The Emotional Roller Coaster

A small tajy (Guaraní) or lapacho (Spanish) is the national tree of Paraguay

            To this point of my service, I have to admit that finding a topic to write about has been pretty easy. Seemingly everyday I see something or have an experience that is interesting enough to write about, but since my last entry I have to come clean that I feel really stuck with new stuff to write about without rehashing old topics I have already discussed at length. I think that could indicate a couple of things that are happening to me. First, that I have become pretty accustomed to my day-to-day life, and that after almost 8 months the cultural aspects of Paraguayan life no longer seem as alien to me as they did in previous months. The other reason is that while my electricity is still pretty shoddy and my water pump doesn’t work consistently I do now have my own static location and space close to the school that a good number of people are aware of. There is much less confusion about cultural norms now especially basic communication, I am slowly getting a grasp on people daily schedules, and for the first time I feel like I can spend more time thinking about project ideas rather than where I am going to live. With that being said I feel really stuck with my work here right now. I am still in the process of planting the trees with Mike (we have planted 661 to date), I do at least one activity with the school every week, and am in the process of starting my own garden at my house. However, the pace and the manner in which projects are started and completed occur over a really long and inconsistent periods of time that occasionally leave me very discouraged.

            During one of the first weeks of training back in September, one of the presentations was about the emotional rollercoaster that occurs during ones time as a volunteer. I distinctly remember a graph that looked something like this:

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=625&tbm=isch&tbnid=1EDkzLWdVYnRmM:&imgrefurl=http://horne.vplp.org/2010/09/clinging-to-false-hope-some-great.html&docid=7sP0zY9WPRipQM&imgurl=http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/markets-emotional-roller-coaster-2.png&w=486&h=293&ei=_nfHT5mwK4fc9ATes-C4Dw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=107&vpy=160&dur=317&hovh=174&hovw=289&tx=187&ty=63&sig=101419678461418815935&page=1&tbnh=110&tbnw=182&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:72

Now this isn’t a cry for help or anything like that, but I distinctly remember feeling really excited and on a seemingly endless high my first 4 months here from the time I landed, living with Nilda and Francisco, making new friends, spending the holidays with Julio and Iris, working with the youth group and the days at the lake in January and February were all on the uptick of the trend. Then March rolled around and school started, my struggles with getting my house livable, organizational challenges with the trees and garden projects have made life a bit harder than it was at first when I was everything is still new. I guess this seems obvious to some, but after spending a significant amount of time in one place it is no wonder that the first few months are referred to as the honeymoon period, but after several months the excitement of the newness wears off and it is not unheard of to go through a bit of a lull. I feel like I am in that lull stage right now. It’s by no means a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a good thing because it forces me to really think through what I have done to this point, and how I would like to move forward in the future.

            The tree-planting project, the more I think about it, is an ambitious undertaking. Planting trees is a very important goal of the environmental sector in Paraguay, and no matter how you break it down it is better to reforest an area that is vacant than leave it as is if you have the ability to do so. With that being said this project in particular has taught me a lot about the rollercoaster of doing a project in O’Leary. It isn’t enough to have a good idea and the support of a noteworthy institution to get it done. If there is a lack of motivation on either end the project will inevitably have hiccups. With the trees, it was the confidence and the go ahead given to us by the municipality that motivated Mike and I to go ahead and to the formal request to get 2,500 trees. We rode around with a municipal representative and selected locations where trees could be planted. We also informed them what kinds of trees were available, the best time to plant them, and the need for transportation when the time came in to get the trees in May. We submitted the application in late March and waited until May when everything was suppose to be ready. May came around and we called the tree nurseries that we requested the trees from. Neither had heard from the organization we submitted the request to about the project. When we fixed that situation the Municipality had for the most part forgotten the idea altogether and was unable to let us use the truck to get the trees. We then needed to find a new driver who had a truck. When we found that we were able to get 2,000 of the trees from one of the nurseries. When we arrived the family who operated the nursery wasn’t totally aware of why we were there. When we sorted that out we had to load the trees into the truck and take them back to the Municipality. In the middle of unloading the trees it started to rain, and everyone we got to help us ran for cover as Mike and I finished unloading the remaining trees. Then we had to wait for the rain to stop and make sure the ground wasn’t too hard to dig in. After it rained we didn’t have sufficient transportation, which required us to physically carry the trees to the locations where we were originally told we could plant. When we started to plant the municipality representative wanted it done in a very specific way that didn’t allow for the maximum utilization of the space where we were planting. We are still missing 500 trees from another tree nursery because the owner is very flaky and is awfully passive about delivering on his agreement despite the fact that it is a financial opportunity for him to earn a decent payday. The motivation and the complicatedness in finishing every step of the process is arduous, but the part that gets me down is that I am at the point where I almost expect every step of the process to be a challenge.

