Well the day of my future site assignment became a reality yesterday when I was told that I will be living in a barrio of Juan E. O´Leary a large town by Paraguayan standards of 3,000. It is located roughly 248 miles East of Asuncion and 78 miles from Cuidad del Este the 2nd biggest city in Paraguay. Emotions are running high because tomorrow we will be meeting our initial community contacts, traveling to our sites with the contact, and spending 5 days essentially learning the ropes of our new homes. If for some reason someone doesn´t show up to meet us we go anyway and essentially wing it and try our luck to find someone.
I know little about the community outside of a few sheets of paper and the request forms that they filled out to be a site that Peace Corps would consider placing a volunteer in. All I know is that there are some minor European influences, some people speak limited Portuguese, and that my projects are almost abstract as the concept of environmental education.My attitude at this point is to just go balls to the wall and meet as many people as I can to get a stronger sense of what kinds of opportunities exist within the community.
Thanksgiving is going to be at the house of the new US Ambassador to Paraguay. I am pretty jacked about that right now especially at the opportunity to swim in a pool and not sweat my ass off quite so much for a day.
Love to hear from everyone and again Internet access will be more readily available soon.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Training Weeks 2-6
Many of you have eluded to in various formats I have not posted in my blog since the first week of my arrival this will be my attempt to dispell the gossip and inform everyone of how my life is going. Training is challenging for many reasons the hardest one being the language. We are learning Guarani in Spanish if that makes any sense. My progress is slow and steady, but everyday there are breakthroughs. We have a lot of powerpoint presentations concerning the rules and regulations of Peace Corps and constant technical training involving environmental education strategies in schools, gardening, agroforestry systems, basic agriculture, and develpoment processes.
It is a lot of work for sure and we have various homework assignments that mainly involve language practice and communicating with Paraguayn family and community members to get a better feel for language and working in our future sites. I find out on Wednesday where exactly I will be put in Paraguay I have 1 finaly interview about preferences that include questions about urban vs rural, first time volunteer vs follow up ect. Not entirely sure what my preferences are but there are advantages to both.
In more campo sites there is generally a stronger sence of community and people know each other really well that can lead to developing a lot of personal relationships that can lead to successful projects. For the most part the campo speaks Guarani and had more opportunites for agricultural work. More urban areas have much better access to transportation and resources, but are larger and much more challenging to get to know a large group of people. It is a real give and take so at this point I am not entirely sure what I am leaning towards.
I recenly did my longfield training secession in a site that was really campo. Other then getting destoryed by bugs I got a really good perspective on what that type of community offers for better and for worse. The people in my training group are great and I have had a lot of fun in the minimal amount of free time we have to detox. I buzzed my head because it is ungodly hot and it is not even summer yet but my cemetrical head looks pretty good buzzed.
On a day to day I am going to describe a few things that sum up my life here.
1. Roosters don´t just crow at dawn but rather all night and all day. I have almost snapped a few times and they are fast becoming my least favorite animal.
2. My host faimily´s dog Simon is a boxer with a heart of gold until he sees you walking up to the house at dark and attacks you. The punichment is sometimes a smack on the ass with a whip.
3. Game of Thrones is as good of a book as it is a TV show.
4.Caña (Paraguyan Rum) is used as often as a sterilization tactic as it is a beverage.
5. Guarani has as many words of male and female private partsas english, and are often said accidently in place of other more commonly spoken words.
6. Cow stomach is mundungo in spanish and is not my favorite food in the world.
7. Any night there is a futbol game is an excuse to shoot off fireworks.
8. The energy drink of choice is Dark Dog and I am pretty confident it is illegal in the United States.
I hope that suffices for the time being I will have a phone and more consistant access to the internet in 1 month until then jajotopata.
It is a lot of work for sure and we have various homework assignments that mainly involve language practice and communicating with Paraguayn family and community members to get a better feel for language and working in our future sites. I find out on Wednesday where exactly I will be put in Paraguay I have 1 finaly interview about preferences that include questions about urban vs rural, first time volunteer vs follow up ect. Not entirely sure what my preferences are but there are advantages to both.
In more campo sites there is generally a stronger sence of community and people know each other really well that can lead to developing a lot of personal relationships that can lead to successful projects. For the most part the campo speaks Guarani and had more opportunites for agricultural work. More urban areas have much better access to transportation and resources, but are larger and much more challenging to get to know a large group of people. It is a real give and take so at this point I am not entirely sure what I am leaning towards.
I recenly did my longfield training secession in a site that was really campo. Other then getting destoryed by bugs I got a really good perspective on what that type of community offers for better and for worse. The people in my training group are great and I have had a lot of fun in the minimal amount of free time we have to detox. I buzzed my head because it is ungodly hot and it is not even summer yet but my cemetrical head looks pretty good buzzed.
On a day to day I am going to describe a few things that sum up my life here.
1. Roosters don´t just crow at dawn but rather all night and all day. I have almost snapped a few times and they are fast becoming my least favorite animal.
2. My host faimily´s dog Simon is a boxer with a heart of gold until he sees you walking up to the house at dark and attacks you. The punichment is sometimes a smack on the ass with a whip.
3. Game of Thrones is as good of a book as it is a TV show.
4.Caña (Paraguyan Rum) is used as often as a sterilization tactic as it is a beverage.
5. Guarani has as many words of male and female private partsas english, and are often said accidently in place of other more commonly spoken words.
6. Cow stomach is mundungo in spanish and is not my favorite food in the world.
7. Any night there is a futbol game is an excuse to shoot off fireworks.
8. The energy drink of choice is Dark Dog and I am pretty confident it is illegal in the United States.
I hope that suffices for the time being I will have a phone and more consistant access to the internet in 1 month until then jajotopata.
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