Chipa II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tatakua

The final product

My Home Landscape

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miguel

       Since I started writing this blog almost a year and a half ago I have composed the majority of the entries after a particular moment or event that I felt warranted documentation. To this point, I have been unable to comment on my connections with individuals that I have interacted with not just in O’Leary, where I live, but in Paraguay in general. For volunteers all over Paraguay, and I assume all over the world, it is easy to generalize the people we live, work, and develop relationships with as an amorphous categorization. Classifying every host country national as “The Paraguayans” is what I say. The Paraguayans this and the Paraguayans that have become a second nature to me, and dominate my own individual categorization for my interpersonal relationships for numerous reasons. Principally I believe that the bulk of my conversations I have with non-Paraguayans are with other volunteers in Paraguay.  The obvious reason for that is that they too are relatively isolated within a similar cultural context. I feel as though that limits my ability to candidly discuss my Paraguayan friends and contacts to people who don’t know the individuals I have grown close to in any finite detail, or to anyone who reads this blog. I feel as though it is essential that I somehow delve into the relationships that I have formed over my time here, but I have struggled mightily to find someone to write about that I feel encompasses what it means to be a Paraguayan now and will it’ll mean in it’s future. After much thought on this topic my interaction with one student at the school I live next to have provided me with the inspiration to scratch the surface of the impacts the people here have had on me. I feel strongly that no one including  my neighbors, friends here, or even families I feel I don’t know well who see my passing by their house on my bike everyday know it or not the people here have had more impact on me than any other aspect of this experience. In particular my limited but significant interaction with a 6^th grade student named Miguel has given me a fascinating perspective of being young and in Paraguay more than he will ever know.

       Before I go into details about the interaction I have had with Miguel it important for me to mention that many of the details, events, and facts of this story are things that I inferred from somebody telling me something, or are my own interpretation of details I heard from hearsay. That in and of itself is important to point out because of how prevalent the nature of orally passing information is in small communities here in Paraguay. At times I feel as though I get most information about news in Paraguay, things happening in the community, and problems from gossip or just hearing people talk. Too often I don’t get it. Some of that has to do with language ability, and my lack of familiarity with the historical social interactions between groups of people that live here. I also often miss colloquialisms that people use when describing certain situations. To date, I am sure that my own personal existence here was and is a big topic of conversations amongst people around me that I am not wise to at all. With that being said I’ll remind anybody reading this that again these are my opinions not always based on fact or logic; two things that are not always the most important in the tittle-tattle of the community.

       I first met Miguel about a year ago when school started. He stood out for a couple of reasons the most being that he had red hair in a class of seven other 6^th grade students who all had darker hair At the time, my language ability was shoddy and I had a hard enough time communicating in Spanish let alone Guarani. That meant when I walked into the 6^th grade classroom for the first time to do an activity as a precursor to the world map we later painted,  I must come off as a big joke. I still remember struggling to instruct the students to draw to the best of their abilities a map of the world. Everyone in the class sat their in silence, including Miguel, for at least 2-minutes before the teacher came back and said something in rapid fire Guarani that got them sort of working. Miguel lives with his uncle and 5 cousins at one the houses down the street from the school 40 yards from where I live. His uncle, a short man everyone refers to as Torito (Little Bull) for reasons that always seem to come back to his genitals, had built my bathroom on my house with help of Miguel. During the school year when he wasn’t in school I would see him wondering around the neighborhood shooting birds with a sling shot, picking fruit, or playing soccer. I would see him almost everyday doing something, but remarkably enough he would never talk to me. I found Miguel, for unknown reasons, to be incredibly shy towards me. I assume a lot of it had to do with his tendency to speak Guarani first over Spanish, but I also thought it could be as simple as me being intimidating looking and foreign. As more time past he would reluctantly come over to my house with his cousin Allie to pick mandarin oranges. With time, and candy I had shipped from the states, he would come over to watch me do whatever I was doing at that time. It didn’t matter if I was just sitting outside my house, working on my garden fence, or cooking Miguel would just show up. He wouldn’t say much if he said anything at all, and would leave after no more than a half an hour. This was a regular visit several times a week for my first couple of months in my house until all of a sudden it stopped.

