The Circus and Coming Months

            Last week I had the opportunity to go to the circus for the first time it what seems like forever. The Osvaldo Terry traveling circus has been making its way across Paraguay since the 1950s and the technology doesn’t look like it has change much since those early days to say the least. All jokes aside though, I never thought that my first experience petting a baby tiger would be in Juan E. O’Leary Paraguay with the Peace Corps, but it was. The cost of admission was 20,000 Guaraní's ($5.50), which is actually a rather substantial amount of money for most families myself included. I mustered up the courage to pet the baby tigers despite the circulating rumors pertaining to these same tigers biting the arm off a child earlier that day. To no ones shock that rumor was later revealed to be a slight exaggeration, but all the same it was amazing how quickly word traveled, and the genuine concern people expressed in going to the circus thereafter. Another rumor that might have a bit more substance than that of the child eating tiger was the circus folk driving around the community offering 30,000 Guaraní’s ($6.50) to purchase dogs that would be fed to the lions and tigers. Side note these were the laziest lion and tigers I have ever seen, so I question their ability to effectively stand up let alone kill a dog, but I digress. A rumor about the circus buying up dogs had added validity when it had been backed up in a short article in ABC Color that reported similar offers for local k9’s all over Asuncion when the circus was there a few weeks earlier. What amazed me more than the stories themselves was how ardently people around town believed both stories in their most ostentatious form of embellishment. The rumors were spread through hearsay more than any other form of media, and were taken as fact in the minds of most people that I talked too.

            I think what amazes me is that the advent of print, television, radio and electronic media are all corner stones in how Americans share and obtain information, and while many of those outlets exist in Paraguay accessing that information is habitually limited by logistics. If you don’t know it exists, or if you don’t have any way to gain convenient daily access to it your might be liable to take what so and so said about whatever on his trip to wherever as fact. The odds that the TV does a report on it, or that the person being told the fact has available access to a newspaper, if an article was even ran, is slim. I find myself more prone to gossip, and at times join in with the conversations that seem a bit farfetched. Word travels so fast and at time it even feels as though I learn about things in the news or what happened to so and so without even needing to read about it online or in a newspaper. That’s they way it was for a long time before the creation of newspapers and computers, and the weird part is that some days I don’t feel like it is necessary at all to learn about things going on in the community through any form other than hearsay.

            It even goes further than that. I cannot count the number of times people recognize me in the street, and even sometime know my name without me having ever met them. There doesn’t seem to be a great level of privacy in that respect, so more often than not when I meet people they remember seeing me riding my bike, at the store, walking from someone’s house ect. I sort of feel like a rock star in that respect, but I got to say it is a little unnerving to feel like you are being observed under a microscope, and that any move you make might grab the attention of someone for better or for worse. However, for the most part being visible in the community be that riding my bike with that goofy looking helmet ,or walking into a random store to buy something does get people questioning what exactly I am doing here if they don’t know already, and that is okay in my book.           

            In terms of upcoming projects I would say that can be folded into 2 categories: the school and the reforestation project. The school is going to prove to be more challenging to get the ball rolling than I expected. I am still searching for a place to live where I can have actual space to do things, or be productive without having kids hanging around me asking what am I doing incessantly. Last Monday, I went to the school just to kind of see what was going on and how many students would attend the morning secession. The answer was less than 20 in 4 grades. Smaller classes sure, but not enough students to feel confident about sustaining a garden by a long shot. To be fair, kids tend to roll into school over a several week period before the numbers reach the numbers they are supposed too, but with that being said I hope more show up for the sake of the school. The day is supposed to start at 7 am, but it didn’t actually happen until 7:45 because of last minute registration of students, the fact that it was the first full week, and because we hadn’t finished drinking the mate yet. Not going to lie its going to be challenging not to get involved, but to get a sustainable garden going. How do the kids learn punctuality and continuity when the operation of the school itself lacks those things? What I will say is that the teachers that I have met do all really seem to care, and are operating an entire school understaffed with extremely limited resources including the materials I need for the garden itself, so I feel a bit stuck for now and will have to wait and see what happens over the next few weeks before I can make a huge push with the actual construction of a garden.

I have been keeping busy thanks to a joint effort with Mike. We decided to do a big time reforestation project partnering with the municipality to plant an undetermined amount of trees along the main highway at different intervals along the 6 km stretch through the municipal area of O’Leary. Paraguay, particularly the eco-region I live in known as the Bosque Atlántico del Alto Paraná (BAAPA), has had major challenges with deforestation over the past century. Many organizations within the county have as a result taken the initiative to improve this problem through the promotion of grassroots tree planting projects. Through out the country there are reputable viveros (tree nurseries) that utilize the resources of a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) called A Todo Pulmon in obtaining native tree species, in some cases free others discounted, for the purpose of reforesting. Peace Corps Paraguay has a partnership with A Todo Pulmon making it easy for volunteers to obtain trees for said projects. Paraguay has many very stringent laws regarding deforestation that are commendable, but at times are missing the resources to go about massive reforestation projects. It is also a delicate issue because how do you effectively prevent the average person who needs to cut down a stand of trees for the sake clearing land to grow crops to support his family? Needless to say this is not going to be a walk in the park at all, but we have managed to get several schools interested in helping us out by agreeing to take some trees to plant in their own school area, and everyone seems on board with the concept. Selling the idea though is the easy part getting a large group of people to come out and plant the trees is a completely different issue that doesn’t even begin to broach the topic of the other resources we will need, or the educational component of how and why we are planting trees.

