Biodigester Burning

       To this point in my service, I have been extremely fortunate to have been in a position to do a number of different projects that in my mind have been successful. At the end of October I wrote about the upcoming biodigester workshop I would be doing with a local farmer in a small community about 15 KM from where I lived. I mentioned in that post a bit about what a biodigester is, my lack of experience and knowledge in what they actually are, and my anxieties with being able to effectively facilitate a project. However, despite my nerves and preoccupations about the project the workshop went off without a hitch as most things tend to do here.

       The workshop was scheduled to begin at 8am on October 26th, and I was sweating the night before. Not only because it was stifling hot outside, but also because the materials list of the things needed to build the biodigester wasn't updated and was missing some key components. I had to go to 5 hardware stores to get all the materials that were on the outdated list in the week prior to the workshop, so I was in a minor panic that the only hardware store in the area close to the community wouldn't have the needed materials. I distinctly remember appealing to a higher power as my friend Gabe, a Peace Corps Volunteer who is one of the technical trainers of the biodigesters, went up to the counter at the small hardware store to ask for the specific parts needed. Luck was most definitely on my side as the guy at the counter had each missing part preventing a lot of last minute scrambling before the workshop.

       Although the workshop was scheduled to go off at 8 everybody in the group knew full well that we wouldn't realistically get started until at least 9 as people finished tending to their own fields and families. That was fine with me because we decided at the last minute to make the 4 meter trench 6 meters at the last minute to increase the gas producing potential of the biodigester. By the time we got things rolling at around 9:15 there were only six people from the surrounding area that showed up. Not a big deal because six is better than nothing, but as the morning wore on that number swelled to 16 people from not just San Roque, the community where we were doing the project, but outlaying areas as well including one member of my community. I am not sure what I was expecting in terms of participant participation in the workshop, but was blown away by how involved people got in leveling the trench, preparing the plastic tubing, and making the food for lunch. Personally, I was a bit overwhelmed by the science of the biodigester having seen one built before, and how it was going to work, so for the Paraguayans watching this for the first time I can imagine seeing a inflated plastic tube attached to hose and random piping that is supposedly able to produce cooking fuel must have been unbelievable. The workshop ended around 3:30 in the afternoon, and I for sure got a sense that people were thinking "okay lets see if this contraption will work." To be honest, I was thinking the exact same thing myself having not seen one actually burning, but I was told by Gabe and Connie, the other trainer, that it would work if he filled it correctly after a month.

       After the workshop I went on vacation to Argentina, and had a number of other things going on that prevented me from going back to see whether or not things were working or not. San Roque during this time also found out that it would be getting an Agriculture Volunteer from the newest group for the next two years, so things are looking good. I went out to check on the progress of the biodigester, and to meet William, the new volunteer, on November 20th about a week before the biodigester was theoretically ready to work. To anybody’s surprise it still wasn't ready, but no less than a week an half later I gave Daniel, the farmer who we did the project with, a phone call to see how things were going and sure enough we were burning. When I went there the day after the phone call I think my facial reaction was as surprised as every person who came by to take a look at it. Light blue flames were shooting out of the stove top with a much stronger flame than I expected. The best part about the whole thing was while I was there Daniel mentioned that the intendente of his districto (sort of like the mayor or county commissioner) not only came to personally see the biodigester work, but also to donate roofing materials to protect it from falling branches. While I was there the roofing material was delivered by a guy who works for the municipality, and his eye essentially popped out of his head when he saw the thing light. Daniel had said on a number of occasions that everyone looks at it and doesn't believe it is going to work until the second he lights it. It is something he is immensely proud of, which was an unintended advantage of the project. Not only does the biodigester work, but dozens of families have expressed an interest in putting one in their own house.

Doing the biodigester was probably the hardest project I have been involved with to date since I joined the Peace Corps. I never thought it would go off as smoothly as it did especially in the beginning. I was glad that I was proven wrong, and while I sort of feel badly for William who is now thrown into a situation where a number of people want something that he has had no experience in building, at the same time I am happy that this was able to stimulate the interest of a community that could really benefit from this type of technology.

Trip to Argentina and back to Modern Amenities

Buenos Aires

        The middle of November is a significant period of time in my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer because it marks the halfway point of my total time here in Paraguay. Up until the second week of November I had yet to take a single vacation outside of the country, and considering every volunteer is allotted 48 during their service I figured it was high time to take advantage of those vacation days I had yet to utilize. Given Paraguay's location in the middle of South America it is in many ways an ideal location to be based for someone who wants to travel around the continent. For many volunteers, Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital and largest city, is one of the more common destinations. In addition to being relatively easy to get to by bus or plane from Paraguay, it also has a large number of Paraguayans living and working there. For me, Buenos Aires was not a destination that was high on my list of places to go, my father is from there and I had been there several times growing up, but it was an ideal location for me to meet up with my parents having not seen them in over a year. So it was decided that my first trip outside of Paraguay would be to Buenos Aires with the principal idea being that I would have the opportunity to relax in a city that I had been to with my family. However, despite all my preconceived notions about what type of experience I would have in Buenos Aires given my prior exposure to the city when I was younger, my time there proved to be much more of a unique experience than I had previously thought.
        I was lucky to find a travel companion in the form of my friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Jimmy. We were both looking to cut back on costs of transportation, and given Jimmy's location close to the Argentine boarder town of Formosa we decided that it would be a cooler and more cost efficient for us to cross the Paraguay River into Formosa from Alberdi located in the southwestern part of the country. Alberdi is located in the Paraguayan departamento (state) of Neembucu, which is considered one of the poorer departmentos in Paraguay. Unlike Alto Parana, in Eastern Paraguay where I live, Neembucu has very little infrastructure or large towns. Despite the fact that it shares a boarder to the North with departamento Central, the most populated department and home to the capital of Asuncion, Neembucu is remarkably isolated. Alberdi, the largest town in the northern part of Neembucu, is only 150 KM South of Asuncion, but takes over 4 hours by bus to arrive. This is primarily because almost immediately after you enter the departmento headed South from Asuncion the road becomes a white sandy dust bowl. To make the ride all the more exciting the older model, non-air conditioned buses that travels on this road motor as fast as they possibly can causing high amounts of dust inhalation for the passengers lucky enough to be on board. Once you get to the end of the line and get off in the sprawling metropolis of Alberdi the town comes off like something one would see in a old western movie except with more cement buildings in place of wooden ones. The existence of the town is dependent on commerce between itself and the Argentine city of Formosa across the river. I would even argue that if Formosa didn't exist that Alberdi would never have been founded. The testament to this is the fact that the town of Alberdi was named for the founder who was in fact Argentine. So it was on these sandy shores that our adventure into Argentina began.