       He was still going to school, but with a noticeable lack of frequency. After a while I asked the teachers what happened to Miguel. They told me that he moved back in with his mother who lives in the next barrio (neighborhood) over from me. I remember asking this question on a random school day in which he should have been there. I asked if was going to another school, and was told no. I then had to ask the seemingly obvious question of where was he. The remarkable thing about what teachers said to me was how nonchalant they were in their response. It was as if it was common for a kid like Miguel to be that situation that it barely warranted a second thought. They informed that his mother was very poor and was making him work at one the brick making places that are riddled throughout the area. Furthermore they mentioned that not being in school wasn’t good for him, but for obvious reasons were powerless to do anything about it especially given the seemingly dire financial straights his mother appeared to be in. I felt powerless, but I too was helpless to do anything because his mother is his guardian. Moreover, I got the impression that while this is more than likely extremely illegal to make a kid work instead of go to school that nothing would really be done about it. Throughout the rest of the school year I would see Miguel, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he was falling further and further behind his peers, and would more than likely struggle after leaving elementary school at the end of the year. Unfortunately, I think I might have been wrong with thinking that there will be a next year of school.

       One day not too long ago I was with Iris, my host mother and principal of the school where I work, who told me that Miguel will be working full time instead of going school. She didn’t provide details, and obviously there was little evidence from the impacted party that I could collaborate with, but in my heart I knew it was true. Having fallen behind in school and having to work at the tender age of 12 to help support his mother, or at least that was the claim, would drastically limit his perceived need for more school. After all, he knows how to make bricks, drive a motorcycle, and build stuff. He does his work quietly, listens to his elders, and is able to make some money in the process. Now with all that being said I cannot 100% confirm how accurate this account is, but during this summer I have seen him all over doing a variety of odd jobs with men twice to three time his age. That indicates to me that school is probably not on the horizon for him.

       I am not sure why this bothers me so much, or why I find it so impactful that it inspired me to write it down? I guess it is because in the year that I have known Miguel he went from a prepubescent elementary school kid who was slowly but surely emerging from shell in school to a much taller working man helping to support a family that isn’t all his own. The men he works with almost all come off to me as men who were cast into similar situations when they kids 5-30 years ago. While this isn’t something that is as common as it was before, or for that matter even something that considered wrong, it pains to see him not school even if he was cast into an uncompromising position that he making the best of. I think seeing that transformation in such short a time is an interesting corollary to Paraguay as a whole. A generation ago the country was half the size and poorer than it is today. Families had to work to subsist, and given that it was not long ago those residual effects still trickle down to the poorest Paraguayans today. Despite major developments since the fall of the Strossner regime and even during his time Paraguay it is still very much a developing country. Opportunities exist more now than ever as globalizations impacts become more prevalent and the standard of living increases, but all that development doesn’t mean a fair opportunity for everyone involved in those complex mechanisms. It will take generations more for Paraguay to get the point where all children stay school graduate, and are not forced to work to provide for their families. I guess what I am saying is that reading something, making inferences, or talking a class on how globalization and development works is one thing. Seeing a boy in the context of developing part of the world and the challenges he faces is quite different.

       I still see Miguel all over the place, and he always greets me with a big smile and thumbs up. I always respond in the same way. The hand that he was dealt is tough one, but I take comfort in seeing that smile that he will figure out a way to make a life for himself in ways that I’ll probably never know about. He might not come around like he used to, or stop me in the street to say a few passing words like he did only a year ago, but he is still a great kid from what I have seen of him and that I find inspiring in spite of those tough odds he faces moving forward.              