            I am looking forward to the challenge and am confidant that we will be able to actually pull this off the question is how long will it take to finish? Only time will tell, and the weather is slowly but surely getting more tolerable, so I am excited and cannot wait to see how it all plays out.

Paraguay Verde

            As I start to approach the 5-month mark in Paraguay my thoughts of late have been mainly focused on interpreting how Paraguayans view themselves as a nation a part of the larger world. A huge component of that stems from the relative size of Paraguay in relation to the rest of the world. In my junior year of college I studied abroad in China. Something that struck me as remarkable was the scale of China’s population. With 1.3 billion people and 160 cities with over a million people China is the most populous country in the world with India as a close second followed third by the United States whose population is just over 300 million people. As an American I was overwhelmed by the size of China’s population and marveled at how a country with a population 5 times the size of America could survive on relatively the same amount of land. The entire continent of South America has roughly 375 million people of that number only 6.4 million live in Paraguay making it 9^th most populated independent country on the continent only ahead of Uruguay, Guyana, and Suriname I guess it makes sense that for people to have less understanding concerning how big the world is in relation to themselves.

            In recent weeks I have started to get a better sense of what constitutes international exposure in Paraguay. Given its landlocked location it is easy to understand that the country is isolated. By what strikes me is how people view distances and what their opinions of what constitutes far away. The fact that I came here from America is almost an unfathomable concept in the eyes of a number of people I talk to. Younger children in particular frequently ask me how long would it take to bus to America. When I explain that you cannot take a bus direct from Paraguay to America I often receive blank stares and confusion. A trip that takes 4 hours by bus is considered a long journey to many people, and given the general lack of opportunity and the cost of flying most Paraguayans have never been on a plane or even seen one up close. The other day I myself marveled when I saw a plane flying overhead not because I have never seen one before, but because it was only the second or third time I had seen one since I arrived. When you throw numbers like thousands of kilometers, or billions of people I notice a distinct lack of understanding particularly with youth. For many people scale is limited to the boundaries of Paraguay, South Western Brazil, Argentina specifically Buenos Aires, and Uruguay. The economy of the county is primarily dependent on regional trade and while big agrobusiness has broadened those limitations slightly, still when you talk to the average Paraguayan outside of the major cities in particular those boundaries appear to be a sort of end of the world.

            This trend, however, goes beyond the area of international boundaries, but also includes distances within the country itself. Anytime I have to walk to town, a distance of 1.6 km, or ride my bike to the lake, about 4.5 km, people always seem to marvel that I not only can walk that distance but also do it without thinking twice about it. Granted if I had a motorcycle my opinion about those distances might change as well, but walking 3 km a day is really not that much given the size of the town and the relative distances I need to travel to get things. I think the reason that I am writing about this topic now stemmed from something that happened to me this past Monday. Peace Corps was putting on its first annual environmental youth leadership camp called Paraguay Verde in the small town of Tobati located roughly an hour from Asunción and a 10 minute bus ride from one of the main international highways. In order to get to the location of the camp we had to hop on the local bus and ride it to the entrance of the campgrounds where registration was. After witnessing the 3^rd consecutive bus that was overflowed with people we decided to hoof it. The owner of the restaurant we were waiting at looked at us like we were mad when we asked how long it would take to walk? He replied by saying it was way too far, a 30-minute walk minimum. When I hear the term long walk I don’t think 30 minutes I think 3 hours or more, but I would venture to guess that the restaurant owner had never even thought to walk that distance let alone actually do it, which struck me as amazing.

Planting Trees

            Needless to say the walk wasn’t that bad. I knew that mainly because the kids I was with weren’t overtly complaining. As for the camp itself it was Peace Corps Paraguay’s first attempt to connect youth from all over Paraguay with other youth under the umbrella of environmental action and activism. The camp was held in a protected area called Encampamento (Camp) Jack Norment named after an American missionary who suffered an untimely death. To be honest, I was skeptical about how the camp would run given it was the first attempt by the environmental sector to do one of these, but I was pleasantly surprised by how the kids seemed to react to the presentations and the information offered. Large concepts like global warming and recycling materials might have gone over the heads of many of the 50 plus youth on hand, but they weren't completely alien concepts to anyone, which was amazing to see. The camp provided many opportunities for the participants to practice their public speaking and presentation skills when they were asked to present a map of their individual communities and what resources existed within. Each group of kids also had to create a project plan of an environmentally themed idea that they would like to implement in their communities. We also had the opportunity to help plant 100 native tree varieties, which got the kids really motivated to do more of that when they return to their communities. ABC Color, one of the national newspapers, also wrote an article about the camp that you could read if you follow this link: http://www.abc.com.py/nota/lideres-ambientales-se-reunen/

            The fact that a national newspaper covered the story of a youth camp in Paraguay was pretty amazing, and seemed to get the kids really excited. For me, it showed how much pull and influence Peace Corps has in Paraguay. The reputation and the continuous cycle of sending volunteers since 1967 has really made Peace Corps and it’s programming a very noteworthy entity in public policy and lifestyle. The camp received so much national attention because of its focus on youth. Paraguay is a very young country with a median age only 21.6 years and roughly with 28.5% of the population under the age of 15,  youth development programs are pillars of further development within the country both with Peace Corps and the Paraguayan government. This camp therefore got a lot of national attention, which I am sure sets it up very well for the future.

