Measuring Environmental Impact

           If you are an avid reader of my ramblings, which I am sure most of you are, you have probably picked up on my tendencies to write about the environment both on large and small scales. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about carbon footprints, my individual environmental impacts, and how mine have changed since I moved to Paraguay a year and a half ago. Anyone can calculate his or her carbon footprint online for free if you are so inclined. Provided you have the necessary information to fill in the questions it can take as little as 10-minutes. Having completed carbon footprint tests at several junctures during academic career in high school and college I had come to the conclusion that no matter how sustainably you live your life most Americans have a pretty large footprint. Being able to develop a conscience about reducing ones carbon footprint is a difficult task, but is seemingly becoming more and more important in the American mainstream. Dozens of websites, magazines, and newspapers advertise how one can make their lives greener and reduce their carbon footprint. Reading about all these ways to save energy and reduce individuals carbon emissions in America got me thinking a lot about Paraguay and individuals carbon footprints here. After I took a look at several websites series of questions raging from energy consumption to transportation frequency, I came to the conclusion that it would be next impossible for me to effectively measure my impact here in Paraguay.

            For starters, my lifestyle here is very different than it was in the States. Many of those reasons are seemingly obvious, but the more I thought about them the more I realized how diverging my lifestyle actually is. I don't drive a car, when I travel I do so on public transportation, I consume more food that is grown locally because of Paraguay's economy is shaped, and all my electricity is pirated and produced hydroelectrically. I get my water from a well that, when I have it functioning, an electric pump propels into a water tank over my house. When I don't have the pump working, I flush my toilet, bath, and wash dishes the old fashion way by filling up buckets of well water by hand. The materials used to build my house are as follows: wood, metal roofing, nails, glass windows, metal bars protecting the windows, bricks, cement, and that's about it. My house has no insulation, no carpet, no air ducts, nor a sophisticated plumping system. Even in the nicer houses in the area, relatively speaking, there are not many differences in lifestyles. It is rare to see an air-conditioning unit because they are expensive and drive up the costs of electricity. Winter is short and often only cold for a part of a day eliminating the need for a heater. I find myself wondering if I am making conscience decisions to live "greener" here or am now a product of the circumstances surrounding my life?

            When I was in America I felt, over time, more conscience about the environment and how I could reduce my carbon footprint and live greener as I was growing up. Back home that included things like unplugging appliances, buying certain products, or recycling. Here those choices aren't as easy, but people live more sustainably. Granted Paraguay is a developing country, and within the wealthiest areas of the country there are many people who live more like an average American. For the vast majority of the population, however, people are doing a much better job of being green based on the definitions and indicators of your average carbon footprint test that is sponsored by some American institution or non-profit. Then again here in Paraguay the choices people make are less often predicated on environmental impact and aren't the socially conscience choices, but rather they ones will allow them to become more socially mobile.

            A good example is flight to urban areas. This is a trend seen in countless countries for reasons that range from inability to make a living off the land to better job prospects in the cities. In Paraguay, this phenomenon is similar to other larger countries like Brazil or China in that young people are flocking to the cities in droves to find work to help support their families, but uniquely different for number of reasons. Paraguay's economy is dominated by agricultural commodities particularly soybeans and corn. Most Paraguayans grew up farming, still farm, or at least own land somewhere that is still used for food production. Seemingly everyone knows how to grow food and maintain a field. A distinct part of rural communities identities are the cooperative nature of the families. None of us have much, but we live and work together is how the relationships come off to me. That identity is in changing due to the rapid population growth and limited opportunities to continue the traditional livelihoods. Many farmers, in a similar fashion to what happened in America beginning in the 1970s, have sold, leased, or lost their land to larger landholders who have the capital to absorb smaller farms. Young people are more and more drawn to the idea of moving to a city, finding a more white-collar job, and working the 40-hour workweek to attain a better standard of living. That standard is more and more measured by the ability to obtain things like television, nice phones, or air-conditioning. The countryside is progressively becoming a shell of its former self with a huge percentage of the population being older people still working the land, and their grandchildren. The parents have increasingly left the small rural communities in search of job and educational opportunities in the cities leaving the responsibility of child caring to grandparents. It is almost like they want the culture of the rural community with the commodities attainable from life in the city. None of this is uncommon with regards to development, but it begs to question whether environmental consciousness questions evolves as a country develops, and its economy shifts?

            Carbon footprint tests, environmental impact assessments, or whatever measure used to determine health of an environment have inherent biases. Paraguay is poor country that for the first half of the 20th century had most of its people living off the land. That lifestyle caused minimal damage to their environment, but also meant that there was virtually no enforceable legislation or services from its government because of how poor and isolated communities were. As its economy entered world markets in the 1960s, rapid deforestation took place to meet the demands for wood that developed countries were now not cutting down within there own boarders. The results of rapid developments effects on the environment and the consequences were being seen in places like America, but had not yet been witnessed in a country like Paraguay. The same story goes for industrial agriculture. It brings a lot of money to the country, but also brings causes land degradation and pollution to run rampant making it harder to live in the traditional fashion most people are accustomed to. It also forces those young people to leave the rural area for the urban in search of jobs to support their families. All the while families are more and more exposed and influenced by the resulting trends of a more developed economy. Those trends include changes in diet that lead to high-blood pressure and diabetes, a loss of vocational skills, and the slow degradation of small communities.

Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam

            This trend leads people to make their livelihoods through practices that the developed world find detestable like rooting through garbage to find valuable metals to name one example. There is no question in a carbon footprint test that measures amount and kind of garbage an individual burned. They don't ask how many liters of pesticides you spray on your land, and they don't inquire about shifting diets resulting from less consumption of locally grown foods into industrial food chains. My purpose in writing this was at first to do a personal assessment of my environmental impacts from when I was in America to now, but realized that I couldn't do it because I couldn't effectively include aspects of my life here to the formula provided in the tests. If someone breaks a florescent light bulb on the ground near my house I have no idea how much mercury I am now exposed to. When the dump one kilometer down the road is lit on fire to prevent garbage from blowing on someone’s land I have not the slightest clue if the wind is blowing in my direction and the impact that has on me especially if I put trash in a trash can that ended up at the dump that is now on fire. Without a doubt my carbon footprint here is way less than it would be in the states. I bike everywhere, only take buses about once or twice a week on average, I have a garden, I use a well, my power comes from a hydroelectric source, and my house is as simple as can be.

            Paraguayans care about there environment in same way that Americans do, but where they are in terms of development is more along the lines of where America was after WWII and into the 1950s-60s when companies were highly polluting and environmental degradation was at its worse. As a result Paraguay has some of the most modern and innovative environmental laws in its constitution, but the forces of development and progress impede the ability to enforce those laws effectively. Subsequently it can appear as if Paraguayans don't care about there environment when reality their decision making is a result of circumstances. It was easy for me to recycle cans, bottles, papers, and plastics growing up when all I had to do was throw it in a green container provided by the city. It is not easy to do that when the town I currently live in barely has enough money to collect garbage in the center of the town to dump in an open pit landfill on the outskirts. I feel that it is easy for my generation to scoff at those developing countries that have widespread environmental degradation that is getting worse by the day, but we weren’t around when America reached the point where those mentalities began to change making it easier to adopt a more socially conscience approach.

