Karen in Paraguay

2011-01-21T16:37:00.001-03:00

Hay" es de haber, "ahí" es de lugar, "ay" es de exclamación y "ahy" no existe!! “Haya” es de haber, “halla” es de hallar cosas (encontrar) “allá” es de lugar, HAIGA no existe. "Haber" es un verbo y si lo que quieres es ver (de vista) debes escribir "a ver". “Botar” es saltar y “votar” es tu derecho... esta cadena sí merece la pena reenviarla!

2011-01-06T20:17:00.000-03:00

http://www.nanduti.com.py/v1/

Trust in the slow work of God

2010-12-28T22:38:00.001-03:00

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability - and that it may take a very long time.
...
And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually - let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete."

'Patient Trust' - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Pura sabiduría

2010-12-26T15:40:00.002-03:00

"Cuando me amé de verdad comprendí que en cualquier
circunstancia, yo estaba en el lugar correcto, en la hora
correcta y en el momento exacto y entonces, pude relajarme.
Hoy sé que eso tiene un nombre…”AUTOESTIMA”
Cuando me amé de verdad, pude percibir que mi angustia y
mi sufrimiento emocional, no es sino una señal de que voy
contra mis propias verdades.Hoy sé que eso es…'AUTENTICIDAD'”

Cuando me amé de verdad, dejé de desear que mi vida fuera
diferente y comencé a ver todo lo que acontece y que contribuye a
mi crecimiento.

Hoy eso se llama…”MADUREZ”
...
Cuando me amé de verdad, comencé a percibir como es
ofensivo tratar de forzar alguna situación, o persona, solo
para realizar aquello que deseo, aún sabiendo que no es el
momento o la persona no está preparada, inclusive yo mismo.

Hoy sé que el nombre de eso es…”RESPETO”

Cuando me amé de verdad, comencé a librarme de todo lo que
no fuese saludable…, personas, situaciones, todo y cualquier cosa
que me empujara hacia abajo. De inicio mi razón llamó esa actitud
egoísmo.

Hoy se llama…”AMOR PROPIO”

Cuando me amé de verdad, dejé de temer al tiempo libre y desistí
de hacer grandes planes, abandoné los mega-proyectos de futuro.
Hoy hago lo que encuentro correcto, lo que me gusta, cuando quiero
y a mi propio ritmo.

Hoy sé que eso es…”SIMPLICIDAD”

Cuando me amé de verdad, desistí de querer tener siempre la razón y
con eso, erré menos veces.

Hoy descubrí que eso es la…”HUMILDAD”

Cuando me amé de verdad, desistí de quedar reviviendo el pasado y
preocuparme por el futuro. Ahora, me mantengo en el presente, que es
donde la vida acontece. Hoy vivo un día a la vez.

Y eso se llama…”PLENITUD”

Cuando me amé de verdad, percibí que mi mente puede atormentarme y
decepcionarme. Pero cuando yo la coloco al servicio de mi corazón, ella
tiene una gran y valiosa aliada.

Todo eso es…”SABER VIVIR!”

“ No debemos tener miedo de confrontarnos…
…hasta los planetas chocan y del caos nacen las estrellas. ”

- Gracias a Karen por compartir estos!

"First" world and "developing" world

2010-11-24T19:54:00.001-03:00

"I thought that poor people were somehow better, more honest, and more alive than people with money, not realizing that the absence of money in a society built around it could be as corrupting as money itself." -Moritz Thomsen, Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle, 1969

El corazón dice...

2010-11-09T23:01:00.000-03:00

"Es imposible". dijo el orgullo. "Es arriesgado". dijo la experiencia. "No tiene sentido." dijo la razón. "Inténtalo" susurró el corazón.

Psychological Adjustment Issues of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

2010-07-18T12:01:00.000-04:00

http://knol.google.com/k/peace-corps-volunteers#

Landlocked Countries: Opportunities, Challenges, Recommendations

2010-07-11T22:18:00.001-04:00

http://www1.unece.org/unece/cgi-bin/unece.cgi/en/d/Js3683e/

Agricultural investment: An alternative of world integration?

2010-07-08T08:08:00.001-04:00

http://www.cadep.org.py/V2/sistema/editor/UserFiles/Image/La_Inversion_en_Agricultura.pdf

"Un lugar terriblemente bueno"

2010-07-06T00:26:00.005-04:00

Mi corazón arde al ver el escenario de este video. Julio, me recuerdas de todos los momentos frustrantes, lindos, confusos, calurosos, fríos, felices, tristes y únicos que pasé en el pueblo que ahora considero parte de mi ser. Me causa una pena placentera rememorar todo que pasó en ese "rincón chaqueño". Gracias por ponerlo a música y palabras.

Subtle differences

2010-07-02T17:00:00.003-04:00

"After awhile you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,

With the grace of a woman,
not the grief of a child

And you learn to build all your roads on today,
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After awhile you learn that even sunshine
Burns if you get too much

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers

And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth,
and you learn and learn...
With every good bye you learn."

-Veronica Shoffstall, 1971

Rohechaga'ueterei Paraguay!

2009-10-08T21:10:00.002-04:00

An interesting link about doing business in Paraguay:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/?economyid=151

http://countrystudies.us/paraguay/

Back in Paraguay

2009-08-31T09:48:00.002-04:00

I returned to Pguay with the dark pink lazpacho trees blooming. Spring seems to have already arrived here, and I love it!

After being gone for awhile, I notice the distinct smells of my town: smoky, like there's always a bonfire, sugar carmelizing for cocido /burnt sugar with burnt yerba mate with hot water. Also asado, or steak; some flower that smells like jasmine but I think it actually something else. The few times I have been walking around since my return I smell it, then look for the jasmine but don't see it.

This past weekend was our fiesta patronal for BA's patron saint, St. Rose of Lima. Her feast day is Aug. 30, so on that day the town decorates the streets where her statue will process with streamers, flags and paper flowers. Everyone and their mother comes out to process after the high mass at three pm. For nine days before the 30th, there is mass every night either in the basilica in the center of town or in chapels throughout town. Different schools are responsible for singing in the liturgy or presenting something special for the mass. There are also music festivals, a torin / like a bull fight but there's just rough play with the bulls rather than killing. In the torin there are three guys that dress up like clowns and they tell jokes in Guarani. I went last year but didn't understand a thing they were saying. There were THREE torins on three different nights this year for the fiesta patronal. I didn't go because I am still recovering from my trip. There was also a jineteada, which is basically a horse show. People ride their horses around a full tilt to show off. I'm not a huge fan / I've been to two others before, so I took the opportunity to organize my house and rest. Saturday night there was a huge dance party at the main soccer field. There were hundreds of people there; I went and left at 2:30 am whereas most people stayed until 6 am. I'm still really tired! Just today I finished unpacking my bags. Now I have more clothes than I know what to do with!

It was so nice to see my family while I was at home. After spending time with you I miss you even more now!

Good to be back...

2009-08-11T18:48:00.002-04:00

It's nice to be back in a familiar place where I have experienced so much and to see my family. I have been tired and on the run since I arrived, or at least it seems that way. In spite of there being no time difference, the 13 hour trip sure takes it out of you!

I have been waking up at 6 am after going to bed about 10:30, but I am still tired when I wake up! I didn't take a nap today. I'm missing my occasional siestas! Call me lazy!

The lawns here are so manicured and everything is so controlled, bridled and manipulated. Most fertilize their lawns, so there are no "jujos", or weeks (some of which can be remedies to put in terere!)

I know that I will adjust to being in the States after awhile, but being here feels less real. It feels distant...I feel the same way I felt being here that I did before I left for Paraguay. OK, but not joyful or happy or content. I can say that I was happy in Paraguay. Why does happiness have to be so complicated? Why do I have to think about whether or not I will be happy in the future? Why can't I be happy RIGHT NOW? I have never felt like I've truly been living like I was there. Is it wrong? Should I stop? How do I know if I'm doing it right? The more I live and the more people I talk to about how to be happy, I don't think there is any way to know if I'm making the "right" decisions. I just live, and whatever decision I make, I live with the consequences.

I went to Vaquero's today and had to stop myself from not mixing Guarani with Spanish. Christie and I took the guampa into the restaurant with us; I had to explain to them what it was, ha ha.

Tired!

2009-07-20T19:39:00.001-04:00

After visiting other volunteers for a few days, I am exhausted! I am so happy to be back in my little house! More to come tomorrow.

Only about two more weeks until AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL!!!

What it means to be poor

2009-06-30T09:50:00.008-04:00

Qué significa ser pobre? Un Padre económicamente acomodado, queriendo que su hijo supiera lo que es ser pobre, lo llevó para que pasara un par de días en el monte con una familia campesina.
Pasaron tres días y dos noches en su vivienda del campo. En el carro, retornando a la ciudad, el padre preguntó a su hijo —¿Qué te pareció la experiencia?...

What does it mean to be poor?A father, well-off economically, wanting that his son see what it is to be poor, took him to pass a couple of days in a rural area with a peasant family. They passed three days and two nights in the family's home. In the car on the way back to their home in the city, the father asked his son, "How was your experience?"

Buena, contestó el hijo con la miradapuesta a la distancia.—Y... ¿qué aprendiste?, insistió elpadre...El hijo contestó:• Que nosotros tenemos un perro yellos tienen cuatro. • Nosotros tenemosuna piscina con agua estancada quellega a la mitad del jardín... y ellostienen un río sin fin, de aguacristalina, donde hay pececitos, berroy otras bellezas. • Que nosotrosimportamos linternas del Orientepara alumbrar nuestro jardín...mientras que ellos se alumbran conlas estrellas y la luna. •

"Good," answered the son, looking out in the distance.
"And what did you learn?" the father insisted.
The son answered, "That we have one dog, while they have four. We have one pool with standing water that extends to the middle of our garden. They have a never-ending river, with crystal clear water, where there are little fish and other pretty things. We want Chinese lanterns to light our garden, while they light theirs with the moon and stars.

Nuestro patio llega hasta la cerca...y el de ellos llegaal horizonte. • Que nosotros compramos nuestracomida;...ellos, siembran y cosechan la de ellos. •Nosotros oímos CD's... Ellos escuchan una perpetuasinfonía de bimbines, chuíos, pericos, ranas, saposcocorrones y otros animalitos....todo esto a vecesdominado por la sonora saloma de un vecino quetrabaja su monte.

"Our patio reaches the sidewalk, theirs reaches the horizon. We buy our food, they plant and harvest theirs. We listen to CDs, they listen to the perpetual symphony of frogs, crickets, toads and other little animals...all of this at times dominated by the sound of a neighbor working his land."

• Nosotros cocinamos en estufa eléctrica...Ellos,todo lo que comen tiene ese glorioso sabor delfogón de leña. •Para protegernos nosotros vivimos rodeados porun muro, con alarmas.... Ellos viven con suspuertas abiertas, protegidos por la amistad de susvecinos. •

"We cook with an electric stove...Everything they eat has the glorious flavor of campfire wood. To protect ourselves we build walls with alarms. They live with their doors open, protected by the friendship of their neighbors."

Nosotros vivimos 'conectados' alcelular, a la computadora, altelevisor...Ellos, en cambio, están'conectados' a la vida, al cielo, alsol, al agua, al verde del monte, alos animales, a sus siembras, a sufamilia.

"We live 'connected' to cell phones, computers and TVs...They, on the other hand, are 'connected' to life, to the sky, the sun, water, to the green countryside, to animals, to their crops, to their family."

El padre quedó impactado por la profundidad de suhijo...y entonces el hijo terminó:

The father was shocked by the depth of his son's response...and then his son finished:

—Gracias papá, por haberme enseñadolos pobres que somos!Cada día estamos mas pobres de espíritu yde apreciación por la naturaleza que sonlas grandes obras de nuestro creador. Nospreocupamos por TENER, TENER,TENER Y MAS TENER en vez depreocuparnos por SER.

"Thanks Dad, for having shown me how poor we are! Everyday we are poorer in spirit we can appreciate more the nature that is the great work of our Creator. We preoccupy ourselves about HAVING, HAVING, HAVING and HAVING MORE instead of focusing on BEING."

Stargazing

2009-06-29T08:38:00.000-04:00

June 28, 2009

A warm front came in today. Strong, warm winds from the north that made you put a jacket on but then take it off. I took a long walk, stopped at a friend’s house on the way back, then laid out on a wall on the side of my porch to admire the Milky Way. I didn’t see any shooting stars tonight, but I picked out the Little Dipper, or Ursa Minor, and what I believe is the Southern Cross. No mosquitoes were biting me, and the wind blew threw the mango, grapefruit and palm trees as the crickets sounded. Todo tranquilo. Now I’m listening to CD of Guaranias by candlelight and fluorescent light. They are all slow ballads with Paraguayan harp, and are sang in Guarani or in Spanish, or in Spanish with Guarani words and vice versa. The feeling I get from listening to it is similar to Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. My radio is officially broken, so I rely completely on my computer for entertainment now. I don’t miss having a TV most of the time because the only thing that’s on is soap operas and the news. However, it would have been nice to learn more about the overthrow of power in Honduras. If I hadn’t been at my friend’s house this evening I wouldn’t have learned until days later.

Tomorrow I’ll be sending out an email to family and friends to raise some funds for Ahecha Paraguay, a Peace Corps project that teaches kids how to take photographs. The thing is that the national exhibit is happening now and many kids whose photos are in the exhibit can’t come to see their own work because they can’t afford hotel, travel and food expenses. In order for our young artists to revel in the glory of their work and to spend some time in their own nation’s capital (some have never been there, or if they have, very few times), we need your support. No contribution is too small, especially because we are talking in Guarani currency! Please, make your contributions before July 24th. Thank you!!!

Also, my muni’s library is in the process of receiving more books from the Spanish Embassy, but even after that receipt, they won’t have that many. The current collection is outdated and the volumes are few. I daresay that most people in my town don’t know that there’s a library at all. For those that do know of it, they don’t utilize the materials. The school library at the local Catholic school is heads and shoulders better than the municipal library. It should be the reverse. Consequently, if you have any contacts for obtaining books in Spanish, please let me know! My email address is Harmey2002@yahoo.com.

Tengo o-fri (frío!) - I'm cold!

2009-06-24T08:24:00.004-04:00

Mariscal Estigarribia statue, he was an important general in the Chaco War (I think!)

The next photo is the municipality in my site

This type of yellow flower grows wild in my yard!

Dogs in front of the regional hospital. Lovely. One can only be seen here if they have IPS (Institute of Social Provision) insurance.

Regional Hospital

Water pump in front of the Junta de Saneamiento, the water council that is responsible for maintaining three different wells that supply water to the majority of my town.

Tortilla! Think funnel cakes, más o menos

Me making tortillas. See how I've already lost my little bit of summer tan? Boo.

June 23, 2009

So what have I been up to lately, you ask? Last week I practiced for the Father’s Day music and dance fest in the nearest high school. I sang with two boys that are in the nearest colegio (high school) and Humberto. We were going to sing three songs but in the end we only did “Tu cárcel” by Marco Antonio Solis (also done by Enanitos verdes) and “Twist and shout” by the Beatles. During the week I practiced with one of the guitarists, and we watched Guns ‘n Roses video clips each time before we started to practice. Jorgito and his family expected me to know all of the words, but Guns ‘n Roses were a bit before my time. They asked me to translate “Welcome to the Jungle”, “November Rain”, “Sweet Child of Mine” and “Don’t Cry”, ha ha. Paraguayans’ taste in music never ceases to surprise me. I have more than a few friends that love the Cranberries; one of them that works in the muni had “Zombie” as his ring tone, and somehow I earned the same nickname. Others tell me how much they love Metallica and Avril Lavigne.

I enjoyed singing with other people and being with people who play guitar made me want to play, too! Then I remember how I tried to learn how to play guitar in college and how difficult tuning was. Nevertheless I still contemplate buying a guitar in Luque. It would be way cheaper for me to take lessons here and I actually have the time to devote to it, so why not? When else in my life will I have the time that I have now?

It has been raining the past two days, with some strong winds and thunder. Yesterday afternoon after my English class and visiting the high school where I sang in the festival, I went to one of my former neighbor’s house so that she could teach me to sew. I have yet to attempt on my actual clothes. It’s about time to learn how to do the things I should have learned in a home ec class, right? Today after lunch I made carrot cake, it turned out so yummy! I substituted vanilla yogurt for the cream cheese in the icing because there is no cream cheese in my site.

Luckily it is not terribly cold in my house now (knock on wood). Last week I saw some people carrying tied kindling on their backs, most likely for cooking, not for a heating stove.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to a high school to show a movie about the environment with a civil servant from the federal Environmental Office and a civil servant from the muni. Afterwards I’ll interview different neighborhood commissions to see if the officers are still the same and to see if they are still functioning. Most commissions begin with high motivation, but it eventually peters out until they no longer meet.

I am so ready to go home!!!!!!!!!!

2009-06-19T09:29:00.003-04:00

View of the eastern half of Paraguay from Villa Hayes
State (departmental) government building in Villa Hayes

Río Paraguay again, looking south towards Asunción

Peace in the Chaco Day parade in Villa Hayes. Police in formation

Band of musicians from the police academy with the drum major

Paraguay flag

Inspiring article from Rwandan President Paul Kagame

2009-06-17T10:30:00.003-04:00

Again, I the photos ended up showing up at the beginning of the blog entry instead of at the end like I wanted. Anywho, this is Sasha, Mateo's brother visiting from the States and Paulette at our 1 Year in Pgy fiesta

Rebecca and Jesús at the same fiesta

Me singing Hotel California at a Mother's Day Festival

Flowers in my yard.

This message is from Kathy Rulon, the Peace Corps Chief of Staff in Washington. It is an interesting message about Peace Corps from the president of Rwanda.
Since the publication of President Paul Kagame’s piece about Peace Corps/Rwanda on HuffingtonPost I have heard from a few of you about how meaningful the essay is to your work. As many of you know, we returned to Rwanda after a 15 year suspension -- the first trainee class of 32 was sworn in on April 15th in Kigali.

Posted: June 9, 2009 04:51 PM

A Different Discussion About Aid

By President Paul Kagame
President of the Republic of Rwanda

The United States of America has just sent a small number of its sons and daughters as Peace Corps volunteers to serve as teachers and advisors in Rwanda. They have arrived to assist, and we appreciate that. We are aware that this comes against the backdrop of increasingly scarce resources, of budget discussions and campaign promises, and of tradeoffs between defense and domestic priorities like health care and infrastructure investments. All that said, I believe we need to have a different discussion concerning the potential for bilateral aid.

The Peace Corps have returned to our country after 15 years. They were evacuated in 1994 just a short time before Rwanda collapsed into a genocide that killed over one million people in three months. Things have improved a lot in recent years. There is peace and stability throughout the nation. We have a progressive constitution that is consensus-driven, provides for power sharing, embraces diversity, and promotes the participation of women, who now represent the majority in our parliament. Our economy grew by more than 11% last year, even as the world entered a recession. We have chosen high-end segments of the coffee and tea markets in which to compete, and attract the most demanding world travelers to our tourism experiences. This has enabled us to increase wages by over 20% each year over the last eight years -- sustained by, among other things, investment in education, health and ICT.

We view the return of the Peace Corps as a significant event in Rwanda's recovery. These young men and women represent what is good about America; I have met former volunteers who have run major aid programs here, invested in our businesses, and I even count them among my friends and close advisors.

Peace Corps volunteers are well educated, optimistic, and keen to assist us as we continue to rebuild, but one must also recognize that we have much to offer them as well.
We will, for instance, show them our system of community justice, called Gacaca, where we integrated our need for nationwide reconciliation with our ancient tradition of clemency, and where violators are allowed to reassume their lives by proclaiming their crimes to their neighbors, and asking for forgiveness. We will present to them Rwanda's unique form of absolution, where the individuals who once exacted such harm on their neighbors and ran across national borders to hide from justice are being invited back to resume their farms and homes to live peacefully with those same families.

We will show your sons and daughters our civic tradition of Umuganda, where one day a month, citizens, including myself, congregate in the fields to weed, clean our streets, and build homes for the needy. We will teach your children to prepare and enjoy our foods and speak our language. We will invite them to our weddings and funerals, and out into the communities to observe our traditions. We will teach them that in Africa, family is a broad and all-encompassing concept, and that an entire generation treats the next as its own children.

And we will have discussions in the restaurants, and debates in our staff rooms and classrooms where we will learn from one another: What is the nature of prosperity? Is it subsoil assets, location and sunshine, or is it based on human initiative, the productivity of our firms, the foresight of our entrepreneurs? What is a cohesive society, and how can we strengthen it?
How can we improve tolerance and build a common vision between people who perceive differences in one another, increase civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and self-esteem? How does a nation recognize and develop the leaders of future generations? What is the relationship between humans and the earth? And how are we to meet our needs while revering the earth as the womb of humankind? These are the questions of our time.