Ferry

Customs Dock Alberdi

       It is remarkably easy to get to Argentina from Paraguay even if you go through the process the legal way. The only thing that separates the two countries is a river that is very easy to swim across, and honestly quite easy to cross into illegally if one is so inclined. However, for the law abiding members of society all one has to do is go to the small customs agency on the Paraguayan side of the river, get some stamps, buy a ticket for about $2.50 to cross in a small vote, and repeat the process on the Argentine side of the river. The biggest differences in the crossing process is Paraguay still uses typewriter technology to document the purchase of your ferry ticket while Argentina has upgraded to computers. as Jimmy and I were going through the customs process in Formosa we could already begin to tell the differences between the 2 countries. For starters, we had trouble understanding the customs agent on the Argentine side's Spanish. Both of us have only lived in 1 Spanish speaking country, and to hear someone speaking differently threw us for a loop. After we go through customs our language troubles continues when we got on a bus and asked the driver to go to the bus terminal. He looked at us like we were complete yokels and simply ushered us to take a seat. THe bus ended up going in the complete opposite direction we wanted to go, and it wasn't until we slowly spoke in the most basic and clear Spanish we were capable of that he laughed and said we were going the wrong direction. To be honest, it wasn't until the end of our trip that we felt like we were finally able to get a grasp on Argentine tendencies in Spanish. I never though that I would struggle as much as we did. I figured that the Spanish between people in Alberdi and Formosa would be similar given their proximity, but that proved not to be the case at all. The differences were stark not just in language, but the appearance of the cities themselves.

Formosa

       Formosa as a city has a population of 210,000 people making it a pretty large city. Alberdi's population on the other hand is microscopic by comparison with a little over 7,500 inhabitants. Alberdi has a couple of paved roads and one large double avenue. Formosa on the other hand has paved roads throughout the city, with air conditioned public buses, well maintained parks, and a variety of restaurants. Alberdi's economy is dependent on Formosans crossing over to buy cheap goods. On the other side of the coin I don't think the livelihoods of people in Formosa would be impacted at all if Alberdi ceased to exist. Obviously these differences speak to a a variety of differences between the two countries, which I have discussed in previous blog entries, but reading statistics is one thing and seeing the actually differences between the 2 countries is a completely different experience. I could ramble on for hours about how the food is better, how much better organized the city is, and the noticible difference in wealth are, but I'll refrain to prevent a boring diatribe. All I'll say is that I was more shocked to see the differences than I had expected initially.

Formosa

It was about a 18 hour bus ride from Formosa to Buenos Aires. The trip is entirely on paved roads, which is not often the case in Paraguay. I am not sure why I was surprised by the start differences in development between the two countries. After all Argentina is the 6th largest country in terms of land area, and has over 40 million  inhabitants making it not only one of the biggest Spanish speaking countries, but also one of the richest. These are all things I knew going into this trip, but for some reason I couldn't get over the differences. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. It has a very educated population, is extremely cosmopolitan, and has its own unique cultural heritage. If you couldn't classify Argentina as the developed world as a whole you could definitely make the case that Buenos Aires is. Aside from the obvious infrastructure differences the thing that stuck me the most between the two countries was the people and how they acted. In Buenos Aires people were much more closed off. It wasn't easy to strike up a conversation, and seemingly everyone spoke a bit of English. In Paraguay we rarely to never overhear people speaking in English, and if we do an immediate conversation ensues. Argentina is much more of a tourist destination, so I personally felt more distance from the locals likely because of the high amount of tourists that go through annually has diluted the stangeness of overhearing English in a restaurant or a bar.

Buenos Aires

        That got me thinking about the reasons why Argentina is so much more developed, and whether it is their level of development or their culture that causes the people to come off as more individualistic? I think what it boils down to is that because Paraguay is a landlocked country in the middle of South America prevents it from developing at the pace of a country with a massive coast line like Argentina. A better comparison is Uruguay whose population is half of Paraguay's with a smaller area, but it significantly richer. Wealth gives a country more ability to buy things, which in turn makes individuals more money to buy things. There is a fine line between having too much and having too little, but I think many of us from America, especially older generations, can remember a time when families didn't have much but they did have each other. Nowadays millions of Americans live in suburbs, commute to work, and barely know their neighbors. We have reached a point where we have so much stuff we are longing for human contact that people in Paraguay have a surplus on. Americans and Argentinians to generalize might have more things, but do they have the same level of human interaction that makes the people in Paraguay come off as happy? My response to that is no. Paraguayans might not know a ton about the world outside their borders, and they might never travel more than a couple of hours their whole lives from where they are from, but what they lack in material wealth they more than make up for in human contact.
        It is easy to list the reasons, as I did early, as to why Argentina is wealthier than Paraguay. One could argue that Paraguayans are happier because they don't know what it is like in the rest of the world. This ignorance is bliss argument has a lot of validity, and I would venture to think that if Paraguay remained the way it is for the rest of eternity the people within would probably be happier than they would be in other more developed countries. Through my travels from Alberdi to Buenos Aires in a period of 24-hour I was able to see multiple stages of development that ran the spectrum from poorest of the poor to richest of the rich. It wasn't just that I saw that, but I lived it. I went from a wooden house in the middle of the Paraguayan country side to a luxury apartment in the center of a wealthy Argentine neighborhood. Personally, I loved the fact that I was able to take a hot shower, have air conditioning, and all the modern amenities imaginable, but I couldn't help by feel like something was missing from my trip to Buenos Aires that was being able to strike up a conversation with anyone and have them treat you like they have known you their whole lives. That is not to say I didn't have a wonderful time with my family, but after having lived a year in a place like Paraguay it sort of makes one reassess what are the most important things in one life that makes it fulfilling. To me the material possessions while awesome might not have the same value as they did a year ago, and all it took was a week away in a more developed place for me to have that realization.

Mormon Missionaries

                The other day as I was sprinting to catch a bus back to site I happened to stumble upon a group of around 10 Mormon missionaries getting on board the same bus. They were all dressed up in their white shirts, ties, dark pants, and name tags looking like they were all moving somewhere. As luck would have it, my assigned seat was surrounded by five of them looking at me with some curiosity as I was them. At first, I was addressed in Spanish, but after a phone call the charade was up and conversation ensued. On several occasions prior to this particular incident I had come across a Mormon and his companion, but I had not had not received a ton of information as to how their missionary work is conducted and the logistics of their time in a given country. To their credit, they were equally curious about the Peace Corps, how I ended up here, and the work I was doing.

                I won’t take the time to dive into all the details of Mormonism, the largest sect of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints, and the religion itself, but essentially it was explained to me that Joseph Smith is a profit of God who was told that he must show the path of the true church. Basically the book of Mormon is a supplement to the Bible that answers contradictions that the Bible had as a result of how it was written over hundreds of years. Each Mormon believes that their church is the one true church, and it is their duty to show people the path to righteousness. The Mormon mission, according to the guys I spoke to, worldwide consists of between 50,000-60,000 missionaries in 153 countries. Worldwide there are around 14 million Mormons with about 6.2 living in America. The other heavily populated countries are Mexico, Philippines, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina. Service is a 2 year commitment and selection where one is place is done when a council of Elders read the applications and prays to God to show them where that person should serve. People can do their service at any age, but predominately it takes place right after high school graduation between the ages of 18-21. For the most part, the missionaries come with no language except for a 5-10 week training program in P Utah.

                As for the missionaries in Paraguay, I was told that there are a total of 400 split into two groups of 200 half serving north of the Parana River and the other serving south of the river. They typically live in apartments or houses of 4 people and every 6 weeks all the world’s Mormon missionaries go through a rotation where they could potentially be called and told they are being sent within the countries they are serving. The reason I happened to be surrounded by 5 of them that day was because it was the day of the rotation. I was told that in Paraguay there are a total of 80,000 Mormons. I think that is a bit of a stretch, but after hearing them talk for longer I was starting to believe that number might be closer to being true than I initially believed.