            I recognize that a number of different factors contribute an individual's, community's, or country's environmental awareness. People are products of the times, and there is never a perfect model in comparing differing societies relationship with there environment, but if one considers where America came from not long that long ago I bet that it would be very reminiscent to what Paraguay looks like today. A history teach in school once said to me in the middle ages if you took a rural farmer in time machine and set the dial to 100 years in the future their decedents would probably be doing the same thing in the same place speaking essentially the same language. If you took you great grandmother and did the same thing they likely wouldn't be able to function because of all the changes. This applies to environmental consciousness in the same way it applies to other aspects of life like work, education, and culture.

             My goals for this entry were to do a comparison of my environmental impacts here and back home. I quickly found out however, that it was more difficult than I initially thought. Societies are constantly changing with the times. America seems to shifting back towards many of those traditional values such as growing ones own food, getting deeply involved in communities, and slowly realizing that relationships are more important that commodities. It is a slow process that takes generations. Will Paraguay follow that trend or will change global attitudes shift the direction of this countries development completely? Obviously I have no idea, but it will surely be interesting to see what happens.

Bus Party

Road Map

            Getting from place to place in Paraguay is never easy. Given that Paraguay only has an estimated 15.2% of all its roads paved, according to The World Bank, it is no wonder that getting around can be difficult. The vast majority of paved roads are concentrated in the major cities, and important highways connecting said cities. It is therefore not surprising that buses are the most common form of long distance transportation for most people. Many of roads in most places are either cobbled or dirt. Even in some of the larger towns that have highways running through them it will likely that they will only sport one or two paved roads.  It isn't very common at all to have the whole city paved. In O'Leary, there are only 2 paved roads, aside from the highway that runs through the center of town, that extend no more than 100 meters each. Despite the lack of paced roads I consider myself to be one of the luckier volunteers because I live within 2 KM of that major highway that allows me to avoid long distances on bumpy dirt roads. The difficulties, however, stem more from Peace Corps rule that none of the volunteers are allowed to ride motorcycles. That means that we are forced to ride our bikes, if they have not been destroyed on a recent ride on the aforementioned roads, or on foot. Within the last decade the amount of motorcycle usage has grown exponentially giving families better access to the limited paved roadways. This has slowly eliminated the infrequent buses that were once the only method of transportation outside of beasts of burden. As a result motor vehicle accidents, mostly motorcycles, are the number one cause of death amongst young Paraguayans at a rate that is growing about 100% annually.

            As for me, my lack of affluence and my strict moral code against breaking the rules has allowed me to experience cover extreme distances on a wide variety of buses, as well as develop close relationships with a number of ticket vendors, and bus operators. The following is my assessment of each company and my experiences on them. The focus will be on those companies and people that drive on a daily bases through O'Leary and the surrounding area. First, however, it’s important to understand the general classifications of buses and bus operators in the area.

            Given O'Leary proximity to Cuidad del Este (Paraguay's second largest city) along the major highway that connects it to Asuncion (Paraguay's Capital and largest city) we see several types of bus companies:

1. International Buses: These are usually double decker luxury buses that are headed towards Brazil or Argentina.

2. Long distance domestic: Buses that range from double decker to wooden box on wheels held together using cheap metal wire.

3. Local/Regional: Small buses that look like an airport shuttle, but usually less nice.

            For each company there is a story behind my perceptions of their business practices. For each company I will discuss my biased view of the buses, the guys selling the tickets, and anecdotes that I have from these experiences. First, However, I would like to illustrate a few commonalities that most of the companies share:

1. All the ticket vendors in O'Leary are men who absolutely love asking me about my multiple girlfriends.

This is a very common thing for men to do in any culture and circumstances around other men, but for reasons unknown by yours truly the banter is taken to new heights with the men the volunteers in O'Leary refer to as the Bus Stop Hustlers. Without skipping a beat I always asked upon meandering up to the bus stop, in Guarani, "Where are you going?" followed by my destination. I am then asked, after it is assumed that wherever I am going the only reason I am heading there is to visit a woman, prompting them to ask, "What are the women saying?" to which I reply, "Lots of stuff." Lastly, I am questioned about specific details,  "How many girlfriends you have now?" to which I reply "too many to count", which leaves them roaring in laughter. These interactions likely come off as strange, but that the way it is. None of it is true, but being a friend who banters back and forth with the hustlers, who makes meager commissions selling tickets, is probably better for my wallet.

2. Nobody really knows when the bus is going to arrive, but it will always be "in a second."

3. If someone guarantees you a seat it decreases your odds of getting one.

4. If you ever buy a ticket before a bus arrives you can bet that another bus headed to the same place will come before it.

5. Sacrificing quality of a bus for price will make your trip last at least an hour longer.

6. If it is raining, all bets are off.

7. Every driver goes way over the speed limits and swerves through traffic like he is in the middle of a stock car race, but instead of a racetrack it is a 2-lane highway.

8. The only reason a bus doesn't go way too fast is because its engine cannot handle the marc 5 speeds nor insane maneuvering.

9. There is always a chance that your bus will break down.

10. Some terribly dubbed over bootleg action movie, or polka music will be playing but is almost always impossible to hear over the sounds of the bus constantly accelerating and breaking.

11. All buses have one guy driving, and one guy who collects the tickets/money and off loads baggage.

12. All bus drivers are fat

13 Tereré or maté is always consumed while driving even though that is illegal to do in Paraguay.

I'll now describe the companies that I most often see or patron:

NSA: The abbreviation is for "Nuestra Señora de Asunción." Translated it means Our Lady of Ascension. It is most definitely one of, it not the, nicest bus companies in the country. Their routes go all over Paraguay and into Argentina, and are always double decker buses with air-conditioning. The problem with NSA is that because of its status as one of the nicest bus companies it is not uncommon for them to overcharge to 50,000 Gs. ($12.50) ticket to Asunción, but that isn't the most annoying part by far. If you want to ride an NSA you have to find a ticket vendor that will sell you passage before getting on. Why this is annoying is because if you are not in big city or town you cannot hop on their bus if it is going past. On numerous occasions I have been waiting for a long time, notice a bus a distance, flag it down, only for it to stop and deny me entrance because I didn't have a pre-paid ticket.

            These interactions always leave me furious especially because many of the places where I am catching a bus don't have a vendors who won't rip you off by overcharging or have a vendor at all. To date, I have yet to ride an NSA because of my resentment towards their policy of not me picking me up if I don't have a ticket. I'll concede that in most situations I could get a ticket that would not only guarantee me a seat, but also speedy transport, but a man has to have a code and that policy has left me high dry on one too many occasions. Their only saving grace is that the guy who does sell their tickets in O'Leary is one of my favorite bus stop hustlers who is always joking around with me, and lives in my neighborhood.