Rodrigo, Denis, Me, Noelia upon getting our participation certificates

            I took three kids to the camp, Rodrigo, Denis, and Noelia, all of who are members of the youth group formed by Mike and all of who were hand selected by their teachers as great students eager to participate with Peace Corps Volunteers. All of them had been to other camps put on by Peace Corps, so they were accustomed to they way things worked, how to speak in front of large groups of people, and participate in all the activities. Needless to say that made my job a heck of a lot easier, and by the end of the third day we had come out of the camp with a better sense of the resources available to the youth group from Peace Corps, non-governmental organizations, and government ministries particularly the ministry of tourism. As for the potential projects that come out of the camp we will have to wait and see, but the kids seem really motivated to do a trash pickup project in the center of town under the pretext of raising trash awareness and how people dispose their garbage.

            On the agenda for me now that the camp is over are a couple of days to rest and think about getting my house underway. School started today, but it rained a bit today and as everyone back home will remember the first day of school is kind of a joke anyway especially here when it rains. Hopefully I’ll get moving soon, but I am in now hurry everything is tranquillo for the time being and I like it that way.

Carnival, Plaza Clean Up, and Working with Kids

          This past weekend I attended my first Carnival celebration in the city of Encarnación, which is at the southern end of Paraguay right on the boarder with Argentina. It is arguably the most famous and largest Carnival in Paraguay and arguable the largest outside of Brazil, so needless to say it was a lot of fun. Carnival and Mardi Gras both signify the beginning of lent in areas with high Catholic populations the difference being one has French influence and the other Spanish/Portuguese.  To the average person the most obvious things they have in common is a huge party accompanied with lots of lights, scantily clad women in brightly colored costumes, and plenty of corporate sponsorships. Getting to Encarnación was a bit of a trek that took around 6 hours altogether on a bus that looked straight out of the 1950s. Thankfully we only needed to stop once to repair the aging wonder that I am pretty sure was sold second hand from Brazil given all the Portuguese written inside. It was honestly a miracle that the trip only took 6 hours given the technical difficulties and the inferior technology, but when you average what seems like 100mph on the down hill portion I guess it is not that strange.

          Encarnación itself has to date been my favorite Paraguayan city. While it is only the 10^th largest in Paraguay with roughly 93,000 people it has a big city feel and amenities, like huge super markets and plenty of place to eat, without the hustle and bustle of Asuncion or Cuidad del Este. It is also known for its sandy beach that sits right across from the Argentine city of Posadas Of course the white sand beach does not occur naturally on the banks of the Paraná River, but is shipped un from neighboring countries that are lucky enough to have sand. The water was bathtub warm, but only went up to my knees at the deepest part of the enclosed swimming area. Paraguayans as a whole rarely know how to swim and as a result most of the beaches would be better described as wading pools. If someone tried to cross the barrier they were quickly yelled at and told that they weren’t allowed to go over. As a person who knows how to swim I was very tempted to try my luck and see if the lifeguard would come after me if I swam over the buoys, but I was afraid that had the potential to cause the lifeguard to reveal that he himself couldn’t swim or get caught and promptly escorted to the nearest police station, so I decided not to press my luck and enjoy the wading instead.

            I remember as kid being super eager to learn how to swim and play in the deep end of the pool. In Paraguay it is a shock to see someone actually in the water let alone swimming where their feet cannot touch the bottom. I recently spent some time at the local lake and have noticed on several occasions’ large cars full of people packed to capacity drive all the way to a lake or a place to swim, spend 15 minutes there, and load up their car to go home after briefly slashing themselves with water. A day at the lake or the beach in America to me means loading up the car full of towels, food, sunscreen, water, drinks, and swimming toys with the intention of spending the whole day there. I am always amazed when I see huge groups of people come all the way to the beach for less then a half an hour and leave. A lot of it might have to do with the general lack of swimming ability, but a lot of it also could be a cultural norm regarding people’s relationship with the water itself. Yesterday I went swimming with the youth group I have been working with and a lot of them mentioned the potential to get bitten or attacked by an animal as the reason Paraguayans don’t like to swim far from shore or the deep parts. I would normally chalk that sentiment up to kids being scared if I hadn’t previously heard the same things from adults. Whatever the reason I always have enjoy swimming even if I cannot go deeper than my knees.

            After the beach it was time to get ready for Carnival itself. If I could take away 2 things from my experience it is first, getting blasted in the ear with spray can foam is unpleasant, and second no matter how cool the parade is at first by the time the same float rolls past for the 3^rd time it starts to get old. The way the Carnival festivities were set up was 2 long sets of bleachers on either side of a small road with the parade rolling through the middle. I can honestly say I have never quite seen anything like it and I would definitely encourage people to put going to a Carnival on their life bucket list especially if you don’t mind loud music and beautiful women. My trip back to O’Leary was done on a mini bus that looked like it had been stolen from an airport. I was unlucky enough to be in a cramped seat with a very heavyset woman sitting next to me. By the time I made the walk back home I had finally regained feeling in my legs and was beyond tired as a result of the weekend festivities. As I write this I am still feeling the after effects of my trip, but it was well worth it and I don’t regret a minute.