Where we planted trees at the school after the school.
We planted 13 trees to replace 2 large ones that were
sold to add funds to the parents commission.

            In no way do I regret doing the tree project. I actually feel like the harder it is to do any one individual part teaches me something about the different people I can rely on, the way to approach someone when asking a favor, and the etiquette needed to do it. It has given me many cultural insights about how Paraguayans do business, and the ways in which I need to adapt to those methods. Nevertheless, I still struggle with it daily, especially when I think about starting other projects that require working with large numbers of people who have differing opinions and ideas about how we should move do it. It has made the garden project at the school all the more challenging to start. To date, the garden has a fence and a couple of seedbeds to plant. That is all well and good, but the process just to get it to that point has taken 3 months. I have done 2 activities to date with regards to the garden, but we have not planted or had the chance to do anything in the garden itself except for the construction of a half a seedbed. In the since I started doing work on the garden there have been 7 days where school was canceled for one reason or another, a three week series of national exams occurred sending the teachers into a stress cycle that made them very unmotivated to do any work in the garden, and my former host Dad, Julio, who is the area director of 7 schools including mine, did a application to get huge boxes of Lego’s for all the grades in all the schools that ended up distracting the kids immensely whenever I wanted to do an activity The icing on the cake though was a the school obtaining a super detailed and specific manual about how to do a garden from the ministry of education. The reason the manual is a problem is because teachers, for the most part, use the materials provided by the ministry of education as a bible whose word is final and cannot be changed with regards to all educational materials. They want to do the garden in accordance with the manual despite the fact that the school doesn’t necessarily have the credentials, resources, or materials to do the garden by this book. The teachers often lack the ability to use that type of resource as a reference that can be adapted to their circumstances, and instead try to do everything by what the super specific curriculum says.

What that means for me is that all the work I have done to this point may be for naught if my activities weren’t the ones recommended by the manual. Now instead of doing a garden for 4^th-6^th graders I have been asked to do a plot for each grade kindergarten-6^th. The range of ability between those grades is significant. The manual says it can and should be done, but you try planting a garden with kindergartners and expect them to be able to maintain it as effectively as someone in the 6^th grade. I am not saying it cannot be done somehow, but I will say that it cannot be done the same way it should be done for older kids. The most frustrating part is that if you try to explain that to the teachers they get flustered because while I am an educated individual with some knowledge on the topic of gardening and a better knowledge of the school and what it is capable of, I am not the bureaucrat at the ministry of education whose assessment of the project determines further funding of the program. It is hard enough to go against the grain in any organization, but in Paraguay, especially if you work for the government in some capacity, it is sinful to go against the grain when provided the materials to meet the extremely detailed parameters of a lesson plan or project. The worst part is how people, like teachers, think that way when in reality, nobody from the ministry of education is going to take the initiative to go visit a really small elementary school of 45ish students 2 km off the main highway 4 hours from Asunción to see if they are implementing the lesson plan correctly. Not only is that pointless, but they wouldn’t have the resources to do that even if they wanted to.