Bolivia

 

       When I found out that I would be going to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay and that I would have 48 days of vacation I figured that it would be a perfect opportunity to travel to both Bolivia and Brazil. Little did I know that the process of getting into both countries was very complicated and taxing to the point where I decided to go to both Uruguay and Argentina before I attempted to go to Bolivia and Brazil. My concern was that I wouldn’t be able to convince anyone to come with me to Bolivia. The visa process alone is enough to deter many people a process that includes, but is not limited to a 2 copies of my passport with one notarized that is used to get my police record in Paraguay, several 4 cm x 4 cm heads shots with a red background, a copy of my Paraguayan residency card, a copy of my credit card, airline reservations, hotel reservations, a shot record that proves that I had been vaccinated for yellow fever, and the ultimate kicker $135 upon arrival in Bolivia.

Cochabamba Christ, roughly 1 ft taller than the Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

              At first, I was skeptical about going through the complicated visa process. That was until I was convinced by my friend Kevin, who will be living in Bolivia working for an organization that builds pedestrian bridges in the mountains to connect isolated villages to pathways that lead to larger populations centers, that the end of January would be a perfect time to meet up and travel with him. It didn't take much prodding, and I found myself days after my trip to Uruguay running around Asuncion obtaining the required documentation to be allowed to travel in Bolivia. I turned in everything I needed at the Bolivian embassy in Asuncion on January 5^th, collected the documents on the 23^rd, and was on a plane to its biggest city, Santa Cruz, on the 24^th. Initially I thought that because Bolivia and Paraguay are South America’s poorest countries with Bolivia being the poorest and also landlocked that they would have a lot of similarities. I couldn't have been more wrong in that assumption for a variety of reasons.

Mt. Chacaltaya outside of La Paz

                For starters, the history of the two countries is very different. Bolivia was and is rich with natural resources, and during its time as a Spanish colony was producing massive amounts of gold and silver to the point where most coins minted by the Spanish from the 16-18^th centuries was done in Bolivia. In modern times Bolivia has discovered both oil, and large amounts of natural gas, which power a large majority of its cars at very low prices. Paraguay on the other hand, was the first country in South America to gain its independence from Spain doing so in 1811, and it was, unlike the rest of Spanish South America, not liberated by Simon Bolivar or José Francisco de San Martin. Paraguay was located in the heart of South America, along the Paraguay river, and while widely considered a paradise lacked the natural resource wealth of the other colonies that either had large amounts of gold and silver or access to the sea.

                Bolivia geographically ranges from the arid area of the Chaco in the Southeast, mountains along the western boarder, and tropical Jungle in the Northeast. Bolivians live in a very diverse range of climates and regions while Paraguayans predominately live in the bottom third of the country, which one would consider sub-tropical. A vast area known as the Chaco that has limited infrastructure separates the major populations centers of both countries resulting in a relative lack of trade, and as a result fostered vastly different cultures. The most notable interactions between the two nations took place from 1932-1935 over an area of the Chaco that was believed to contain vast deposits of oil. The American company Standard Oil backed Bolivia with Shell backing Paraguay. The resulting conflict despite Bolivia’s superior numbers and technology led to the death of approximately 120,000 soldiers with Paraguay winning the war and therefore gaining a chunk of Bolivian territory in the process. Paraguay achieved victory primarily  because of its  ability to use Guarani in radio communication.   Paraguayans had two other advantages.  They were  more accustomed to the harsh climate and they had none of the racial tensions that existed among members of the Bolivian army, made up of white officers and Indian soldiers.   Since the end of the war the histories of the two nations have continued their unique paths, and was very evident during my time there.