While some consider development mostly in terms of infusion of capital, budgets and head counts, we in Rwanda place equal importance to relationships between peoples who have a passion to learn from one another, preparing the next generation of teachers, administrators and CEOs to see the exchange of values and ideas as the way to build the competencies of our people, and to create a prosperous nation.

We will do this because we see that the only investment with the possibility of infinite returns is in our children, and because after a couple of years in Rwanda, working and learning with our people, these Peace Corps volunteers will be our sons and daughters, too.

In spite of me not being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda, much of what President Kagame says, such as "these Peace Corps volunteers will be our sons and daughters, too" rings true for me.

2009-06-08T19:13:00.004-04:00

The last photos are from part two of a trash workshop that I did weeks ago, on May 23rd, a day with lots of thunder, a bit of lightning and lots of rain. Consequently I had only four attendees in spite of inviting around 30. If you could only see my super nice handmade invitation!

Lucas, the volunteer who lives closest to me and is a member of the group that most recently swore in as volunteers, came to help me conduct the workshop. We reviewed the consequences of burning inorganic materials in one’s trash pile, what plants need from the soil to live, different ways that trash is disposed in Paraguay (throwing in any old place, burning, burying) and the advantages and disadvantages of each disposal technique. We also learned how to make a compost pile and at the end we made recycled paper.

In the long run I think that if I want to implement a recycling and/or trash management program, I need to do so in the high schools. All of the high schools in my town except one start at 5 pm and go until 9:50 pm! Not the best schedule in the world, but if I really want to do it, then I guess I’ll be working at night as well.

The first photos are from one of my English student’s quinceañera last Saturday. Quinceañeras here in Paraguay are enormous events. I don’t know how much her family spent on the party, but from the deejay to the band, cake, the entire cow that was slaughtered, her dress, the beer and soda, they easily spent 5 million Guaranies, equivalently equal to $1,000. Considering that the minimum wage in Paraguay is approximately 1,300,000 Guaranies per month, that is a colossal sum for just a quince años. It’s such a big event that it nearly matches or surpasses a wedding.

I was accompanied by the only two uniformed guys present at the quinceañera, hehe. These first photos were them at about 3 am, mind you.

This rose is from my front patio!

A taste of what Peace Corps Paraguay is really like

2009-06-05T11:21:00.003-04:00

I think that you'll like this, have a peek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZA78xUzwTA

Jesús Rosario, from Puerto Rico, and Pooja are both in my group of volunteers. I took Guaraní with Jesús during training.

So what's Paraguay really like?

2009-06-05T11:21:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZA78xUzwTA

Che ro'yhina! (I'm cold!)

2009-06-03T10:30:00.000-04:00

2 junio 2009

The temperature at 6 pm was 12 degrees C and I was cold! That’s only about 51 degrees F! What a baby I am, ha ha. If it were 50 degrees after the winter in Ohio I would be breaking out the shorts and going for a run outside.

Today was sunny, but with the cold southern wind blowing enough to merit a warm fleece and layers. Fortunately Mario, the head of the environmental department, told me that two gentlemen from PAS-PY (Proyecto de Aguas Subterráneas – Paraguay- Paraguayan Subterranean Water Project) were coming to continue their study of the fresh water in my town this morning. One of the men is Paraguayan but his mother is German and the other man is a German geophysicist. The latter is retired and is in Paraguay for one week to continue the fresh water study that his other German colleagues started. He is here through a German technical assistance program (BGR) that works in cooperation with the Environmental Department of the Paraguayan government. He speaks Spanish, English and obviously German. It was so cool to hear him speaking to Norman in German, to me in English, and amongst the three of us Spanish. Then, when Mario was around, Norman and I threw in some Guarani, ha ha.

I went with him and the Paraguayan gentleman, Norman, to a rural area of my site to see how to measure basalt deposits. The German gentleman, we’ll call him Johann, showed me how his electromagnetic apparatus works to measure the basalt. If there is a lot of basalt present, then there is no fresh water present. Sometimes there was “noise” in the readings: if a bus passed us, or if we walked past a building with a zinc roof, it interfered with the reading. The apparatus connected with eight satellites, but the satellites did not know that it connected with them. It also had GPS (relation to equator and Greenwich). Every ten meters Johann stopped to take a reading. On the screen it made curves. The curve lowered when there was metal present with high magnetism and rose when there was less magnetic material. I hope that I remember that correctly. It was all clear to me at the time that Johann was explaining it to me.

As we walked down the road, he asked me if I was still studying to receive a degree. He asked me why I didn’t consider pursue further study regarding what we were doing in that moment: water or something of that nature. I told him that I figured that in order to pursue study in any environmental field would require more chemistry and biology than I have in background. He told me that that was not true necessarily and really encouraged me to pursue the field if I was interested in it. Johann has traveled to every country in South America except Venezuela and French Guyana doing water studies. He has also been to Thailand. Other colleagues of his even went to Namibia in Africa. He recommended that I speak to his colleague Jorge of PAS-PY regarding further education and job opportunities with water management and/or waste management. In addition, he said that the experience I’m having here is very unique and could be a possible thesis topic if I end up getting my masters. He asked me if I was getting my masters as though he couldn’t believe that I wasn’t thinking about getting it. And I realized that he is totally right: being here in Paraguay surrounded by a lower proportion of people who have higher education can make you lower your personal standards! I feel adequate with just with a bachelor’s degree. I can’t explain to you how fantastic it was for him to give me some advice and contacts about the field of work and study. I may be 25, but I too have always wanted a mentor to tell me what it’s like to work in certain fields and to encourage me to keep studying and working.

During the course of the measurement I saw one of the three quarries in my town. It was so quiet there, with only the wind and the far-off sound of water trickling into the quarry. In the distance we could see the wetland that led to the river that we hope to make a nature preserve. I saw monarch butterflies and yellow birds. The owner of the quarry told us that people leave their unwanted dogs there; so there were five different emaciated dogs running around. Not long ago the dogs killed a baby leopard that entered from the forest that borders the quarry. The stupid mutt dogs killed the beautiful, endangered leopard, those rascals! Grrrr. The owner showed us the photo on his cell phone. As we were exiting the quarry property, he gestured to the baby leopard’s hide hanging from the edge of his thin zinc roof. So Paraguayan ha ha. Johann mentioned that as he was measuring around the quarry he saw two pairs of new paw prints, so most likely there are more leopards! Yay. Out of all of the animals in this world my favorites are primates, manatees, turtles and leopards.

*********

“Problemas y plata no tenemos.” – A certain Mrs. González.

“We don’t have any problems or money.” LoL

Bruised on the left knee on the Trans-Chaco Highway

2009-06-01T19:37:00.001-04:00

I couldn’t do any yoga after my run today because of the bruise I have from falling off the Loma Grandense in a mad rush to catch the Chaqueña on the way back to my site from Villa Florida on Sunday. I fell hard and without control, my green norteamericana backpack and messenger bag not helping me to brace my fall.

Finally the sun was out today, so everyone in my town had the opportunity to wash all of their clothes. I joined in, but only to a certain extent because I was short on time and clothes line to dry the clean articles. The rest of my clothing I took to my surrogate family’s house, thinking that I would have enough time before my first day of my new English class to wash and hang a few loads. Since the señora already had a load in her machine I had to wait, and before I knew it, the hour for class had arrived. She made me leave my three loads there for her to wash. Bless her heart, if it weren’t for women like here I don’t know what I would do in this country. I rely on her more now that I live alone.

I enjoy teaching—when the kids are good! Today I had four seven year olds, three girls and one boy, all from the same second grade class. Their parents want me to teach them English and to reinforce the lessons of their school’s English teacher, who apparently doesn’t teach and doesn’t know English that well. I found various mistakes in her corrections in the students’ notes. It would be better to have more students, to maximize my time and to reach more kids. We’ll hope that I can make it happen.

Speaking of English, I have so many requests to teach people that I could easily fill my days in site just teaching English. People don’t ask me to do anything else besides that. The sad part is that it’s the topic I know best and that I could actually consider myself a professional in, especially considering that I majored in Spanish. But I’m a municipal services development volunteer, not a English as a Second Language volunteer.

It was in the 50s today and I was cold! I’m so used to the Paraguayan heat now that the smallest chill can get to me! Also the houses don’t have insulation nor central heating, so when it’s bitter cold, one has to walk around with multiple layers and sleep in one’s thermal sleeping bag like I do.

I was stupid and returned from Villa Florida early (where the one year in Paraguay party was for the volunteers in my group). I feel like I’m not as close to other volunteers as I should be, but I know that if I spent a lot more time with them either physically with them or just talking to them on the phone, I would feel that I wasn’t “immersing” myself enough with Paraguayans. It’s a constant battle trying to stay connected but at the same time enjoy the tranquilo-ness of the natives. How can I be just one or the other?

Sundays I always feel lonely in my house. Now that it’s winter it gets dark a bit after five, and it is a bit lonely. I try to keep busy so that the knowledge that I am so alone doesn’t get to me. I have a neighbor next door but it’s not the same as before and I don’t know as many people as I did in my first neighborhood. When I was in high school and college I relished alone time, but now I don’t like to be alone much. I prefer to be drinking mate and terere with others and cooking and sharing meals with others. Looking back, I believe that the main reason why I didn’t like high school much was because that I was mostly alone all the time, if not physically, then mentally. For example, at BWHS classmates and teammates always surrounded me, but I didn’t have the luxury of time to spend with them, or maybe I just didn’t want to spend time with them. Thank God for college, more Seattle, and even more Peace Corps, for making me realize how paramount human relationships are, and how they are the basis for happiness and satisfaction in this life. I am so happy here because people know how to relax here and enjoy life no matter what. I have learned the meaning of the saying, “The greatest gift that you can give someone is your time.” I have become quite talented at living in the moment, bringing me a lightness of heart. But what will I do when I go back to the REAL world? Aaaahhh! Ha ha.

So, the Cavs are doing pretty well I hear? CLEVELAND ROCKS, don’t u forget it.

It's still raining

2009-05-30T07:43:00.003-04:00

Gosh, if I didn't know any better I'd think that I was in Seattle! Rain, rain and more rain. I would imagine that the drought that I mentioned before is officially over. It just doesn't feel like Paraguay without strong UVB ray content sun glaring down on me.

Clothes that I washed two days ago are still not dry because the only place free of cold air and moisture is behind my refrigerator. The Peace Corps Volunteer tactic to dry clothes is to put them there. I doubt that I would have ever learned that cool trick unless I were a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Last night I slept in wool socks and a wool vest. I later removed the socks because I got hot, but I had to sleep in near fetal position to stay warm through the night. I set my alarm for six-thirty with the hopes of going for a run, but the thought of running in wet, cold drizzle and having no heat or place to dry off adequately afterwards made me stay inside.

This is my last day of Internet in my house, unfortunately. Thanks to Tessa for making my short lived accessible connection possible.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Photos, top from bottom:

Mother's Day in the Police Academy: May 12

Sunset, around May 3

Rainbow after the rain, May 3

Surfing the Internet by candlelight

2009-05-28T22:18:00.003-04:00

This is the sixth consecutive day of clouds, rain, or the possibility of rain. Thanks to Tessa I have temporary wireless Internet :), albeit rather slow here.

I recently made Paraguayan style tortillas with potato slices. We put ketchup on top and had some wine mixed with Simba soda. Simba is Guarana flavored, yummy! The tortillas are more or less like funnel cakes, but salty, not sweet. Sometimes when I see someone making tortillas or I'm making them with someone I'm reminded of making funnel cakes with the powdered sugar on top with my sister Amy as a kid.

Tomorrow I will be getting up early and possibly catching the 6:40 am bus to go to a high school. I want to publicize a scholarship for students who have outstanding grades, community service and can demonstrate financial need. I will be going to my tokaya- a girl who is also named Karen. Tonight I went to another high school to publicize the scholarship. Even though the applications won't be available until November and won't be turned in until the beginning of December, it's important to alert the kids now to keep studying and to do more community service or to keep doing the service they are doing.

Next week I'll be starting another English class; a lot of people have been asking me to. I feel like a jerk not accepting more requests for one-on-one tutoring, but I don't want to devote all my time to being an English teacher. The difficult part to swallow is that I know I'm better at teaching English than I am at doing anything else here. Since I have studied other foreign languages and I studied Spanish for so long I can explain it better than I think an average Joe off the street could.

Tomorrow I complete ONE YEAR in Paraguay! It seems that I should stop, look around, scream, pray, yell, party, call all of the other volunteers in my G and go on a retreat all at once. I'm glad I have a year left, because that means I have more time to do work. On the other hand, in one year I'm sure that I will transform even more than I already have. It will interesting to go home in two months, because then the ways I have changed will be more evident to me than they are now.

My sister G (aka, the other municipal services development group that is like our little sister) just arrived today, just like we did around a year ago. I will be meeting them next Thursday when I help with a training session in Guarambare about the organization of the municipality--what are the responsibilities of the mayor, secretary general and council members.

My house is coming together more and more all the time: yesterday an unfinished wood table, 120 cm x 76 cm if I recall correctly. It's perfect for working; the other tables I had that my friend lent me are way too small; there is no room to spread out.

I posted more photos on my Facebook tonight; you can see more there. XO XO

I have a fridge!

2009-05-19T18:25:00.002-04:00

May 18, 2009

This whole month of May is Patria Month; Paraguay’s Independence Day was last Thursday and also on Friday. It’s two days because the revolution began late on May 14th and continued until early in the morning on the 15th. The 15th is also Mother’s Day. I ate lunch with Cristina and her family that day. We had asado (grilled ribs, but with lots more fat than in the States), pork, chinchulín (cow intestines—I tried it and it was not good; suprise!) rice salad, potato salad (not like you’re thinking of), sopa paraguaya (like cornbread but more oil, egg and butter/animal fat). After eating we drank regular Coca-Cola sweetened with sugar cane rather than high fructose corn syrup. I attest that the Coke here is much better than in the States. It is custom to drink after eating rather than before. I explain to some Paraguayans that in the States the first thing the server gives you in a restaurant is your drink. Here, on the contrary, you will rarely see people drinking soda pop before eating.

This past Saturday was cold!!! I took a bus from my site to two other towns in Asuncion for two birthday parties with my friend who is in the police academy. The first party was his friend from high school and the second was for a friend of his from the academy. I think that it probably hit the low 50s if my nerves registered the temperature correctly. I even used my gloves!

On Sunday we had our area volunteer meeting in a town close to Lake Ypacarai. We had guacamole, rotisserie chicken, vegetarian quesadillas, Bloody Marys, lasagna and I brought ice cream as well. I was super full afterwards! I met the new volunteers and learned where their sites are. We also discussed having excursions in different parts of the Central Department of Paraguay (Asuncion area) with youth from our sites. We are thinking about going to the Mythological Museum. I will have to do an entire blog entry on Paraguayan myths; there are more than you would think!

Today I got my fridge, finally! Now I won’t have to get ice from my next-door neighbor. It’s not until you don’t have a fridge that you realize how much use it is! Currently I have ham, cheese, eggs, orange soda, and three containers of milk. Doesn't sound like I eat very healthy, does it? I have bananas and oranges out on my table, don't worry.

Today I went to the Junta de Saneamiento (Sanitation Council, aka the organization the runs the water wells and provides water to the majority of people in my town) one block away from my house. I spoke with the lead administrator with whom I was very impressed: she was not into small talk, or evading questions; she was serious and straightforward. For one of the first times in awhile I spoke with someone who answered my questions directly and gave me her full attention. It’s something that is much easier to find in the States. Rather than talking about where I live, where I used to live, how long I’ve been here and whether or not I like terere, she was upfront. I know that I’ve been here a long time when I’m surprised by an outright answer to my question. People here beat around the bush too much rather than just saying what they want much of the time, or maybe it’s just me trying to be too nice. For instance, if I go to wash my clothes at my friend’s house, I feel that it’s necessary to shoot the breeze with them for longer than I ever would in the same situation in the States. I don’t want to look like I’m using them simply to do my laundry, even if that isn’t the case.

I just finished watching Stranger Than Fiction. I recommend it. The day after I watched it I was still analyzing it.

I am on the verge of getting a wireless Internet modem for my computer. It will come out to be about $40 a month. I have decided that it will be very worth it.

Some random facts about Paraguay that I noted a month ago at a state-wide youth conference:
66% of youth older than 15 and younger than 29 do not attend any formal educational institution.

82% of elderly people 65 years and older have no retirement plan.

1% of property owners own 77% of all land available.

40% of cultivators that have between one and five hectares own only 1% of the land in Paraguay.

Paraguayan emigration towards Europe, particularly Spain has grown fast in the past two years.

Paraguayans in Europe and the United States send 700,000,000 USD in remittances each year, making possible the survival of 10-15% of Paraguayan families.

Running on a dirt road, dodging cows, prickly cactus

2009-04-29T19:15:00.006-04:00

This afternoon I went running along the Trans-Chaco and ran with Humberto's little brothers and one of their neighbors along a dirt road out to a river where there are some really cool birds. Along the way we saw a huge herd of cows, a dog carcass and a really cool cactus with red fruit. Hugo passed through the wire fence to get some of the fruit for us to eat. He had to be careful though because there are soft little spines that are almost transparent, although you sure can feel them when they prick you! I took one from him and it definitely left spines in my fingers that I felt even as I was washing my hair in the shower.
After our run we drank terere underneath the Santa Rita vine in their front yard. It was already dark at that point. I let Hugo listen to my iPod; first he listened to "The Way I Are" by Timbaland, then "Mi Dulce Niña" by Kumbia Kings and the last, his choice, was "La Fuga" by Daddy Yankee. Even though he's only nine years old he knows all of the words! It's pretty impressive.
I get scared sometimes that I have adjusted too much to being here! It is frightening to think that I am really comfortable here, but at the same time really nice.
I have been feeling guilty for not doing more work lately, but it's hard to stop and go between working on my house and trying to create work for myself. Just watering my plants, washing my clothes, going to the hardware store to buy random things like a paint brush or lime to paint my walls, a sponge and dishwashing detergent for my dishes, takes up a boat load of time. Before I know it's lunch time and I just hope that someone will invite me to eat lunch. Luckily my friend's family is really good to me; even though he's not around they invite me to eat lunch. Today we had wild chicken that's only out in the Chaco with rice, cabbage salad, bread and grapefruit juice from grapefruits on the tree in their yard.
I tested my old stove today to see if it worked; turns out that only one of the burners lights. I still don't have a fridge so I have to go next door and get ice and put my yogurt and random items in there. So I'm not completely independent yet. Also, my neighbors can walk into my yard at any time because there's a gate in the fence separating our yards. It doesn't bother me much because they help me clean my yard a bit and they will hopefully help me plant things in the future. However, what with the little time that I have now, I doubt that I will be able to!
The weather is getting cooler--80s during the day and 70s at night. Not too shabby. The downside is that there has been a drought lately, which has been affecting a lot of crops. Luckily there is still plenty of food and there are no water warnings. Word on the street is that it will rain tomorrow. I've heard that before.
What is the deal with the porcine flu? I feel uninformed and it's frustrating! I just got a message from Peace Corps saying that there are no cases reported yet in Paraguay but that we should remain informed and let them know of any news.

These photos go from most recent to least recent. One of these days I will learn that I have to upload the photos in reverse order so they come out right chronologically. The two girls in front are from the newest group of volunteers, the three guys in the back are Paraguayans that we invited to a Peace Corps triple threat birthday party.

More of the same. Alberto, Humberto, I don't remember and Rebecca

Youth Congress in my town this past Saturday, April 25th in the Paraguayan military base. These were the cheerleaders to get us fired up. I did a little bit of dancin' with my friend Carlos. They made me nostalgic for TBDBITL.
Viceminister of Youth (of the Paraguayan government) who organized and led the event to form a group of volunteers in my department (aka state)

"Welcome! to the Departmental Congress- Change Makers(?)" Not sure how to translate impulsores but it's a cognate so you should understand.

Waiting in line at the registration table. It was all free.

In Service Training in Asuncion for the Municipal Services Development sector. April 1-3

March 30- Marzo Paraguayo to commemorate the injured and killed in a protest in Asuncion regardingthe assassination of vice president Argaña and corruption in the government in 1999. 10 year anniversary. I could be wrong on some of that information--my memory is a bit rusty. The youth in my site did a commemoration of the 1999 events. This is me with another Karen!

The road that my house is on. Shade from the mango trees.

Municipal Water Council Meeting, April 27, 2009.Everyone was following along as the head of the muni's environmental department read the statute, which states, among other things, that at least at the beginning the mayor must be the president of the council. The mayor is a nice guy but is busy with too many tasks, therefore the work of the Water Council to obtain official recognizance from the national government remains delayed. They have not started really working yet.

Trash clouds, new house, English class closing ceremony

2009-04-21T07:34:00.007-04:00

I was so impressed by the huge smoke clouds from burning trash and sugar cane fields that I took a photo of it.

More smoke

My new house! This is the window in my bedroom.
My front door.