I guess I’m still learning the ropes. People still aren’t sure of what I am capable of doing, and to be honest I still don’t know myself. I am the first volunteer to work directly with the majority of the people in this community. It takes time to develop a relationship, and even more time for them to understand what I can do for them if they ask. The importance of an institution like the ministry of education is deeply rooted in the mindsets of people who work with the schools, and the vast majority, if not the entirety, of the people around me went through the same education system that their kids are currently going through with only minor differences in administration. I came here with an education, and skills that I probably couldn’t have developed in if I was from here. My way of thinking, solving problems, cooking, cleaning, and living is simply different than it is here. A lot of these feelings might seem obvious when written down, and honestly the more I think about it the more obvious they seem, but for whatever reason it was only recently that I came to these realizations. I think that might be why I am feeling a bit stuck at this point. I am slowly gaining an understanding of why the things work the way they do and why to people act in the way they act. I sense that is why I am feeling a bit stuck. I have been working here for a bit over 5-months and I still feel like I have only a general grasp of how get something from point a to point b accomplished, and that is slightly discouraging. Deciding to apply for the Peace Corps to spend 27 months living in a developing country sounds like a life time when you are about to get on that plane, but the more time I spend here the more I think that two years isn’t nearly enough time. Sure plenty of positive things happen that benefit many people, most of whom you might never meet, but the work that I am doing here right now, in many cases, will take generations to complete entirely and when you think about it like that 2 years hardly seems like any time at all.

On my agenda for the immediate future is to keep doing what I have been doing since I got here. I’m going to take it day by day and see where that takes me. I also want to start thinking about potential vacation spots, and if recently being exposed to a lot of trashy Brazilian TV is any indication of how interesting that country is I’ll bet that is where I’ll start.

Mother's Day, Starting the Garden, Tree Planting Project

            As I hope most of you remembered, last Sunday was Mother’s Day in America. In Paraguay, Mother’s Day is a national holiday that occurs every May 15^th. For some reason Paraguay is the only country in the entire world that celebrates it on that date. I have absolutely no idea why Mother’s Day celebrations here on that day, but if I had to guess I would say that it is because Independence Day is May 14^th and in order to extend the holiday they make May 15^th, Mother’s Day, a national holiday as well. Traditions here are not what they are like in America, in fact I cannot even get anyone to explain what makes the day different than any other day other than stores are mostly closed to give moms a day of rest. I have been living in Paraguay for a little over seven months now breaking my previous record of longest time spent away from home by three months. I live by myself, hand wash my laundry, cook, clean, and try to maintain some level of order in a place where so many things are tricky to get accustomed to. In many ways it is a trial by fire to learn how, on the most basic levels, to take care of myself. That got me thinking about how I miss my own mom who isn’t here to help.

Mom and Me

            Not having mom around might sound corny for a lot of people, but I have to say that I miss her terribly. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was her upbringing and emphasis on broadening my horizons starting at a very young age that gave me the confidence not only to join the Peace Corps, but to adapt to the various challenges that this experience entails. For those of you who don’t know Deborah Schultz she is without a doubt one of the people I admire most in this world. Not only was she able to put herself though her undergraduate studies as a history major becoming the first member of my family to do so, but she continued to further her education by earning not one but 2 masters degrees on full fellowships from 2 very prominent universities. The drive to do something that no one in her family had ever done before laid a crucial foundation for my own education as an undergraduate. She constantly encouraged me to study what I enjoyed, get involved in as many things as I wanted to, and was always there to relish in my successes and consol me in my during my challenges. If it weren’t for her I would have never been able to do what I am doing now, and although I wasn’t home during this past Mother’s Day to make breakfast or take her out to eat you can bet that she was on my mind throughout the day. So considering I wrote this yesterday on Paraguayan Mother’s Day I will contend that this entry was posted only a day late. I love you Mom and I am sure we will talk soon!