Lake Titikaka

                The differences that seemed most obvious to me was the public transportation system, the peoples' interactions, and the appreciation for public works. Traveling in either country is a challenge. In Paraguay the spectrum of buses one can take from one place to another varies from wooden box on wheels to spaceship like dream liners. In the major cities there are buses to other major cities that consistently leave throughout the day, and rarely take more that 8 hours to arrive in one place. Bolivia, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.  The country is not only larger with populations living in all corners of the country, but the infrastructure is much less developed given the geographical challenges that exist in maintaining a complex highway system and drastically varying altitudes and climates. In fact, only 7.9% of the roads in Bolivia were paved in 2009 according to the World Bank. Paraguay, while not drastically better achieved 11% of roads paved in 2002. Granted Paraguay is flatter and much less prone to natural disasters like landslides. As a result most bus travel in Bolivia requires an over night bus over the mountains and through the woods. I spent two  of my first four nights in the country on a bus, which left me perpetually sore and tired. Dealing with the altitude was also brutal given that many of the cities are over 12,000 feet above sea level. The most frustrating part of traveling though was the way the bus terminals operated. Most bus companies, given the distance between most traveled routes, would all leave at the same times every day meaning that 40-70 double Decker buses are trying to leave the undersized terminals at the same time causing almost every bus to be delayed by between 1-2 hours on average. There are also thousands of people trying to leave at the same time causing the staging platforms to overflow with people. I never understood why there wasn’t a better system of staggering the buses throughout the day. The only conclusion I could come up with was that because of the distances people would only want to travel overnight to arrive early the next day, but that seemed too logical. While I am sure that is a factor, it seemed to me that long distance travel in that system has become an ingrained mentality, and that it will take a dramatic improvement in infrastructure and government investment to change.



Plaza Uruguay, Asuncion

                One of the things I love most about the people in Paraguay is how friendly and open they are. Sure it takes a bit of effort to go over to someone's house, introduce yourself, and make an effort with Guarani, but the rewards of doing those little things are returned tenfold in generosity through food, terere, and social outlets. Granted I have never spent much time in Bolivia, my trip was only 13 days, but my interactions with street vendors, bus drivers, and waitresses at restaurants was far less pleasant than they have been in Paraguay. One particular instance that stands out was when I was walking the streets of La Paz with my friend Brook. The streets were overflowing with vendors selling everything from produce, to Halloween masks. Brook wanted to buy and apple and asked how much it would cost?  She said 5 Bolivianos for 5 apples in a sack, roughly $0.75. The woman also had individual apples sitting out on top of each other. When Brook said she only wanted 1 the woman refused to sell it to her not stating a reason, and continuing her conversation with the other woman sitting next to her completely ignoring us. That strange interaction manifested itself throughout the trip in many different forms. Paraguayans seemingly go out of their way to be helpful even to the point where they will tell you the wrong answer instead of saying they don’t know. Bolivians are much more inclined to ignore your question by responding in a way that isn’t quite what you asked for. A good example of that was when I was trying to get information about boarding a bus from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba. The terminal was flooded with people and I had no idea how to get on a bus. My friend Kevin was trying to deal with what we do with our bags, and I was trying to figure out where we needed to go. I walked up to a kid who worked for the bus company that we bought tickets from and ask “What platform do we need to go to get on the bus?” He looked at my ticket and answered my question by saying “Cochambaba.” I said “that is where I am going where do I go to get on the bus” His response this time was “you paid 90 Bolivianos.” After asking for the third time I finally got the answer I was looking for, but not before I got supremely frustrated by how difficult it was to get that question answered. Now I admit that my accent can be a bit strong, but it wasn’t like I was asking a complicated question. In Paraguay the response to that type of question is something like “the platform is over there” instead of going around the question. Those little subtleties are the things I picked up the most thought my travels in comparing the two countries.




