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!