                I asked them how their living circumstances worked, and what their average day was like? I was told that they get dressed and start walking every day, with the exception of Sundays, from 10:30am to 9pm. They live typically in a small house with the other missionaries and are given 750,000 Gs.a month from collections back home. From what I understood they are sort of sponsored by either a congregation or family back home for part of their living allowance with another part coming from a giant slush fund that I think comes from the international organizing entity of the missionary church, but I am not totally sure. To be honest, they weren’t really sure about a lot of the logistical components of their work. When I asked what they do if they get sick they said they call the President of the missions wife, who I assume has some kind of medical training, who will recommend something for them to buy. In an emergency that would warrant serious medical attention it is usually their families from back home that take point in making sure they get the necessary medical attention. I couldn’t believe how casual they were about all those aspects of their life. Sure your chances of getting hurt in a serious accident are small, but it isn’t unheard of at all. 750,000 Gs. a month isn’t much, but when you have no vices, don’t pay rent, nor allow traveling casually it seems like a lot more. It seemed to me that they had some sort of trust in the higher power that everything was going to be okay because they were doing God’s work. If they got hurt it is all a part of His plan.

                We were talking for probably about an hour before they started asking me about my faith. I was asked “where do you think the knowledge of God comes from?” My response was “I have never thought about it.” I proceeded to ask what he thought, and an hour later I got a full rundown of the Mormon missions and their purpose. I could go on for a while about the details of what they said, the fact that the truly believe with all their hearts that their beliefs are the only correct ones, and their passion in their work, but that wasn’t what stood out to me. The thing that I was astounded by was the similarities between their work, and the feelings about their work and my work as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

                They leave their families and everything familiar to them for 2 years, but not only that they can only call their family twice a year. They can write letter whenever they want, and use the computer from time to time to write emails, but for the most part they have no contact with their families. The work they do is trying to convince someone that what they are preaching is correct, and doing that is extremely difficult. In the same way we try to convince people that brushing your teeth will make you healthier, or planting abanos verdes will improve the quality of your soil, they are trying to show that believing in their faith will give you a better quality of life. Obviously what we promote of Peace Corps volunteers are things that have scientific proof or years of research that demonstrate that that our projects will do the things we promise, but they believe wholeheartedly that their faith in God will do the same things that we promise if it is God’s will that it is to happen. Their faith in God is absolute, which is remarkable because I can’t say I believe in anything as strongly as they do. The feelings of being alone, struggling to connect with people and missing the comforts were the home are almost the same except more extreme because they don’t have phones, Internet, TV, or radio. Needless to say this interaction made quite the impression on me. As hard as it was for me to up and leave America for 2 years in Paraguay at the age of 23 I at least had a college degree and some life experiences outside the United States. These guys and I say guys because the majority of them in Paraguay are men, often come here with nothing but a few white shirts, a nice tie, and their faith. So next time you run into a Mormon try giving them an update about things going on at home and try not to get all bent out of shape when they try to ask you about your faith. At the end of the day they are a lot of them are just a bunch of kids who miss their families and their lives back home in the same ways we do here.

Biodigester San Roque

       Several months ago one of my neighboring volunteers was in the middle of writing a grant to make a biodigester with a local farmer close to his community. My first reaction to this was, "what the hell is a biodigester?" I had heard about biodigesters vaguely over my time both here and in college, but had no real idea of what they were or how they worked. My friend Jimmy, who has since left Paraguay for a graduate school opportunity in Germany, explained that basically it is a device that can harness methane gas through an anaerobic process which combines a set ratio of manure and water. The gas it creates can be used as cooking fuel, which minus the cost of building the thing is totally sustainable. Typical Paraguayan families who live in the countryside, have cows, pigs, and chickens. Chicken excrement is the most concentrated of the three animals and, therefore, produces higher quantities of the gas, if the appropriate amount is available. You do need a lot of chickens to create the amount of manure necessary to sustain the biodigester, but families normally don’t have the amount of waste necessary from chickens. However, they do often have plenty of pigs or cows whose manure is more commonly utilized in small scale bidigesters. It takes 3-4 pigs or cows to produce the daily amount of manure necessary to create the gas. Jimmy had all but finished the application to receive money from the Environmental Climate-Change Partnership of the Americas, EPCA, when he was accepted to a very well respected graduate program in Germany. I was at his house one day when he asked if I would be interested in taking over this project when he left. This was prior to receiving the funds for the garbage project, and before we had finished planting all of our trees, so naturally I said sure thinking to myself how hard could it be?

       The short answer is I still don’t know. Next Wednesday, the 24^th, along with a local farmer, Daniel Rios, and I will be putting on a biodigester workshop to present to members of his committee and the surrounding area. A big part of the application to receive funding from ECPA is to make sure the project isn’t exclusively focused on improving the livelihood of one individual. The idea is to use the money to facilitate an exchange of information using the biodigester as a mechanism to do just that. The most challenging part of the process to this point has been the coordination of everything to get us in position to conduct the workshop. 

       For starters, Jimmy was a Crop Extension Volunteer who arrived the year before I did. His training was different, and so were the projects he was encouraged to do, while similar in many respects, his projects do diverge slightly from my work as an Environmental Conservation Volunteer. My speciality group, unlike Jimmy's, did not recieve any information on biodigesters during our training. That also means that Jimmy's bosses are different then mine which meant if Jimmy submitted a grant to this project, which he did, I could not simply inherit the project from him first because I am a different person, but second because my bosses don’t know about the projects the agriculture sector is doing and vice versa. All to say, when Jimmy left, I had to start over with everything except the actual writing of the application. I needed to introduce the idea to my bosses, get their go ahead, change a few things on the application, resubmit the whole application, and wait. It wasn’t that big of a deal that I had to do all that, but it did mean that instead of doing this project in early September, like it was originally planned, I am now doing it at the end of October. Another big challenge is that the community where I am doing the project, San Roque, while very close to O’Leary, is not technically my community. This makes coordination a bit difficult at times. Part of the reason I agreed to do this was because I figured it could act as a trial project for me to do a similar project in my community next year. I’ll have to wait and see what the turn out is for the workshop is before I will make a decision if this is something worth doing next year.

       I ended up receiving the money for the project the first week of October, which put everything into high gear. With a fat stack of Guaranís in my hand, the amount for the project far exceeds my monthly salary; I set off to buy the needed supplies. Just say most of the materials I need except for two types needed for the biodigester body, tubular polyethylene and laminated polyvinal.  They can only be purchased in major cities one at an interior design store the other at a place that packages cookies. I figured these two items would come off as fairly strange requests, and that I would get asked a series of questions as to why I needed said materials in the amounts requested. Much to my surprise, and with maybe a slight feeling of disappointment, I was not asked any such question. I now had in my possession 2 huge roles of plastic, all the necessary teaching materials to put on the workshop, and my exceedingly large backpack to take back to O’Leary. As luck would have it, I didn't have to deal with the hassle of a bus ride.  One of the agricultural sector employees gave me a free ride back to my site. 

       As for the rest of the materials, they comprise a wide range of things including, plastic hose, 0.5 meters of pvc, two  large plastic barrels and an empty two liter bottle of any kind just to name a few. It took me most of the day and trips to five different hardware stores to find all the necessary materials. Lucky for me that hardware stores are one of the five types of businesses that operate in ubiquity in Paraguay. The other 4 include pharmacies, small grocery stores, furniture/appliance stores, and hair salons, so I was, thankfully, not without options. 