My back yard. It looks like there are no nieghbors around, but there are. Next door to me is a señora named Ursulina who watches out for me. She is Cristina's friend :)

Paraguayan currency: Guarani

2009-04-13T19:37:00.002-04:00

100,000 Guaranies:
50,000

10,000

5,000 Gs, the back side- one hour of internet. A one liter bottle of beer costs 6,500.

The front of the 5,000 bill

Environmental education activities in elementary school

2009-04-07T16:24:00.005-04:00

The fourth graders posing in the middle of putting together their half of the trash decomposition timeline.

The other half of the fourth grade with the other half of the timeline---the second half, or the pieces of trash that take longer to decompose than those in the first half

I love this photo. I don't know what he was telling his buddy.

Fifth graders sharing their trash decomposition timeline hypothesis with the other half of the class. They like to goof off for the camera. Instead of saying "cheese", they say "whisky!" I still haven't figured out why. I found it strange even when I was in Ecuador back in 2003, because they say the same there.

Me with the fifth graders

Half of the fifth grade class with the first half of their trash decomposition timeline.

Putting it together

Recess--preschoolers

Fourth and fifth grade boys playing soccer on recess. Their recess is from 3-3:30 pm each day. They start class at 1 pm and end at 5 pm.

Pre-escolar, or preschoolers. I don't teach in their class but they were cute so they deserve a place here.

Which one is mine? ;-)

The bathrooms, separate from the school

The flagpole

About three or four weeks ago I started teaching environmental topics in the 4th and 5th grade natural science classes. The first Tuesday afternoon I taught about the difference between organic and inorganic waste and different types of trash within those categories (plastic, glass, rubber, electronic waste, etc.). The following week we learned that in Paraguay, on a daily basis, the average person within the metropolitan area of Asuncion produces 1 kilo of trash. That means 6,500,000 kilos of trash a day, meaning that we could fill the Paraguayan national soccer team stadium to the brim in less than ten days. I broke it down a bit further, giving stats: 70% of waste generated is organic, 10% plastic, 8% "other" (batteries, aerosols, lightbulbs, CDs, etc.), 7% paper and cardboard, 3% glass and 2% metal. They learned about the three Rs of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. And last week was the trash decomposition timeline. The materials were clothesline, clothes pinzas (I can't remember what they're called in English! Crazy!), 15 different types of trash and scraps of paper with different periods of time written on them, from 3 weeks to millions of years. The kids had to pin the pieces of paper on the clothesline, starting with the least amount of time to decompose and ending with the longest amount of time. Next step was to place the piece of trash accordingly next to the amount of time it takes to decompose. Thank goodness that the 4th grade teacher helped me to explain this partially in Guarani; it helped the kids understand better. Furthermore, at the end of the activity, when it is essential to summarize, I couldn't articulate well the importance of what the kids had just done. Why is it important to know how long it takes for a plastic bottle or plastic bag to decompose? How will this make us change our daily life, if it will at all? I was delighted when the teacher summed it all up, thereby showing them that the topic was also important to her. I was so happy that she was on board with me and that she liked the activity. That is when you have "a good Peace Corps day", when you feel like you're not working alone and flying solo, but rather other people care and want to work with you. That was a good day.

My most recent World Wise Schools letter to an eighth grade class

2009-04-07T15:50:00.002-04:00

March 23, 2009

Dear Mrs. Valentine’s Eighth Graders,

It is great to hear from all of you; to learn your nicknames, your likes, what is happening with school, sports, the play, the science fair, your artist papers, etc.! It’s important for me to stay connected to life back in the States because sometimes I get wrapped up in my life here and don’t realize how out of the loop I am!

When I was in eighth grade St. Mary’s didn’t have a softball team! I played basketball from fifth to eighth grade; eighth grade was my favorite year of basketball. How was the St. Mary’s of Ohio tournament? I remember it so well! I loved going to watch my brother play in it and also participating in it myself. Unfortunately my eighth grade year we lost to St. Mary’s German Village. I fouled out but scored 17 points. It’s nice to hear that some of you have nicknames on your sports teams; jokes and nicknames make being on a team special and fun. When I was in fifth grade I only scored one point in basketball, ha ha. I also played volleyball in sixth and seventh grade. In the fall of eighth grade I ran cross-country for St. Michael’s in Worthington. I went to Watterson, where I ran cross country for four years, track for two years, and basketball for two years. I still enjoy running to this day; I even ran two marathons when I was in college. I also was in the spring musical, Fiddler on the Roof, when I was a senior.

My favorite animal is a tie among manatees, turtles and monkeys. I saw monkeys in Paraguay in an agricultural school not far from my house. I have also seen leopards, tapirs, carpinchos, pumas and different classes of birds and monkeys that are in danger of extinction. I saw the latter animals in a zoo near the border of Brazil and Argentina, close to the Itaipu dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. Most of those animals are not found as much in the wild anymore because people over hunt them.

I actually never did science fair, either! It sounds like you all came up with unique and interesting projects. If I had to do a science fair project I would do it on why/how different types of music affect brain activity or why/how different scents affect brain activity and emotions. With regard to your artist essays, two of my favorite artists is Pieter van Bruguel and Bosch; I think they were Flemish painters. I like Northern Renaissance style paintings because they are so realistic like photographs. Caravaggio is also a great painter; when I studied abroad in Madrid I had the opportunity to see some of his works in the Prado museum. Elizabeth, for your essay you can write key points that you will expand upon on a separate sheet of paper, in a brainstorm or outline. Write a sentence that summarizes the main ideas that you will talk about in the body of your essay, and then use that as your guide. To add details to the body, return to your brainstorm or outline page and write down more notes/ideas that are more specific than the main ideas. Write down page numbers of quotes or information that you want to cite.

Most of the time its fun to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, but other times it’s difficult. [To clarify, Peace Corps is not a missionary program; our mission is not to evangelize. Peace Corps is not religiously affiliated.] The most difficult part is capacitating people to change their lives for the better and getting a native Paraguayan to assist me in the effort. The key word in the Peace Corps’ mission is sustainable: I am not meant to work here all by myself, me, the American on one side and the Paraguayans on the other side. Rather, I am meant to work alongside Paraguayans, motivating them to do things themselves. My purpose is to catalyze and facilitate rather than doing things for Paraguayans. They are perfectly capable of doing most things I could do for them themselves; the hardest part is convincing them of it! Have you ever heard the quote, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime”? That is the philosophy of Peace Corps in a nutshell. Because our work does not call on us to do things for Paraguayans without requiring their participation, we work very slowly. We have to convince, persuade and talk. It takes a long time to make real, sustainable change. In the long run, sustainable change is the only real change. Think of it this way: I could have my friends and family send money from the States to build a library here in my site, but if there is no one in my site to be the librarian, to manage the books, to make sure leaks in the roofs and other maintenance problems are fixed, what good is it? It’s necessary that Paraguayans be invested in the long-term work and maintenance that an institution such as a library requires.

I don’t help out specific people or just families, but rather any one I can. To be honest, the people here help me out more than I help them because I am dependent on them to explain things to me when I get confused and don’t understand what’s in the food, how to prepare food, how to wash my clothes by hand, how to get to a certain store in Asuncion, the history of Paraguay, etc. It was like being a kid all over again when I arrived in Paraguay, because everything was new to me, and I still have to ask questions. Not as much anymore, but still I do. What’s strange now is that my town is so familiar; I feel like I have lived here for ages. I could find the spoons in the kitchen in the dark, I can unlock my front door in the dark, I know which convenience stores in town are the cheapest, I know which friend of mine has the best terere and makes the best birthday cake, where the best running routes are, where to get my bike tires inflated and where all of the schools are located. I know more people in town than some people who have lived in my town their whole life. Sometimes I realize all of a sudden how cool it is to feel comfortable in a place that was once foreign to me. When I first arrived, Paraguay was a foreign country, but now I can no longer call it foreign, in the sense that it is strange and that I don’t understand it. I learn more things about its culture everyday, but I have learned a lot about Paraguay in the nine or so months since I landed in Asuncion.

I have yet to get bored being in Paraguay; there are always new people to meet. The time is flying and there is so much that I still want to do, other volunteers I want to visit and other parts of Paraguay and South America that I want to see. I am always busy visiting schools, talking with teachers, visiting the municipality (the local city government) or giving final English exams. Every once in awhile there are meetings in Asuncion for Peace Corps, also keeping me occupied. Since my schedule is hardly fixed, I don’t get into a routine long enough to get bored, either. I would like a routine at this point in time, because it’s hard to be productive otherwise.

I do go to mass on Sundays, or on Saturday evenings in my site. The church is called Santa Rosa de Lima, or St. Rose of Lima. Maybe you have heard of her? There are also opportunities to play volleyball and soccer; there is no basketball court near my house, and basketball is not popular in my town. I have never seen anyone playing baseball here, either. I like to go jogging, play volleyball, do yoga and dance. I miss basketball a lot! My favorite color is royal blue and my favorite foods are mostly Italian foods, too. I love garlic and basil flavors. I also like Thai food and Ethiopian food. Guinea pigs have never touched my plate and as far as I know they are not customary in Paraguay. In parts of Asia it is more common to eat that. I will be coming back to Ohio in August for three weeks because my brother is getting married. Then I will come back to Paraguay for another year.

When I was getting ready to leave St. Mary’s to go to high school, I visited both Hayes and Watterson to see which would be a better fit for me. It was sad to leave St. Mary’s, especially because I loved my eighth grade year so much. However, I was excited for the the new subjects I would study in high school, the sports I would play and the people that I would meet. When I was in 8th grade, I was excited to learn Spanish in high school, because there were no foreign language classes required at St. Mary’s at the time. I always loved foreign languages, so in a way that foreshadowed that my life would lead to an international destination. Being a future Peace Corps volunteer did not enter my mind in eighth grade. I didn’t have a desire to do it until 2007. When I was in the airport on the way to Paraguay, it finally hit me how long I would be gone from the States, from my family and friends. I cried at that point, especially because my parents were crying, too. I didn’t cry up until then because I was too busy packing, saying good-byes and losing sleep because I had no idea how my life was going to change.

You all are lucky that you get to go to Washington DC! We went to Chicago my eighth grade year. It was fun, but Washington DC would have been more interesting to me. When are you going?

Take care and I will write again next month!

Sincerely,

Karen Harmeyer
Peace Corps Volunteer, 2008-2010
Municipal Services Development
Paraguayan Chaco

P.S. – Thank you for sending the photos of your class :-).

P.P.S.- I have attached a few photos for you all as well.

Photo update--more details to come later

2009-02-17T17:16:00.008-03:00

Delivery bike for who knows what

Flora of Itapúa - ipora! (beautiful!)

A lovely town in the department of Itapúa.

The same lovely town

I love the green of this chalkboard. I hate to say it but I'm not sure if I could solve number 3.

The summer camp participants, all 31 of them. Can you find me?

Soy empanadas and pureed banana with milk for the mid-morning snack. I'm not sure how many of the kids figured out that it was soy and not meat?

Tessa facilitating an activity about why trees are important during nature day at her summer camp

My friend Tessa's summer camp...playing Duck Duck Goose

Mburcuja--it looks gross but is delicious. Don't ask me what the word for it is in English.

Cakes that Cristina made (if you have been following along you should know by now that she is the lady who I live with) for a quinceañera (birthday party of a girl who was turning 15. Aka her official presentation to society and the official age when she can "date" according to some).

Passing out plastic bags with a friend from the muni so that people in my site could fill them with plastic and glass bottles that attract mosquitoes and therefore increase the risk of dengue.

My room in site

2009-02-16T18:54:00.004-03:00

My bedroom door

Back corner of my room

Other back of my room

Front corner of my room with my recycling stuff for my trash workshop

Front corner of my room

Birthday party, Youth Congress

2009-02-03T11:51:00.003-03:00

January 26, 2009

The birthday party here at my house last week was a success. I invited about 70 people, and consequently rented 70 extra chairs of which we probably only used 10. We had loads of leftover food (empanadas with ground beef, ham and cheese and corn, little hamburgers, sopa paraguaya (think corn bread with more oil and eggs), milanesitas (little fried pieces of flattened beef), mandioca balls (pureéd mandioca with cheese and then fried) and pizza. There was also leftovers from two different cakes: one with vanilla with caramel and vanilla ice cream in the middle with white icing and another chocolate with banana split and caramel ice cream in the middle with chocolate ice cream. Sooooo goood.

I invited everyone from the municipality but only one of my friends from there came. She is one of my better friends in site so I knew she’d be there. In spite of at least six people in the muni telling me that they’d be at my party, no one showed up. It’s frustrating because I spent so much more money with the expectation of more people. I got over it once the party got started though because there were more than enough people that showed up, and I already felt over extended trying to make sure people had food and drinks. Surprisingly about five people brought gifts. I got two pairs of earrings, a bracelet, a tank top, a water bottle and hair ties.

Most of the people who showed up live in my neighborhood. In the end the people who were there are those who I’ve spent the most time with since I arrived in site and who really mean the most to me, so it didn’t matter that most people I invited didn’t show up. As early as 7 am people were calling the local radio station to dedicate songs to me and to wish me a happy birthday. Most everyone in my town knew that it was my birthday, ha ha. While I was running around town trying to tie up loose ends before the party, Cristina told me who sent me saludos (greetings) on the radio.

I was so stressed out leading up to the party, which started at 7 pm. I had to look for something to wear, which I found in a señora’s house that lives around the corner from me. I bought a white skirt and a blue tank top. Then my friend told me that I had to get shoes to match, so we went to mercería that sells a little bit of everything for white sandals and blue earrings. After that purchase I had 5 mil guaranies to my name. Aka I was totally soguey (so-WHEY). In Guarani that means broke, ha ha! I knew that I would be up late, so I also had to make sure that my English class lesson for the following day was ready. I also had to work a bit on my trash management workshop. I hope to do it next week.

My intention was to take a nap during siesta, which unfortunately didn’t happen because I had to get my nails repainted to match my outfit. My friend painted my nails for free, thank God. I owe her big time. Not only that but I realized that I didn’t have any speakers to connect to my computer to play my totally groovy playlist that I compiled. I spent two hours calling everyone that I knew to see if they had computer speakers. I finally found some but they didn’t work in the end. So we used Cristina’s CD player and played the bootleg/contraband CD with almost naked girls on the front that they sell on the street for 5 mil with over 100 songs on them. There wasn’t much music in English, but considering that only two of my guests spoke English, it didn’t matter much.

The first guest who showed up was not actually invited, but she said she “heard” about my party and figured that she would come. The funniest part was that she brought six of her family members with her who were also not invited, ha ha, complete with kids under the age of 8 who became restless after about 20 minutes.

My friend Julio came with his guitar around 9 with his guitar to sing me happy birthday in Guarani and Spanish and also other traditional Guarani songs. The party lasted until 4 am, although the last four hours there were only four of us singing, playing guitar and dancing.

On Saturday I went to a Youth Congress in a rural area of my town that lasted all day. It was conducted outside, like the majority of community meetings here in Paraguay. I don’t know where Paraguayans would be without their patios, aka their front/back yards. There were around 100 youth from all different parts of my site to get to know one another better and to discuss the problems and needs of the youth, possible solutions and how to implement the solutions.

Some of the problems mentioned were lack of access to education (specifically university level education or technical school classes), health (reproductive health, etc) and sanitation, security, environmental contamination, social assistance for the poor, government corruption, alcoholism, immigration to other countries, ethics/morality, blaming others for problems rather than working on a personal level to resolve problems.

It was inspiring to be in the presence of youth who want to move forward to change their community. I already knew a good number of the youth there but I also met many more. Several are planning to go to university and study, but some aren’t sure how to do it because there is a lack of money to go all the way to Asuncion for certain areas of study. Luckily there is now a law school here in my site, but in order to study other careers people have to go to Villa Hayes or Asuncion. For those who have to go to Asuncion, it can end up being too expensive to pay the bus fare and for food everyday.

The lack of access to internships in order to qualify for future jobs was also mentioned. I believe that another volunteer not far from me organized a career fair where there were various employers with whom the students could talk. However I don’t know if she took it a step further to arrange a shadowing day for students to see what it’s really like to be a welder, a motorcycle mechanic, a doctor, nurse or lawyer; or, even better, to set up long-term internships so that the youth can obtain real life experience. Most jobs require work experience, and therefore people cannot access them.

This week I am going up to San Pedro to help a fellow volunteer with her youth camp. We will be working with a third volunteer. I will be there for science day. I think we’re doing activities to demonstrate density. We’ll be using soap, oil and water(?). I was never a super scientist so I’m not sure. I’ll probably hear a lot more Guarani up there.

Aside from that I’m planning my trash workshop and my two English classes for this week. Long term I’m trying to get 20 computers with Windows xp and Office in Spanish for a school in my neighborhood where a guy from the National Service of Professional Promotion comes to teach two groups of students computer classes. There are computers there now but they are so old that they can’t run many programs on them.

On Friday I’m headed to Asuncion to celebrate my birthday with two other volunteers from my G who have January bdays. There will be a crazy amount of volunteers in Asuncion because there are meetings for the different Peace Corps Committees such as HIV/AIDS, GAD (Gender Awareness and Development), CoCuMu (Compartiendo Cultural Mundial or Sharing World Culture: they have a photography project with Pgyan youth, concerts, etc), Seed Bank (you take out seeds to use in your site for trees or food, then you have to return more than 100% of the seeds that you took out in return), Teaching English committee and the Technical Committee (they are writing a manual about teaching computer classes). I think there are others but I can’t think of what they are at the moment.

Some people are staying in Asuncion until Sunday night to watch the Super Bowl. All I have to say is that I hope the Steelers lose!!!

Next two photos: Photo 1: My neighbors Cynthia, Gustavo and Lisandra
Photo 2: Ale, Rene, Beverly, Rodrigo, Gustavo

Summer camp, English class, Twilight, tired of traveling

2009-01-13T18:13:00.003-03:00

Here are some photos from a youth summer camp I helped out with the week before Christmas. From top to bottom:

1. Making Christmas collages/drawings

2 and 3. Playing Simon says

January 13, 2009

It finally rained today! It was so nice. English class went well today...we played Simon Says to review the parts of the body and also practiced saying our birthdays. During the whole class they were harassing me to play Bingo again because we mark our boards with Argentinian M and Ms (aka Rocklets) and the winners get suckers. Next class is Thursday, so I'll be back at the internet cafe to hopefully get them to be more active and to do some check for learning activities. I also want to have other students answer questions instead of a select group of three. One of those in that group goes to Asuncion to study English and already knows quite a bit, so she's often answering the questions. The students understand more than they say, which is normal when learning a foreign language, but I'm hoping to get them to pronounce and say more. It's more fun and they learn more that way.

January 7, 2009

Besides preparing tomorrow’s English class, I have to pick up my laundry in a neighborhood about a fifteen-minute bike ride away. Somehow another day has passed in site. It’s sad to be away from a place up north where I’d like to finally lay down roots. Thinking about that makes it hard to enjoy this experience. Most people in Peace Corps fly by the seat of their pants so much that it’s scary for me: that a lot of people are open to living in Paraguay or anywhere else in the world for the rest of their lives. They make laying down roots an absurd, unreachable aspiration. To “plan” or hope that such and such thing will happen is crazy, because with Peace Corps “you never know what’s going to happen.” The saddest part about being in Peace Corps is that there’s no one that I’m sharing this experience with right now that will be with me to understand after August 2010. I’m jealous of the married couples in Peace Corps!

It’s hot again. The kind of hot that makes you want to stick your head in the freezer. It hasn’t been this hot since I returned from Buenos Aires. When the heat starts creeping back like this, I first think that it’s not that bad. I usually think, as I’m riding my bike down the main road in town, “Man, it’s warm. But it’s not that bad.” But when I finish my ride, I realize that I have back sweat and I smell different than when I first started. I don’t know if you have experienced something similar while running: During your run, you can’t feel yourself sweating so much, but when you stop, it’s like the sweat comes all at once and it’s rolling down torrentially.

I’m not doing so well on my New Year’s Resolutions so far. I get bogged down in my to do list and end up not doing anything at all.

I’ve recently reached the point where I am very ready to move out. I want to organize my room more but there’s not that much space. There’s lizard poop at different places on the floor and walls of my bedroom. My señora and I don’t have the same schedules. Mainly, she is taking her siesta while I want to be preparing my lunch. I can’t make zero noise in this process. Even though she’s never yelled at me for making noise, I feel uncomfortable, like I have to walk around on eggshells while I’m trying to cook. Not only at lunchtime, but also in the morning when I go walking or jogging. My bedroom door and the bathroom door alike drag along the floor a lot when I try to shut them, making it near impossible for me to shut them silently.

There’s a lady that lives down the road who said she knows of some places to rent. I might just take a nap and then mosey over there to drink terere with her and analyze the prospects. That is, if she’s not sleeping too. Sometimes I’m asked what the heck I’m doing outside between noon and 4 pm because the sun is so intense. I’ve had at least three people tell me that I need a straw sun hat with a big brim instead of my Uruguay baseball hat to cover what seems to them ultra sensitive skin. It seems that way because I’m so much fairer than most. However, I did see an albino girl in the despensa the other day. She was whiter than me!