NASA: To be honest, I have only ridden an NASA twice and the only thing that you could think to relate it to the NASA we are all familiar with is the engine sounds like a space shuttle taking off when it accelerates past 20 kmph. The logo of NASA is remarkably similar to NSA. I suspect because they are secretly the same company, but it could be a straight up copy to save time thinking up different lettering for the logo. The first time I rode one of their buses it was so decrepit that I felt as though I needed a tetanus booster upon entering. The driver dodged traffic less recklessly, but still more dangerously than I was used to on the nicer bus lines. That class of NASA I like to refer to as the 1960s express because that is probably when they were being used in Brazil, and only recently came to Paraguay. Recently NASA has stepped its game up with very nice buses that rival some of the nicer companies, but there is absolutely no middle ground with the quality of the bus. Your choices are either going to be a luxury penthouse version, or a cardboard box on wheels.

Crucero del Este: Is easily my favorite company. Aside from the few times they have ripped me off they have been consistently fair with their prices, and are typically the friendliest. My only personal beef with Crucero is the hustler that sells the tickets at the bus stop in O'Leary is easily the creepiest gut out of the bunch. He is about 25, unmarried, and a hound. On several occasions I have seen him on a motorcycle sloshed off of caña (the cane alcohol sold everywhere). He always asks me about my "girlfriends, and then proceeds to mention the inappropriate ages of the ones he is currently seeing. At times I think he is joking, but at times I don't. He also barely speaks Spanish, so it is always an adventure dealing with him.

Expresso Guarani: Was my favorite company for the longest time. They never stop in the middle of nowhere to pick up random passengers every 20 feet, rip you off, and they are often the nicest looking buses. That being said not too long ago, I was on one of these buses headed back home after a long weekend in Asunción.

Waiting for repairs for the second time

            There were four of us traveling together, so figured we might as well take the nice bus to avoid a prolonged trip. That is precisely when things started to go wrong. For starters, we were lied to about the time of departure, it was scorching hot outside and the bus's air-conditioning wasn't working. The whole point of riding these buses is for the air conditioning especially because the windows don't open. After 4 hours of travel the cabin began to smell like gasoline. That prompted the first attempt to fix the bus, which I am sure was shoddily done, because it broke again 20-minutes later on the other side of the town we were passing through. As we were waiting for it to be fixed again a noticeable storm was brewing and I still had to walk 2 KM back to my house. Robert, the volunteer who lives in the center of O'Leary, and I paid more money to catch the next bus that came by barely making it home before the storm. I have not ridden n Expresso Guarani since.

What you hope you'll get

San Luis: Bar none the most unpleasant bus company of the bunch. Not only are they pathological liars with regards to everything from price, time of arrival, and seat availability, but also express the most indifference in terms customer satisfaction. It is almost like they go out of their way to make you uncomfortable. What I mean by that is they will do anything to make a sale, and once they do that’s it. There is no concern for safety, nor is there so much as a thank you for riding with us. The buses themselves have broadest range of models of any company ranging from spaceship to the iron oxide express.

What you end up getting more often

            The only real guarantee is that you no idea what kind of bus you are going to get when one pulls up to the bus stop, but more likely than not your trip will be a disappointing one. I will admit that I hear the reason for their unpleasantness has to do with a company policy that requires them to do their runs in a certain amount of time. If you don't meet quotas and arrival time then you get docked pay or fired. That mentality trickles down to the guys selling the tickets who will say anything to get on board. I often times lie about where I am going or wait off a distance so I can see the bus coming down the road before I commit to a company. I do this because I know the two guys selling San Luis tickets will be on me immediately the second I make eye contact. The funniest part about the San Luis vendors is that one of them is a 15-year-old kid with blonde hair. The story goes he used to hang around the bus stop for years growing up learning the art of the hustle. When he was 13 he got a job, and has been doing it ever since. I heard that he goes to school at night, but I haven't heard of a middle school that has night classes in the area. Given the moral proclivity of the rest hustlers I get the impression that this kid might be getting the wrong kind of education. To get better idea of the risk you take when riding on a San Luis, check out this recent article from a local newspaper: http://noticias.campo9news.com.py/nd.php?id=36972

Mainumby: Is the opposite of San Luis in almost every single way, and is the only bus company that is more likely to undercharge than over charge. The Mainumby, hummingbird in Guarani, is a local company that runs the last 87 KM heading towards Cuidad del Este. There is only 1 bus in the fleet that is nice looking on the outside. The rest are mini-school buses tastefully painted in earth-toned colors in abstract formations on the outside. The inside is always a party with tons of stuffed animals, religious relics, hand-woven lace decorations of all colors. The real reason I call it a party is because often times they sport a karaoke screen blasting 1980s pop music or polka. The By, pronounced boo in English, is the most commonly used bus for people transporting goods to Cuidad del Este, so in addition to being friendly it is not uncommon to find an onion or an orange underneath the seats. They stop with a higher degree of frequency, but the time differences in arrival are negligible. The guy who collects the money always allows you get settled in before he comes pestering you for your money. Really the only downsides are there might be a bit of animal blood or parts on the floor and the seats are so close together that only a 5'5 person or under can comfortably sit, but who cares the personality of the bus itself makes it worth it.

Guareña: Is based in the city of Villarrica about 3 hours from O'Leary. I really don't have much to say with regards to the service or their buses in particular. As far as I'm concerned they are your average company with some nice buses, but mostly of the not nice variety. My disdain for them stems from a phenomenon that has nothing to do with bus company management. That phenomenon is known as the crowded bus paradox. Everyone knows that certain times of year and certain days are not conducive to traveling. That is not what I am talking about. The amount of random holidays or patron saint days in Paraguay seem to exceed days that aren't holidays. What I mean by this is that I could be leaving O'Leary on some random day of the week, but that day happens to be the patron saint of the town of Villarrica, or a particular national holiday that is celebrated more intensely there than elsewhere. 

       O'Leary for example has a special parade on June 12th to commemorate the Chaco War Armistice, but doesn't do anything for independence day even though both are national holidays. You add certain patron saint days to the mix and what you got is a whole series of days that might lead to you standing on a bus for the entirety of your trip. If you thought I was building to something you were right. On June 17, 2012 I was on a Guareña headed to Villarrica on a bus that was so crowded I could barely fit in the drivers cabin. It wasn't until we were 5-minutes away from our destination that we found a seat. The explanation for the bus being crowded? I still don't know to this day.

O’Leary: Is the San Luis of local buses. What makes me dislike the O'Leary buses more than anything is that they leave from where I live, meaning they know whom I am and that I live where they are going. Despite that they almost always without fail try to rip me off. They also will stop at nothing to make as much money as possible, and are apathetic to arriving someplace on time. The most pertinent example in my experience is when I took bus for a distance of 12 KM, which should cost 2,000 Gs. ($0.50). As soon as we got on the crowded bus they said 10,000 Gs. ($2.50), and wouldn't back down.