La Paz

                The last and most stark contrast to me existed in the form of the public works. Both Paraguay and Bolivia have long histories, and a long list of heroes to commemorate. Both countries have monuments and statues to those heroes, but in Bolivia the public squares, parks, and statues are immaculate while in Paraguay they often look decrepit and graffiti covered. Also the number of parks and public plazas where much higher in Bolivia than Paraguay despite the fact the Bolivia is supposedly a poorer nation. That culture baffled me. I still don’t know the reason for that, and maybe never will. My instinct though led me to look at the economies of the two countries. Bolivia makes a lot of money because of its mineral resources, natural gas, and oil. Paraguay is predominately an agriculture economy with large revenues coming from selling excess power it generates from the three major dams it has. Paraguay sadly is one of the most corrupt countries in Latin America, and despite it’s revenues it seems to me that Bolivia uses its money more for social programs, public work projects, and their maintenance more effectively than Paraguay does. Bolivia is the worlds 118th ranked country in terms of corruption with Paraguay ranking 154th. While neither ranking is good it is a pretty stark contrast  that is evident in both countries public spaces.

                Having lived in Paraguay for almost a year and a half it has become a natural for me to compare it to other countries I visit in the region. My instinct told me that there would be dramatic similarities between the countries, but that instinct was wrong. Everything from the climate to the food is different, but given their small sizes, landlocked status, and poverty rankings it is easy for people to compare the two countries on paper, but the reality is far different from the statistics.



The Role of Reading and Establishing a Library

        Over the last few months the hustle and bustle of keeping up with this blog has proved far more challenging than I expected. November and December are traditionally busy times of the year not just because of the holidays, but also because it is when the school year wraps up, and many horticultural products, mainly watermelons, are harvested for sale over Christmas. For me, this has been a hectic time because of various vacations, Peace Corps events, and project logistic planning’s that have taken me away from O’Leary to other places all over Paraguay, and abroad. Next week I am headed to Bolivia for 13 days in the wake of spending Christmas and New Years in Uruguay. As a Peace Corps Volunteer we are allotted 48 vacation days during our 2 years of service, and given the fact that it is the summer, and that I spend most of my days in front of a fan trying not to pass out from heat stroke or burn a layer of skin off I figured that now is as good a time as any to take advantage of those vacation days we are given especially considering the slow advance of the current project in front of me.

       In previous entries I have made reference to the local school where I work desire to create a library. One of the first things my host parents, Julio Area Director of 7 schools including mine and Iris Director of the school where I work, said to me during that first steamy month in O’Leary where the temperatures exceeded 100 degrees daily during an unseasonable drought was that the children at the elementary school didn’t have books to read, and that they would like to start a library. Naturally I thought this was a great idea especially considering my ignorance at the time of how the Paraguayan education system works, and the difficulty with obtaining age appropriate books in Spanish. I promised that I would do my best to get this established as soon as possible. That was over a year ago. Significant progress has been made, and to date we have roughly 150 books thanks to a generous monetary donation from the Rotary Club of Cincinnati, and a small package donated by Darien Book Aid in Connecticut, but the work is far from done.

My goal is to get several bookshelves made, paint a couple of maps on the wall of the ecological regions of Paraguay and a map of the Department of Alto Parana where O’Leary is located, and make the newly built library space colorful and fun looking to entice the kids to come hang out. All of those goals are feasible, and within reach short of a few minor obstacles starting with the electricity in the school that is currently broken and in need of repair, and the slow process of having a carpenter cut down a tree in order to build the necessary bookshelves to stock the newly acquired books. As I have said in countless situations when it comes to doing a project, especially one that requires significant logistical planning and outside sources of funding, getting things done takes time, effort, and levels of patience that I had previously thought impossible.

       Last May, I attended a library workshop put on by the Peace Corps with my close friend Claudio who just recently graduated from high school. The collective knowledge that either of us had about creating a library was less than none, so we both felt that this workshop would provide a good first step in the process to come, and it did just that. We got information on everything from how to obtain books in Paraguay through donations, how best to organize a library, and everything in between. We left with a good idea of the task in front of us, but little idea as to how long and drawn out the process would take to complete the library. At the end of June we presented our ideas and project timeline in front of the school’s parent’s commission, and received ardent support from everyone in attendance. Additionally, I got news at the end of July that the school had received a sum of money that was to go towards the building of a storage space/library in the old abandoned classroom that has been vacant for over 4 years. I was beyond enthusiastic at the luck because that financial contribution with the addition of the labor costs and funding from the parents commission allowed me to complete a Peace Corps Partnership grant that in order to create must receive a 25% contribution from the community. However that is where things began to slow down and I started to realize the challenges associated with seeing this project come to fruition in a timely fashion.