Speaking of the sun and my skin, I believe that I do have some sun damage if the white marks on my arms are any indication.

I started looking for flights home today. I found a good one that routed me through Lima to Miami and then to Columbus on Travelocity. The return flight was Dallas-Ft. Worth to Santiago, Chile to Asuncion. Unfortunately the Internet decided to shut down because of “an unexpected error”, and when I re-searched for the same flight I couldn’t find it; the best one had me going through three different cities before reaching Cbus.

I am going to lie down and finally finish reading The Economist that Courtney sent me in the mail.

I would like to personally welcome my older sisters to Facebook. Don’t let yourself get addicted! ;)

MOVIE REVIEW

Twilight was excellent. I saw it in the Abasto mall in Buenos Aires in glorious air conditioning. The best things about it:
1. It was in English.
2. The main vampire guy was gorgeous.
3. It was filmed in Forks and Washington State!
4. It made me forget about life for a while.

Speaking of movies, I have spoken with various other Volunteers who agree that watching movies in English, particularly in an air-conditioned theatre, make you feel like you’re back in the States. In fact, I almost cried after I saw Sex and the City in Asuncion. I walked out of the theatre only to realize that I was still in Paraguay. In addition, when I saw the Cincinnati ATP tennis match on the TVs in the food court outside the theatre, I literally hurt inside. Movies really have the power to transport you.

January 6, 2009
I am so glad to be back in a familiar place here in my site after two very full weeks of traveling. I may be reaching a point in my life where I am tired of being a tourist. It can be exhausting; feeling obligated to see as much as possible in the short time one has to explore a place. I am torn between sleeping and pushing myself to see more new things.

Trip to Itaipu

2008-12-20T11:32:00.015-03:00

Asuncion, across the river lies the Chaco, where I live

Asuncion from the top of the Hotel Excelsior where I attended an UNESCO/Itaipu conference about Education and Water

Asuncion

Our teeny tiny Christmas tree in my house.

Senior photo, anyone?

Cristina, the señora with whom I live

Monday Falls. (Pronounced Mon-da-uh (guttural)). It means the Neighborhood Waterfall in Guarani.

Leopard

Puma, aka mountain cougar?

Close to the dam there is a zoo of animals indigenous to the Itaipu / Alto Parana region. Here is a monkey. He moved so fast I couldn't get a good photo of him.

Hi Brazil.

Me in the rain. Unfortunately the day we (me and an 8th grade class from my town) went to Itaipu, the dam was closed. Usually it is much more impressive because there would be massive amounts of water flowing behind me. You wouldn't see hardly any concrete. Just water.

That green land on the other side is Brazil

Itaipu dam, the largest dam in the world, at least until Three Gorges Dam in China is finished. It generates more electricity than any other dam in the world. It has 16 turbines.

Two of my neighbors

Tajy tree across the street from the municipality

Thanksgiving and Jesuit Ruins

2008-12-15T18:12:00.004-03:00

Water Council, Thanksgiving fest report

2008-12-05T16:39:00.003-03:00

Me sweating as a model a straw hat in the indigenous community in my town. This hat is handmade and only costs approximately 2 USD.

Me with my host grandparents in Guarambare. They are so cute.

This is me in the river in Piribebuy where I was visiting another volunteer.

This is Erik and I in his site after painting a world map in an elementary school. I painted Africa, much of South Eastern Asia, and Japan. Looks pretty good, right?

This next photo is of a road near the end of town in BB.

December 5, 2008

Since the initial assembly to elect the members of the Water Council for my town of BB, I haven’t heard any more news about meetings or advancements being made in terms of monitoring water quality and assuring that the fresh water that we have isn’t being contaminated or depleted.

The mayor was elected as the president of the Water Council, but it is difficult for him to manage because he has such a demanding schedule. Therefore things happen even more slowly than they normally do. Today some staff from the Environmental Ministry of the federal government came to hand out the official resolution of recognition of BB’s Water Council. The rough draft of the Statute of the Water Council was also distributed and read, outlining its responsibilities and abilities. One of the city council members from the municipality suggested that we form small work teams for each neighborhood in our town to go from house to house to interview each family about from where their water comes, and to explain the importance of keeping sources of contamination away from water wells. Eventually, the goal is to place meters in each water well to measure how much water is being pumped and at what rate, to prevent it from drying up. I am not sure how the drying up happens; to me it seems that as long as there is rain, there will be the possibility of fresh water from the wells. Obviously it is possible for the fresh water to run out temporarily, but as soon as it rains again and the water filters through the ground, there will be more fresh water in the well.

This past week has been divine in terms of weather. It has felt more like an Ohio fall than a Paraguayan summer; thank heavens. The week before the heat was terrible. I could hardly sleep at night because my room was so hot. Unfortunately I only have one ceiling fan. I am on the verge of buying a floor fan to put right by my bed so I can survive the heat.

My G, aka my group that I came to Paraguay with me way back in May, is about to finish our first four months of service. That means PTIP reports—Plan de Trabajo y Informe de Progreso (Work Plan and Progress Report) as well as the Volunteer Report to fill out for turning into Peace Corps. The PTIP is for Peace Corps Paraguay and the Volunteer Report is for Peace Corps Washington DC, the latter certainly related to funding and putting together hard statistics about what Peace Corps is doing with the money Congress gives it every year. If I remember correctly, our country director said our annual budget is around 330 million USD.

I would like to shout out to all of you that have sent me letters and packages. The new music in particular is greatly appreciated J. Now I can rock out to the latest United States pop music. My current favorites are “4 Minutes” featuring Madonna and Justin Timberlake, and “American Boy” featuring Estele and Kanye West. I don’t care if the lyrics are a bit cheesy; I can appreciate them and the beats are catchy.

Speaking of music, it seems a bit ironic that I was listening to The Drifters’ “White Christmas” as I contemplate the idea of roasting here on December 25th, without any possibility of reprieve. Lucky for me, I have been invited to spend Christmas on the beaches of Montevideo. Afterwards we are taking a boat to Buenos Aires for New Years.
I will let you know what’s good.

I am getting pretty tan these days, although I can’t beat the younger Karen from Wesleyan Woods pool days. The opportunity to hang out by the pool over Thanksgiving with other Peace Corps Volunteers definitely helped my tan.

Thanksgiving was a great time, complete with eleven pumpkin pies, two types of stuffing and a talent show in which I sang for the first time by myself in front of a group of people. Thanks to my friend Matt, who accompanied me on the guitar, I did a pretty good job with Jason Mraz’s “Absolutely Zero.” I messed up the lyrics a wee bit, but there is a lot of repeating with only a one or two word difference in each verse, not to mention that the song is almost six minutes long. It was a bit nerve wracking but I think it’s good to get up in front of people every once in awhile. The Saturday after Thanksgiving I went to the Jesuit Reduction Ruins not far from out hotel in the department of Itapúa in southern Paraguay. These Jesuit Ruins are the least visited UNESCO site in the world according to another PCV. They certainly deserve to be on the list; they are impressive. One of these days when my pen drive isn’t full of Trojans and viruses I will upload the photos here. My Catholic and Jesuit background made the excursion there more fascinating than it may have been for others. The ruins date from 1606, when the Paraguayan governor asked the Spanish king to send some Jesuits to Paraguay to “reduce” (therefore reducción or reduction) the indigenous people to one localized area. There was a quarry, from where all of the building materials for the school, church, bell tower and rooms for the Jesuits and the indigenous people came. We saw two jail cells, where indigenous people could choose to stay instead of being whipped as punishment for getting drunk or having relations with more than one woman. Our tour guide said that the indigenous people hated being alone and isolated so much that they always chose the lashes over solitary confinement. In the school, the Jesuits taught Guarani and Spanish. It seemed to have been a rather idyllic setting in some ways: all of their food came from the fields surrounding the settlement and there seems to have been a vibrant social life. I was surprised that the Jesuits did not come for their own mission but rather because the Paraguayan governor asked them.

Now I am going to head to my favorite cyber café to make copies of invitation of an upcoming meeting of all of the neighborhood commissions in town. I have surely attended my share of meetings, as have key members of neighborhood commissions; hopefully we will start working for something more concrete soon.

December 4, 2008

I’m doing what I said I wouldn’t as a Peace Corps Volunteer: teaching English. It’s not my project, nor do I want it to become a huge time consumer, but I really like it so far. It has structured my schedule significantly in just this first week. We only have class Tuesday and Thursday. I had 17 people say they were interested coming, or their parents told me they were interested. The first day of class only six people showed up, but today there were 10. Yay! I gave my first homework assignment today, too. It is empowering to share my knowledge with others and I love that I have to present what is in my head in an orderly fashion so that others can understand. It makes me fine-tune my knowledge and learn more details about what I already know so that I am better prepared for questions.

The first class I could only fill 40 minutes, but today I went for an entire hour! It went pretty fast. The students are between 13 and 17 years old, and I already knew the majority of them before the class started. There are mostly girls; today there were four boys and six girls. All of them want to learn and improve, which makes it more fun to teach and motivates me to develop better activities that will help them learn more.

After the English class, I went to the muni to do I knew not what. Right now there is a lot of deliberating about next year’s budget, which is good; for the first time it seems there was more research done to develop a budget that will legitimately cover the expenses of the muni. Unfortunately there is not enough income from the taxpayers to cover the projected expenses.

Bored? Watch this video

2008-11-27T18:30:00.001-03:00

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/09/10/stirring_up_the_market/

Thanks, Mom! What a coincidence!

Bored? Watch this video

2008-11-27T18:30:00.000-03:00

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/09/10/stirring_up_the_market/

Thanks for the link, Mom. What a coincidence!

In-service training in Guarambare etc.

2008-11-24T16:29:00.006-03:00

November 24, 2008

As of today I am no longer living out of my suitcase. I bought a wardrobe today from a local furniture shop; made out of a nice smelling wood. It has a mirror on the outside, which I am using to put my photos up. It is nice not to have to dig so much through my suitcases anymore.

I just returned from the indigenous community looking for a straw hat for another volunteer friend of mine. They cost only about 10 mil Guaranies, which converts to about 2 USD. I bought myself a necklace made out of seeds for only 8 mil Gs. The woman who runs the artisan shop, Ermina, speaks Guarani, another indigenous language called Qom (Kom), and some Spanish. It was nice to have to practice my Guarani because she didn’t understand Spanish that well. The problem with practicing Guarani is that most people speak Spanish as well, so if I am expressing myself slowly, my conversation partner reverts to Spanish to facilitate communication.

It is a steamy 92 degrees today, which makes today the hottest November 24th that I have ever experienced.

From last Wednesday until this past Saturday I was in Guarambaré, where my training group spent our first ten weeks in Paraguay, for our first in-service training. I stayed with the same host family, and in spite of my host dad saying that my Guarani is zero, I feel like I have progressed. Not as much as I had hoped, but progress nonetheless. The training consisted mostly of Guarani classes, but we also had a visit from our country director, Michael Eschelmann (an Athens, Ohio native). He asked us what our first three months in site were like and gave us an update on the interview process for our new Assistant Peace Corps Director for our sector, Rural Economic Development (my sector, Municipal Services Development, is included in this larger category).

The second afternoon our volunteer coordinator, who is going back to the States after three years in Paraguay (two as a volunteer and one as volunteer coordinator for our sector), showed us how to fill out progress forms so that Peace Corps Paraguay can report back to Washington DC about our activities. We have to state what age groups we work with, what gender and about what topics. The third afternoon of training we had a round robin session regarding civic education, environmental education, working with NGOs and also AIDS education. I missed the NGO and AIDS sessions but I got really good info from the environmental education session. There was a whole template for giving a workshop with youth about trash management. I am hoping to find some young people in my community to help give it along with another urban youth volunteer in Asuncion. Current volunteers gave all of the sessions.

I am proud to say that I was in the most advanced Guarani class with four other people, one other from municipal services development and the other three from rural economic development (they work with cooperatives). It was nice to be in class with people who knew more Guarani than I did because they challenged and motivated me. I have a lot of new grammar in my notebook and a nice handout of phrases such as, “Nde tavy ne akame,” which means, “You’re crazy in the head.”

After the last day of our reconnect aka in-service training, Laara, Julie and I went to Asuncion to buy our bus tickets for Christmas in Montevideo, Uruguay at the bus terminal. The trip will be 20 hours, not 28 as I expected. The bus is double-decker and we will be sitting in the front. I am looking forward to being on the beach and seeing another country. They uruguayos talk more like Argentineans, so it will be harder to understand them after being here in Paraguay for so long.

This week the majority of Peace Corps volunteers are celebrating Thanksgiving in Encarnacion, on the border of Paraguay and Argentina. We will have a traditional feast and there will be a talent show. I leave Friday morning early. I am bummed to have to leave my site again, because it’s not helping me to integrate more, but I am looking forward to seeing another city.

Hope everyone is doing well! Glad to see the Bucks beat Michigan! Woot!

A house in my town

Me hydrating with the people in the Chaco

A really cute kid. Adorable

The flooded area from when I helped to hand out food with the local government employees, now two weeks ago.

My first visit farther out in the Chaco!

2008-11-17T18:08:00.004-03:00

Deputy in Paraguayan government, Enri Mineur. Us at a police station farther out in the Chaco but still in the district of BB, my town

A grandmother and two of her grandchildren in a flooded district. I went with the mayor of my town as well as others from the local government to hand out bread, noodles, meat, water, fruit juice, and other items to 35 odd families there

Chaco landscape

Hopefully I can put a video in the next entry!

2008-11-14T18:36:00.005-03:00

November 14, 2008

The flies are out in full force now that each day we are getting closer and closer to the first day of summer. If Cristina or I leave any food out, we have to cover it; otherwise it will be covered with 20 flies in five seconds.

It gets so old introducing myself and telling people what I’m doing here in Paraguay, or rather what I should be or wish I were doing in Paraguay. I have introduced and attempted to explain myself, but people don’t seem to grasp what it is that I’m doing. The most difficult part about this whole Peace Corps thing is that there is so much time spent waiting for others to take responsibility, to fill you in on what’s happening and to clear up misconceptions and misunderstandings. Therefore I get jaded and discouraged because I feel like I’m not working and I’m not getting anywhere. It is impossible to quantify Peace Corps work until a year or more after a volunteer is in his/her site, by my calculations. It takes so long to gain trust from people and to understand the insane mix of Guarani and Spanish that isn’t completely Guarani nor is it completely Spanish. It leaves us students of Spanish and/or Guarani wondering why we bother to study any type of grammar constructs when most people here throw it all out the window.

I arrived in BB three months and five days ago. Some days I speak better Spanish and can remember more Guarani words than others, and other days everyone sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. You could turn on a white noise sound machine and Spanish/Guarani would sound the same to me. I now feel that I will never be able to listen to Spanish and understand it passively (without any effort or focus) as I can with English. It’s amusing to speak English after days of thinking mostly in Spanish and Guarani because the English words don’t come as easily. For that reason it’s easier to speak to other volunteers than people from back home simply because if I can’t remember an English word, I can just say the Spanish or Guarani and they will understand.

I was in Asuncion this week and met some of the G-22 group that is getting ready to close their service. I met one girl who is from Cincinnati and whose sister teaches in Mt. Airy. Like I have said before, there is not a lack of Ohioans in the mix here. There has been an increase in the number of Ohioans participating in Peace Corps in the last few years.

On Wednesday I was somehow not informed of the anniversary of President Rutherford B. Hayes awarding of the present-day Paraguayan department of Presidente Hayes to Paraguay instead of Argentina after the Triple Alliance War. As in the case of various international conflicts, a third party is often asked to intervene in the post-war settlements as a mediator. That someone was President Rutherford B. Hayes, born in front of my grade school, thank you very much. Eight United States Congress members were present there as well as the United States ambassador to Paraguay, not to mention the mayor of my town and my community contact, the secretary general of the municipality that is hosting me as a volunteer. I am quite bummed that I was not informed since I have some pretty close ties to good ‘ole President Hayes. Unfortunately, it’s only an illustration of how I have to take responsibility for what is happening in my town because it is rare that people just up and tell me.

Yesterday I had the adventure of finding the Encomienda Internacional Postal: aka a huge, partially wooded, dilapidated, rave-appropriate and scary warehouse on the edge of the city center of Asuncion. Loads of traffic passes by, but it’s creepy nonetheless. Besides, right behind it are sketchy government projects with mounds of trash and consequently flies and a most unpleasant odor. There are about four streets that all come together around this warehouse where I had to go pick up my package, and I was wandering around for about half an hour (after getting on the wrong bus and finally finding the right one) before I found the building. The most annoying part is that I passed right by that very warehouse without knowing on my initial entry into Asuncion that morning. Long story short, I had to pay 10,000 Guaranies ($2.50) to retrieve my package. Then I realized that I would have to carry it all over Asuncion as I still had to go to the ATM to get my money. So the postage lady offered me a transparent plastic postal bag to put all of my stuff in. My Nature Valley granola bars, contact solution, tampons and clothing (thanks, Mom!) for the world to see, ha ha. On days like that I wish I had a car so bad. When I get down I just have to remember that at least I’m not a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania or some super duper remote, hot, dusty place where I have to shower with a bucket and gather my own water.

Lately I’ve been walking around with crooked glasses and my nerdy clip on sunglasses on top of them. I tried to get them bent back into shape while in Asuncion, but the optometrist people told me that if they bend it anymore “back into place” they’re going to break my glasses. Of course they are my newer pair that I just got last year. I suppose this is where the one free pair of Peace Corps glasses comes in? Too bad they don’t cover laser eye surgery. If I could sit on Santa’s knee this year, I would ask him for laser eye surgery most definitely. I keep intending to investigate it in the internet café one of these days.

Last night I met a very mentally and emotionally mature girl of 14 years. She lives only two houses down from mine and that was the first time that I met her. She is very honest, direct and is interested in my presence here. I am excited to have met her because I think that she will be not only a friend but also a great starter for a youth group and a great helper for other projects I plan as I move forward here.

So, a summary of what I’ve been doing “work” wise:

I attended another neighborhood committee meeting last Saturday close to the indigenous community in our town. The purpose of the committee is to promote production projects to create more income. The committee members raise chickens to roast and then sell. Their request to the municipality for Itaipu royalties money was successful, and whenever the royalties money comes (next March, hypothetically), they will buy more chickens and have a huge freezer to preserve more chickens. Pretty cool.
The committee president invited me to her committee meeting on Saturday but I won’t be able to because the mayor invited me to go with some senators farther out in our state to hand out food and clothing to people who are experiencing a flood. Ironically they were in the throes of a drought but now have the opposite challenge. I am excited to see more of the Chaco! Yay.

I also visited my neighbor who ran for mayor in the 2005 elections. All elected officials hold office for five years, by the way. He is very active with youth in the community and has created the Center for Promotion of Young Protagonists (Leaders sounds better than Protagonists, but that’s the literal translation). He is a good community organizer…did I already talk about him? I believe that I did. Anywho, he gave me some leads on how I can begin working with youth as I smeared the blood of swatted mosquitoes on my leg in his infested electronics workshop. There is an Italian NGO that is leading leadership seminars the next three Saturdays about 200 meters from my house. Unfortunately I won’t be able to go tomorrow for the aforementioned reason.

However, he did give me the idea of starting a youth commission of volunteers to assist the neighborhood commissions with their fundraisers.
For example, if a neighborhood commission wants to have a raffle to raise money to build a school classroom, the youth can volunteer to go door to door to ask for donations etc.

Yesterday in the Peace Corps Office I handed in solicitation to participate in the Ahecha (“I see” in Guarani) Paraguay photography project for Paraguayan youths. I will hopefully be teaching four photography classes between January 10 and February 24th with five youths. I will develop selected photos and then put together a photography exhibit for my town. Later on I will exchange the BB youths’ photos with photos from other kids in another volunteer’s site. Next summer there will be a large exhibit in Asuncion of the best photographs. This past summer this year’s Ahecha (ah-hay-SHA) photos were on display at the United States Embassy’s 4th of July fiesta. It is a cool project because kids outside of Asuncion and other large cities have hardly any access to arts or cultural programs. Ahecha is a way for them to experiment with the art of photography at no charge to them.

Today there was a meeting in a rural school for seven neighborhood commissions whose focus is increasing their agricultural production. Some also have cows, horses, chickens, etc. There were some engineers and employees of our state’s capital’s agricultural credit bureau to give micro-credit to the commissions for them to expand. One of their main concerns is commercializing their products. There is no central market for their goods. I missed parts of the seminar because I was coordinating with the head of the municipal environmental department and consultants from the ORDAZUR project. ORDAZUR was the main reason that I attended the meeting. The latter stands for Ordering of the Urban Zone. Aka setting up a zoning structure for the future of BB. It is important to organize the industrial zones versus the residential and urban zones in relation to natural resources such as fresh water. It is a difficult project to explain but it will not be difficult to understand in the future as BB’s population keeps growing: for instance, when a school wants to expand into the same area that the cattle rancher wants to expand. If there is not some sort of zoning code, BB will be a veritable mess in no time. I am super interested in working with the environmental department in the muni, so I am on board for organizing the meetings to tell the neighborhood commissions and the industries in town about ORDAZUR. Unfortunately it’s just uber hard to explain especially to Paraguayans, most of who have no concept of zoning as Americans do.