            My week to this point and the upcoming weeks are going to be hectic. For starters, Monday and Tuesday I spent the entire mourning cleaning the plaza in the center of town with Mike and his youth group called Jóven Emprendedores (Youth Entreprenuers). This was a particular challenge because not only are there no people paid to manage or clean the plaza, it is also missing several key features of parks including garbage cans and signs that don’t have graffiti. One of the most irritating parts of the cleanup aside from the sweltering heat and the blisters obtained from raking was the manner in which the waste was disposed of. The municipality was supposed to come and pick up the yard waste and garbage we collected from the park at the end of each day. After the first day the group had filled easily over 15 bags of waste. Those bags are still sitting in the middle of the park with the additional of garbage put there from people who live in the surrounding neighborhoods. Dogs have gotten into this garbage as well leading to a free for all for the eatable refuse. The most frustrating part of this is that the garbage collectors ignored the bags that were in the center of the plaza and instead choose to only collect the garbage bags that were placed on the peripheries not because they didn’t see the bags in the middle but because of pure laziness. This is extremely frustrating to see not just because the people who were suppose to be doing their jobs failed to do so but more so because a group of 15 kids had more motivation to improve their own community then the adults did.

            Hopefully the problem will get resolved soon, but I am not going to get my hopes up. We also took the time to paint a couple of murals on the wall to give the park the finishing touches and cover up graffiti with a few inspirational messages promoting protecting our environment and the youth group itself. Hopefully those messages will persuade people not to trash the park again, but rather take care of it. I had the arduous task of penciling the letters for one of the murals and I have to say it looks pretty good despite it taking 4 hours to complete in the scorching sun while sitting on my ass. The plan is to finish painting the whole thing in the next couple of days, so we will have to wait and see how it turns out, but no matter how dirty the park might get over the next few weeks it was still really inspiring to see all these kids step up and demonstrate how much they care about their community and how it looks even if that sentiment isn’t shared by their peers or other adults.

            This past Valentines Day also set my personal record for most hugs and kisses in 1 day. In order to promote the youth group Mike came up with the idea to do a project called abrazos gratis (free hugs) day where we walk around the community and offer free hugs. If the person accepted the hug they were given a small sack of candy and the satisfaction of receiving hugs from a bunch of kids and 2 Peace Corps Volunteers. I think we must have given out over 1000 hugs total amongst the 15 of us and close to 200 pieces of candy. The facial reactions of some of the people when they saw a group of kids holding up a sign that said abrazos gratis with a basket full of candy were pretty priceless. Most people were good sports, however there were a few whose reactions were very apprehensive particularly when a grown man (Mike and I) asked if they would like a free hug. Some of the best answers to our inquires were I don’t have any money” “Only a hug?” and several offers of cash despite the vibrant sign that led the entourage around the community. For sure a first time experience for everyone involved, but the kids and the hug recipients all seemed to enjoy it and it was great publicity for the youth group.

            Upcoming for me is the start of the school year next Thursday and an environmental leadership camp next Monday-Wednesday. I am a little unsure about how I am going to be integrated into the school seeing as they lack a sufficient number of teachers, and have yet to give me details about when they would like me to start working there. I am sure if history is any indication it will be one of those all of a sudden type deals that catches me off guard and gives me no time to prepare, so I am making sure I have some ideas lined up about specific things/projects I can do with the kids to prevent being blind sided. The biggest challenge in that is language. I feel fine giving a lesson or presentation in Spanish, and to be honest I could probably do it sufficiently in Guarani as well, but which language to teach in is what I am not confident about. When I ask teachers what language they teach in they normally say Spanish, but Guarani is also used depending on certain topics. For example, there are a lot of words in Guarani related to farming and cultivation of food. Therefore it is important for me to teach those topics in both languages because of their applicability in the Paraguayan agricultural system. The other challenge is reading and writing. While helping Kristin with her biweekly library days I have had the opportunity to help some kids with their reading.  A few of these kids attend the school in my barrio, and more often then not they are unable to read simple sentences. I have noticed improvement, but not enough to convince me that lessons involving writing or lots of reading will work. I am going to rely heavily on visuals and the hands on aspect of planting and maintaining a garden and hope for the best.

            Long busy days have been the norm for a while here, but hedging expectations is important, so I am still mainly focused on learning language, taking daily siestas, and fighting off dogs with sticks. I will also make a plea for letters, phone calls through Skype, packages, or emails. So thanks Mom, Dad, and Geoff for your considerations. With that being said jajotopata ‘til next time.

Site Presentation, Dog Attack, and New Home?

This past week was really eventful in the bustling Paraguayan metropolis of Juan E. O’Leary. I spent a lot of time handing out invitations to what Peace Corps calls my site presentation. Basically what that entailed was a visit from my bosses, the environmental education and conservation sector, to my site from Asunción to have a meeting explaining what the random American who has been wondering around for the past 2 months is actually suppose to be doing. What that meant for me was a lot of time walking in the staggering heat inviting people to come to my presentation that was going to be held at the local elementary school. Where I hope to work in the coming school year Thankfully I had my 10-year-old host brother Mathias in the trenches with me during the days when I was handing out the invitations. All said and done I think we walked well over 10 km inviting people to come to the presentation. I boasted that there would be soda and cookies as an added incentive for people to attend, but I knew in the back of my mind the whole time I was talking to people in my broken Guarani that if it was raining or the weather was going to be too hot nobody would show up, so I was content to resign to the reality that if more than 5 people showed up I would be happy.