            Trips that should take a half an hour more often take 45-minutes to an hour because they stop to ask any bystander where they are going. They also take frequent breaks at any cross section where someone might get on for times that triple any other company. The amount of times I saw an O'Leary bus passing by without stopping for me is more common than one actually stopping for me so I can give them my business. As far I'm concerned in spite of the quality of the buses, which are pretty nice for smaller local buses, they are one of the worst.

Pycasu: Would be the mean of all the buses. They are not nice, but not bad, cheap, but slow, pleasant drivers, but not anything to write home about.

RYSA: In addition to being a long distance bus it is also a transportation company. What that means is you pay less, but take way more time because they have often drop off and pick up packages along the way. To mitigate this they offer smaller buses that go "direct" between Asunción and Cuidad del Este. It was that "direct" bus that ruined my opinion of them. One day when I was traveling 10 KM back between O'Leary and the site of another volunteer West of me. I flagged down a RYSA the bus stopped, let me get on, started driving, took my money, then gave it back and threw me off while in motion because it wasn't worth their time even though they were going to stop at the bus stop I was

going to. I kicked a tree so hard while yelling from anger after this interaction that I drew a number of awkward stares from people close by including another guy waiting for a bus who slowly proceeded to back away from me. That is all it took for me to never want to ride them again, and I bet you probably picking up on a trend here.

Palma Loma: If I wanted to have a bus trip where I knew we would break down I would get on a Palma Loma. Now the buses are not horrific, but they are certainly not good. Imagine riding a 1987 Chevy Celebrity in 2005. The car still works, but its probably going break down if you take it on the highway. The interior of the Palma Loma is retina-searing red with orange and green overtones. The nice part though is that the driver and the ticket vendors are maybe some of the nicest. I have had free rides accidently and am never over charged. An added bonus is when it breaks down, and trust me it will for no reason at all, you got some nice guys to hang out with.

Cardozo Hermanos: The Cardozo brothers are based out of a town called La Colmena, which is a full 3.5 hours at least from O'Leary, but I have found myself taking them on a number of occasions. Jovial would be the words I would use to describe them mostly because the employees are all super friendly as well as dramatically overweight. Like many companies, there is only one bus that you could consider calling nice, so you can always know when you are going to have a good day if you manage to hop aboard that one nice one.

Carapegueña: Some would call this the crappiest bus line in Paraguay, but not because of the service. The colors are a pallet of brown that looks like...well you can figure out the rest. The Carapagueña is a particularly important bus for many people in Eastern Paraguay because a lot of people are from there. During the early years of the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship in Paraguay, the majority of the population was concentrated in Asuncion and the surrounding areas. In an attempt to open up the East, Stroessner gave families very cheap rates to buy land parcels with many of them coming from Carapegua, which is about an 2 hours South of Asuncion. Carapegua being an old city means that it is an older bus company, and I get the impression that in a flash of brilliance the owners of the buses had them painted brown colors to mask the dirt that accumulates over long distances on muddy roads. In some ways the buses are sort of an automotive chameleon, but that doesn't stop them from not being nice looking or comfortable.

 

Piribebuy: In my year and a half in Peace Corps there is only one bus that I wouldn't take unless it was my only option. That bus is the Piribebuy, but our destinies would soon be linked. After reading an Economist article about Paraguay and the legacy of the Triple Alliance War (http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568594-how-terrible-little-known-conflict-continues-shape-and-blight-nation) I learned that there was a small museum in the town of Piribebuy that had artifacts from the war and the massacre that took place there. Luckily I had a buddy who lived close by who also wanted to go to the museum. Piribebuy is not a town right off a major highway. While it is a paved road to get there, the buses look like a group of people went in with 9-irons and baseball bats through a swamp while stealing the bus from Brazil (because all the interior the signs are all in Portuguese). I knew I was getting into a mess when I got on board, but through the first 80% of the voyage, all seemed well. We were very close to making the turn to head to Piribebuy when I hear a giant popping noise and the bus started fish tailing ever so slightly. Had I not lived here for a while, I probably would have been freaked out a bit, but instead I looked up at the ceiling and sighed deeply at my 2-2 week on buses breaking down.

     

       Before I knew what was happening everyone was off loading his or her stuff, and the driver with the ticket collector started lifting up the panels where the overhead luggage is put grabbing 5 kilo bags of Brazilian sugar from underneath. Not only was I not getting to where I wanted to go, but also I was potentially implicated in a smuggling operation. After waiting for well over an hour a replacement bus of equal quality rolled up, spent 10-minuts reloading everything, and an additional 2-hours finally getting to Piribebuy; we were originally only a half an hour away.

            These are my experiences on the buses that past through O'Leary. The learning curve for the various companies and their tendencies is something that takes time, and even the most reliable companies can be disappointing from on occasion. There are countless other stories that I have decided not to jot down for the sake of time. Bus travel can be enjoyable if the stars line up on a particular day, and I have obviously not shared the times when nothing happened on my travels. It'll be interesting to see what happens to these companies as time goes on and Paraguay continues to develop, but for now I am content with what’s available even if that is a wooden box on wheels.

Shocking Revelations

            Ever since arriving in Paraguay I have had several epiphanies concerning my lack of vocational abilities in maintaining a home or physical structure. My ineptitude in this regard can be explained in any number of ways, but for simplicity sake I'll concede that the primary reason is that I can get anything I ever needed fixed or replaced by picking up the telephone. Car broken? Take it to Jiffy lube. Yard in disarray? Call a landscaping company. Power went out? Get a hold of the electric company, and so on and so forth. What amazes me is that the convenience that exists in the states is something that I greatly took for granted before I moved to Paraguay. To be fair to myself, how could I have expected the challenges associated with house upkeep having never lived alone or in my own house? Not ever having needed those skills with any degree of regularity allowed me to prioritize other things like sports and television. Growing up in America in the time period I did greatly shaped what skills I fostered during my upbringing and educational development. Paraguay, however, is very much a developing country that I have on numerous occasions compared to America in the 1930s-50s with regards to the necessity of being handy. The main reasons I draw that comparison is because of the rudimentary handyman skills that most Paraguayan men possess far exceed the handyman skills I have. This necessity translates into Paraguayans living almost completely self-sufficiently.

            What I mean by self -sufficient is not that they most families live in a completely sustainable situation where they are not dependent on anyone for their survival. I am more referring to how all Paraguayans, particularly ones in countryside, are able to do everything from grow a good portion of there food, to building a house from the ground up. Common knowledge includes, but is not limited to plumbing, electrical wiring, carpentry, construction, animal husbandry, and agriculture. When you start a family here it is the norm, rather than the exception, to build your house, or at least expand it as your family grows, maintain a garden or small field, keep a variety of animals, install modern plumbing, and last but not least wire your own house. I could write anecdotes about all of these subjects, but since I moved into my house a year ago it has been my ongoing battle with trying to stay on the electrical grid that has been the catalyst of my frustration regarding my lack of trade skills.