If all goes as planned, I will be moving into my own place at the beginning of December. I have to look for a bed and refrigerator. I am trying to get some American friends to help me with the bed, and I already have found a nice wardrobe, table and nightstand almost across the street from my new apartment. The place is on the second floor, with a balcony, little kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom and living room. I’ll be living behind and on the property of a friend of Cristina, the señora I’m currently living with. I am having second thoughts of moving, though, because of the expenses of buying all of the furniture, cooking all of my own meals, cleaning everything myself, etc. However, what I try to tell myself is that I’ll have more space to do my own work and space to host other volunteers when they come visit. I could wait until later to move, but I’m afraid that if I wait until I’m chomping at the bit to move out of my present situation, that same apartment will not be available. And it doesn’t appear that there are very many available places in BB. I also would feel bad backing out of my oral promise to the department owner that I am interested in the place and will move in at the beginning of December. But then again, I haven’t signed any contract, right?

I think that I set the record for longest written blog discourse in one sitting.

October 25, 2008

It had been trying to rain here for the past three days until it finally rained tonight for about 20 minutes. I could have stood in the rain the duration of the shower because it was so boiling hot today.

This morning I arose at 6 am to be in Villa Hayes by 8 am for the First Popular Congress of the Low Chaco in the Center for Ex-Combatants of the Chaco War. The chairs for all of the guests arrived at about 8:20, and the governor, mayor of my town, leaders of the Without Roof and Without Land movements (Sin Techo and Sin Tierra, respectively) arrived at about 9 am. At about 9:15 I assume the meeting began.

I was already a bit irritable on the way to Villa Hayes because the bus was wall to wall people, I felt dizzy because of my lingering cold or sinus infection (not sure which), then I had to walk all sweaty to the Excombatientes only to find out that all of the neighborhood commissions in my town came in a chartered bus for free an hour after I arrived. Lack of communication and information, I’d say.

In spite of my lack of attention span during the meeting that lasted until about noon, it was a promising event. There were a huge number of people, about 300, I’d say. The majority was there to voice their concerns about not having a home to live in or land to cultivate. At times the leader of the Sin Techos or Sin Tierra movements became so loud, booming and forceful in his speech that I got a bit annoyed. When someone gives a speech in a stern, strident tone, I get the impression that the voice is unwilling to reason with new information or other points of view. I can’t imagine the vociferous man retracting anything he says or admitting an error if he ever expressed one.

The heat and my lingering sickness made the meeting a bit of a waste for me because I couldn’t understand what was being said 96% of the time. It was so frustrating because it was an important meeting; about how to get financial support from the departmental government in Villa Hayes, but I couldn’t force myself to focus. I felt guilty when a great leader from my community approached me to explain the importance of the meeting and to ask me what I was interested in doing in BB. I usually start out vague and non-committal, simply because I don’t want to make promises that I can’t make. It’s true that I have interests in possible areas of work but I haven’t fine tuned the specifics yet. However, this leader of one of the most active neighborhood commissions and also head of the Department of Culture in the Departmental Government, invited me to his neighborhood commission meeting and was active building a school in his community about 20 years back: it goes to show that he not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. The problem with many of the commissions in BB is that they don’t last more than two years. Did I already say that in another entry?

There was a toad in my room last night. I saw him again tonight. After returning from the cyber, he had disappeared. However I did see a small mound of excrement on the floor near the window. I asked my señora if toads poop like that; “I don’t know,” she responded. If it wasn’t that toad it must have been my idiot dog Lupi. She is blind in her right eye because a rat bit it, ha ha. I must be mean because I somehow find it funny. I think you just have to see my dog and know here personality to find it humorous that a rat got the best of her.

I still don’t know how I’m going to adjust to this heat. According to the Internet it was only 36 degrees Celsius today, but it sure felt like 104 with the humidity. If you include that factor, I suppose that it was. As I watched people enduring the heat and walking down the street, I got irked that I was not coping with the intense sun. The heat makes me crazy! But as soon as it subsides, I forget what it feels like, and how desperate it makes me for ANY relief--- a pool, ice, a refrigerator, ANY cold beverage, ANTYHING to distract me from the calor.

Wish me luck sleep in this nasty humidity tonight.

Update from the ciber

2008-10-23T09:45:00.002-03:00

Photos from my trip to the local indigenous community when the German deputy visited two weeks ago: Above is the home of one family, to the left: men digging the hole for the water well. They would soon hit rock and have to move this excavating apparatus to another place, where they would hit rock again.

BELOW: The mayor of my town talking through the German deputy's German-Spanish interpreter about the water study and importance of the water well for the indigenous community. In the background is an active member of the indigenous community (in red) and the cacique (chief) of the indigenous community.

October 21, 2008

I saw a frog in the street tonight as I sat with my two señoras in front of our house. Its presence is the harbinger of rain tomorrow. I don’t know how the frogs can sense that rain is coming. After it starts raining, we usually see huge toads in our kitchen or in the street. Although rain enters our kitchen and leaks through the roof in some places, I welcome it because it has been in the 90s yesterday and today. On hot days such as these it’s so nice to have some ice cream or some fruit juice. Tonight we had watermelon and a mix of watermelon and pineapple juice that I bought at the depsensa (aka Mom and Pop convenience store). We threw it into a blender with some sugar, added some ice, and voilá. The cooking practice continues: last night I made soy empanadas; or rather, I went to the despensa across the street to buy some green pepper to add to the empanadas while the other señora who lives with me cooked the vegetables and soy. Nevertheless, I saw her technique and I will be able to do it by myself the next time! She used two tomatoes, two onions, soy (obviously), black pepper, oregano, basil and garlic. After that mix is cooked, I had to wait for it to cool. Then you put it in the store-bought empanada discs, fold it like a taco and close it, assuring there are no holes where the mixture within can escape. We cooked our empanadas in the oven rather than frying them in sunflower oil like most do. They are much better for you if they are baked rather than fried. One must beat one egg and then spread a bit on top of the closed empanadas to make sure that they get hard in the oven, I suppose. Currently I am fighting a nasty cold. Kleenex surrounds me here on my bed while I listen to Julieta Venegas. The Paraguayan diagnosis of my ailment is that it’s too hot and there is too much dust, which makes my throat hurt. They suggested that I go to the health center, but I only started feeling under the weather on Sunday. If it continues, then I’ll go. But I don’t feel any different from when I have had colds in the past. It’s just a matter of riding out the stuffy nose, congestion and lack of energy. I hope that it doesn’t turn out to be a sinus infection, because then I will probably have to go to the doctor and get a prescription. I am thinking more about moving out these days because I don’t like using my señora’s pots, pans, refrigerator, and her general kitchen space. The downside is that living by myself requires that I do more cleaning and that I spend more money to buy my own appliances like a fridge, microwave, etc. I know volunteers who have lived without a fridge, but in the middle of a Paraguayan summer, I must have a freezer for ice! New volunteers who are following up another Peace Corps volunteer are more likely to live in the former PCV house already equipped with necessities. That is not the case in my town since I am a first time volunteer here in the urban area (about three years ago there was another Peace Corps volunteer in a rural part of my town). Yesterday and this weekend were boring and depressing. Two years started to feel like an incredibly long time. I started to consider if it’s worth it to fly back to the States for Christmas…or stay here and go somewhere like the beach in Uruguay or Argentina. At this moment I am thinking Uruguay; a friend of mine has family there and invited me to spend Christmas there. Tomorrow, however, you may find me checking flights to the States. I am disappointed to be missing my favorite season of the year, with the colors of all of the leaves changing, the brisk air, the clear blue skies, the high school and OSU marching bands, football games and cross country meets.

October 18, 2008

Today I hear that some city council members reported the mayor of my town to the National Control Office (Contraloría) because he is allegedly misusing royalties funds from Itaipu and Yacyreta dams. Every municipality in Paraguay receives some royalties money to support community projects.

The part that is most difficult regarding this report is that the guy (Robert) who reported it ran for mayor in the 2005 elections, the most recent election year. He is my next-door neighbor, and I visited him this past week to learn more about the community work that he has been doing. He rode around on his bike for two years interviewing everyone in BB (that's code ;)), my town. He knows what parts of town flood when it rains, where bridges are needed, the phone numbers of all residents; the specific needs of each barrio.
He has at least 10 pages of detailed maps of the whole municipality to appropriately plan his work with neighborhood commissions, youth groups, etc. He has helped put on painting and theatre workshops and has recently started giving talks in school regarding leadership. At the conclusion of said workshop, the students wrote their suggestions for future talks. From these suggestions, Robert is formulating 35 more talks regarding sexuality, politics, pride, drug addiction and professional skills such as how to write a resume. I was so excited to meet him because I felt that I had found a community contact that could be my door into effective, meaningful work. He inspired me to work more with youth as well.

Nevertheless, what with these city council members’ accusation of the mayor, I don’t know if I can or if I want to work with Robert anymore. People in BB will start associating me with him and will assume that I am a member of his political party. There are people who don’t like Robert and say that he doesn’t do anything for BB (whereas it seems to me that he apparently does). I still haven’t found a good community contact with whom to begin my work. There are many people who say, “We’re going to work together,” or, “Anything you need, let me know,” as though they really have the time and energy to dedicate to helping me form and carry out a project. Then when I text so and so, they are consistently busy, don’t respond, or their responses are shallow and don’t answer me directly. It is hard to find someone genuine with whom I can work, who has the best interests of Acevalenses (people who live in BB at heart, doesn’t think I’m a spy and is a good listener?

I don’t know what sources of information to believe anymore. I doubt the ability to know the truth about anything going on in this town; or in Paraguay, for that matter. Now I understand why development work is so difficult: it’s unbelievably, inextricably political. It’s a game of lies and power grabbing. It’s no wonder that people are apathetic and jaded about progress here.

More photos from the soccer game

2008-10-19T18:20:00.000-03:00

From top to bottom: Estadio (stadium) Defensores del Chaco

Mateo and Eric. Both are in the Rural Economic Development Sector. Notice the Ohio State jersey?

That's me in the red hat. Eric took this photo in the stadium

We were sitting near a huge base drum that led cheers during the game and also next to a guy with a Jim Morrisson flag (the lead singer of the Doors...what is his name again?). People here are crazy for old school US rock like Queen and Aerosmith. What the Doors have to do with the Paraguay v. Peru soccer game, I have no clue.

Craziness, and great advertising for Claro, a phone company like Verizon.

Paraguay vs. Peru soccer game

2008-10-18T11:17:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday a group of about 24 Peace Corps Volunteers gathered to go to the Paraguay vs. Peru World Cup qualifier soccer game. I daresay we all had a fantastic time, what with the huge bass drum five rows over leading all of the cheers, like "Albi, albi, albirroja...". By the end of the game we were chanting along with all of the Paraguayans.

Luckily Paraguay scored a goal at the last minute, winning 1-0.

I am so sweaty in the photo to the right; it was definitely upwards of 90 degrees the day of the game and there is virtually no reprieve from the heat. Few stores have air conditioning and only the upclass restaurants have air conditioning. The first photo is my friend Julie and I and the second is me and Courtney. They are both from Virginia and are both in my "G" or group. We all were in staging in Miami together and went through training in Guarambare together.

Today I have some food shopping to do...I am pretty sluggish. It is frustrating to think about working here because people can be very political: they refuse to work with so and so because they are from a different political party.

Language frustrations, meeting German deputy

2008-10-13T08:29:00.000-04:00

October 12, 2008

When I wear my contacts, people stare at my eyes and ask me if my real eye color is blue or if I wear contacts to change the color of my eyes. Apparently the main reason people here wear contact lenses is to change the color of their eyes. I haven’t had Paraguayans asking me the same question recently because I’ve been wearing my glasses all of the time. Not my preferred eyewear, but either the dust or the contact solution I buy here doesn’t allow my lenses to stay very clean. As soon as I put them in my eyes they are bothering me and I can’t wait to take them out. (Above is a monkey in the agricultural school in my town :))

Tonight I picked up some eggs and cheese in the little general store across the street from my house. Luckily I wasn’t in a hurry, because the lady that owns the place never hurries, even when there are four people in line. As I did my best to ask for the items in Guarani, three girls, a boy, and an older man and woman stared at me. There are moments such as this from time to time, particularly in despensas (Paraguayan style convenience stores) or in front of despensas. The scenario is either the other customers in the despensa are checking me out or there are neighbors of the despensa owner drinking terere and staring at me, speculating about my origin, how white my skin is and about how I’m Mennonite or German. There’s also of course comments about how all of the mosquitoes here like foreign blood, so that’s why I am getting so many bites. On that theme, the bugs have come out in full force after Friday’s rain. Today was so hot; about 36 degrees C (somewhere in the 90s). I wished so badly that I could find a pool.

The señora with whom I live has been cooking lunch less and less for me, at least it was so in the past week because she spent all day in the kitchen catering for special events or making birthday cakes that there was not enough time to prepare lunch. Therefore the responsibility has fallen on me to actually buy the ingredients and put something together. Cooking in Paraguay requires real work: there is no microwave nor are there frozen pizzas, Lean Cuisines, or any frozen food in general. Therefore I have to devote at least an hour and a half it seems from start to finish. Then of course there are the dishes to wash. Cooking itself is not so bad, it’s more that cooking for yourself only is not much fun, and when you are the one that has to buy the food, cook it and clean up afterwards, eating just isn’t as enjoyable. I now understand why people say that food tastes better when someone else cooks it. I certainly agree. After I cook sometimes I don’t have an appetite.

10.9.2008, Two-month anniversary of my arrival here in site.

Unlike most other places in the western half of Paraguay (aka the Chaco), my site is situated on top of an aquifer that supplies water for the peoples and industries that live and work on top of it. We are very fortunate for that reason. However, if we begin removing water at a faster rate than it can be replenished, the salt water that is at the edge of the fresh water deposits will begin to penetrate, therefore contaminating the fresh water and making it unsuitable to drink. Septic tanks, agricultural and cattle waste, and landfills not strategically placed can also adulterate the fresh water deposits.

For that reason the Environmental Ministry and the German Embassy have been doing water studies to find out where exactly the fresh water ends and the salt water begins. They have already found a proposed landfill site away from the fresh water. Today I attended an assembly to form a legal body of citizens from different sectors that will work to better protect the water in BA.

Next I went to the indigenous community to meet a deputy from the German government who came to assure that the funds the German embassy has been donating have been used efficiently. Recently Embassy donated 30,000,000 Guaranies to our municipality to install a water well for over 100 families in the indigenous community located within our municipality. He brought his interpreter who reminded me of my fascination with the profession and with linguistics in general. Also in attendance were the German ambassador, his assistant and two other people in the deputy’s retinue. The mayor and head of the environmental department of my muni were kind enough to invite me along to the event.

October 2, 2008
The sentiment of uselessness is settling in. I thought that I could cope with a language that I’ve studied for 8+ years. But Spanish still sounds like white noise and there are few phrases that I understand completely without asking for clarification. Even after asking for clarification, I still don’t understand. I don’t know how to communicate because I don’t understand 2/3 of what is said. How did I reach this stage? How am I regressing rather than progressing? I am the victim of the economic law of diminishing returns: I have been studying Spanish for so long that for me to improve notably at this stage requires much more work than if I were a novice student of Spanish.

A trip to the CONAVI (govt) housing

2008-09-27T18:12:00.000-04:00

September 25, 2008

Today I went to visit an area of government subsidized housing about 1 km away from my house. There are 35 homes along a dirt road without any gutters or water drainage system. The reason for my visit was to go over a women’s commission’s request for royalties money from the muni. Tomorrow all commissions must turn in their requests in order to be considered for the 2009 municipal budget.

The women’s commission wants to receive materials to build some sort of gutters or pseudo-sewage system because when it rains, the septic tanks overflow into each family’s yard and continue flowing into the street. There are a lot of kids that play around it and the smell is unbearable. I definitely hope that this commission’s request is granted, but they asked for 50,000,000 Guaranies: half of the total amount available to all of the commissions that are turning in proposals/requests. The other problem is that it seems the septic tanks were poorly constructed and placed. Health risks and the possibility of their overflowing were not anticipated. If the muni were to grant the commission’s request for money and the commission carried out their proposed project, it would be like putting a Band-Aid on a stab wound.

I felt so frustrated today because I feel like I am not getting anywhere in terms of finding real work. When I visited the women’s commission mentioned above, I thought, “What can I really do to help these people access the resources they need to keep raw sewage from running all along the street and in their backyards? There’s nothing, nothing…I am not an engineer nor am I an urban planner, so I’m not even sure how to go about understanding what needs to be requested to remedy the problem.” In situations such as that I consider getting an engineering, urban planning or waste management degree. I feel like I’m floundering with good intentions that have no outlet because my lack of expertise in a real concrete skill area.

When we became Peace Corps Volunteers, a lot of people want to pat us on the backs and say, “Wow, you’re such a great person for wanting to help others.” But really, simply getting on the plane, going through 10 weeks of training, and moving to my site does not make me a successful volunteer. It would be so simple to just live here in the Paraguayan Chaco for the next two years eating mangoes, empanadas and drinking terere with the municipality employees; but for what? Not only am I setting a precedent for future volunteers here in my site, but also I owe it to Paraguayans to not abuse their hospitality, trust and expectation that I am going to encourage and motivate to bring positive change to their community. I am beginning to understand what it means that being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a 24:7 job…whenever I walk out in the street, when I’m jogging, shopping, what have you, I am on stage. I am being appraised. Especially here in a small town, I feel like there is a greater chance of rumors being spread about me. Whether there are any being spread yet, I don’t know.

You stay classy, norteamericanos.

A potpourri update...some old, some new

2008-09-23T09:14:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

“I like to think of the Bengals as a bowl of Cincinnati chili and Chad Johnson as the hot sauce. The chili is good in its own right, but when you add that hot sauce, it’s soooo much better.”
-Sports Illustrated (2005, I believe)

A married couple volunteering in some sector somewhere in Paraguay posted that quote on their mailbox in the Peace Corps office and I couldn’t help but post it because it made me think of my peeps back in the Nati or with roots in the Nati. Shout out!

Today was a shopping day in Asunción. I went with my host señora and her daughter Rosanna. Luckily Rosanna has a car, so we left town at about 6:35 and dropped off Rosanna´s husband off at his work. Next we went to the Peace Corps office so I could get my gigantic red suitcase, sleeping bag and backpack out of long-term storage. I now have my Reds hat to shield me from the sun, although it doesn’t match a lot of my clothes. Besides, wearing a lot of red within a municipality can give people the idea that you are affiliated with the Colorado political party. The presidents of Paraguay were Colorado for 61 years until the most recent election on April 20th of this year electing Fernando Lugo of the Liberal Party. Lugo was previously a Catholic archbishop and rumor has it that the Catholic Church was not so happy about his leaving behind his clerical profession to take up Paraguayan politics. He seems to be good so far, and there is a lot of hope that he will lead Paraguay down a better path. I see tidbits on the news in the morning and at night.

I visited another school today on the edge of town. There are about six classrooms. One or two of 9:30 am and again at 2:30 pm. I am going to get some huge sheets of paper (think Win Lose or Draw) and some colored markers, hopefully from my contact at another one of the schools in town. If I can’t get the paper I’ll have to go to Asunción tomorrow to bring it from the Peace Corps Office. In other words I’ll have to spend the majority of the day traveling to and from Asunción because the bus takes way longer than it should. It would only take about a half hour to travel the distance from Asunción to my site if I were in the United States. Here in Paraguay we compete with horse drawn carts, mopeds passing on your right and left simultaneously and riding on the dotted line, vehicles running red lights and/or sitting in the middle of oncoming traffic.

A ride on a Paraguayan is so exciting that I’m shocked that I haven’t mentioned it here yet. First off, they are all private companies originating in whatever the bus’s destination town is. For example, Guarambaré has its own bus. Each bus is painted different colors, and a lot of them have Jesus stickers on the windshield and back window. The drivers take your money, give you your receipt, give change, drink terere or talk on their cell phones while they are driving. Somehow, I haven’t seen any buses wreck yet! There are hardly any official bus stops, so the bus stops what feels like ever three minutes to pick up someone or drop them off. The twist on the Paraguayan bus system is that many bus companies have a deal with the municipality in which they reside to be the only bus company in town. No other bus companies are allowed to transport people to or from Nueva Italia, for example, even though the few buses that do run are perpetually packed. So much so that they are called salchicha (sausage) factories. I don’t know how most of the buses are still running because they are old enough to be antiques. All of them run on diesel, producing a lovely smog cloud above the city. Most other vehicles use diesel as well, so that smell is always lingering in the air in the center of the capital.