       A biodigester utilizes a pretty basic concept. As I mentioned earlier, the biodigester is a way to harness the gas produced by manure to burn as cooking fuel. The amount of gas that can be produced depends on the size of the bidigester. For example a biodigester that is seven meters would need roughly 5-6 cows to produce the manure necessary to make between 4-5 hours of cooking gas daily. 4-5 hours of cooking gas is a lot of gas, so what you don’t use in a day you release out into the air so as not to overflow the capacity. Biodigesters are not a new concept in the slightest. In fact, people have been experimenting with them for decades all over the world in places as far reaching as Bangladesh. It has only been within the last decade or so that the design model I am using has been implemented thanks in large part to the experimentations of Sr. Fernando Gonzales who is currently the Program Specialist for the Agriculture sector of Peace Corps Paraguay. The relative affordability of the plastics now makes building the  biodigesters far more inexpensive than previous designs which called for large amounts of cement and labor to build. According to my former collogue, Jimmy Henderson, on his website, “14 KG of cooking gas costs approximately 100,000 Guaranís (Roughly $20) which is a significant portion of a rural landowner’s monthly income.” He goes onto mention that the cost of the biodigester, a mere 500,000 Guaraní’s, (roughly $120) can save about 2,500,000 Guaranís over an 8-10 year period (http://www.jamesbrucehenderson.com/renewable-energy/biodigesters/) 

       If this project is successful, it will be interesting to see whether or not it can be sustained or built upon as a viable alternative to propane powered cooking stoves or wood burning ovens. My hope is that this workshop will help me do another one next year in my community. My only concern is it is always difficult for people to make capital investments on things of this nature. If I didn’t receive a grant to do this project it is likely that it would have never happened. The cost is a lot and finding all the materials requires several trips outside of the area where we are building it. The other disadvantage is that the biodigester itself is primarily advantageous to the family I am building it with. They alone will reap the benefits of the gas and the nutrient rich by product, which can later be used on their fields or garden. I am not sure what the future will hold for this technology in my area. HeckI don’t even know if I am going to be able to get it to work in the first place, but in most ways this is like every other project I have done to this point in my service in that you don’t know until you try.

Needs of a Community

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/PeaceCorpsMap-currentandformer.PNG

           September 27^th marks one year from the time I left my house in Cincinnati to leave for Paraguay. Seems sort of unreal that it was a year ago, but while the days at times can seem really slow the months seem to roll by faster than ever. While my Guarani isn’t quite as good as I would like it to be, it is a hell of a lot better than it was upon my arrival. Looking back to the build up to my departure I have to admit that I had very little idea of what to expect. Peace Corps is in 68 countries as of today all over the world. I personally know of people who are serving or have done service recently in Morocco, Peru, Madagascar, Namibia, Kyrgyzstan, Jamaica, Cameroon, and Guatemala. All of those countries are unique places that I could have been sent to if a few things turned out differently. The question I have been wondering of late is would my experience, if I had been placed somewhere else, be completely different? Instinct tells me that yeah it probably would be, but for more than just the differences in culture, language, and geography. Every Peace Corps post has its own unique identity that creates its own subculture within the context of the country ones serves. A commonly used phrase amongvolunteers from different places is whether your post is Peace Corps or Posh Corps. Many would likely consider Paraguay to be Posh Corps for a wide variety of reasons, but I think that is an unfair characterization that fails to account for different degrees of challenges I face here.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg

            Many people are aware of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Basically there are 5 levels of growth that humans will go through depending on whether or not their needs are met. The basic needs are at the bottom of the pyramid known as the physiological needs and go up the pyramid to safety and security, love/belonging, esteem, and lastly self-actualization. I feel strongly that the service and different challenges of a Peace Corps volunteer in a given country are linked to that country’s needs level on the hierarchy. I won’t dive into too many details about the theory itself outside of my context, but if you would like more specifics I would encourage you to read more about it. Here is the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs. Paraguay, and the work I have been involved with to this point, I believe, can be explained by examining the level on the needs scale for Paraguay in general.

Abraham Maslow

            The most basic level is known as the physiological needs. These are what Maslow considered as the essentials for human survival. For starters, Paraguay, while poor, isn’t anywhere near the poorest country where volunteers live and work. The average annual income in 2009 was roughly $4,100 a year per capita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Paraguay), which might not seem like a lot, but considering I make about that same amount per year and have not once felt I was in a dire financial situation says something about how cheap it can be to live here. Granted I am not supporting a family, and my income doesn’t change if my harvest is poor, but still if you look at the incomes per capita of the poorest nations on earth Paraguay is way further ahead than many other places that are in the developing world. One noticeable indicator is that Paraguay remarkably has potable water throughout the country. It amazes me that I have been able to drink water out of a well without a major bout of sickness. Many volunteers catch giardia, a nasty disease that affects your stomach and digestive system as a result of drinking poor quality water, but it is treatable, if you know you have it, within a reasonable amount of time. Agriculture is the backbone of the economy, and most people know how to produce food, so affordable food is not out of reach. The Itapúa dam is one of the largest in the world and provides electricity through out the country. 15 years ago there were many communities that didn’t have electricity, but now as a result of massive infrastructure development, especially in the most inaccessible rural areas, most communities have electricity for at least part of the day. People again for the most part, have good shelter that is rarely damaged by natural disasters, access to clothing. Paraguay’s population has doubled since the early 1980s, which shows that families are better able to provide the basic needs for their children allowing for a 1.24% growth rate. Not out of control fast, but fast enough to demonstrate that the country can support a growing population. In terms of basic needs, the majority of Paraguayans have them met unlike many countries in other parts of the world.

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            The second level on the hierarchy is safety needs. That includes the lack of “physical safety” as a result of “war, natural disaster, or in cases of family violence, child abuse, ect. –people experience post-traumatic stress disorder” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)  While there are incidents of crime, for the most part Paraguay is a safe country with the largest cause of death among young people being motor vehicle accidents. It is not a major epidemic like HIV/Aids, or a war related to ethnic conflict or regional struggles related to natural resources to name a few examples. Paraguay has fought major wars against its neighbors, but the most recent was in the late 1930’s against Bolivia over the sparsely populated area known as the Chaco, where large oil deposits were believed to exist. As it turned out those deposits don’t exist, and as a result Paraguay has not fought a war since. I cannot claim to know much about family violence or child abuse other than there is some human trafficking that takes place is an area of concern in some regions. There also are incidents of crime, but mainly minor offences like burglary and petty theft that primarily take place in the most populated areas of the country. Additionally, one could argue that the spike in crime in those urban areas is more a consequence of development rather than a result of internal conflict or political strife. Other than people drinking too much from time to time, and the high incidents of motor vehicle accidents Paraguay is a much safer country than many others where Peace Corps has a presence.