My Circuit Breaker

            For the volunteers who have lived around me this ongoing saga is old news, but for those of you back home hopefully the following will provide a glimpse into the life of yours truly. In previous entries, I have discussed my house and how it came to be. Aside from the four walls, two windows, two doors, and an electrical connection to the main line, my house had virtually nothing. The months of March-April, 2012 an uphill battled ensued getting my house up to a standard of living that I considered acceptable. This included building a bathroom and putting lights on the inside and outside of the house. The majority of the electrical work was done for free by my host father and community contact Julio. In addition to being the Area Director of 7 schools he also has a field where he grows corn, a multitude of farm animals, and extensive experience in construction developed during his youth. What I brought to the table were principally naiveté, perplexed looks, and dumb questions. I had to pester Julio relentlessly for a month to have him help get my electricity, and house in working order. After over a month of waiting to finish everything, I got fed up and moved into my house, without power, where I lived for close to a week. It wasn't until after I returned from a week long training secession that I found my house was fully wired, and my front porch light was finally shining brightly illuminating my front lawn for the first time.

            I was elated, and thought that I would be on easy street for the rest of my service with regards to electricity. I had a water pump that filled a tank above my house that provided me running water, multiple outlets, and plenty of lighting. Little did I know that my house was connected to the main power line on the street by two metal hooks that hung precariously eight meters in the air. I quickly learned that if there were any disturbances in the line from a bird landing on them to the wind blowing gently that I would lose power to my whole house, and suffer the night in utter darkness. To make matters worse it was after daylight savings so it would begin to get dark around 5 in the afternoon. Seemingly everyday I would have to go ask a neighbor or Julio to fix my power. This entailed getting long stick of bamboo to move the metal hooks into the precise place where the electrical connection could be established. I quickly caught on to this trick and soon found myself fixing the problem independently. While highly inconvenient, I trudged forward until one day when the cable fried causing one of the metal hook to fall to the ground. My heart sank because, as mentioned, I know nothing about electricity. In a move that would cause any professional electrician's jaw to drop, I reattached the cable with a neighbor by reforming the metal hook, attaching it to a slit at the end of a bamboo pool, and hooking it to the necessary cable. The effect was something on par with Fourth of July fireworks celebration, but after the initial sparking I was once again joined the ranks of the electrified, not literally. When that happened again a month later I decided that enough was enough and I would look for a more permanent solution to my ongoing problem.

            In every instance when my power has gone out I have had a conversation with most my neighbors that goes something like this:

Neighbor: Your powers out.

Me: Sure is. I have no idea why?

Neighbor: Sucks.

Me: Yep.

Neighbor: You should talk to so and so I don't know.

Me: Where does he live?

Neighbor: Over there.

Me. Thanks.

Neighbor: No Problem

Now I'll concede that I am embellishing this a bit, but my interactions with my neighbors almost always happens this way. It also always happens when I am standing underneath my power line looking perplexed. Invariably someone will come along to help me, but it is only after a few days of me inquiring around. At the recommendation of Kristin, the volunteer who lived in the community next to mine at the time, I enlisted the help of squat, round-faced man named Blascito who is the go to "electrician" in her community that is 1 KM from my house.  Not only did he fix my problem the day I asked him about it, but he also used an old rickety ladder, that he had elongated by 2 meters, and permanently, or so I thought, fixed my power for a nominal fee. He had taken the two long hanging wires and secured them to the main power line. In doing so I never again needed to go out and fix my power with a long stick when it was disconnected by a minor change in the weather.

            That fairy tale ending, while life changing at that moment, would not withstand the test of time. The next series of problems occurred in the New Year, and started with my archenemies the cow. Having spent a marvelous two-weeks in beautiful Uruguay I returned to my derelict shake to discover that cows had ripped off my electrical connection to my house. Thankfully this was an easy fix, but a fix all the same that required the usual herculean effort to resolve. Thankfully it was the summer, and Julio was able to come over and resolve the problem immediately after some coxing. Next was the infamous plug, water pump, and light bulb explosions of February. Within 24 hours of each other I burnt out the main light in my kitchen, which normally would be an easy fix except that the bulb is located in the middle of the room about 9 feet in air just out of my reach in my tallest chair. A frayed wire giving way causing the one plug in my kitchen area to go up like a sparkler followed that situation. That forced me to cook my meals in my bedroom next my bed, which while opportune was hardly ideal. Then my water pump, never a good-looking one to start with, burnt out leaving me with no water. Similar to the cow situation it was the summer meaning that Julio had time to help me slowly but surly resolve these problems that included installing brand new water pump that worked like a dream.

The Main Line

            Now when I say worked like I dream I mean that last week it was stolen while I was away from my house. Someone around me likely saw me install it, and rightfully thought it would be a nice payday to swipe that when Thomas wasn't around. Sure enough when I got back my heart sank as I knew that I would have to temporarily relay on the good ole' fashion bucket and rope method to supply my water until I can put in a new pump, but that isn't even half the story. Within one hour of realizing my pump was stolen, my electrical connection burnt out leaving me powerless for four days. This time, Julio had resumed his job at the school meaning that I was up you know what creek without a paddle. I spent those four days in a somber mood to say the least.

            After a day, I was able to get Julio to come over to my house. He spent 15-minutes fiddling around the mess that makes up my poor mans circuit breaker before concluding he didn't know what the problem was and left without giving me advice. I was dumbfounded by his indifference towards my situation, and began having PST flashbacks from this time last year when he was erratically meandering over to my house to help me put the home, which he helped me find in the first place under the pretext of being there to help me out when I needed it, together. I then spent all of Friday wandering aimlessly around my neighborhood looking for people who could help my situation. That entailed borrowing a wobbly ladder weighing close to a metric ton from one neighbor, and being told the community electrical guy wasn't around because Sunday was the Presidential Election and nobody had time to help. To make matters worse, my two neighbors who usually help me when I have a problem with my house, so about every week, weren’t around. I then went to talk Blascito again hoping that the reliability he demonstrated last year would again shine through for long enough to get my situation resolved. I biked over to his house, and after blithering away in my stupendously average Guarani he told me he would come by at 3.

            From the moment he biked up to my house I could tell that the problem was far graver than I had thought. He informed me immediately that my main cables looked liked they had spent a period of time on the sun, and that I would need to buy about 22 meters of 4 mm electrical cable to fix it. The problem, however, was that the aforementioned wobbly ladder, despite having already been extended already, couldn't reach the height of the wires. He said that he would need to find some type of climbing spike to even attempt to fix the problem. Not having mountaineering gear handy, Blas went to find out if he could borrow some from a friend. As he was leaving my neighbor Alfredo, like the sauce, rolls up to tell me that he can fox it no problem as long as I buy the wire. It being four o'clock on the Friday before the national elections were to occur and with daylight dwindling I jumped on my bike and booked it to the closest hardware store in the center of O'Leary. As I Flintstoned braked from about 300 meters before the hardware store, my bike currently doesn't possess brakes, I realized that I had set a personal record for the 2 KM distance from my house to the center of town. I quickly bought the needed wire a booked it home with plenty of time to fix the power. To avoid the height problem of my previous power situation Alfredo connected the wires to the electric poll that the school uses. Alfredo heroically fixed my power even though I almost killed him through my use of a crappy ladder that broke halfway up as he was climbing to make the final connections. In spite of all that we fixed the ladder, and more importantly my power that has been working, knock on wood, ever since.

