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.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
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.
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