            The next level is love and belonging. My personal interpretation of all these levels is mainly based on my experience in Paraguay; as a result my statements are generalizations rather than in-depth analysis of a larger sample of people and communities throughout the country. I have marveled at the sense of community that exists within the country. Families generally stay together in the same towns they grew up in with many generations living close to each other. People within these communities are very respectful of the people around them, and to me it seems that there is a general recognition among the Paraguayans close to where I live that they want to provide a better life to their children then their parents were able to provide to them. I have been to many community events that take place at the school including: parent’s commission meetings, festivals, and fundraisers. At times it can seem like nobody cares about what happens to the community, but I chalk that up more to the lack of knowledge of how to work in groups and the dictatorship that lasted for over 30 years. Families here are big, they help each other out the best they can, which at times can seem like not at all but that is more a result of their own capabilities to support people rather than their desire not to in my opinion. An example of this in my time here was when I saw a little girl of around 7 break her arm while playing a game. This took place in a poorer area of the country where people don’t have a lot of expendable income for things like expensive medial treatment. Some man, who may or may not have been a member of the family, paid 100,000 Gs. ($23.00) to have someone take that child to the closest health center to get fixed up. The sense of community and banding together is something that at times seems lost to me when I am back home and families are less likely to live together, or even in the same part of the country once you reach a certain age. You could argue that alcoholism is a problem in some areas, that divorce as a result of infidelity is higher now than ever, and more children are born out of wedlock than in previous generations, but I would argue that those incidences are more a result of easier access to information, a much higher population, and infrastructure that has made the country smaller and given people more ability to leave a bad situation. The love and belonging section of the pyramid is very difficult to explain, and obviously varies from person to person. I will say that people around me tend to get married have children and stick together more than in America causing me to argue that the needs at this level are more or less met.

            The areas where Paraguay seems to struggle are more on the higher end of the pyramid than the lower levels. The esteem and self-actualization levels are the ones where I feel my work is striving towards. People need to have self-esteem and self-respect in order to accomplish things that would seem inconceivable at lower levels of the needs pyramid. I cannot count the number of times where something as simple as asking someone for something basic like to borrow a pan to make pizza or to ask a teacher for help is met with I have verguenza (shame). Sure people are confident around their immediate families, but thrown outside of those comfort zones where you have to ask someone for something is met with great resistance. I personally have struggled with that at certain times of my life, so it only natural that it is a common challenge for all types of people in all types of places. Some examples in my time here are mostly associated with working in the youth group. The kids are sometimes, so passive that it makes me want to scream. Even the simplest tasks can sometimes not happen at all because of their hesitancies. A classic case is answering the phone. A lot of people, but particularly kids will not answer the phone when you call them. A big reason is they often don’t have saldo (payment or minutes) on their phone, but a lot if it has to do with not wanting to talk or provide a definitive answer. As a result, I get more and better responses to my questions from text messages rather than a regular phone conversation.  Another example is asking someone’s opinion about something. When I have been doing things with the youth group, which by the way would be impossible to form without meeting the most basic levels on the needs pyramid, with Mike and now Robert I have noticed whenever a question is asked to an individual in the group the response is immediately “no se” (I don’t know). The best way to get answers is to ask a small series of follow up questions that would potentially provide an idea to give them time to think. Often that yields the desired result. It is extremely difficult to get the kids to take their own initiative in doing things. However, it does happen, but takes a lot of building up confidence and congratulating the most minor of accomplishments.

            The whole idea of graduating high school is something that has only within the last few decades been expected and even today isn’t quite at that desired level. Going to a university wasn’t even an option until recently, not because people didn’t want to go, but more because there weren’t that many especially in areas outside the cities. What that all means is the step towards self-actualization where a person can reach their full potential is still extremely limited here. While being able to leave the home town and go study somewhere is more common now than ever, people still need to help support their families whether that be working in the fields, or getting a job in the area of any kind. It is still difficult for a family to send their child to a 6-year university program because of the cost and the time that takes them away from home. In the more rural areas the argument is the same, but at a more basic level of the family not being able to even have their kids graduate high school because of how much work it takes to be able to support a family. As a result many, bright, and intelligent people don’t have the access to meet their potential. Whether you classify that as not being able to complete a certain level of education, or the general lack of opportunity one has to experience things outside their immediate surroundings both inhibit people from accomplishing a certain level of self-esteem and reaching the level of self-actualization.

            At this point I have rambled for a good 3 pages, so I am sure you are probably asking yourself what is the point in me telling you all this? My point is that the work I do isn’t trying to fulfill a basic need like water, food, simple sanitation, a better sense of security, or relationship counseling for people to find love. My job, at least what it feels like to me, is to expose whatever I can to as many people as I can to get them to attain the needs of self-esteem and self-actualization. Doing a massive tree planting project to provide shade and make certain areas look nicer is not a priority for someone who is dependant on wood to survive. Yes Paraguay is the number one consumer of wood for personal use, and large amounts of forest have been cut down to sell timber and to make charcoal. However, there are interest groups that are trying to replant trees, and many people recognize that planting trees is an essential part of protecting their livelihood in the future. People can do that for reasons that aren’t purely out of necessity, and proof of that is in the number of tree nurseries that has sprung up as a result of people’s recognition of the importance of trees. A similar argument can be made about trash management. People burn their trash because there are no dumps or waste management services in the rural country side. Yes there are better ways to dispose of garbage other than burning them, but I ask if you had a ton of garbage piled up in the back of your house next to your fields with kids running around and no way to get rid of it that is quick or safe for the environment wouldn´t probably burn your trash too? The whole point of the garbage project we did with the kids was to provide the community with trash cans so a better option exists to get rid of ones trash. If there is a trash can that means you don’t have to throw it on the ground. People need that convenience otherwise what else are they suppose to do? You can’t find me a kid here that doesn’t realize that throwing your trash on the ground isn’t good, but if he doesn’t have access to a municipal waste management service that will pick up your garbage and take it far away how is he suppose to know what to do?

            The challenge I have faced in my time here has focused on getting people to realize that they have the potential to do great things that can increase their standard of living and gain a better sense of their capabilities. If a farmer is constantly planting the same things in his field year in and year out, the soil is going to deteriorate. That is going to decrease his income and place his needs at a lower level on the pyramid. On the other hand, if he uses a small portion of his income to invest in green manures that he can plant to improve the soli quality and therefore his yields, he will be in a better position to focus his time on other things like personal hobbies that can lead to the acquirement of more skills or better yet allow his children to gain an education they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Different people will have a strong desire to do different things based on where they lie on the hierarchy. Convincing people that changing or investing in one aspect of their lives can change things forever is the hardest thing I have ever done. After all I am a 24-year-old American who has never farmed, never planted trees, never taught in a school, and never had to provide for my own family. Who am I to say that I know what is best? Hell I can barely speak the languages well enough to express those ideas! It is easy to look at those barriers and give up. I could spend my time doing nothing but sit in my house and read books, but I strongly feel, and that is not to say my opinion won’t change a year from now, that getting that one person, family, group, community ect. to try out one thing that brought you to this place at this time makes the Peace Corps service worthwhile regardless of where you are, what your project is, or what level that country may be on the hierarchy of needs. I guess what I am getting at is that every individual who joins the Peace Corps will have their own unique experience despite many perceived similarities between your service and someone close to you. I cannot claim I know what is going on in Thailand, Mongolia, Uganda, or Panama for the volunteers there. I wouldn’t even venture a guess, but what I will say is that individual’s classification of how easy a country is to live in is based off of what I see as the level that individual is surrounded by on the hierarchy. That doesn’t make ones individual service harder or easier than someone else’s. If your challenges were associated with your community not having access to water, there was a breach in safety, people wouldn’t work with you because of a lack of human companionship, they had too much personal loathing to think outside the box, or if they were unable to realize their own potential are all challenges that cause different degrees of frustration. Certain people handle those difficulties in different ways; all I know is that my struggles in Paraguay don’t put me in the same category as a volunteer anywhere else in the world. They put me in a certain position that has led me to this point, and ushered me into the work I have done and will be doing.

