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!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
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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