            As for everything else that is going on I currently feel very busy with everything that is happening. Slowly, and by slowly I mean snail slow, people in the community are starting to become familiar with my presence. I notice more people calling my name out every time I leave the house, and have interacted with several new families thanks to my relationship with their children during my lessons at the school. Presently, I have started working on the garden project that has to date included a class on nutrition and how eating different vegetables benefits our health in different ways, and another concerning organic fertilizer and ecosystems. My goal for this week is to dig seed beds at the school and finally plant the vegetables, but I was informed that this week is exam week, so we will have to see how all that goes. I am feeling cautiously optimistic about the garden. I notice that the teachers take pictures of me doing lessons or when I do any work that is related to the garden. I get the impression that the documentation of my work with the garden is going to be sent to some sort of government entity to justify that the money invested in the school was properly used for the garden program and not for other things, but I have no way of confirming that. The reason I have not felt comfortable about planting the garden yet is mainly because we don’t have a consistent source of water that flow to where the garden is located. In the months leading up to the project I was constantly preaching the need to put the garden where there was a water source. That did not quite happen the way I hoped. What did happen was the purchase of piping that will flow to a faucet inside the fenced off garden area. The problem is that the faucet hasn’t been put in yet meaning the kids will have to carry a bucket of water around a building to the garden in order to water it. Carry a large bucket of water is extremely unpleasant and quite heavy especially if you are a 4^th grader. I personally feel that if I were a kid in school and the teacher asked me to carry buckets of water every day multiple times over a 50 meter distance that I would quickly lose interest in the garden pretty quickly. Hopefully, that problem will be resolved sooner rather than later, but I still have to keep reminding myself that patience is always a key when working with the schools.

Tajy

            On an up note Mike and I started the arduous process of planting 2,500 trees along the international highway and at area schools. I talked a bit about this project in previous entries, so to avoid repeating myself the basic forest situation here in Alto Paraná is that there isn’t much left. Principally over the last 50 years legal and illegal logging have removed huge tracts of forest from the Bosque Atlántico del Alto Paraná (BAAPA), which is the unique ecological region where I live. Our idea was simply to plant some native tree species along the main highway to beautify the area, but also to show people the importance of planting trees especially in Alro Paraná. With that in mind last Friday Mike and I ventured out in the pouring rain to the next big town over from O’Leary to load up 1,300 tajy or lapacho as they’re known in Spanish, 500 inga guasu, and 200 guarana a tree that produces a fruit that has twice the caffeine content of coffee beans and is common flavor in sodas around here and energy drinks around the world. It was absolutely pouring rain when we did this, and only stopped momentarily during the time when we offloaded the plants back at the municipality in O’Leary. As luck would have it we were able to enlist the help of about 7 men to unload the truck at the municipality. Things were peachy keen when all of a sudden it started to absolutely pour again sending all of our helpers for cover and leaving rain drenched Mike and I alone to offload the remaining 350 or so trees. Paraguayans hate getting caught in the rain, so it was really frustrating when they stopped helping so close to the finish. Mike and I both looked like we had just gone swimming fully clothed, but It did provide for some good pictures. We were also lucky because the rain made the soil easier to dig in the next day when we actually started planting.

            With the trees in O’Leary we were finally able to start the planting project. Using the manpower of 5 fellow Peace Corps volunteers and 4 members of the youth group we were able to plant 137 trees on Saturday, 41 on Monday, and 65 on Tuesday. I also have plans to plant 14 at my school with the kids as an activity for this upcoming Friday. We are still well short of the 2,500 we need to plant that also include another 500 trees we have yet to receive from another tree nursery, but you got to start somewhere. My hands are blistered and my back is sore, but it is all worth it for some of the smiles and thumbs up we receive from people who see us working. One woman in particular made my day yesterday when she came outside not once but twice to talk to us about the project we were doing and what a great idea it was. Her husband initially thought we were drug addicts who sometimes dig holes in front of their house to throw out garbage in, but after a bit of damage control we convinced him that we were merely planting trees and had no intention of burying our garbage there. After that everything was good and the family seemed happy at the prospect of new trees in front of their home. We still have a lot of work to do, and while the municipality can be extremely difficult to work with on a project like this, especially considering they were the ones who wanted the trees in the first place, it is nice to do something that goes towards the greater good. Planting these trees isn’t just something for the individual community of O’Leary to enjoy, but it is also to help Paraguay and the world at large replant some of it forest. Many would argue that 2,500 trees doesn’t mean squat when Brazil has deforested 230,000 sq mi since 1970 (thanks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_Brazil), but to mean it means a lot. It has not been easy to get to this point in the project, and time will tell how successful it is, but you can bet I am going to help plant everyone of those suckers one hole at a time.