Cleaning up O´Leary

          Sine the tragic death of my computer last month updating the blog on a consistent basis has been a challenge, but thanks to my friend Julia I will now be once again able to give regular updates on a slow but functional computer until a more permanent solution can be found. A lot has happened since my last update mainly revolving around the $1,000 Disney trash reduction project. I wish I could say that things have been going smoothly, but that would be a lie for a number of reasons that I think provide keen insight to how small businesses function in many Paraguayan communities.

            As I had explained in previous entries, my former site mate, Mike, and I along with the members of his youth group wrote an application to receive $1,000 from Disney Latino America’s Amigos por el Mundo program in late April. The parameters of the project were pretty straight forward in that the project simply had to be a youth environmental initiative. We were supposed to find out whether or not we won at the beginning of June and receive the money by the beginning of July. Well it didn’t quite happen that way. We found out we were one of the projects selected at the end of June, and didn’t receive the money until the beginning of August. Mike and I worked really hard to get as much done as possible before he left on August 19^th, but a lot still remains to be completed despite our best efforts. The good news is that Mike received a follow-up volunteer named Robert who has quite literally walked into the middle of a project three months in the making at its most hectic time.

            The grant stated that the kids would spend the $1,000 on the construction of 21 garbage cans, 5 recycling containers, 100 reusable cloth bags, 35 t-shirts, and 4 cloth banners to be hung around the community to promote the project. Additionally, the group would do radio programming to inform the community about the project, raise about $200 independently through their local sponsors, and do several community clean up projects with the two schools in the center of town. Mike and I knew when we finished writing the proposal with the kids that if we somehow managed to win that the project would be a very challenging to complete not because any one thing is particularly difficult to accomplish, but more because of the number of people we would have to depend on to get the project completed by the September 30^th deadline. For the rest of this entry I will breakdown step by step each component of the project and how it was implemented.

            The first thing we wanted to get done was the t-shirts. There are no places in O’Leary where t-shirts can be made. We knew this before hand, so our plan was to get them made by a place in Asuncion that has worked with countless volunteers needing t-shirts. This part of the project required the contributions of the group’s sponsors because only a certain percentage of the money was allowed to go towards things like shirts. After getting a design figured out we brought it to the kids in the group for their approval and color suggestions. That proved to be a mistake mainly because nobody could agree on the colors. I am pretty sure every member of the group that day expressed some opinion about the shirt, but nobody was willing to say what specifically what they wanted. Easily the most frustrating part of working with kids in my time in Paraguay is the indecisiveness regardless of how important the decision is. A classic dialogue goes something like this, “What do you guys think about the t-shirt design?” unanimously the response is, “It looks wonderful” followed by me asking if everyone is sure? Then I’ll get individual responses that go something like this, “I think the shirts are really nice, and I like everything about them, but I think that it might look better if they were in grey instead of white, but this is just an idea I really don’t know what would be better?” At that point several other people will respond expressing similar statements before I would prompt a question like, “So you guys want to change the color?” their response is normally “no, I think it is good, whatever you think is best.” At this point I am pulling my hair out because for one it is not my project, and the decisions for how the group wants to do things should be based on what they want, but nobody has the balls to flat out say something because they don’t want to offend anyone in the group, so what ends up happening is an hour long dialogue amongst the members where because nobody wants to make a decision we end up with the original design unchanged. A decision that could have taken 5-minutes takes an hour. We ended up getting the shirts from Asuncion the following week with minimal problems, but the process to get to that point wasn’t easy. I realize that a lot of that is because I am working with young kids who regardless of country have a hard time making up their minds, but that sentiment is magnified in Paraguay not just with kids, but with everyone. It is important to understand that pretext as I continue to tell explain the other facets of the project.

            The next thing we did was the cloth bags. O’Leary has several places that sell cheap fabric to make the reusable bags that have from what I remember, become commonplace in American grocery stores. The process of finding someone who could make the bags was easy, the process of getting someone to give us the answers we needed regarding price and how long it would take wasn’t. It took 4 meetings with the owner of O’Leary’s largest textile producer to get the bags done. Every time we went we asked how much the bags would cost, how long it would take, and whether they had enough of the material to make 100. Every single time the answers we got warranted another trip back the next day to get some partial answers to our questions. Eventually, we were able to determine that we could get the bags made for $1.50 each, and that it would take 4 days to do so. We also asked if we could put on a logo that reflected the name and idea of the project “O’Leary Verde”. She said no problem, and that we should come back the next day to get the bags. As luck would have it we ended up coming back a bit earlier the next day to check on the logo. What we saw imprinted on the bag was a green, 3 leafed plant that said O’Leary Verde. At this point Robert had moved to O’Leary and Mike was in his last week. We all thought to ourselves that this bag looks like we are promoting the use of marijuana throughout the community rather than the reduction of trash. Mike mentioned this to the lady who got a giant laugh out of it, and while I admit that I was laughing too, it was more of a panic laugh knowing that we caught the problem in time before we wasted our money on 100 bags that looked like something that someone would by at a medicinal marijuana store in the States. We definitely dodged a bullet on that one, and the next day picked up the revised bags with a much more appropriate recycling logo on the front in place of a drug leaf.

            Once the bags were completed we talked on several occasions to the owners of the largest supermarket in town to see if they would be willing to distribute the bags to customers who bought more than 50,000 Gs. (roughly $12) worth of goods. The owners said that would be fine, and even contributed 100,000 Gs. to the project. We told them that we would promote the event on the local radio over the next 2 Saturday’s given that our theme for each program would be trash. The kids organized themselves on the day of the big event. I explained on several occasions what we were going to do, and told them to make sure that they came out in force. We were supposed to do the presentation of the bags at 2:30 on a Saturday; it didn’t happen until 3:30. The kids were supposed to give the owners the bags and explain to them, for the 3^rd time, what the purpose of the bags were for, and let the checkout employees distribute the bags. What ended up happening is we got to the store and the kids looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Not only were the people in the grocery store not expecting them, despite telling them on several occasions, but they also kept looking at me and Robert to tell them what to do. I was livid because of how much time I had explained and gone over what they were supposed to do previously. Thankfully Robert calmly explained the idea of behind the project, got them to tell the owners, and had them give the bags to the checkout ladies. Naturally nobody brought a good camera, so the few pictures that do exist don’t give a great perspective about what is happening. At the end of the day they did do what they said they would do, but it was anything but smooth. I wish that I had better pictures to chronicle the event, but I resign myself to the fact that it did get done even if it wasn’t in the fashion I expected.