Mathias

Most people when I took the time to sit down and talk to them seemed really enthusiastic, but that was when they were sitting under a tree or in a hammock drinking ice cold terere. I had one woman who I would say was slightly overweight straight hand me back the invitation saying it was going to be too hot. My interactions with people are very unique here, and to date I havn’t figured out all the subtleties. When you want to announce your presence when you walk to a house you wait at the gate, or what you can surmise is the entrance to the house, and clap until you see someone stirring from within his or her domicile. More oft than not they will invite you to come sit and drink terere, but rarely do I get the questions what do you want or why are you here? In fact, I rarely even get asked my name so I have gotten into the habit of saying what my name is when I shake their hands, but even still I find that I walk away from many of the interactions with no idea of who exactly I met or what there name is unless I ask. It isn’t like anything I am used too. Back home common curtsey is to introduce your name in the first few seconds of your conversation. It could very well be the same here and the only reason people are not telling me their names is because they know that some random American named Tomás is living here and they have no reason to ask. Still though I find it frustrating when I meet someone and come away with very little about them except for few word answers like: “its very hot today” (which it is everyday), and “there is a lot of dust here.” My responses to their questions are usually: “no I don’t have a girlfriend, no I am not against having a Paraguayan girlfriend”, and “che avya Paraguaype” (“I like Paraguay “in Guarani). After a while conversations blur together and I have a hard time remembering some of the things we talked about until I realize that I am having the same conversations over and over again with very little to distinguish one interaction from another. However, the more I think about it the more I realize that it probably a good thing that I am having any level of conversation despite how void of substance it may appear just for the pure sake of becoming more of a familiar face in the community in the eyes of the person I am talking to.

Preschool Building

On this past Wednesday we actually had to clean the school for the presentation, and seeing that nobody had set foot indie the building since school concluded at the end of November it was a good thing we did. With the help from the whole family of five we spent about 2 hours mopping floors, sweeping steps, raking leaves, and carry water from the well to the places where water was needed. Earlier in the day my family had informed me of this impending task. To that point I had no idea that we would be cleaning the school, and the lack of notice caught me a bit off guard causing a sudden schedule change that prevented me from my original plan of lounging around the local lake. I have noticed that when my family has a meeting or something pressing it always seems like it comes up at the very last minute, or the planning for it occurs the day or the night before. There seems to be a general lack of written schedules, and a lot of communication is done through word of mouth, so I decided that I would not be upset if only 5 people showed up for my event considering the way news travels here. I did my part to the best of my ability and the rest is out of my hands.

Escuel Segrada Familia

When Thursday rolled around it was time for the big show. I was a bit nervous, but feeling confident that there was nothing more I could have done to prepare for the presentation. I had written a speech that was a good mix of Spanish and Guaraní, and had my family look over it before it was performed live. I arrived at the school around 2:30 with my bosses Alistair and Brian, but quickly realized that we wouldn’t be starting anytime soon despite the invitation saying we would be beginning at 3 sharp. Promptness is something that also seems to be missing here in Paraguay. When I set the time for 3 I honestly was expecting it to actually begin at 3:30, which it did so I was content. All and all I had 8 people come to the presentation excluding my bosses from Asunción and I. That number included my three year old host brother Damian and Kristin the one of the other volunteers in O’Leary. The presentation itself lasted about 45 minutes in a room that can only be described as a sweat lodge. The power to the school had gone out near the beginning of the presentation hence eliminating fan, which was naturally the only form of relief from the heat albeit a weak one. I was relieved that my speech was intelligible even though some of the pronunciations had to have sound brutal with my noticeable American accent. What followed my speech was essentially an explanation to all the people in attendance about what Peace Corps is, its history in Paraguay, and the specifics about what environmental volunteers are trained to do in their communities. Some of the topical stuff we spent a lot more time discussing if someone had an interest. For example, I started a worm compost bin in a cement bathtub that is underneath a mango tree next to the house I live in. That sparked a lot of interest because worm compost and the worms themselves can be sold for a decent profit especially if one uses the California red worms that volunteers have access to in the office in Asunción. We also talked a lot about the potential for a garden project and a library because of specific interest. When the presentation wrapped up we all shared some soda and cookies that I had bought, and some grape juice and cake with jam that a lovely woman named Augustina was nice enough to bring while we all mingled around for a bit. That was pretty much how it went down nothing too exciting, but a success in my book.

My Potential New House

One of the other priorities for the visit is to help me find options for housing. The family I live with is currently in the process of building a relatively large house right across the street form the elementary school where my presentation was and where host mom Iris is a professora. We have been in deliberation for a while about completing part of the house to make it livable by using the money all volunteers are given for site adjustment allowances. The tricky part to this point has been the inconsistencies about how much it would cost to complete, and the timeframe for finishing it. I have never built a house before let alone tried to negotiate a contract for building one in a second language, so I am sure it is going to be an adventure getting this thing off the ground, but the good news is that after talking with my bosses in Asunción they agreed that it is a good option and that the cost should be roughly 2-3 million guaranis (between $450-$650) not too bad when considering I am finishing up a house.