Fruit Trees, Argentine Relations, and Soccer

          I haven’t had the chance recently to write a super long blog update, so this will be my attempt to discuss a few things that I have wanted to write about for a long time. The topics will probably seem really random, but that is sort of how my days go anyway so I figure that maintaining the blog in that fashion is not only okay but also necessary. Over the last couple of months since the unforgiving summer sun gave way to the less aggressive fall sun there have been copious amounts of fruit on the trees. Growing up in a fairy large city like Cincinnati didn’t mean it was impossible to have fruit trees around the neighborhood, but I personally never experienced having the seasonal joy of abundant fruiting occur all around me. The house I moved into has 5 mandarin orange trees and one regular orange tree that are fully fruiting. They not only provide me with the necessary vitamin C necessary for fighting off scurvy, but also they provide a lovely backdrop to what otherwise might be seen as a rundown hovel that is in fact my home. Particularly during those demanding weeks when my house didn’t have consistent running water or power I past many afternoons basking in the sun while sitting on my small wooden desk chair that I borrowed from the school eating oranges. I’m sure my neighbors thought I was crazy, but the fact that I am an American living in their community is enough for them to probably think I am mad without the added orange quirk. What amazes me more than the bountiful amount of fruit that surrounds my everyday life is how generous people have been giving it to me.

To date someone has given me 3 bushels of bananas, 16 palmelos (grapefruits more or less), 20 oranges, 2 different sacks of Paraguayan mangos, 15 lemons and 6 avocados just for visiting their house. Granted that much of the fruit would go to waste if not given away seeing the abundance on each tree, but the fact that it is always offered as a common courtesy is easily one of the favorite customs I have experienced to date. It seems like giving someone fruit if they go out of their way to spend time with you is expected, and I have tried my best to reciprocate whenever someone comes to my house. I think my current level of fruit intake well exceeds the health departments recommended daily serving amount, and that is not something I am complaining about.

My recent ability to get copious amounts of fruit has enhanced the quantity of people I know in the community greatly. The process of getting to know people has been sort of slow at times, but I have managed to meet a number of people, especially of late, mainly because of my work at the school. I would hardly call myself a full-fledged teacher especially considering I have no formal teaching experience or training, but in the minds of the students I am essentially one of the professors. I think that being around the school in that capacity, attending the parents commission meetings, and now living close to the school has made me a much more familiar face with the students who then tell their parents about me which subsequently leads to interactions outside at the kids homes with their families. Slowly but surely I am starting to feel like I have a better sense of the types of families who live in my community and the sorts of backgrounds they have. In short, my barrio (neighborhood) is what I would consider a working middle class community with people who speak a good smattering of Guaraní and Spanish. The clay content in the soil makes the environment ideal for brick making, and there are subsequently dozens of brick making operations in the area. There are scores of teachers, many little stores, and plenty of vehicle repair shops along the main road that runs along where I live. Of course there is plenty of agriculture especially the further out in the countryside one goes, but for the most part people don’t depend exclusively on their fields for their livelihoods, a much more common theme in more rural communities. A good example of the types of people who live around me is my community contact and former host Dad Julio.

Julio is 45-years-old and is the area director of 7 schools outside the center of town. His responsibilities are mainly focused at the largest K-12 school in the area, but he is also in charge of recourse allocation to the other area schools. Now how much time and effort that takes is still a mystery to me, but essentially that means he is a pretty busy guy. Like many Paraguayans, Julio lived and worked in Argentina for a few years in his 20s before he came back to Paraguay to get his teaching certification, which he has been doing ever since. It is really interesting talking to Julio about his time in Argentina mainly because it is such a common thing for Paraguayans to do for a period of time.