            Easily the most difficult aspect of the project has been the building of 21 trash cans and 5 recycling containers. When we were planning the project we got into contact with a blacksmith who had previously made the recycling containers for the elementary school in town. He quoted us a reasonable price with the agreement that they would be done within a week given we provided all the necessary materials. We thought everything was in order, and obliged the request of the blacksmith to provide all necessary materials. That was over a month ago. The first sign of trouble was 3 days after we had given him the metal barrels that he planned to cut in 2 to make 2 trash cans. He was supposed to of had the majority of the barrels cut and ready. When I went to talk to the blacksmith that day about his progress he was nowhere to be found, and his wife gave a flurry of excuses ranging from his sister having a baby to the fact that it was the weekend. To be honest, I didn’t care that he hadn’t done it. It was still early in the project and we had plenty of time. What frustrated me were the excuses. I am not saying they weren’t true, but I am saying that I didn’t care to hear them. If he told me straight up that he was really busy and couldn’t get it done I would’ve have been understanding. Instead his wife sat there telling me all the reasons why he couldn’t do the job we hired him to do in the timeframe he told us. It ended up taking him a month to get everything done he promised. Not only was he several weeks behind what he originally said today Robert received a message from him asking why he wasn’t paid yet because he had just finished that morning. It wasn’t a message informing us that it the cans were finally done, but an inquiry as to why he hadn’t been paid when he expected to be paid even though he did not once mention when he would be done.

            Having lived in O’Leary for 9 months, and Paraguay for a bit over 11 I am still amazed at the culture of commerce. The method in which a job gets done is like playing a giant game of chess. Even if you state directly what you want and when you want it done the odds that it will happen are highly unlikely. There are many reasons for this, but the one I keep coming back to is the fact that most business in smaller Paraguayan communities are family run trade businesses that operate outside their homes. Family life and professional life are therefore combined more intimately than they are back home. If you have a problem with the good or service you buying if you choose to confront the issue you are not just dealing with one person but rather an entire family. It is not like a major company that has customer service representative. The amount of options if you need something specific is extremely limited, so if you burn too many bridges tough luck you’re out of options. If there is a family emergency the business is closed, if the family goes on a trip your order gets completed after they get back, if it rained twice that week everything get pushed back. This culture forces one to set more time aside to complete tasks that under a different context could be done in half the time. In many ways the culture of family owned business being the primary source of commerce creates a stronger sense community, but it also a lead to more personal grudges if someone is unreliable or bad at what they do.

            What makes this culture all the more challenging is that we are foreigners who clearly don’t know how this system works upon our arrival. I am still unaccustomed to this way of doing business, and while I am slowly adapting to it I still cannot believe how long it takes to get the simplest tasks done regardless of the amount of preparation. In America work life and family life are frequently interconnected in a variety of ways, but rarely does someone have a trade that they do independently outside their house where people independently seek their specific services. If I wanted to go buy trash cans in America I wouldn’t have to find the local blacksmith, discuss how much it would cost, and wait for him to get it done. I would go to major hardware store and buy it that day with out having to negotiate price or anything. It could be done in a day. This project could be done in 2 days in America, but it would not an impact because litter and waste management isn’t the same problem as it is here. We are working within the confines of a developing community with limited resources and a deeply rooted society of family owned and operated businesses. Work and family life are intertwined unlike anything I was used to before my arrival here. To wrap up all I’ll say is that the project is slowly coming along. It will get done. I am not sure when exactly, or how for that matter. All I know is that by September 30^th I won’t be working on this anymore, and I’ll be very happy when that day arrives.

Battling Technology and Transition

       During the tedious process of packing for my 27 months of servce in Paraguay there were several items of personal technologhy that I deemed essential for my sanity as a Peace Corps volunteer. Along with a mountain of clothings for all types of weather I brought school supplies, medicine, and all sorts of various trinkets I felt I couldn´t live without. In that assortment of goods was also 2 cameras, 2 ipods, a laptop computer, and a Kindle. I never thought that I would end up bringing so much technology with me as I arrived here. To be honest, I had no idea what sort of technology would be common place here at all given my general lack of knowledge about Paraguayan culture prior to my arrival. The more time I spent here the more I realized that the technology deemed essential to me, and my life back in America, was also developing at a fairly rapid rate in Paraguay as well. Many high school students, especially those who live in larger towns, are exposed to computers at a young age. It is common place to see people around my neighborhood carrying around new Sony digital cameras to take pictures of their kids in parades or school events. The youth group I work with recently went on a trip to visit a cheese factory in another community. At the end of the tour we were taking pictures to put on the group´s Facebook page. I was about to take a picture with my black, 8-year-old Sony Cybershot, 5.1 megapixel, 3x zoom camera that I bought while doing an exchange program in Taiwan in high school, when one of the members of the group asked me to take a picture with his. As I took a look at his brand new Sony Cypershot, 12.1 megapixel camera with 12x zoom I thought to myself maybe the amount and quality of my technology isn´t something that people find unfamiliar.
       As I stood there taking pictures with a camera that was the great great grandon of the camera I was holding in my hand I started to think that I might be the one who was recieving the raw deal with the cost of personal technology. Since my arrival I have managed to break both cameras, one still works but the screen broke meaing I have to look through the view finder making my already old camera seem older. My Kindle made it through the first 4.5 books in the Game of Thrones series before succumbing to the elements, and most recently my beloved computer of 6 years that has been with me since before the beginning of college gave into the powers that be. To be fair, I probably could have done a better job of taking care of these important pieces of technology, but then I think to myself that being forced to ride on a standing only bus all over with a giant backpack would eventually cause too much ware and tear for even the most well put together object let alone a computer. In some ways I am sort of glad that those technologies aren´t at my disposal for a time. It gives me a chance to read a physical book, prevents me from checking my email and Facebook constantly, and gives me time to be a bit detached from the dependency I developed on technology. Still though, when I see members of the youth group jumping on their computers, listening to music on their cell phones, and taking pictures with their new cameras it makes me wonder if I am all that different then the average person here?
       It has taken some getting used to not having those links to the outside world.  Especially with the recent changes that have come to O´Leary over the past month. My closest neighbor outside O´Leary, Jimmy, left early to go to graduate school. Kristin finished her extension, and left at the end of July. Most recently, Mike said his goodbyes, and made it home this past weekend. Change is inevtibly expecially amoungst Peace Corps Volunteers. With a new group coming in every 4 months and another group leaving who's around what area is constantly changing. Lucky for me, Mike got a follow up volunteer named Robert, so while it will take some getting used to not having a computer and not having Mike, Kristin, and Jimmy around I have been able to spend time with Robert and with a lot more time with Paraguayan families who seem to sense that things around here are a bit different than they were just a month ago. While the last few weeks have been a challenge adjusting to a bunch of change I am at least able to keep busy. Not having as much access to technology has given me the chance to focus on some things around my house and projects around the community. Keeping busy has been important, and progress on things is steady. We recently finished planting 2,500 trees, have been able to continue the awesome childrens radio program Kristin started, and make steady progress on the trash project. Life is full of ups and downs and while there have been some pretty bigs downs there have also been some pretty big ups. Things sort of keep plugging along, and while it hasn´t been the smoothiest of sailing of late I think that is a normal part of the experience. Look for a new update at the beginning of September with details about progress of the various projects going on in O´Leary.
      