September 17, 2008

I just changed my desktop wallpaper to a photo of Jack when I went to visit Amy’s in Cleveland last winter with snow all over the ground. He is in his yellow jacket, with a big smile on his face and a bit of drool dripping down his chin. It makes me miss him, especially because I know that he has already changed so much since then! One 14-year-old boy who works in the muni in the mornings asked me if one could touch the snow after I showed him a photo of Dad shoveling the snow. It is strange to think that most people here in Paraguay have never seen, much less touched, snow.

Sept. 22, 2008

Yesterday was the first day of spring here. For the first time in 23 years, September means spring and not fall. The weather here has been in the 60s and 70s the past two days because it just rained. The weather cycle begins with really hot weather, then comes a day or two of rain, and after the rain it’s usually pretty cold. That has been the trend for the winter in Paraguay, the only season I have seen a good deal of so far.

Today I went to a seminar in Asuncion with two of my co-workers from the municipality regarding municipal budgets. It was sponsored by OPACI, the Paraguayan Intermunicipal Organization. There were about 300 people in attendance: civil servants, city council members and mayors. Information such as organizing an office so that employees self-evaluate themselves and/or that there is an independent assessor of performance is not as common sense here as it is in the United States. Therefore the first part of the morning was dedicated to discussing how to organize the institution of the municipality so that it functions like a well-oiled machine: creating a mission statement, setting goals/objectives, then making plans and assigning certain people to certain tasks.

What makes the Paraguayan situation different is that after the end of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner and the subsequent creation of a new constitution in 1992, a large chunk of power was transferred to the municipalities. Since they had never had such power, they did not know how to organize themselves to administer to the needs of the people. Change is slow anywhere, therefore municipalities are still learning how to govern and function. Some phrases I heard today at the seminar are, “Make sure you have enough money in the bank before writing a check,” and “Civil servants should be in a position that is necessary. They should be useful.” Both statements seem to be no-brainers, and I would be embarrassed to have to be told such a thing, but for some municipalities, it’s not a no-brainer! The reasons for this, aside from that already mentioned, are complex. For example, according to two of my friends in the muni, they did not have to undergo any official interviewing or application process before obtaining their current position. Rather, because of their political party or family relation, they are in their current positions. This does not always turn out bad, because the people hired, or rather appointed, in this way do a good job in most cases. However, it’s the principle of the thing: there seems to be no competitive process for civil servant positions.

The muni’s public audience should have taken place this past Saturday, but it was suspended due to the rain. We wanted as many people as possible to attend, but since most roads were muddy streams, a lot of people couldn’t travel. The weather and road conditions is one challenge we face as volunteers in Paraguay.

So far I am very happy here and I know that I made the right decision to come here. Of course I have my doubts occasionally. Just this past weekend I was thinking, “What am I going to do once Peace Corps is over? No doubt I’m going to have to uproot my life all over again and start over again, as I have done way too many times I feel.” When I was trying to decide if I was going to teach English in Spain or if I was going to do Jesuit Volunteer Corps, I sought the advice of Father Howard Gray, a Jesuit who taught my Catholic Studies Seminar at John Carroll. He told me that the right decision would leave you with a feeling of underlying peace in spite of doubts and apprehension. That was how I felt when I decided to do Peace Corps. I had so many doubts and so much interior resistance to uproot myself again after I had started a routine in Ohio, but looking down the road I knew that if I hadn’t accepted the invitation to Paraguay, I would have regretted it.

Sitting with my neighbor and his two friends around the corner drinking terere today, I said out loud, “Que extraño,¡estoy in Paraguay! Ja ja.” Life here can feel so normal that I often forget I’m in the middle of South America and that about one year ago I initiated the roller-coaster Peace Corps application process. It was worth it, in the end! Let’s hope I’m still saying the same thing 23 months from now! The time is going to fly…

A trip down memory lane

2008-09-16T12:57:00.000-04:00

See description of this photo below...

Here I am with my host family in Santa Rosa, Misiones. I stayed with them during my Long Field Practice where we visited Shawn, another municipal services volunteer. Ignacio, at the far right, was a beekeeper and still makes honey occasionally. I was lucky enough to have honey every morning with my bread and coffee. At the end of the week, they gave me a container of honey to take with me. Above is a photo of what the honey looked like every morning on the kitchen table.

These are the church bells in the Jesuit ruins. Below you will see a photo of me standing in front of the church. (I still haven't figured out how to type text next to the corresponding photo...this blog format seems out of wack to me.)

This photo was taken in Santa Rosa, Misiones during the below described Long Field Practice. We were planting flowers and had to cut all of the "maleza" with machetes. This is me posing. Don't worry, I did no one harm. On a more somber note, ever since I read We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow You Will Be Killed with Your Families freshman year of college, machetes always make me think of the genocide in Rwanda. Thank God that here in Paraguay machetes are not used for violence but rather for everyday yard tasks like cutting bamboo to make fences, gardening, etc.

In my normal fashion, I am posting photos in no particular chronological order. This photo is from my Long Field Practice back in the middle of July in Santa Rosa, Department Misiones. On the left is Shawn, the volunteer who we visited to learn what it's like being a municipal services volunteer before committing to stay here for two years at our swear-in ceremony.

There were only four of us that went to visit Shawn, unless you count the language teacher from our training center who also attended to teach us a few things so we wouldn't get behind in our Guarani while we were in Santa Rosa for a week.

Most of the week we cleaned this soccer/basketball court and then painted the lines with paint that the muni gave to the basketball club that is a recognized commission of the muni. One cannot get supplies from the muni for their projects unless they are officially recognized.

After painting the lines and cleaning the court, we had a basketball tournament. To my surprise there was a team from San Ignacio that showed up that consisted of all guys in their early to late 20s. Us Peace Corps trainees tried to stand our ground but without much luck. I'm not one to brag, but I definitely impressed a lot of those guys with my sweet basketball skills--hardly any guys in Paraguay play basketball to begin with, so when a girl knows how to play, they are shocked. One guy was trying to flirt aka hinchar in Paraguayan lingo with me. He was guarding me and kept saying, "What is your name, I love you," with his accent, ha ha. I just said to him, "Do you want to play or do you want to talk?" and then I scored one right in his face. It felt pretty good.

2008-09-13T13:52:00.000-04:00

Yvoty (flower in Guarani) in the Botanical Garden in Asunción

Swearing in at the US Embassy-- it was supposed to be a serious occasion but we couldn't help but laugh about something funny Jason was saying.

2008-09-12T18:11:00.000-04:00

Today I reconnected with my German roots by visiting the German Embassy in Asunción with the head of the Environmental Dept of the Muni, the mayor and a cacique from the local indigenous community. The Germans are donating money to build a fresh water well for the indigenous community in my muni.

The photo many of you have all been waiting for is to the right, just in time for the big Ohio State game tomorrow. The best part about this photo is that everyone besides me had no idea what they were doing or what they were spelling out.

Too tired to write

2008-09-08T19:22:00.000-04:00

After getting a total of about 7 hours of sleep all weekend since I was partying for the fiesta patronal in Guarambare, I am hitting a wall. Therefore I don't have the brain power to write anything of substance. Here are some photos, it doesn't require as much noggin to upload.

Field of sugar cane with sunset in the background in Guarambaré.
Typical Paraguayan food: Chicken and mandioca. It has a potato-like peel (not shown in this picture) as well as a potato-like taste and texture.

More photos

2008-08-25T14:06:00.003-04:00

This is the group picture I uploaded before but didn't turn out for some reason. As I said before, this is when we went to Jesus's host family's house to learn how to make all natural cough syrup and soap in order to raise funds for the women's commission to pay for their children's surgeries and other needs. From left to right in the back row: Joann, Shola, me, Rebecca, Courtney, Julie, Erik, Liam, Tessa. In the front on the left is Laara, and the others are natives of Guarambare who are either in the commission or are family members of the commission members.

Misiones

Villa Florida, Misiones, Paraguay

2008-08-25T14:06:00.001-04:00

Holler from mi sitio

2008-08-21T12:24:00.000-04:00

St. John party in San Juan Bautista, Misiones during my first volunteer visit to a rural health volunteer.

My room in Guarambare.

This is our Guarani class. This is Marcos getting frustrated.

Three kids in the Peace of the Chaco parade on June 12th in Guarambare. The day commemorates the end of the Chaco War with Bolivia in 1937.

All of the kids are off of school and the parade lasts about four hours.

Me with chipa, made of mandioca flour with a bit of cheese in side. Delicious. This photo was taken in my kitchen in Guarambare.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Although I am a municipal services development volunteer, I do not feel called to work within the four walls of the municipality. I do not feel productive there. One reason for signing for Peace Corps was to experience another country at a realistic and face-to-face level, not to close myself off from the people outside of an organized office. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have the ability and lack of schedule to go where I want, when I want looking for work, unlike the civil servants at the muni. At the same time, I can’t go about my work alone. I need to find a good Paraguayan partner to work with when the majority are all in the municipality from 7 – 1 pm. I could hypothetically work with the muni folks on projects in the afternoon, but the majority has other jobs or they go to class in the evenings. One woman is the director of a school in the afternoon whereas another guy goes to law school in the evenings. This is not unusual for a Paraguayan municipality. How one can possibly go to law school and work at the same time, I don’t know. I assume that the school work is much less difficult than in the United States.

Long story short, I still don’t have defined work. After shooting the breeze in the muni while drinking large quantities of terere and mate, I went to another neighborhood which is apparently lower-income. The Christian Canadian Fund (?) funds one school and the other is a Catholic school funded by the Ministry of Education because the kids’ families can’t afford to pay regular tuition. Imagine the private school vouchers., I suppose. My guide to these schools and neighborhood where I had never been before was a 10-year-old girl who allowed me to ride her beat down bike with her hanging off the back. It was quite fun riding a bike on a dirt road for the first time. It felt like the quintessence of the Peace Corps experience. At one point I thought a group of 9 cows were going to run into us as I went through a watery ditch. They mooed at us, but fortunately were not aggressive.

In the Catholic school, the first young boys who saw me started speaking to me in English. I assumed at the first second that they were kids I had already met, but as with most people I meet; I forget their names or that I even met them at all. I asked one boy candidly, “Have I met you before?” He responded, “No.” Therefore I must have looked blatantly americana, norteamericana to these criaturas (kids) for them to start in English from the get-go. Next I chatted with the director of the school, telling her what I say what feels like 10 times a day: name, title, country of origin, organization, what the heck am I doing here, what’s your favorite color, etc. It’s really not fair that I have hundreds of people to remember and they have one person to remember.

Doing Peace Corps is like running a marathon: a lot of people think you’re crazy for doing it, it pushes you to limits you didn’t know you could surpass, and you are always better for doing it. Let’s hope I still use that same analogy by 2010, savvy?

** Guarani funny phrase of the day*** (My first, hopefully not the last)

Hesy kavaju resa [Hey-suh kah-vah-u rey-sah] (Horse with bright eyes) – Figuratively means you have no money.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

“I like to think of the Bengals as a bowl of Cincinnati chili and Chad Johnson as the hot sauce. The chili is good in its own right, but when you add that hot sauce, it’s soooo much better.”
-Sports Illustrated (2005, I believe)

A married couple volunteering in some sector somewhere in Paraguay posted that quote on their mailbox in the Peace Corps office and I couldn’t help but post it because it made me think of my peeps back in the Nati or with roots in the Nati. Shout out!

Today was a shopping day in Asunción. I went with my host señora and her daughter Rosie. Luckily Rosie has a car, so we peaced out of town at about 6:35 and dropped off Rosie’s husband off at his work. Next we went to the Peace Corps office so I could get my gigantic red suitcase, sleeping bag and backpack out of long-term storage. I now have my Reds hat to shield me from the sun, although it doesn’t match a lot of my clothes. Besides, wearing a lot of red within a municipality can give people the idea that you are affiliated with the Colorado political party. The presidents of Paraguay were Colorado for 61 years until the most recent election on April 20th of this year electing Fernando Lugo of the Liberal Party. Lugo was previously a Catholic archbishop and rumor has it that the Catholic Church was not so happy about his leaving behind his clerical profession to take up Paraguayan politics. He seems to be good so far, and there is a lot of hope that he will lead Paraguay down a better path. I see tidbits on the news in the morning and at night.

I visited another school today on the edge of town. There are about six classrooms. One or two of the teachers and the director were not present, and there were no substitute teachers. The only class that seemed to be learning anything were the first graders, attentively writing down the number between 100 and 200.

The other classrooms were writing down questions and answers to study for their final exams taking place tomorrow. Some teachers just walk out of their classrooms and don’t supervise the kids. Consequently there are kids sitting in the windowsills, getting up in the middle of class or eating ice cream. Two of the teachers with whom I was talking didn’t even offer to step outside of the classroom with me to talk, so we were standing right in front of the kids, distracting them with our conversation, while many of them were trying to copy down their work. Teachers can try their hardest and kids are still uncooperative, but in this case there were apparently interested students but the teachers were the problem. I made a date to make a map of my town with two kids from three classes for a total of six this Monday. I will go in the morning at 9:30 am and again at 2:30 pm. I am going to get some huge sheets of paper (think Win Lose or Draw) and some colored markers, hopefully from my contact at another one of the schools in town. If I can’t get the paper I’ll have to go to Asunción tomorrow to bring it from the Peace Corps Office. In other words I’ll have to spend the majority of the day traveling to and from Asunción because the bus takes way longer than it should. It would only take about a half hour to travel the distance from Asunción to my site if I were in the United States. Here in Paraguay we compete with horse drawn carts, mopeds passing on your right and left simultaneously and riding on the dotted line, vehicles running red lights and/or sitting in the middle of oncoming traffic.

A ride on a Paraguayan is so exciting that I’m shocked that I haven’t mentioned it here yet. First off, they are all private companies originating in whatever the bus’s destination town is. For example, Guarambaré has its own bus. Each bus is painted different colors, and a lot of them have Jesus stickers on the windshield and back window. The drivers take your money, give you your receipt, give change, drink terere or talk on their cell phones while they are driving. Somehow, I haven’t seen any buses wreck yet! There are hardly any official bus stops, so the bus stops what feels like ever three minutes to pick up someone or drop them off. The twist on the Paraguayan bus system is that many bus companies have a deal with the municipality in which they reside to be the only bus company in town. No other bus companies are allowed to transport people to or from Nueva Italia, for example, even though the few buses that do run are perpetually packed. So much so that they are called salchicha (sausage) factories. I don’t know how most of the buses are still running because they are old enough to be antiques. All of them run on diesel, producing a lovely smog cloud above the city. Most other vehicles use diesel as well, so that smell is always lingering in the air in the center of the capital.

This is my Peace Corps training group when we were learning to make laundry detergent with a women's commission in Guarambaré. We also learned how to make a cough syrup from plants. Both the detergent and the cough syrup are sold to the community to raise money for their children. Most of the women in the commission are single and don't make enough money to pay for their children's surgeries or other medical needs. Two of the other trainees are not in this photo.

From left to right in the back row are Joan, Shola, me, rebecca, Courtney, Julie, Erik, Liam and Tessa. Laara is in front of Joan on the left. Missing are Jesus and Marcos.

If you would like to send me a package, you can enclose one or more of the following:

Cliff Bars, incense, Trader Joe's dry fruit mix, fiber anything, magazines such as The Economist, National Geographic, or even Us Weekly or People. I don't want to miss out on the lifestyles of the rich and famous, homemade CDs of the latest music, gum, mint, Japanese Cherry Blossom body spray from Bath and Body Works, Juniper Breeze from Bath and Body Works soap or any soap of that sort, St. Ives normal skin facial scrub, a red Ohio State T-shirt. And of course any other surprises you want to throw in would be fantastic.

2008-08-17T19:34:00.000-04:00

Updates from the Chaco

2008-08-17T19:31:00.000-04:00

August 10, 2008

I did not preconceive my Peace Corps experience as “hanging out” with people, but that is exactly what I’m doing.

My first full day in site has come and gone. I am officially cut loose from training, and now my time will be even more so what I make of it. I have been prepared well: when Paraguayans here me speak Spanish and some Guarani, they are often surprised. Some even ask me if I am from Paraguay before they hear me speak. Others ask if I’m from Germany. In a way, I guess I am--- three or four generations removed.

It is darn near impossible to be alone here in Paraguay. People are always trying to include me, and as soon as I am about ready to leave a party, they usually tell me when the next fiesta is so we can see each other again. Paraguayans love to party; they are ready for some asado (grilled steak) and Brahma cerveza anytime. The party today was a 40th birthday for the local owner of a bar and restaurant. He loves old school American rock like Billy Idol and Jethro Tull. He knows the words and music better than I do. If I thought I was going to miss the Columbus classic rock station, I was mistaken. Queen, Guns ‘N Roses and Bon Jovi are all popular here. At the party there was sopa paraguaya, Coke, grapefruit flavored soda, coleslaw salad, rice salad, asado, chicken and sausage. Julia, a girl about my age, introduced me to a lot of people. She is a lawyer in Asuncion; she just graduated from law school last year. Here it’s normal to start law school right after graduation from high school. You graduate from law in six years.

Last night there was a party in what I think was a walled-in, concrete soccer field. A retro band called the Bufalos was playing “Easy Like Sunday Morning”, “Hotel California”, “My Sharona”, CCR and “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles. The accompaniment was right on but the lyrics were lacking. No surprise, ha ha. Two guys running the event met me before the band was introduced, so when they were presenting they even mentioned my name, saying, “Karen from Washington” even though I’m not from Washington. It was a nice gesture nonetheless.

I am tired, so I’ll see if I get up with my alarm tomorrow or sleep in. Tomorrow I am visiting a colegio (school), Santa Rosa de Lima, where two girls I met today, Tania and Analia, will be showing me around and introducing me to people. The high school is only about two blocks away. My host nephew is one year younger than Tania and Analia and attends the same school; he’s 12 or 13. There is a possibility that I could work in the schools with environmental education, which I am motivated to do every time I see the smog over Asuncion and smell trash burning in the air. After I visit the school I’m going to make my first officially appearance as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the municipality.

So long, farewell, aufwiedersehn, good-night.

P.S. – I am so happy to have a cell phone . My number is 595.971.981.390.

August 12, 2008

It still catches me by surprise how natural it feels for me to be walking down the street here in my town. It does not feel like walking down the street in my neighborhood in Ohio or in Seattle or Cleveland, but it feels normal. In spite of deep ruts, cows, decomposing dog bodies and rushing creeks in the rain, these streets are quite familiar.

This morning I went to the city council meeting, which I should have expected to start late as everything in Paraguay does. There are 12 members of city council. There were about 9 that showed up; 8 for the beginning of the meeting. The secretary read the points of discussion so fast and without any inflection, so I did not retain more than 20 words of her 10-minute litany. There is a former senator, a teacher and some other people I had already heard of from other acquaintances in my town on the city council. One lady may take me to the steel foundry in the nearest big town next week. The teacher on the council has already asked me to go with him and some other members to turn in some paper at the US Embassy. I don’t know for what; I assume to request $ of some sort.

In the middle of the meeting the mayor and the secretary general (aka the mayor’s right hand man) came in. The mayor started to talk about his upcoming trip to Encarnación bordering Argentina to meet an engineer to discuss biodiesel fuel. I couldn’t gather if it were about using biodiesel or growing it in our municipality. When I attend meetings like this one I know that I have a ways to go to understand everything in Spanish.

The plan as of yesterday is to live with the woman I am with now until the beginning of September, at which time I will (hopefully) have found another family to live with until November. I would like to get to another family with children that hopefully speaks more Guarani before I move out on my own in November. There are many pieces that must be fit together to finish the housing puzzle. I first must find a second family and then find my own house or apartment or some sort of private space next to or in the back of someone’s house. I’m not worried about it, although I suppose I should be. I am busy meeting new people, shopping for food, organizing my thoughts, and just living.

Today it was lighting and thundering just as it does in Ohio. It was blustery even after the storm, and I wore my fleece almost all day. Orchids have started to bloom. There is a huge tree with what looks like poinsettias on it. After the city council meeting I had a meat and vegetable soup with mandioca and salad with cucumbers and tomato. I ate with my señora and with her grandson who is very cute and is very interested in the US. He is only 13 but definitely fun to shoot the breeze with about why Toddy hot chocolate is better than NesQuik and about everything from Paraguayan soccer players to music.

I have met other females my age but the majority are already married with kids or divorced with kids. Getting married when one is less than 20 and having kids before you’re married and/or when one is really young is normal here. It makes for a confusing family.