Damn Dog Alley

This past Saturday also marked what I would call my first near death experience in Paraguay. The house I live in was jammed to capacity this past weekend with the number of inhabitants rising to a lofty 10 people. That was enough of an excuse for me to get out the hell out of dodge and hang out with Kristin. I ended up spending most of the day there casually drinking beers while waiting for the sudden storm that hit to pass. By the time dusk rolled around I suddenly realized that it was almost dinnertime back home and I needed to haul ass to get back before it got dark. Thankfully I had my bike with me, but for anyone who has ever tried to ride a bike in the mud while in a hurry will know that the going was slow, and coupled with a stomach full of beer I wasn’t exactly progressing with significant speed. That was until I got to what I now fondly call damn dog alley, which is a small corridor of houses close to the school where no matter what hour of the day it is or your mode of transportation you will be chased and barked at incessantly by a pack of dogs of all shapes and sizes. It is always an unnerving experience making it through damn dog alley, but I figured on a bike that they would be less likely to attack or be annoying right? Well the correct answer to that question is wrong. As I made my through the corridor of terror arguably the biggest dog in the alley smelled my vulnerability and started running after my bike barking wildly and salivating. The faster I peddled the more he barked. It was by the graces of a higher power that the dog finally turned into his house and the momentum I gained from that petrifying experience was enough to propel me home. However, that extra energy exerted in my intrepid escape from the clutches of death was enough to make me quite nauseous when I arrived home haggard and perspiring like a polar bar on a tropical island. The first thing my host dad, Julio, said to me upon my arrival was naturally “come drink some beer!” It took every ounce of my being not to heave profusely on the spot in front of several onlookers, but thankfully I somehow managed to avoid that particular embarrassment. Instead I ran inside stripped off my cloths as fast as I could and laid down in front of my fan until I felt human again. I am going to have to think of some effective dog deterrents for the future, but for now I am just glad to be alive.

On the agenda for this week a lot of laundry, beating the heat and preparation for Carnival in the city of Encarnación located right on the boarder of Argentina in Southern Paraguay. It should be an interesting experience, so look for another update soon.

My New Day-To-Day

A lot of people have asked me about what kind of house I live in and what have I been doing over the past few weeks? This will be my modest attempt to catch everyone up on all the events that have occurred since my last update. Life for me is pretty much the same with a few minor changes. A week ago I planted my garden, and am currently in the process of trying to grow tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, beats, lettuce, and cucumber. My biggest problem is the chickens. Despite spending what seemed like days trying to fix up this rickety old fence that surrounds the garden using exclusively recycled wood, rusty nails, and random lengths of wire. My efforts yielded some success initially, but it wasn’t until I took the time to chase the chickens around the garden for what seemed like hours that I was able to accurately determine the weak parts of the fence. In spite of those efforts I am never truly surprised when I walk into my garden to see this one particular chicken rummaging through the area that I planted. Luckily to this point I have not noticed any significant damage to my seedbeds, so I have not had to machete any chickens…yet.

My other activities include being dirty, sunburned, and sweaty. I never in a million years thought the sentence “man I cannot wait for that bucket bath tonight” would ever come out of my mouth, but amazingly it did and I am grateful to have it. I still feel pretty stuck in terms of finding things to do on a day-to-day. Recently I have been making a lot of pizzas with Mike, the volunteer who lives in the center of town, to raise money to send some teenage kids to a series of camps sponsored by Peace Corps. We entitled the endeavor Yankee Pizza, and to date we have made and sold about 17 pizzas with the proceeds going directly to funding the transportation for the upcoming camps. My sectors, Environmental Education and Conservation, camp is intended to connect youth from all over Paraguay to discuss environmental issues facing individual communities and Paraguay as a whole. It is the first time Peace Corps has done a specifically environmentally themed camp, so I don’t know how it’s going to go but I am sure it will be interesting. Needless to say cooking pizzas in 100° heat is brutal, but it is a great money making operation.

As for my living situation I currently share a house with a family of 6 people, 1 dog, 40 chickens, a couple of cows, and close to a dozen pigs. My room is small and sweltering hot because of the tin roof and the lack of drop ceiling. My biggest and easily best purchase was a fan that I bought the first day I was here. It is pretty much on nonstop when I am in my room and has probably saved my life to this point. Keeping clean is definitely a challenge though. I have noticed that no matter what I do I always seem to have a thin layer of dirt on all my cloths and the rest of my body that never quite seems to go away even with copious amounts of scrubbing. At least in the case of my family they appear be very clean. The house is swept and mopped every other day, bucket bathing are nightly occurrences, and the dishes are done immediately after meals. The one thing I have noticed though is a general lack of teeth brushing. For as clean as my family seems to be I have not once seen any of them brush their teeth. I find that weird especially because they all have their tooth brushes lined up in rows in the medicine cabinet, and could easily do it but don’t. As a kid I remember not liking brushing my teeth, but I find it amazing that Paraguayans take so much time cleaning their houses and yards yet fail to clean their teeth on a regular basis.

The rest of my house is pretty small for what you would expect a family of 6 to be living in. I feel a bit greedy being the only member of the family who has his own room, but also pretty fortunate. Most of the house has nice tile flooring including the bathroom. The exception being the kitchen, which has brick flooring making it easier to clean up after the chickens raid the kitchen leaving a mess on the floor. There are several sections of the house that were added on after the construction of the original house. One of the walls in my room was formally on he outside of the house before the family built the extra room. I think the nicest part of the housing situation though is the amount of space in the yard throughout the day my family will move around to different spots of the house to sit and drink terere. This probably happens at three different junctures once after the morning house cleaning, once immediately after lunch, and from about 4:30 until dinner. Easily done for about 4-7 hours in a give day. I usually take time to study Spanish or Guaraní during this down time. I find that by sitting and hearing them talk in Guaraní helps me better understand the words and sounds, but it is still hot or miss with comprehending everything. Some days are better then others with regards to language, but an elderly Paraguayan woman paid me a complement concerning my improvement in the language, so I guess I am getting better little by little recently paid me a complement.

