new address here. It is:
Jill Anderson
Barrio San Roque
Horqueta 8820
Paraguay, South America
Thanks to everyone who has mailed me letters and packages. So appreciated! I miss things like starburst, sour patch kids and instant hot chocolate and American chips like cheetos, good tortilla chips and salsa if anyone out there is wondering ;)
That´s all I have to say for now. I´ve only been a real volunteer for about 4 days now. These four days have gone by fast and Chris said it feels like just yesterday he was at his one year mark. That is encouraging. My 27 months is down to 24 now.....and the real challenge and the real fun is about to begin!
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