            I am sure that more problems will present themselves in my remaining eight months in Paraguay. I realize this entry makes it seem like I have learned nothing, and to be honest that isn't too far from the truth. I have, however, experienced my own brief moment of redress when I successfully was able to rewire my back porch light last November. Having triumphantly reattached the burnt wiring, my chest swelled with pride as I flipped the switch to see the light bulb illuminate my backyard as I stood there with a smug smile on face. I have to say, though, boasting about an accomplishment of that nature to Paraguayans is far from satisfactory given their general knowledge of how to wire something. In my incessantly ramblings about my accomplishment within 3 days of finally fixing a problem on my own the bulb jettisoned from its mount and shattered all over the ground. I guess next time I'll hide my hubris.

Chipa II

       Last year, I wrote a long entry about Paraguayan cuisine that specifically focused around what the famous Paraguayan author Agusto Roa Basto described as “fragrant, golden rings” in his well-known book entitled “Hijo del Hombre” (Son of Man). What I was referring to is more than just a simple food that people here enjoy with a passion unparalleled by any equivalent food in America. It is called chipa, and to say that it is just a food would be an insult to the Paraguayan way of life. Simply put, chipa is more or less a tough corn and manioc flour cake that is consumed in every corner of the country, and I am certain would illegal in the States to make without serious oversight of the necessary ingredients. Despite individual families’ variations it is essentially made using the same ingredients with little variation. Every Paraguayan from infancy throughout their entire lives is exposed to copious amounts of the biscuit like treat. However, its importance stretches into the religious fabric of the country because during Easter and the week leading up to Easter, families bake bountiful amounts of chipa in their back yard ovens known as tatakuas. The chipas are to be eaten as the primary source of food starting on good Friday and ending on Easter Sunday. In other country’s the tradition is to fast or just to avoid meat, but in Paraguay all you eat is chipa, which let me tell you after two days is sort of sitting out on the table, the chipa transforms into a sort of crumbling rock that even the dogs struggle to chump through. This time last year, I was starving on Easter Sunday because of said tradition, and was immensely relieved once Easter was over that our diets could resume normally through the reintroduction of proteins.

      This year my perspective was different in that I now live alone. That allows me the privilege to make chipa, receive chipa, but not depend on it as my only form of sustenance during the week. Having made chipa already one time before with my host family during the three month training period I was somewhat familiar with what the primary components to construct the perfect chipa were, but didn't truly appreciate the importance of the process until recently. For the record, I find chipa to be a food I only choose to eat when no other options exist, or when it is given to me by someone who asks if I’m hungry. With time, I have grown to appreciate the taste and the subtle nuances that exist between different kinds, but to date, I cannot say I will be craving it once I am not longer in position to purchase it back in America. I think my personal taste preferences initially limited my ability to appreciate chipa for what it is to Paraguayans. I cannot honestly say I have never met a Paraguayan who doesn't like chipa or doesn't know how to make it. You would have to blind not to know what it is especially because it can be purchased on any long distance bus going anywhere in the country.

      Bus companies have unspoken agreements with chipa individual chipa vendors for the right to sell their chipa on their buses  Women, normally heavier set women for reasons that become obvious upon a brief glace at the ingredients that go into chipa, board the buses with an enormous basket containing hundreds of chipas that sell for roughly $0.50 each. You can always tell when the chipa lady, most often it is a woman, by how everyone on the bus starts digging around their wallets and purses, and how everyone seems to come to life as the lady bumps back and forward in between the aisle with basket that appears almost as big as the woman carrying it on her shoulder. Remarkably the women usually sell most of her stock on one bus, particularly if it is early in the morning. Her enormous basket with the intricately folded white cloth that contains and maintains the chipas temperature gradually shrinks from mountain to a small mound in a matter of minutes. The ladies selling the chipas somehow are able to maintain balance in spite the ridiculous speeds the lunatic bus drivers seem to maintain no matter how much traffic there is on the road. They are also simultaneously able to break change and put each chipa in a small plastic bag with the logo of the chipa company on the front. Aside from the comically large basket these women hoist on their shoulders, the uniform of the chipa vendor is usually a shirt polo shirt with a certain color fringe and the logo of the company over the heart. Usually the woman wears shorts skirts and hose the former of which matches the tinge of the polo. I don’t know exactly how many runs the average vendor does in a day, but I do know that they are apart of an elite group of contributors to the economy that work rain or shine and on weekends and holidays. They will board a bus whether it has 10 people sitting rows away from each other, or whether it has 100 passengers crammed in every seat and stuffed in every square foot of the aisle. Nevertheless, if you by some horrible stroke of bad luck are on a bus where a chipa lady doesn't get on, lets just say because one couldn't hop aboard the bus with a 30 pound basket on her shoulder with a bus driver that refuses to go slower that 10 mph when passing, there is no need to fret because at every bus terminal in the country one will be accosted by 5-15 people each selling one of six things one of which will always be chipa. In fact, on the four-and-a-half hour bus ride from Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, to Juan E. O’Leary, where I live, the average patron will have no less than four opportunities to buy chipa from someone and often times more than that.

       The culture of bus chipa, in many ways, is its own unique subculture from the traditional heritage that developed over hundreds of years. Sure the ingredients are the same, but they are mass produced for the populace and only half the times are backed in the traditional tatakua. For me that commercialization is sort of the equivalent of eating grandmas home made biscuits versus Pillsbury ready to bake. Sure the commercialized version that claims to taste like grandmas are good, but it’s just not the same. That feeling is very analogous to the chipa industry here. Despite commercialization efforts to push grandma so-and-so’s chipa or patron saint of whatever’s chipa nothing tastes quite the same as the stuff made at home.

       Making chipa is a simple enough process, but like all true homemade delicacies there is a procedure that has been mastered only after the knowledge has been passed down for generations and with years of practice under one’s belt. So to say that my abilities are novice-like is spectacular understatement. Sure I can get the method down easily enough, but the making of the chipa doesn't have roots in my genetic heritage, so I have to willingly accepted that I will always, in spite of my best efforts, be a goofy outsider when it comes to making the Paraguayan snack of the Gods. This past Wednesday I was invited over by a neighbor who let me help her make her chipa for the week. The following is her process that is pretty much universally accepted throughout all corners of Paraguay. Describing chipa and its production method in a way that truly hits home for most Americans I will once again emphasize the analogy of mom or grandma’s homemade rolls or biscuits. Sure the frozen ones are good, but they aren't the same. A reason for that might be because somehow grandmas knows better than to settle for whatever the grocery store has to offer as a substitute to an important component. But in America today, a lot of the ingredients are things that we no longer have ready access to because we didn't grow up on a farm or close to an area where we could get fresh milk or eggs. Paraguayans, for the most part, still have access to those fresh ingredients that seem to have disappeared from the American household, and therefore the rustic identity of homemade chipa is still very much a part of the cultural identity.