According to Wikipedia, there are roughly 325,000 Paraguayans, born in Paraguay, who currently live in Argentina and another 2 million people who are considered Paraguayan Argentine. Considering that the approximate population of Paraguay is about 6.45 million the fact that 325,000 leave to work in Argentina and another 2 million are considered ethnically Paraguayan shows how even though the 2 countries share many geographical features, Argentina, provides many more economic opportunities for Paraguayans than Paraguay itself. In some ways the comparison is a lot like the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States with the key difference being that Paraguay and Argentina have an open boarder agreement encouraging the crossing of the 2 boarders for economic gain while quite the opposite is the case between the United States and Mexico. Argentina is Paraguay’s largest trade partner by far sending roughly 33% of its exports to Argentina. On the other hand Paraguay is only Argentina’s 14^th largest exporter with 0.8% of its exports going Paraguay. I think it is really interesting because it demonstrates the relative size Paraguay in relation to the whole world. The fact that Paraguay quite literally sends a significant percentage of it workforce and exports to Argentina while only needing to import a small percentage of Argentine goods show both how big Argentina is and how Paraguay, in many respects, is able to produce much more than it is needs to consume. Argentina is closer to the top of the developing countries while Paraguay is closer to the bottom with regards to what some people would call middle-income economies. That economic gap also shows the differences in consumption between the 2 countries and the striking differences in living standards as well. While here I have met dozens of people who have either themselves worked in Argentina, known a family member, or had a friend spend significant time there. However, the amazing thing to me is that almost all the Paraguayans who leave for Argentina come back to Paraguay because it “más tranquillo.” We don’t often see Mexican immigrants return to Mexico in the United States, but in Paraguay it is the norm to do that, which I find fascinating.

The last thing I wanted write about is soccer, which is long overdue in my opinion. I don’t think it would shock anyone to say that Paraguay loves soccer. Its World Cup team lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champion Spain in 2010, and has qualified for the World Cup previously in 1986, 1998, 2002, and 2006. FIFA’s south American headquarters is located 5-minutes away from the international airport close to Asuncion, and the country boasts 2 Copa America Championships in 1953 and 1979 a pretty remarkable feat for a country that is surrounded by traditional powerhouses Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Within this context Paraguay also has a thriving domestic league that is made up of 12 teams the most famous being Olimpia who have won 39 league championships most recently this past year and 3 Copa Libertadores, which is the most prestigious club tournament in South America. Their bitter rival is Cerro Porteño winners of 28 domestic league titles, but no Copa Libertadores essentially making Olimpia the equivalent of the Yankees, which is an apt analogy when considering their colors are also black and white. One of the questions I get asked in a fairly regular basis is “que club sos” (what club are you) now given the fact the Cerro and Olimpia have both doubled the amount of domestic league titles than any other team in the league, it is no surprise that almost every Paraguayan is either an Olimpista or a Cerista. It you say you are one or the other in front of the wrong group of people lets just say it can make you visit with said group of people slightly uncomfortable. Whenever either team is playing there are dozens of people surrounding TVs in town and always gunshots and fireworks after victories. In O’Leary, a small fight was started during the last game of the season when Olimpia won and Cerro lost making Olimpia champion. People get really intense about their team, and given the fanaticism I made the personal decision to be a fan of one of the more mediocre clubs called Guaraní. Now when I am asked what club I am I respond Guarani and always get a casual laugh then the conversation moves forward without any grief.

That is pretty much it for now, but look forward to a video update in my next entry that will give an in depth tour of my home.

Winter is Coming

It has been far too long since my last update, so this is my chance to catch everyone up with what is going on. Overall I am doing well. Some things are good others are proving to be enormous challenges. On the difficult end I just got back from a week of additional training at what Peace Corps calls reconnect. It was a chance to have more specific question answered regarding technical aspects of our service, specifically gardening, tree planting, and agroforestry.  It was awesome having the chance to see everyone from the training group, and I was on cloud 9 upon my return to O’Leary when my community contact and former host Dad Julio informed me that the lights were now working at my house. Sure enough they were working like a charm for the 36 hours since my arrival, but just as I was sitting down to write this entry they stopped working again. This is despite my investment in a cable that was supposed to fix the problem was installed this past week. It is a pretty devastating blow coupled with the fact that Julio also informed me yesterday that my water still doesn’t work, and that I still owe him some money for materials that went to building that bathroom. To be honest, I have no idea what is going to happen with regards to the house. I am sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place because I invested a far amount of money making the house livable, which it still is more or less, and am still short a bit on the payment front. This house has easily been the most difficult aspect of my service so far. It is very challenging to do projects or activities when you don’t have a place that has consistent amenities.