This upcoming Thursday is my site presentation at the school in my barrio. What that means is that the heads of my sector will come to O’Leary and bring me the remainder of my luggage, give a brief presentation about the Peace Corps and what my roll as a volunteer will be in the community. My job is to give a brief introduction in Guaraní about myself and what types of projects I am interested in pursuing. The hard part will be getting people in the community to come to the school at 3 pm on Monday. I printed out a series of invitations, and have been handing them out, but I guess we will wait and see about the turnout. I have met a fair amount of people, but am not sure how many of them that I know well enough get them to come. Hopefully the incentive of soda and cookies will tip the balance.

January Heat

It finally rained in O’Leary this past Thursday and Friday much to the relief of thousands of farmers who had planted soy. Paraguay is the world’s third largest producer of soy behind the United States and Argentina, so a bad soy harvest means a smaller economic growth percentage. In 2010 Paraguay’s economy grew a record 14.5%. A large reason for that immense growth was a strong soy harvest, so it will be really interesting to see if the farmers in this country continue to grow soy and finish out the growing season, or rip it out and plant corn, which is more resilient to drought. At the very least it was a quick 3-day break from the sweltering heat, so I think everyone in the area was grateful for that.

The interesting thing about rain in Paraguay is that it functions the same way as snow in the United States. If it is raining the kids don’t go to school, people don’t leave their houses, and the few cars that are on the road seem to drive more cautiously then they normally would. A rain day is a good time to sit around and do nothing, but drink mate or terere and watch the day go by. I think a large part of this cultural phenomenon is due the lack of infrastructure. With the exception of the main cities most of the roads are unpaved and made of compacted dirt or are empedrado (cobbled), so if you are driving your motorcycle around in the rain on a dirt road it is obviously more likely to get stuck or broken. The thing that I still struggle with is that back home even if it is snowing if you have an appointment or meeting somewhere 9 times out of 10 you are expected to be there on time regardless of the weather. Not here though, Paraguay for all intents and purposes comes to a stop on days when it rains especially in more rural areas. My American mentality has yet to accept this cultural reality however, and it seems to me that the days it rains are the days that I am the busiest.

            This past Friday when it was raining the hardest I have seen in a while I hopped on a bus to visit another volunteer for the day in a town called Yguazu. The interesting thing about Yguazu is that there are roughly 200 Japanese families who live there, and several distinctly Japanese features. Supposedly there was a relatively large migration of Japanese people throughout Paraguay who set up colonies with the encouragement of the Paraguayan government across the country to help develop large-scale farms. With the boom of the Japanese economy in the 1960s-1970s many of the original families left, and to this day there is still a large amount of traveling back and forward between Japan and Paraguay, but there are still a good number of Japanese people living and working in Paraguay. Yguazu for that reason has a flare all its own complete with a baseball field, a number of Japanese products in the grocery store, and even sushi. At least for that day I felt like I was somewhere else other than Paraguay.

            I am lucky that I share a site with two other really awesome volunteers who have basically given me a run down of how things work in O’Leary. I have been introduced to a number of really interesting people, and been given countless tid bits of advice about how to approach a variety of projects based on their experiences. Kristin is an Education volunteer who puts on a reading/English camp for students in her community twice a week on Monday’s and Wednesday’s that I have been helping her with. Mike who lives in the center O’Leary has done so many projects and knows so many people it is hard to keep track of everything. Last Monday the two of us went to the town dump. It is basically a wide spread concoction of plastic bags, glass bottles, and other random piles of burned garbage in a big line with an earthen barrier on one side and a dirt road on the other. It was on fire in parts because the people who live next to the dump set it ablaze to prevent the garbage from blowing onto their fields. It was clearly affecting a group of farmers close by, but it seems like a very daunting problem. The municipality doesn’t have a lot of money to fix the problem let alone the expertise to manage a landfill, and given my lack of knowledge of managing waste it was an overwhelming site for sure. Mike and I are both a bit perplexed about how we can help given a lack of funds, but I was reminded by another volunteer who spent her whole career working in landfills and with hazardous waste in the United States that America was in a similar predicament with garbage 50 years ago, so at least there is hope for the future.

            I also, thanks to Mike, Mikes family, and Kristin, got the opportunity to go swimming and fishing in the large lake called Yguazu that boarders O’Leary. Now I am sure you are thinking wait, isn’t that the name of the Japanese town you visited? In fact it is and it is also the name of the famous waterfall that lies between Argentina and Brazil. The reason for that is because Yguazu means big water in Guarani, so naturally there are many places named Yguazu because of the amount of water in Paraguay. The photos you see are picture of lake Yguazu. The water is bathtub warm and there were countless birds flying all around. It is an absolutely marvelous place, and hopefully will incentivize some of you to come visit in the future.

 As for the fishing I was able to catch three fish all smaller then 6 inches, but considering that none of the other 5 people in the boat caught anything I got a lot of props for my ability as a fisherman. Naturally fishing is pretty much unregulated and the ability to enforce conservation fishing is pretty noexistant, so I got the impression that people take as much as they can get when they go fishing. Fish is not, however, a staple of the Paraguayan diet. The first time I had fish since I have been here was sushi not exactly Paraguayan cuisine, but over the past few years there has been a growing demand for tilapia on the world market as a substitute for many varieties of whitefish commonly consumed all over the world in the form of frozen fish sticks. Tilapia, specifically the Nile Talapia, is a very resilient fish that people particularly in developing countries can produce relatively easily for both auto consumption and sale. I have yet to learn a ton about how the process works, but all you need to get started is a retaining pond dug into the ground that has a small inflow and outflow, a few fish to get started, and cheap food. The rest happens naturally and before you know it you have a supply of tilapia that is quickly and easily produced with minimal overhead. I have heard a couple of people express interest in this topic and have seen a couple of the ponds around the area, so we will see if there are opportunities to work on those projects during my time here.