      To make about 100 chipas one must have the following ingredients: 2 dozen eggs (preferably laid from your own chickens), 1.5 kilos of pig fat aka lard (Crisco or another fat substitute has yet to make headwind in the Paraguayan marketplace), 2-3 kilos of finely ground corn flower (again preferably your own corn that you ground yourself), 4 kilos of manioc flower (naturally grown and ground yourself), 100-200 gram packet of anis seed (smells and tastes like black liquorish), 1.5-2.5 kilos of Paraguayan cheese (really difficult to describe this, but imagine taking fresh milk from your cow and being able to make a solid block of slightly smelly, soft, white cheese that is ready to use in a variety of foods the next day), and lastly a pitcher full of salty milk that one adds to taste. Once all your ingredients are gathered the process of mixing takes on its own unique process. First, you mix the lard, the eggs, and a portion of the corn flower together until you create a yellowish paste that masks the smell of the eggs. You add corn flower accordingly until you achieve the desired result. Next you start kneading in the rest of the corn flour and the entire 4 kilos manioc flour along with the anis seed and salt milk until you get lumpy looking dough. Then add the cheese, depending on how cheesy you want it, and fold that into the mixture. The cheese is typically soft, and blends in well if it is fresh. However, that is not a requirement and the older the cheese the worse it tastes when one is unexpectedly given a piece. After the entire tub is in a dough form each chunk is kneaded again until smooth, and it typically shaped in a circle, a think log, or a bun, but it can really be molded into whatever you want because the texture is a lot like Play dough.

                                                     Once the arduous task of forming all the chipas is completed one must cut down 2-3 banana tree leaves that serve as the base for the chipa as it is put in the tatakua. A tatakua is a small brick oven that is made from cheap adobe bricks formed around iron rebar, and covered with adobe paste. One heats the tatakua exclusively by burning wood. Needless to say that Paraguay utilizes the tatakua for many other cooking purposes, and is therefore South America’s number one per capita consumer of firewood as a result. Once oven is hot enough you throw in the chipas much like you would for a pizza in a brick oven, wait 15-20 minutes and before you know it you are chewing on a delicious piece of golden brown chipa. Unfortunately, right out of the oven and hot is really the only time that it is chewable without having the fear of breaking ones teeth. You can reheat it the next day, but it’s not the same, and after 2 days of sitting out it is close to inedible. In reality, chipa can be eaten at all times of day regardless of the weather and temperature. Most commonly it is eaten for breakfast with a steaming cup of cocido, which is burnt yerba mate and burnt sugar brought to a boil with water or milk then drank scalding hot with copious amounts of sugar that makes feel like you are contracting diabetes and cancer at the same time. Families all over Paraguay make chipa the week leading up to Easter, and eat it throughout. It is an important food, but a more important component of a happy family that lives and shares together. It kind of reminds me of making Christmas cookies with my Mom and Grandma during the holiday season.

      As for my personal opinion concerning chipa, all I’ll say is that it is an acquired taste. I’ll eat it, especially when its fresh, but I am not sure that I would be able to eat it frequently without wanting to kill myself as it sits in my stomach like a brick. Since arriving I have seen chipa made in many places, particularly close to where I live, and just like anything everyone has their specific methods and details that go into making their own family’s chipa. I guess what it was about the whole culture of the flaky, rock hard, Paraguayan indulgence that inspired me to write about it again has to do with the fact that it is Easter again, and I am not home with my family, again. Although everything about the taste and the process of making it is totally unique, the values transcend culture, and make me a bit homesick. With that I’d like to say Happy Easter to my family at home particularly to my Mom and Grandma who I am sure made something special, that I cannot wait to have again soon, for everyone at home.

Tatakua

The final product

My Home Landscape

       At various points of my service I have discussed gardening in a variety of different contexts. One of the big objectives of Environmental Conservation Volunteers as well as the Paraguayan Ministry of Education are school garden projects. In the past, I have written about my experience in creating a school garden that turned into a rather impressive cornucopia of vegetables. However, I also mentioned that said school garden was counter intuitively planted and managed by patents of the students rather than the students themselves for a variety of reasons that I will not dive into in this entry. Nevertheless, I would strongly encourage you to check out previous postings if you are interesting in hearing my grips about it. Gardening, specifically horticulture, was something that I had been exposed to at different points in my up bringing, but it was never a cornerstone of my family’s efforts in maintaining the landscape of our home. The reason I felt particularly inspired to write about this topic stems my recent acquisition of Michael Pollan’s Second Nature in which he discusses at length his personal trials and tribulations to sow an organic garden in his home in Connecticut throughout the year. The book touches on a broad assortment of topics ranging from his exposure to gardens and landscapes from his childhood, pests, weather, and the backdrop of American homes throughout the country. To date, I have yet to finish the book, but nevertheless felt compelled to relay my experiences in my Paraguayan landscape, aka my home here, to that of what my previous relationship had been in America.

       Pollan writes extensively about his Russian immigrant grandfather whose greatest passion was the pursuit of a perfect garden and home landscape. Pollan reflects on visiting his grandfather’s well kept lawn, flowering fruit trees, and immaculate garden as sort of Eden as a youth growing up in New York. His father, on the other hand, was conversely put off by the incessant maintenance of the garden/landscape of his home to the point where he would boycott cutting his own front lawn. That refusal to adhere to the unspoken agreement Americans seem to have about maintaining their home landscapes in many made ways made Pollan’s family renegades in the eyes of their neighbors. That particular section of Second Nature had me laughing reflecting on the at times titanic struggle my father had with me growing up in maintaining our lawn.