My room here is about 20 feet long and 15 feet wide. I have tow windows and a door that goes out into the backyard. The ceiling is wood and I have one fluorescent light. I have seem one incandescent lightbulb since I came to Paraguay. Everyone uses fluorescent. My walls are mint colored and the floor is brown tile. I also have a wooden table and three wooden chairs that was probably my señora’s mother’s kitchen table because the chairs are not in great shape. I keep most of my clothes in my suitcase because there is still no chest of drawers. Come to think of it I won’t be getting one until I move out on my own, most likely. In Peace Corps you’re always living out of your suitcase.

Today I also went shopping and bought a kilo of red beans that cost 6,000 guaranies ($1.50ish), a small box of laundry detergent ($2.00), wheat bread (8 dinner rolls for less than $1.00), yogurt for 2,000 Gs (guaranies). If you haven’t figured it out yet, $1.00 = approx. 4,000 guaranies. We volunteers are paid in guaranies, so we think in guaranies so we don’t think we’re richer than we really are by converting all of prices of our commodities into dollars.

Hasta luengo

In my site

2008-08-13T11:44:00.001-04:00

August 10, 2008

I did not preconceive my Peace Corps experience as “hanging out” with people, but that is exactly what I’m doing.

My first full day in site has come and gone. I am officially cut loose from training, and now my time will be even more so what I make of it. I have been prepared well: when Paraguayans here me speak Spanish and some Guarani, they are often surprised. Some even ask me if I am from Paraguay before they hear me speak. Others ask if I’m from Germany. In a way, I guess I am--- three or four generations removed.

It is darn near impossible to be alone here in Paraguay. People are always trying to include me, and as soon as I am about ready to leave a party, they usually tell me when the next fiesta is so we can see each other again. Paraguayans love to party; they are ready for some asado (grilled steak) and Brahma cerveza anytime. The party today was a 40th birthday for the local owner of a bar and restaurant. He loves old school American rock like Billy Idol and Jethro Tull. He knows the words and music better than I do. If I thought I was going to miss the Columbus classic rock station, I was mistaken. Queen, Guns ‘N Roses and Bon Jovi are all popular here. At the party there was sopa paraguaya, Coke, grapefruit flavored soda, coleslaw salad, rice salad, asado, chicken and sausage. Julia, a girl about my age, introduced me to a lot of people. She is a lawyer in Asuncion; she just graduated from law school last year. Here it’s normal to start law school right after graduation from high school. You graduate from law in six years.

Last night there was a party in what I think was a walled-in, concrete soccer field. A retro band called the Bufalos was playing “Easy Like Sunday Morning”, “Hotel California”, “My Sharona”, CCR and “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles. The accompaniment was right on but the lyrics were lacking. No surprise, ha ha. Two guys running the event met me before the band was introduced, so when they were presenting they even mentioned my name, saying, “Karen from Washington” even though I’m not from Washington. It was a nice gesture nonetheless.

I am tired, so I’ll see if I get up with my alarm tomorrow or sleep in. Tomorrow I am visiting a colegio (school), Santa Rosa de Lima, where two girls I met today, Tania and Analia, will be showing me around and introducing me to people. The high school is only about two blocks away. My host nephew is one year younger than Tania and Analia and attends the same school; he’s 12 or 13. There is a possibility that I could work in the schools with environmental education, which I am motivated to do every time I see the smog over Asuncion and smell trash burning in the air. After I visit the school I’m going to make my first officially appearance as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the municipality.

So long, farewell, aufwiedersehn, good-night.

August 12, 2008

It still catches me by surprise how natural it feels for me to be walking down the street here in my town. It does not feel like walking down the street in my neighborhood in Ohio or in Seattle or Cleveland, but it feels normal. In spite of deep ruts, cows, decomposing dog bodies and rushing creeks in the rain, these streets are quite familiar.

This morning I went to the city council meeting, which I should have expected to start late as everything in Paraguay does. There are 12 members of city council. There were about 9 that showed up; 8 for the beginning of the meeting. The secretary read the points of discussion so fast and without any inflection, so I did not retain more than 20 words of her 10-minute litany. There is a former senator, a teacher and some other people I had already heard of from other acquaintances in my town on the city council. One lady may take me to the steel foundry in the nearest big town next week. The teacher on the council has already asked me to go with him and some other members to turn in some paper at the US Embassy. I don’t know for what; I assume to request $ of some sort.

In the middle of the meeting the mayor and the secretary general (aka the mayor’s right hand man) came in. The mayor started to talk about his upcoming trip to Encarnación bordering Argentina to meet an engineer to discuss biodiesel fuel. I couldn’t gather if it were about using biodiesel or growing it in our municipality. When I attend meetings like this one I know that I have a ways to go to understand everything in Spanish.

The plan as of yesterday is to live with the woman I am with now until the beginning of September, at which time I will (hopefully) have found another family to live with until November. I would like to get to another family with children that hopefully speaks more Guarani before I move out on my own in November. There are many pieces that must be fit together to finish the housing puzzle. I first must find a second family and then find my own house or apartment or some sort of private space next to or in the back of someone’s house. I’m not worried about it, although I suppose I should be. I am busy meeting new people, shopping for food, organizing my thoughts, and just living.

Today it was lighting and thundering just as it does in Ohio. It was blustery even after the storm, and I wore my fleece almost all day. Orchids have started to bloom. There is a huge tree with what looks like poinsettias on it. After the city council meeting I had a meat and vegetable soup with mandioca and salad with cucumbers and tomato. I ate with my señora and with her grandson who is very cute and is very interested in the US. He is only 13 but definitely fun to shoot the breeze with about why Toddy hot chocolate is better than NesQuik and about everything from Paraguayan soccer players to music.

I have met other females my age but the majority are already married with kids or divorced with kids. Getting married when one is less than 20 and having kids before you’re married and/or when one is really young is normal here. It makes for a confusing family.

My room here is about 20 feet long and 15 feet wide. I have tow windows and a door that goes out into the backyard. The ceiling is wood and I have one fluorescent light. I have seem one incandescent lightbulb since I came to Paraguay. Everyone uses fluorescent. My walls are mint colored and the floor is brown tile. I also have a wooden table and three wooden chairs that was probably my señora’s mother’s kitchen table because the chairs are not in great shape. I keep most of my clothes in my suitcase because there is still no chest of drawers. Come to think of it I won’t be getting one until I move out on my own, most likely. In Peace Corps you’re always living out of your suitcase.

Today I also went shopping and bought a kilo of red beans that cost 6,000 guaranies ($1.50ish), a small box of laundry detergent ($2.00), wheat bread (8 dinner rolls for less than $1.00), yogurt for 2,000 Gs (guaranies). If you haven’t figured it out yet, $1.00 = approx. 4,000 guaranies. We volunteers are paid in guaranies, so we think in guaranies so we don’t think we’re richer than we really are by converting all of prices of our commodities into dollars.

Hasta luengo

Last day of training

2008-08-05T16:58:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we officially will become volunteers! I wasn't sure if I would make it this far, in all honesty. But here I am, still in Paraguay 10 weeks after leaving the States. Yesterday we had our final language interviews to examine our language levels. I am advanced high in Spanish and intermediate high in Guarani. I'm not exactly sure what that means besides that below native born level of fluency is superior, and below that is advanced high. How I can reach the superior level in Spanish, I don't know.

I am shocked that I received such a high grade in Guarani considering that I was really sick yesterday during my language interview. On Sunday afternoon my stomach started to hurt and I felt like my insides were angry with me. Yesterday I was feeling terrible, with stomach cramps and the feeling that I was about to vomit. I talked to one of our tech trainers about it, and he said I probably have giardia, a parasite that according to the CDC is transmitted through contaminated water. Usually it is not manifested until 1-2 weeks after exposure. Even after you stop feeling sick, it can still stick around in your body. For others, they may have giardia but show no symptoms. I still don't feel 100% today because I'm pretty dehydrated from the fluids I lost, but at least my stomach doesn't feel like it's trying to get out of my body anymore.

Tomorrow we have to come to the training center at 7:30 am to go to the Peace Corps office early. We have to decide which bags of ours we're going to put in long-term storage and which ones we'll take us to our sites. We'll be reunited with the bags in long-term storage when our area director (Fernando) comes to our site presentations in September. After going through a security check we'll head over to the US Embassy for our official swear in ceremony at 10 am. Afterwards there will be a mini reception, at which there should be some cake! In the afternoon it's hours of meetings and "Bridge to Service" info: getting out cell phones, bank cards, signing up for bikes, etc. In the evening we'll be eating at a Mexican restaurant and hopefully finding a karaoke place.

Take care and I hope to talk to you on my new cell phone!

A long day at the karate tourney

2008-07-13T20:58:00.000-04:00

The day began with some old-fashioned gritty clothes washing. I scrubbed my socks so hard today that I got blisters on my hands in two places. Hopefully come August I will find someone to either wash most of my clothes or a family I´m close to that has a washing machine. My host mom Ismelda usually takes my pants and shirts to someone in town to wash or she washes them herself in the washing machine in the kitchen. Either way, my clothes are always stiff when they dry and sometimes hardly smell clean at all. I think I already talked about this...and about how much I miss fabric softener...

I had written this whole entry out on my laptop before coming here, only to find that it didn´t save on my flash drive somehow.

After washing my clothes and hanging them out in the backyard to dry, I went to my sister Addie´s karate tournament at 10:15 am. At the ripe hour of 11:30, the show finally got on the road with another hour of Paraguayan dancing and karate masters showing their skills: breaking boards, doing things one shouldn´t try at home, etc. At about 12, the tournament FINALLY started, and I didn´t get to leave until 5:30 pm. In all of that time I had to think, I realized 2 things:

1) Paraguayans have an astounding patience level for doing what seems to be absolutely nothing. No one looked restless like I was feeling. I suppose it´s because many of the spectators were family members of the participants, that were between the ages of 5 and 18. My sister got a medal for her participation in the first event called " formula" which lasts about 3 min. The kids kick, move their hands and make hissing and "HI-YAH" sounds in front of three judges who give them a score on a scale of 1-10. In reality it´s 1-7 because hardly anyone gets above a 7. The second event, at about 5 pm, was fighting with one other participant. They wear headgear and footgear for protection. My sister got third place in that, but would have gotten second if the other girl had played fair and not kicked her the second they stopped shaking hands.

2) My host family is not all that curious about me or about the "how" or "why" of anything. The "what" interests them more because that is how they have been conditioned, according to Fernando, who is going to place all of us PC trainees at the end of this month in some place in Paraguay. This drives me crazy because I´m a curious person, and they either don´t understand me when I ask why something happens/ed or just get irked with me for asking so many questions. It´s soooo annoying because a lot of the things they do seem to be illogical. For example: why does my host mom feel the need to say the same phrase three times? If I don´t take my towel off of the line in the yard the SECOND she says to, she keeps repeating it until I say, "OK OK OK OK" or I take it off right then. I just hope that my next host mom isn´t as much of a flibbertigibbet as she is. The funniest thing she´s done lately is saying, "Che Ohiogua" which means, "I´m from Ohio"; always followed by a chuckle. Next thing I´ll have to teach her is O-H-I-O, ha ha.

!!!!Aside....!!!!

My friend Liam is talking on Skype on his laptop here in the ciber...which means there is WIRELESS here!! Why did I not know this before?!

!!!!!!

I will update my blog with the logical and well-written version of what I wrote above sometime next week. I am getting bone tired and, so staying on track and mentioning the details is getting more difficult.

This week I am going to Santa Rosa in southern Paraguay for our long field practice. I´ll be playing some basketball with the Pgyans and facilitating some activities with them. Three others will be accompanying me as well as one of our language teachers from CHP. Our PC host is a Peace corps volunteer from Chicago. We won´t be staying at his place, even though his house is a former hotel. Instead, we´ll all be staying with host families--that´s right, ANOTHER host family! We are all getting so used to awkward situations that a situation isn´t normal unless we are unclear of what´s going on and occasionally miscontrue others or we make Guarani or Spanish faux paus (sp?).

Buenas noches from this Paraguayan, 80 degree, winter night.

PS - I tried to upload photos but after 20 minutes they weren´t showing up in the uploader. Game over for today. Come back later!

PPS- Thanks for your comments!

PPSS- I will try to send mail, but it is pretty expensive! Email or comments here are definitely cheaper.

The training party is ending early

2008-07-09T18:29:00.000-04:00

Since there have been economic cuts in Peace Corps as a result of the slow economy, some staff at CHP have lost their jobs, and today we found out that we will be swearing in on August 6 instead of August 14. Therefore we will be going to visit our future sites early and will be leaving for our future sites early as well!

This week we had our second interview with Fernando, Chris and Carola, who will determine our fates for the next two years. I requested access to internet, transportation, and some good dirt roads for running. I also requested to work with trash and environmental management, CODENI (instances of child abuse are reported here) and or with the Woman´s Secretary that helps with domestic violence. That does not mean that I will work with any of those issues, because municipalities ask for help for man other necessities as well.

The first half of this week has been tough, with extra people around the house. My brother Jesus has two friends from his school visiting and my dad´s sister and brother-in-law came to visit from Pilar (in the south). They just left this morning. I really enjoyed talking with my aunt because of her patience with me and genuine interest in where I come from and desire to practice the English she is learning in her adult continuing education class. It´s great to hear her trying to pronounce, "Good morning" and "thank you." She understands the difficulty of learning another language, and therefore I feel she is more patient with my Guarani and Spanish shortcomings.

I am also ready for my the cigarette butts on the bathroom and kitchen floor to disappear, which will stop accumulating when my host dad goes back to work. I wish I could break through the intimidation I feel around him to just strike up a conversation, but the solemn and borderline angry expression in his face makes approaching a difficult task.

There are other foreign nationals here in Guarambare: two weeks ago my friend Shola found a Korean volunteer who works in a health clinic as a nurse. There are also two Mormons from the States and some Polish Franciscans, at least one of which has been here 18 years!

This morning we had an alternative morning at my friend Jesus-s house, whose mom heads up a women-s group to raise money for single mothers who cannot afford operations for their children. We learned how to make laundry detergent and expectorant as fundraisers for groups with whom we will work once we are in our sites. The expectorant we made will all-natural ingredients that we cut up and mixed ourselves: sarsparilla, red tree bark , mint and many others that I don´t know how to say in English.

I have been really thirsty lately, I just can-t seem to drink enough water! It has been warm here during the day. I can definitely get used to the Paraguayan winters.

Thanks for the comments!

2008-07-03T17:56:00.000-04:00

It´s nice to know that there are people out there actually reading my blog and waiting for the next entry! It gives me more motivation to write.

Today was our (Peace Corps trainees) third Dia de Practica. Courtney and I went to a lower income part of Guarambare called San Miguel to talk with people and learn more about their living situation. First we went to an asentamiento, which is a land that usually one person buys from the government or from a landowner for usually cheap, and then sells or apparently sometimes gives, several lots on the land to lower-income populations. They therefore become squatters on this land that they are given or that they buy with the central Parguayan government promise that the Ministry of Housing will build a house for free on their property. One family has been waiting a year for their house to be built and another family two years. Unfortunately for those with next to nothing, they have to build houses out of bamboo, sticks and plastic bags. Others are lucky enough to have brick.

The Dias de Practica are so frustrating because we are supposed to present a talk or facilitate some sort of awareness building about a need that the community we assess has. Courtney and I first learned about cobblestoning a dirt road, which we could not facilitate or help with b-c the leader of the project only asked us for money, and the second dia de practica we went to the city hall to learn about their department of culture. We hoped to help plan a festival for the beginning of August, but there is still not enough funding for the project.

It is hard to build sufficient relationships with people so that they feel comfortable with us coming to them to present new information or to somehow facilitate a session. We will keep sludging through and I will try to follow Courtney´s lead on enthusiasm. In exchange, I´ll translate into Spanish questions she has and supply her with John Legend tunes she left in the States.

The reason for the dias del practica is to prepare us for what our first few months in site will be like: we will be wandering around town probably looking for and asking about the needs the community has and where we can be of assistance. Unstructured and frustrating, but if you can do it, it says a lot about your initiative, patience and flexibility. When everyone else throws their hands up in the air helplessly, you keep moving forward with the awareness to address issues objectively and sensitively. Easier said than done.

Much love, and for those that sent letters, it made my WEEK! The photos are hanging prominently in my room and I am super proud of how good-looking my family is.

Reflection

2008-06-29T16:37:00.000-04:00

Sunday being our only day we have free of CHP training, it´s my only day I have time to reflect on the fact that I´m in Paraguay and not in Ohio still. It´s still a shock to my system when I think that I´ll be here for two whole years which won´t begin until August 16th. The other lovely factor is that none of us know where we will be after we are sworn in at the US Embassy in Asuncion on August 14th. I am surprised and proud of how well our group deals with this uncertainty and the uncertainty of how the next two years of our lives will go. The flexibility PC staff stresses during the application process in the States and training is only preparation for he constant flexiblity vols must have to live two years in a foreign country.

The first few weeks here I felt that the culture was not that different and it would not be that difficult for me to communicate. During week three or four, the smallest differences or idiosyncracies have begun to wear on me. Paraguayans do not enunciate their words like Colombians or Mexicans; they don´t open their mouths enough for the full vowels to come out, so my brain and my ears are exhausted from straining and trying to understand what should be easy after studying Spanish for eight years. The Guarani has influenced the Spanish spoken here and vice versa, so when I expect people to speak Guarani they throw in some Spanish words, and my brain becomes a tangled mess. At that point I like to go in my room and listen to some English music to let my mind relax for awhile.

As a summary for those of you who may be tuning in recently or who I haven´t told much about the what, where, when and why of me and Peace Corps, I´ll explain in a nutshell:

Who? Me

What? Peace Corps Paraguay, group G27 (27th Peace Corps group in Pgy), municipal services development

When? May 29th-Aug 12: training at CHP, contracted by Peace Corps to teach us how to speak the languages here, how to adjust culturally, not be robbed or assaulted, maintain our personal health and how to be good professionals technically within our field or work.

Aug. 16, 2008- Aug. 16, 2010: service at a yet to be determined site somewhere in Paraguay, probably in the eastern part (east of the Rio (river) Paraguay).

Why? I have been wanting to cement my Spanish skills for years now through a long term immersion such as Peace Corps offers. I didn´t want to do PC for a long time because volunteers seemed to live so far from the support of counterparts, volunteers and/or other USCs (US citizens). Without a spiritual and community component such as Rostro de Cristo has, I didn´t know how PC vols sustained their motivation. I still applied for PC b/c I met so many RPCVs (returned PC volunteers) who had only good things to say. Furthermore, I figured that if so many people could live two years abroad, then so could I.

After working in Seattle with immigrants for a year, I still had the travel lust and wonder lust to learn more about how another part of the world lives, works and functions. I wanted to understand what it is like to live in a developing country and to be a facilitator to teach a man to fish so that he can fish for a lifetime. In short, that is the philosophy of PC: to be teachers and assisters; to teach people to BE more so that when we volunteers leave Paraguay there is sustainability in our solutions; we don´t create dependability. Being a facilitator is in many ways more difficult than just doing for Paraguayans what they don´t yet do, because if I want something done quickly and effectively, I´ll do it myself. That mentality doesn´t work so well in PC projects, so the going is slow. Just like the cows crossing the main road in my town now as I look out the cyber cafe doorway.

I apologize to those who didn´t know I was leaving until I was gone, but I didn´t find out until the beginning of April that I was leaving for Paraguay at the end of May. Events developed quickly and I myself didn´t believe I was going to Paraguay until I was actually here. Therefore I didn´t want to tell eveyone I was coming for fear that I would change my mind and then appear like I couldn´t make up my mind or follow through on my decisions. I´ve been known to waffle!

I nearly declined the invitation to be a PCV in Pgy because I had been waiting so long to hear from PC and had adjusted to being back in the comfort of my family circle in Ohio. Uprooting myself again after I had already done so to leave Seattle and return to Ohio was not appealing. What motivated me to stick with my instincts and deeper desire was the remembrance of why I returned to Ohio from Seattle in the first place: to apply for a program like PC and not go broke trying to live and work in Seattle at the same time.

Today I feel very far away from home and wish I could snap my fingers to be transported back just for today. I´m tired of the gristly meat; whole milk, eggs, lard and corn meal combination that I had for lunch today. On the bright side last week my Pgy mum made vegetable soup and beans and rice instead of meat. I hope that it continues and I will continue to exaggerate my positive responses to vegetables.

Even though I slept for a long time Friday and Saturday nights, I am still fatigued. Hopefully I will sleep well tonight and will be ready to rock and roll tomorrow.

This week we will have a Fourth of July Party at the US Embassy. There is a volleyball game with the Pgyan employees, US Marines, PC volunteers and other embassy staff. It´s a cookout and should be a good time, but not too good since it starts at 11 and ends at 2 pm. Word on the street aka palabra in the calle is that we will have a mini 4th of July fiesta on Saturday. For all of us awesome people from the land of the free and the home of the brave, we deserve more than a 3 hour party in the middle of the day! Happy Independence Day; I am alread sad I don´t get fireworks and the Central Ohio Symphony Orchestra to make me feel patriotic.