            It is suppose to get hot again this week, which I am not looking forward to but, at least the rain has brought with it the opportunity for me to start a garden that I have wanted to build since I got here. Today I spent 2 hours dying in the heat hoeing, raking and weeding. After I cleared about a 10x5 foot area my hand were covered in blisters, which indicated to me a job well done. Tomorrow I’ll start to build the seed beds, and with luck Wednesday I can begin planting. I will be sure to inform the world of my progress in the upcoming week, but until then I hope everyone is enjoying the cold weather as much as I am enjoying the heat.

New Years in the Big CIty

Well now that 2011 is behind us I feel like the 2 years of my service has really begun. I spent New Years in Asunción with a couple of my buddies Jimmy and Johnny. In natural American ignorance, a theme of my weekend, we all assumed that because its New Years Eve there were going to be people everywhere, and things were going to be open until all hours of the night. We were half right at least things were open until all hours of the night, but they didn’t open until after midnight. We literally were roaming the streets of Asunción without seeing as much as a stray dog. To be honest I wasn’t totally shocked by this, but was definitely caught off guard by how quiet a city of 3 million people could be so quiet on a holiday like new years. By the time we finally reached a place where we could have a midnight toast we had literally minutes to spare, and to be perfectly honest all our watches said different things so we have no idea when it was actually the New Year. To compensate we had three different toasts. After midnight we were all astounded by the plethora of people that emerged from their various domiciles in droves of hundreds to spend the rest of the night celebrating in all kinds of different bars and clubs. I guess despite our confusion and frustration everything worked out, and it was without a doubt my strangest and one of most memorable New Years I have ever had.

Now I am sure some of you are thinking what kind of city is Asunción? To be perfectly honest I cannot equate it to any place I have ever been to. There is a lot of old architecture and very well maintained government buildings like the Presidents house, the treasury, and the ministry of defense, but there are also extremely dilapidated slums with rampant drug related issues. There are modern shopping malls as nice if not nicer then a number I have been to in the states and high end car dealerships, but every once in a while you see a horse drawn carriage with agricultural goods and people sleeping in the cities well maintained park system. The few tall buildings are spread across the city, which is sprawled out to the point where it is very obvious what is new and what is old. The Peace Corps office is located on the street Mariscal Lopez (Mcal Lopez) named after the famous Solano Lopez the president of the country during the War of the Triple Alliance where Paraguay fought against a unified force of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and came close to winning despite those odds, but I digress. Mcal Lopez is located very close to the grounds of the U.S. Embassy and the House of the President. It is a very nice area with lots of shopping, parks, trees, and restaurants. You head 20 minutes down the road the scenery turns to much taller and older buildings in the central part of the city where the majority of the hotels are. You go towards the zoo and you are next too one of the roughest barrios all of Paraguay if not South America. In many ways the disparity of the different areas of Asunción isn’t unlike other major South American cities. I think what strikes me is how quickly your surroundings change only after 5 minutes on a bus. I almost feel like the city is a giant but easy to complete jigsaw puzzle. There are a lot of pieces, but it is easy to look at and put them altogether because the pieces are so unique visually to the senses. I like Asunción because it is like a puzzle. No matter what neighborhood you go it seems totally different.

After 3 days though the noise, heat, and stress of the transportation system, which is made up of a totally privatized fleet of busses circa 1980-1989 in style that all have specific routes, but no clear numbering system or helpful map to direct you which bus you need to catch to go where. To illustrate my confusion the bus numbers that I ride most frequently are 12, 16.2, 30, 31, and 41 they all go to similar places but there is no bus numbered 2, 3,4,6,8, 9 or 16.1. I still don’t understand how it works, but I guarantee you one thing that there is a system in place, but the numbers of people who understand the rationale behind the weird number system are few and far between. Yesterday I had the joy of riding several of these obscurely number vehicles to the national post office in the hopes of getting a package sent by Mom on November 28^th. The package center, or should I say the boarded up warehouse that looks like and abandoned train station had no knowledge of my package, but offered a glimmer of hope that it would be at the correro central (Central Post Office), another office located about 10 minutes away by bus. By pure chance while my buddy was getting a package of his own did I notice on the had written ledger, not computer, that my name was directly above his, and my package that contained a cornucopia of chewing gum and socks of all shapes and colors had been found after sitting for 3 weeks in the captivity of the Paraguayan post office. The cost for liberation was a modest 1 mil (20¢ US). I was feeling relieved that I had figured out the postage system and along they way rode 3 random busses and spent time in three distinctly different neighborhoods along the way.

To this point early on my service I feel extremely gratified when I accomplish those small tasks that we take for granted in the states like getting our mail. After my weekend in Asunción I felt tired, hot, stressed, but satisfied that I was able to brave the bus system, the different cultural aspect of New Years, and the vastly unique neighborhoods to obtain my package from home. Thanks Mom and Dad the gum is a big relief.