       Every week my Dad would subtlety attempt to mentioning that the lawn was looking a bit shaggy. I would always protest that I had just cut it the week before whether or not that was true or not. I would argue that beleaguered point until my allowance was threatened to be withheld if I did acquiesce and do it. I would bitch and moan unremittingly as I pulled out the red push mower, the gas can, and the garbage bin that we used to dump the grass clippings in. Inevitably my father was always right when he said the lawn needed a cut. I always thought this to be true because I would constantly get our little red mower clogged with grass that I had let grow too long. I was the main caretaker of our lawn from about 12-19 after which point I headed off to college and much to my relief, my responsibilities were forever relinquished to landscaping company. I still remember very clearly my father teaching me how to prime the lawnmower, check the oil, and pull the rip cord. The feeling of getting overly frustrated if I flooded the engine, cut too close to the turf, or was unable to get those tricky hedges that lied on the edge of brick walls or tree trunks are still unpleasant memories to this day. My father in teaching me how to mow the lawn was his genius way of pawning responsibility of lawn maintenance to his ignorant son who initially was so thrilled that he was allowed to operate a cool looking machine like a lawn mower that he had no idea that my weekends every spring, summer, and fall would inevitably be partially occupied with cutting the grass. I will always remember him meandering down the small path inlaid with rocks to step on underneath the huge maple tree in our front lawn, hands behind his back with a smug grin on his face admiring my work, but not shying away from mentioning a spot I missed or whether or not there was too much excess clippings on the ground. Easily some of the fiercest arguments that I ever got into with my Pop were over that stupid lawn. I never cared what other people in the neighborhood thought about it. All I knew was somehow every weekend throughout the summer I was sweating buckets cutting a lawn that I progressively grew to hate with passing summer. I never understood why it was important to maintain that lawn I as meticulously as my parents wanted. Even today, to a large extent, I still don’t quite get it especially after living in Paraguay.                       
     Most Paraguayans, if they have grass, cut it with there electric plug in motors with long extension cord or giant weed whackers no more than 3-4 times a year. Granted grass here isn’t treated with chemicals to maintain a pristine green throughout the summer months, but all the same the work that is done around the house is more focused on sweeping up leaves from trees and the various manures from farm animals that roam around. Keeping my lawn in a presentable state is further limited by the fact that the only lawn care maintenance object that I can afford is a long machete, which in turn leaves me incessantly toiling with a huge array of weeds that grow back faster than I can cut them down. The frustrating thing is that my lawn had been well maintained by a series of cows that my neighbors would tie up in my yard. This was a good deal for me because not only did not have go through the arduous process of cutting my whole lawn with a machete, but the cows would also provide manure that I could use in my compost for my garden. However, starting in November I noticed that the cows were no longer pulling their weight with lawn maintenance. I believe was the result of higher amounts of rain that have sustained a semi-continuous frequency since. That as a result has led to my lawn to appear more as an abandoned lot than one in which a person lives. The problem is that so often are land plots, houses, or fields up and abandoned from people moving, selling their land, or whatever the reason, the areas in my immediate vicinity are equally unattractive or worse. With that lack of a higher standard to aspire to I am content with a much less acceptable looking lawn. Paraguayans, also, demonstrate displeasure in things in much less direct methods than I feel people would back home. I don’t have neighbors insulting my lawn to my face, writing me a note signed by some home owners association, nor are there real estate agents trying sell land in the area that’s costs is driven down by my unsightly lawn. That being said it still think I have gotten to a point where I have flirted with the edge acceptable appearance for too long, and likely will give into my own self-perpetuated guilt and just cut it.

       Pollan goes to great lengths to describe the American fascination with lawns as a defining characteristic of the American home. In Paraguay the lawn, while important to maintain if you have it, is not the first thing people will associate with a nice looking house. From my summation I would have to say that flowering fruit, shading, and ornamental trees exemplify how “hermosa”, beautiful, a home is. Additionally, how well maintained ones garden or field is seems to provide the fodder for criticisms of ones status within the community. In a similar way Americans value the lawn and flowery landscape that it surrounds, Paraguayans value something similar in how nice their rows of corn or manioc look. If your crops aren’t in a straight line, well protected from animals, or contains too many weeds in-between the plants it is likely you might get a snide remark from your neighbor. The same applies with gardens. One must dig their seed bed in perfect rectangle, plant the seeds in perfectly spaced distances, and perfectly layer compost such that everything appears uniform. Regardless of whether or not that manner will yield the best looking vegetables a term volunteer’s coin as the “lindo factor”, pretty factor, and trumps most alternative methods of increasing yields. If it cannot be incorporated in a nice organized manner I am not interested in the unspoken reality many people face when working with plants. Going to the extreme of planting tomatoes and parsley all helter skelter in the same seed bed, while mutually beneficial to the plants, does not appear lindo and therefore makes it difficult to justify when working in a school or family garden. This was the case when I attempted to plant lettuce, Swiss chard, and onions at the school garden. While the kids didn’t do the best job planting properly, it was obvious that things would grow, but the three seeds beds we planted quickly got reorganized by the parents to make things look slightly nicer. This cultural appreciation for plant organization shouldn’t of surprised me because we do that sort of stuff with own homes in America.  

       My mother had always spent a great amount of time tending to the many flower beds we had throughout our front and back yards. I remember every spring being called out to the car to unload gargantuan bags of mulch and fertilizer to yet again begin with the planting of a wide cadre of impatiences, tulips, and marigolds for some reason stand out, but there were also perennials that despite my best efforts to destroy with a plastic sword managed to come up every year. Similarly to my experience with the lawn, at first I thought planting flowers and plants was fun. I liked making a brown patch of dirt transform into a array of brilliant colors that flowed tougher to create a totally unique landscape that was only limited by what could you could imagine, or what plants you happened to have. My family has always dabbled in vegetables, but aside from the occasional tomato plant or two that would often succumb to deer’s or other pests, the mark of yards were the somewhat well manicured lawn, enormous hundreds of years old trees, and the flowers my mother planted.

       So needless to say when I learned about the importance of promoting gardening in Paraguay I was very excited to try my own hands at growing things from seeds, but as most novice horticulturalists are bound to find out things are not as easy as they seem. I always that the dichotomy of what I am supposed to be able to help teach Paraguayans, particularly gardening, are often times things they themselves know how to do a lot better from years of experience. The American wondering up to the 40-year-old farmer trying to ask them in broken language about their garden doesn’t exactly instill confidence in your ability to improve their current method of growing things. In most cases, that skepticism is not unfounded. In my case, I spent the first 4 months from the time I moved into my house trying to build and plant a garden. In order to do so I had to build some kind of rudimentary fence out of bamboo that ended up taking several months due to the fact that my only free source of bamboo was about a kilometer from where I lived. As I would walk past numerous households with an arm full of bamboo often times in toe with a friend, people would stop and stare. It wasn’t so much that I was carrying the bamboo I think it was more curiosity as to what I was going to with it. Again people more often than not are surprised when I try to make suggestions about gardening. Me not having a garden was further evidence that I did not in fact know what I was talking about. By the time I had finally constructed the fence and installed a door using old flip flops as hinges was I able to begin my meager attempts to plant stuff.

       In my mind, I envisioned not ever needing to go to the store to get vegetables, and therefore bought seeds for carrots, onions, lettuce, Swiss chard, tomatoes, peppers, and parsley. I was also lucky enough to get broccoli to transplant from the excess plants the school had. At the end of 4 months of toiling around I ended up with meager looking lettuce, broccoli, Swiss chard, and few pathetic looking tomatoes. I could point to numerous reasons for my failures, but at the end of the day the blame stops at me alone. I didn’t do a good enough job limiting sun exposure, consistently watering when I had to leave for whatever reason, or preventing animals from breaking down my fence to much on my paltry results. My timing was also off, and by the time I actually got tomatoes to grow someone entered my garden in the middle of the night to steal the 11 measly looking fruits that I had worked so hard to obtain. I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, but what I didn’t know was how uneasy it was going to be. So for this year I am determined to improve upon last years learning experience and achieve better results. Will those results be adequate to prove my value in the community I live in? My answer to that is probably not, but even if it was I am resigned to the fact that by the time I get my garden up to snuff it will be close to the end of my service that will lead me back to another landscapes in another pocket of the world to start all over again.