Belated update

2008-06-26T17:31:00.000-04:00

17 junio 2008

Paraguay celebrated Father’s Day on Sunday just as we do in the States. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to a phone that day to call my own wonderful dad, so I had to wait until Monday…another story for later on in this update. Beginning this past Saturday, I went to San Juan Bautista to visit another Peace Corps Volunteer that works in rural health. I could have used the volunteer’s cell phone, but I didn’t want to use her minutes—it’s expensive, and as volunteers we get very few guaranies ($$$).

San Juan Bautista (SJB) is located in a different department (the rough equivalent of states in the US) than Guarambare, which is located in the Central department, whereas SJB is in Misiones, located approximately 2.5 hours to the south/southeast of Gurambare. Peace Corps gives us a sheet of travel information and emergency phone numbers in case something happens to us. I set out at about 7:30 am on Saturday morning to arrive at the bus interchange to catch the southbound bus. I waited for about two hours in the cold with my stuffed backpack and laptop bag. There is a small bus stop by the side of the road, but the most people waiting just stand in the berm of the highway and then flag down their bus as it is about to pass, as though it were a taxi. On the weekends, the buses are wall-to-wall people, and my bus was no different. I had to stand up by the driver. He put one of my bags in front of him in the windshield to avoid wasting time placing it underneath in one of the storage departments. In spite of no seat and no seatbelt, it was the best view of any in the windshield. I wanted to see everything, since this was my first trip to another place in Paraguay.

We passed through cities much nicer than Guarambare in my opinion, such as Ita. Between the cities were miles and miles of countryside with cows, oxen and bulls scattered across the meadows. There were some random hills in the distance that looked so out of place as to be artificial, built by some golf course designer.

After some awkward small talk with the bus fare collector man who needed some mouthwash and tweezers for the hair in his nose, I finally claimed my seat for the last 40 minutes to SJB. Mr. Fare Collector, Jose, was kind enough to advise me when my stop was approaching.

When I stepped off the bus, I realized it was actually a warm day. I arrived earlier than my volunteer host had stated she would meet me on the travel instructions, but she was fortunately early, and we found each other no problem. She is a fellow C-bus native and Ohio State alum, born in Riverside the day before I was in the same year. This world keeps getting smaller and smaller!

SJB is a super lindo (beautiful) muni with many paved and cobblestone streets, a beautiful library, several clean sit-down restaurants, well-kept houses and plazas, receptacles for collecting organic waste, plastic and glass. There have been Peace Corps Volunteers in SJB before, as manifested by the world map painting on the wall of one of the muni buildings. Maybe they helped raise awareness about the pollution generated and health risks of burning one’s own trash, therefore I didn’t smell or see anyone burning theirs while there. When I returned to Guarambare today, I saw at least ten piles burning away, and at times I can almost feel the carcinogens coming into my lungs. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but burning one’s trash is just not a good idea.

June 21, 2008

Word on the street is that it’s going to snow tonight! My Py (from this point on means Paraguayan) grandfather (taita) said so. It has been an exceptionally cold day by Paraguayan standards, and really cold for me considering that my entire family is at the beach and it’s probably 90 degrees in Myrtle Beach. I am bummed I am missing out on the summer at home, but more bummed that I am missing out on our bi-annual family gathering at the beach with 40 odd of my awesome cousins.

It really isn’t that cold by Ohio standards, so I’m comfortable in a sweatshirt, fleece, windbreaker and headband here in my room. I love sleeping in my sleeping bag. It´s my favorite item I brought from home.

This morning we had class this morning in the satellite training community where the rural economic development (from here forward referred to as RED) trainees have their class most of the week. Occasionally the RED group and us muni trainees get together for general info sessions, this AM being the theme of the San Juan (St. John) festival that is particular to Paraguay and takes place over most of the month of June. St. John’s official feast day is June 24, but tonight there will be parties all over Py. For the first part of the morning I had Guarani class and then visited families in the community to ask about particular elements of celebrating San Juan. Erik, Sasha, Jesus and I asked one woman and her 12 year old daughter about the tradition of hitting a catorra(?)(aka a huge jar, and don’t ask me what it is in Guarani b/c I don’t remember) filled with flour, tiny paper pieces and caramelos (candy). Think a piñata and you get the picture. Other groups learned how to prepare mpembu, a crumbly pancake made of mandioca flour, milk and eggs I believe; pastel del mandioca: a meat and egg filled empanada with mandioca shell, and cocido. Cocido is prepared by lighting a charcoal on fire while waiting for water to boil on the stove, then placing the smoking charcoal onto a plate of yerba mate mixed with sugar. When the water is boiling, pour the charcoal and yerba mix into the H20 and let it sit for a few seconds. Remove the charcoal and add half a glass of room temp. water. Stir, possibly add milk or more sugar, and enjoy. The quality varies by how long the charcoal sits in the boiling water: the longer, the more burnt it tastes. I get the feeling that drinking something that has had hot charcoal sitting in it cannot be good, for the same reason that burnt meat and toast aren’t good: they are carcinogenic. A super paranoid person about food would not do well here.

While the food was cooking, Eric, Erik, Sasha, Jesus, Joan and Laara started an improv game of jump rope with the rope we should have used for the piñata game. It didn’t matter, b/c we had already hung the jars in the tree and didn’t need it. It was super fun to jump rope for the first time in years while the Paraguayans laughed at us crazy, random Americans from outside of the gate of the training center. About 10 of the kids entered the center to see how a bunch of adults played their own traditional San Juan games. We did the games up right, including a potato sack race tournament. Winners earned chocolate and the champions won socks.

In the afternoon two female Paraguayan architects presented information about the politics and history of Paraguay. One works with the German version of Peace Corps and the other just returned from the US through a Rotary Exchange. She lived in Arkansas.

I learned that 75% of the Pgyan population is under the age of 35 and that the richest10% holds 43.8% of the wealth and the poorest 10% hold .5% of the wealth.

June 22, 2008

Today dawned another chilly and cloudy day. After a quick breakfast of cocido and enriched white bread without any fiber, I threw my Guaranis into my bookbag and headed down to Laara’s house to catch the bus to Asuncion for a shopping day with Courtney and Joan. I brought my shopping list but didn’t buy one thing on the list. Today was more of a day to familiarize ourselves with where things are rather than to accomplish things.

First stop was the Super 6, where we lingered at the whole-wheat pasta, soy and high fiber food sections. Joan and I both bought high fiber cereal and yogurt. Next stop was the Mariscal Lopez shopping mall across the street, which made us feel almost like we had stepped back to the United States. We all ate plates heaped full of six different types of vegetables or salads since many of us are lacking in that department at our Pgyan homes.

The dollar exchange rate today is less than four dollars for one thousand guaranies. Our money certainly doesn’t go that far, especially is one wants to buy a paperback novel that is 140,000 guaranies: about 38 dollars! For some reason books here are very expensive, so most volunteers rely on the Peace Corps office library or exchanging books among themselves.

I have been trying to maintain some semblance of an exercise schedule with Courtney and Laara. Each morning we run at about 6 or 6:15. The cobblestone streets make it challenging, but we recently found a dirt road that we will be trying tomorrow morning. We don’t run that far but at this point it feels good to do anything that gets my heart rate up. The volunteer I visited in San Juan Bautista has plans to run the Asuncion half marathon in August, but it may not even happen b/c there are no enough sponsors yet. There is also the Buenos Aires marathon in October I believe, but I know that I will not be in nearly good enough shape to do a marathon again by then! It is hard to find the time and place to run longer distances around here. It seems that if I were out in the country it would be much easier. Here, I have to compete with motorcycles, buses, bikes and cars that could care less about pedestrians.

Aketa! (I’m going to sleep!)

Link to my photos

2008-06-10T19:59:00.000-04:00

Here´s a link to my Paraguay photos:

http://s25.photobucket.com/albums/c57/Harmey21/Paraguay/

Tomorrow I´m going to Asunción with another trainee to explore the train station, ABC Color (the equivalent of the New York Times or The Washington Post in the US), a store that sells handmade goods and artisan work and Lido Bar, the most famous restaurant in all of Paraguay for its history and food. There they say that the waiters dress up like actors from Happy Days, the TV show. How it has come to be the most famous restaurant considering that is beyond me.

As for the photos, I have not uploaded all of them yet. There will be more to come later.

Hugs

New Cyber Cafe in Guarambare

2008-06-08T19:57:00.000-04:00

I just left mass in Guarambare to smell popcorn and seeing couples getting cuddly in the plaza. One motorcycle nearly ran me over. Pedestrians have absolutely no rights here. I just have to hope that they won´t come up on the sidewalk.

Last night I went to a bar with my host sister and her boyfriend. The bar only places English classic tunes like Air Supply, Aerosmith, the GoGos... you get the idea. It´s a pretty cheesy place and one of the only sit down restaurants that I know of in this town. I would know more but I feel like my host mom is pretty protective. For example, today I wanted to go to a soccer game in town but my host mom said it´s dangerous b-c people throw rocks. I don´t even know who to cheer for, so I don´t know why ppl would throw rocks at me. However the fact that there are police at the games shows that things do happen sometimes. People are so nuts about futbol here that there was a semi size truck full of about 50 ppl waving their team flag; yelling, screaming, cheering and the driver honking his horns in rhythm.

For the first time ever I washed my clothes by hand and I would rather never do it again. It doesn´t seem to really get clothes clean and is much too labor intensive when I know that there is a washing machine right in my kitchen. My madre washes my bigger clothes in the machine but insists that she has a lot to teach me about living such as washing my clothes b-c "a lot of ppl don´t have washing machines", she says. My nerves were getting short today b-c my Guarani is malo (bad). Therefore I can´t talk to my abuelos (grandparents) next door and my host padre says he won´t talk to me anymore in castellano (what they call Spanish here). Lucky for me he´s gone most of the week in the Chaco working in estancias.

This week I get to go to Asunción, finally! I wish I had time to shop in the mall at Mariscal López, but in keeping with the training theme, Peace Corps controls most of your days. Wed. morning myself and another trainee will be sent on an assignment to find something in Asunción and then in the afternoon we get a tour of the Peace Corps office. The PC director, among others, works there. The director is Michael Eschelmann and is actually from Athens, Ohio! I may have already mentioned that...

I miss the freedom of being able to arrive home whenever I want and not having people tell me what to do. My wings are definitely clipped a bit living with a host family, but all the same I wouldn´t be integrating as well. There are definitely strange things happening everyday, like a random cow on my street that my little sister had the desire to throw rocks at, the poor cow; the lack of any organized water runoff system, therefore there is water standing in people´s yards and flowing in creeks that flow to who knows where; and the piles of trash you find in meadows blocks from the main plaza and city govt. building in town.

I´m eating so much meat here that I think I´ll tell my host family in my placement that I´m a vegetarian!

"School" on Saturday, woohoo

2008-06-07T12:47:00.000-04:00

Today all of us learned about composting and gardening here in Paraguay. The bugs were out today and my friend Joan started getting big red welts on her elbows! Aaaah. I still haven´t broken out the mosquito net, but I believe it will be in order in spite of Peace Corps dr. telling me that we won´t need them until the summer. Considering that it´s winter here, I´m nervous for the summer.

The Guarani is coming along, more or less, but it´s hard around my host dad because he talks super fast.

The food is pretty good, but at my house we don´t eat enough vegetables! The most that I get is romaine lettuce for a salad every two days, if that. The staple ingredients are meat, meat, meat, mayonnaise and mandioca. There is a lot of starch eaten in my house and I haven´t gained loads of weight yet, but it will come if I don´t start working out soon. Last night I went running with Courtney for ten minutes because it was dark and we did not want to trip on the empedrada (cobblestones).

Welp, I´m going to check some Facebook and then go back to reunite with my family. i would prefer to spend time with the other trainees, but I feel the push to spend time with my family and speak more Guarani.

Jajotopata! (Later!)

2008-06-03T17:54:00.000-04:00

Here is the corner in my town of Guarambare. I would add more photos now but it took five minutes just for this one!

Week 2 in Paraguay

2008-06-03T17:51:00.000-04:00

1 June 2008

Today I passed my first Sunday in Guarambaré. I set my alarm to wake up for mass at 7:30 am, but when I was getting ready the entire house stayed dark, so I discovered that everyone was sleeping in! I had the impression that attending mass on Sunday is a central part of Paraguayan culture since its culture is influenced strongly by Catholicism. Perhaps this Sunday was different because the family with whom I am staying had many family members visiting today.

Most of my time I spend with Addie because she is thoughtful and is often ready with a laugh and smile. She and I were on our way to pick up her aunt at her house, when we met her aunt on the way. Addie´s family has many family members in the local cemetery, so we went to give our regards. The cemetery in Gurambaré is full now. There were at least 10 family members or relations of Addie buried there. Her aunt lit some candles at her husband´s and stepdaughter´s graves. Her stepdaughter passed away in an accident when she was only 18 years old. While we walked among the graves, which are nearly all monuments—think a small room with a door that the living can lock and enter with a key to light candles, place photos of the deceased at an altar and to place flowers by the deceased. Some are quite elaborate, with dark blue ceramic tiles. Addie kicked over some of the plastic bottles full of water and flowers because they are an attraction for mosquitoes that carry dengue. I thought, go for it, dengue is one of my biggest fears of being in Paraguay. It´s on the list along with tarantulas, yellow fever and malaria. I had my yellow fever shot this week and I´m not sure if when I´ll start taking the malaria prophylaxis pills. It´s possible that since it´s winter here now, the Peace Corps doctor will hold off until summer.

I went to the granja (farm) to feed my family´s pigs some potatoes and get some milk with Addie and Laura. The pigs are cute and ugly at the same time; more ugly when they are oinking and squealing when they are about to be fed. I think to myself, “Oh, you´re such pigs!” Then I think, “Yes, you are pigs! I suppose that´s not a fair accusation.” Again, we were with the people who don´t understand much castellano style Spanish, so I didn´t say much.

My host father “papa’’ cooked loads of pork and beef for his family and relatives. The relatives included a great uncle of my sister Addie, her uncle Jose, the aunt that I went with to the cemetery and helps me with Guaraní and her cousin Patricio. Patricio is in his 20s and lives nearly four hours away. He works on a boat that goes among Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. Along with the meat I had mandioca, a soft textured vegetable that has a similar consistency to a potato. It is an off-white color and is a staple of Paraguayan meals. In addition I ate salad of leafy, rich green lettuce, grated carrots, mishi mi (a little bit in Guaraní) of salt and sunflower oil.

I was supposed to meet the other Peace Corps trainees in my town, which number 11, at the local Cyber Café at 2 pm, but I was late because I was still finishing the lunch with my host family. When I finally got to the Café, it was closed and was 2:20 pm. I kept walking down the main route in the town and started talking to a woman that has known a lot of the Peace Corps trainees in Guarambaré. They have been coming here for years now. While we were talking, her neighbor who is a veterinarian pulled up to buy some gum from her store, one of the few that is open on Sundays. He has known some of the trainees as well and speaks a little bit of English because he spent a year in the United States studying to be a vet in Minnesota and some time at Cal Poly in LA. I thought of you, Erin!

Please write and comment or let me know how you are, I would love to hear from you!

Week 1 in Paraguay

2008-06-03T17:46:00.000-04:00

May 29, 2008

Greetings from Paraguay! I am writing this from my very own room in my host family’s home here in Guarambare. I am not too far away from my other fellow municipal services volunteers, but the rural economic development volunteers are outside of Guarambare to get a better feel for the realities of living with a family in a more rural area.

Today our group of 18 arrived in Asuncion, Paraguay after our long 9 hour flight from Miami to Buenos Aires, Paraguay. The flight was not as long as I expected it to feel, but wrapping my mind around 4,000 miles was a bit interesting. I forget how the world is larger around its center, so it takes longer to fly to places that appear close on a map.

It was definitely chilly while we waited for the porters to load our absurd amount of luggage in Paraguayan minds into diesel trucks. Welcome to winter in the summer hemisphere. If I make it to my birthday here next year, it will be my first birthday ever celebrated in summer!

Our first lunch in Paraguay was banana bread, some tomato lettuce and cream cheese sandwiches, oranges, apples and small little bananas that I daresay are not bananas at all but rather plantains. The Cuerpo de Paz CHP (Peace Corps Center for Human Potential) has stone paths connecting different shelters in the side and back yard, about four shelters in all that have straw on top and plastic covers on the side to block out the rain, or, as today, the cold air. It was hot and humid yesterday, then rained, which nearly always brings cold weather, according to one of the locals who I spoke with at the CHP house, where our training will take place for the next three months.

At about 3 pm today our host mothers showed up at the training center to meet us. RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) warned me that this face to face volunteers in one line facing the hosts in the other would be one of my most awkward experiences. I did not feel that it was such. I expected it to come and perhaps I was too exhausted to get embarrassed.

My host mother’s name is Laura and she has a small peluqueria (hair dressing shop) added on to her house. She also sells sweets and other items in her hair salon. It consists of only one sink for washing hair and one chair for cutting and styling.

5.30.08

Well, I officially made my host family worry about me today: I was supposed to be at home for lunch and then was tardy reaching home until about 5:30 because I went to send e-mails after training and also because my nearest Peace Corps trainee neighbor Jesus and I dropped Liam (another PCT – Peace Corps trainee) off at his house. We met his “brother” Antonio. Liam has the nicest house of anyone I heard describe theirs during training, although most of muni volunteers have nice homes by Paraguayan standards. He says he has an internet connection in his house, but he doesn’t know the password. While there we saw there bua (owl) which is actually an illegal animal to have, ha ha. It was pretty neat to see one so close. It was white with black spots. Antonio said that he gives it rats and meat to eat. He also used to have a monkey, but since monkeys are hunters, it killed one of his dogs. Incredible. The best part is that his brother has (or had?) a toucan! hahha ha. As we left Liam´s house, Jesus askes if he could have a aguava fruit that grew in a tree. Antonio conceded, so he climbed the tree and picked us each one.

The yards of those in Guarambare are pretty large, consisting of three or four guard dogs and some parakeets. My parakeet says, “Mamá, mama.’’ I believe that´s b-c my host mom has her mother next door, and frequently comes through the side gate to hear her saying, ¨¡Mamá, mamá!

The food I had for dinner tonight was wonderful, as it was for lunch. I had rice cooked with milk and maneca. Manecas look like white lima beans. I also had more sopa Paraguay, that looks like cornbread but tastes more like a salty omelet. It contains egg, milk, onion, salt and flour. I had sopa Paraguay for my first dinner last night, and then for my second I had a small pizza with tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. They are so red here; it is not often that you see some so red in the US.

I am so glad that I have a sleeping bag here because it is so cold. It feels like JVC Seattle Cherry Abbey in the winter when our heat didn´t work! Nothing new, right? Just wait until it´s 105 degrees and humid. They say that people actually shower 5x a day then! I wonder, how do you get anything done then? I guess you don´t, you just sit around and drink terere, which is an herbal tea that Paraguayans drink constantly it seems. I won a box of it during a Jeopardy game show to learn more about getting along in Paraguay today at training.

I´m about to fall asleep as we speak. All is well here so far, I am sorry I cannot communicate more often!

Greetings from Paraguay!

2008-05-30T16:56:00.000-04:00

I arrived safely in Paraguay as of 11 am, May 28th. We were greeted by the Peace Corps director and by some of our trainers for our first three months here. I was not prepared for how chilly it would be here! It is probably in the 40s today if I had to guess. I wore two long sleeved shirts, a fleece and my windbreaker to my first training session today in Guarambare, which is an hour bus ride from the capital city of Asunción.

My host family is great so far, and the food has not been bad, either. I must go for now, but I will write more later!

Bienvenido a Miami! ("Party in the city where the heat is on...")

2008-05-26T21:53:00.000-04:00

I have arrived safely in Miami! I had a fantastic weekend with my family and friends. I could not have asked for a better send off than the one I had. I feel privileged and blessed to have so many people that care about me and love me for being me, idiosyncracies and all! I would not be able to make the decision to do Peace Corps if I had not been surrounded by the loving people I count as family and friends.

The hotel here is great so far, and I am rooming with one of the two people that I corresponded with over e-mail before arriving here at staging. We just ate at a Thai restaurant not far from our hotel and are now enjoying channel surfing and chatting. Unfortunately we have to pay for the Internet here in the hotel ($10/day), so I am using my roommate's computer now so that I won't have to pay for it.

There are volunteers here for training besides just those in the municipal services sector, such as rural economic development. I have only met two people (including my roommate) and will meet the rest tomorrow when we begin our first staging event here at the hotel. I am already hearing Spanish here and there spoken on the street and in the restaurant, so I feel am getting into my element. Still, I am comfortable here in my own culture still: TV is in English and we communicate in English as the primary language. In just two days I will be inundated in espanol 24:7. Well, actually Guarani and Spanish!

I hope to have Internet access during training at least a day a week, but everything is vague and unknown at this stage.

You are in my thoughts as I embark on this next adventure.