Naturally as I was writing the previous paragraph in a somber state I had a series of good things happen to me all at once. First, I had a visit from Caludio, an 18-year-old high school student who has agreed to accompany me to a library workshop this Friday and Saturday as the representative of the elementary school where I work. I was initially pretty hesitant to take someone so you to the workshop for the obvious reason being would if he care or get anything out of it? My apprehensions were abated when I actually got to spend time with him this afternoon. He came over to my house and we sat in front drinking terere and chatting about a wide range of things including the library project. He told me a lot about why the number of students at the school has declined citing the leaving of the previous director (principal), an influx of community members reaching high school age who could take their younger siblings to larger schools that are elementary-high school that have more resources and students, and the age average of the community relative to surrounding areas is a bit older than in Barrio Imaculada with a lot of retired age people. Our conversation yielded some very insightful information to say the least. While we were talking Julio cam over, and with the help of one of my neighbors reconnected the light and helped me reconnect the tubing necessary to fill my water tank, which by some small miracle worked effectively when filling my entire tank. So now I have electricity once again, water inside the house, a motivated person to take to the library workshop, and a whole new outlook on how my day went. I nerves were quelled about my financial situation when I talked to Julio who said I could pay him in installments, and mentioned that everything is tranquillo and I shouldn’t worry so much. I would say that my day today went along the lines of many days I have had in Paraguay in that if things are going bad to start something randomly happens that makes things better.

The same thing happened to me yesterday when Julio initially told me that I still owed him some money. That was something that brought me really down, but as I was leaving the señor that lives next to my old host family, whose name is coincidently is also Julio flagged me down and asked if I spoke Spanish. I said yes, so he asked me if I could translate some things out of his Mercedes owner’s manual that was entirely in English. Now translating the reasons why ones check engine light would be on and how one sets a few components on the dash board, but I did it more or less and in the process I met a very nice family who expressed an interest in starting a worm compost for their garden, teaching their son English, and gave me a big sack of bananas, palmelos, and Paraguayan cheese. Something upsetting led to something good all of a sudden, and so life continues. I’m not saying that those things happen everyday, but more often than I would expect that is the case.

With that being said I have a few things going coming down the pipeline. I have my first of 6 VRF’s whose acronym I cannot for the life of me remember, but I think it is volunteer report form. Essentially this is a document that keeps track of the projects, activities, and events that I do in my community. Some of them are continuous projects that can be elaborated on throughout my service; others are onetime events that lasted a less than an hour. The point of the VRF is to give some kind of quantitative measurement of our impact in our communities e.g. how many people we come in contact with, whether there was a transfer of knowledge, or a training that would allow a member of the community to do an activity or presentation after we leave. It is extremely difficult to measure exactly how much something impacts someone quantitatively, so a lot of what we measure is an educated guess because there is no real way to express how much a single presentation had on a person ability to comprehend an at times complicated concept, but that is the task at hand, so I am just going to do my best and see what happens.

It is also gotten pretty chilly in Paraguay. Now I am sure a lot of you are thinking how cold could it really be? The answer is roughly mid 40s at night with the absolute coldest only being a bit above freezing in the dead of winter, but what separates American winter and Paraguayan is that in America we have central heat in most homes and buildings. That doesn’t exists here whatsoever, so when it is 45 degrees it is 45 degrees in my house, outside, and all over. There is no relief from the cold whatsoever, and it as led to some pretty cold nights of late in my comely, but very draughty home. I head that it is only going to get worse, so I better brace myself for the inevitable frigid condition which I am not looking forward to but all I can do is bundle up and wait for the weather to warm up again.

I will be sure to update again early next week to talk a bit about the library workshop, the garden project, and the upcoming reforestation project. Until then though enjoy a few pictures of the amazing Paraguayan sunsets that are unlike any I have ever seen thanks to my site mate Kristin.