Paraguayan Cuisine

            A question that I get asked often from people back home is how’s the food there in Paraguay? That question can mean a number of different things to me depending on my state of mind at any given time. I think the best way to transition into a conversation about Paraguayan cuisine would be to first share a brief anecdote that happened to me last weekend. I had just gotten back to O’Leary after spending a period of time in Asuncion. For months this older couple named Armando and Augustina had been inviting me over for lunch. They have a kid, Francisco, who goes to the school, and during my time here I have developed a nice relationship with all three of them. The cool part about them is how long they have known about Peace Corps, and the amount of volunteers they have met or interacted with during their lives, so they have these really interesting insights into the challenges that come with living and working as a volunteer in the area. They have been friendly and have said on many occasions that if I need anything all I have to do is ask, so I guess my point in telling you all this is that it was far past time that I went to have lunch with them

            They told me to come over at 11 o’clock Saturday morning. I went over after my first solo radio show with a big appetite. They told me that they would be killing a pig, which for those of you who have never hear a pig squeal when it is being killed let me tell you that the sounds it makes are blood curdling to say the least. Despite the horrendous sounds that emanate from the pig during the brutal slaughter pork is easily the best tasting meat you can get on a regular basis. I arrived shortly after the pig was killed, but got a first hand look at the butchering process. Armando has been raising pigs his whole life, so the procedure went rather smoothly. I even got to take part in the shaving process, which needless to say was a first for me. Now at this point I’m thinking that we are going to be eating the choicer parts of the pig because why wouldn’t we? I should know better because after the pig was fully butchered I noticed that they had removed some less desirable parts earlier, so they could be cooked. When I was told the food was ready Augustina put a huge steaming pile of pig liver in front of me, and said “I hope you like pig liver.” Now I’ll admit that liver is not the worst thing in the world. On the contrary in certain circumstances it actually isn’t that bad. What killed me about this particular situation was that I had a plate that was overflowing with dark brown chewy liver that honestly looked like someone had defecated on my plate and added onions. To make matters more challenging is that Paraguayans rarely to never drink something while simultaneously eating, so if you are chewing on a bad piece, or you want to get the taste out of your mouth, tough luck you got suck it up until everyone finishes and the beverages are mercifully served. When it comes to liver, I tend to eat slowly because I can’t handle large spoonfuls. Not having the aid of a drink makes that strategy all the harder. Thankfully for me I was given a drink before I had to chomp on some of the chewier parts, but the initial plateful was enough to leave my stomach feeling a tad bit queasier than I am accustomed to. It was the first time that I had been consciously served pig liver, and now it joins the ranks with cow, chicken, duck, and horse. I would put it in the middle of the pack with regards to that list for no particular reason except that, as one of my Paraguayan friends recently said, “liver is liver no matter what kind of animal it comes from.”

            That situation got me thinking a lot about food here in Paraguay, and why people eat the things they do. If I had to break down Paraguayan food in 3 words it would be meat, heavy starch, and mandioca (yucca). Vegetables make appearances as finely chopped up morsels whose tastes are usually unrecognizable after the meal has been cooked to completion. Paraguay has a lot of fertil landthat is great for producing corn, wheat, beans and mandioca. Therefore the staple foods in here are usually some variation of the 4 with often time the least choice parts of whatever animal you are eating that day. It is no wonder that Paraguayan’s eat tripe, liver, animal heads, cow udder, and the toughest parts of beef humanly possible because meat here can be very expensive depending on the cut. If I wanted to buy 2 kilos (4.4 lbs) of pork chops that would cost me 22,000 Guaranis (about $5), which is a lot of money when you compare it to 2 kilos of mandioca at a measly 1,000 Guaranis a kilo ($0.22). That is a huge price difference when the average person makes about $380 a month (like I do). When you can get a week supply of pasta or rice for the price of enough pork to feed a family of 4 for a meal of course you are going to buy the cheaper cuts of meat like the liver. People can sell choice meat for a lot of money, eat the parts that don’t go for as much, and get in some cases more protein for less cost. This trend occurs for generations and people develop taste preferences that yours truly isn’t used to eating.

            When I was living with my family in O'Leary, I once asked my host brother Mathias what his top 5 favorite foods were. Here they are in ascending order beans, rice salad, the pizza that I had at the time made for him twice, grilled meat, and first fried cow stomach known hear as milanesa de mondungo. Cow stomach is one of the harsher things I have eaten here and probably my least favorite part of the cow that I have eaten to this point, but it is cheap to buy. If I was fed cow stomach once a week during my childhood I would probably like it too. I think with development comes an evolution in what becomes available to a society. I’m sure that Americans at the turn of the century were more accustomed to eating things that I was never exposed to. Does that mean they ate it throughout their lives as incomes rose and markets changed? I am sure in some cases it did, but I was not served steaming plates of liver and onions growing up and I am likely not going to buy liver at the supermarket when I get home. My grandmother on the other hand always tells me how much she likes chicken livers. Not many restaurants in America still have them, but every once in a while we would stumble across them. She would eat her fill while I can barely get one down. That was something she had growing up and still enjoys to this day sort of like how Paraguayan’s like their liver.

            It is funny to think about that from a development standpoint. If Paraguay keeps growing in wealth will the food change? My bet is it will, but not dramatically. As I said in the last entry Paraguay’s relative isolation in the world makes it difficult to have a large international import market. To get food diversity, infrastructure needs to expand to the point where it is easy to transport goods from the much larger Brazilian and Argentine economies. The fact remains that the largest international highway in Paraguay is only 2 lanes.  If I wanted to get to a major coastline it would take at least 18 hours by bus, so it is no mystery that there isn’t much diversity in people’s diets. What they have is cheap, what they don’t have is extremely expensive. For the record I admit I like a lot of Paraguayan foods. They strangely enough have a lot of pasta and every once and a while make gnocchi from scratch, something I haven’t seen any other country make outside of Italy, which Paraguay has little to no historical ties with.

Making Chipa Guasu sort of a greasy corn bread

            Most of the food is pretty bland overall probably due to the lack of spices native to the region, and the cost to import them. I am not the biggest fan of spicy food, so I have tended to shy away from anything too spicy during my life. That was until I came here, and saw what it really meant to not like spicy food. A bottle of hot sauce in Paraguay would be roughly equivalent to mild BBQ sauce in America. A shockingly high number of people consider ketchup spicy. Every family that I have interacted with tends to have a small bottle of “hot sauce” in the fridge that they’ll occasionally put a drop or two on their rice or empanadas. Any more then two drops and they look at you like you were just served a death sentence. When I lived with a family I would dump the mild sauce on most of my food to give the usually salty bland flavor of the dish as much of a kick as possible. The kids I lived with didn’t understand how I was able to eat after that. On several occasions I saw them spit up their food after putting one drop of the bland concoction on whatever they were eating. The same reaction can be seen with certain types of chewing gum. On several occasions I have received packages containing Dentyne Ice or Eclipse peppermint gum. I would often give it to the kids after they incessantly asked me for hours apiece. They all seemed to like the gum except for the 3-year-old Damian, who would fan his mouth while chewing as if he were trying to fan a fire in his mouth. I can’t recall one instance where he actually chewed the gum for a period of time longer than 5 seconds, but everyday he would ask me for more as if he didn’t remember the day before.

            To recap, Paraguayan meat can at time be a bit tough on the stomach. Food is pretty basic with most dishes containing high amounts of salt or sugar. Paraguayans hate spicy food, and consider what I would consider very bland as super spicy. There are many things, particularly the pastas that I find delicious, but there are a lot of things, like tripe, that I struggle with. Is Paraguay one of the tougher Peace Corps food countries? I’d say no, but lets just say I’m glad that I’m finally able to cook on my own.