       For starters, I realized how difficult it is to get books to O’Leary. Library projects are a global Peace Corps initiative meaning that all volunteers regardless of sector are encouraged to establish libraries if there is a desire and means to do so all over the world. Despite all the institutional support, and the number of volunteers, including Kristin a fellow volunteer who lived one barrio over from where I do, who are involved in library projects, the process of obtaining books is still a remarkable challenge. There are no places that sell reading books in O’Leary. There is a municipal library in town, but people are not allowed to check books out, and the majority of the books are for adults as opposed to children. The only real places within Paraguay where one can by books are in Asuncion, a 5 hour bus ride from O’Leary. Additionally, the books one can obtain in Asuncion are limited and extremely expensive proportionally to the amount of money families in Paraguay make annually. It is no surprise that this is the case. I feel as though a consistent theme in each of my blog posts is Paraguay’s relative isolation to the rest of the outside world, so the books that do make it in predominantly come from Argentina, are cheaply made newspaper like booklets produced by one of the 2 national newspapers, or are extremely dense textbooks that are inconsistently distributed throughout the country by the ministry of education. This difficulty in obtaining books within Paraguay presents an interesting insight into Paraguayan’s perceptions of the value and importance of reading in education.

       If I was to ask a mother or father who has a child in school if reading is important the answer is always a resounding yes. If I was to follow up that question with do you read to your children the answer would be a resounding no for two reasons one obvious the other not so much. As I mentioned earlier, books are not only expensive, but also are in limited quantity and quality. Families cannot go to the book store to buy their children books to read because books stores don’t really exist outside Asuncion, and even there the selection is limited. The other more interesting facet of this culture of reading is that because of the lack of exposure to books throughout the country reading is associated strictly as a skill attained in school for the purpose of studying and learning, not for enjoyment. Since arriving in Paraguay I have read for leisure more books than at any other point in my life by far, but every time I am in public or at a family’s house with a book the automatic assumption is that I am studying, which more often than not is not the case. Another common response is that because the books I am reading are almost always in English people assume that I am reading the Bible even though the bright colors and goofy title fonts would in theory make it obvious that I am not reading the Bible given it’s traditionally plain cover It isn’t an ignorance thing whatsoever it is the consequence of an engrained cultural association of the uses of books that has been fostered for generations due to the lack of exposure people have had to books meant for enjoyment. Changing that culture is something that will take decades to accomplish, and given the rise of the Internet, eBooks, and other methods of obtaining literature it might be said that going through the process of getting hard copy books is a waste of time as fewer and fewer books are published in hardcopy. My response to that is simply that while the type of books, for example children’s picture books are rare and uncommon the concept of their importance in a child’s education is not lost on most Paraguayan parents. Even if technology continue to develop and devices like E readers replace hardcopy books over the next several decades as the most efficient method of getting literature into the hands of the worlds poorest children. As a global development strategy, the fact remains that in a society where the majority of people are unfamiliar owning and operating new technology that is constantly changing it is difficult me to justify that electronic reading devices of any kind can work in a small elementary school in rural Paraguay. Books are something that have been around for hundreds of years and are recognizable commodities even in the poorest communities around the world. Personal computers and digital devices have eisted for, generously stated, scarcely over 30 years old.

       The amount of schools across this country that I have seen that have received a donation of computers, or some new learning curriculum promoted by the Ministry Education or other outside educational entities that sit dusty and unused is incredible. The pace in which technology changes requires constant adaptation from people using said technology, but if you are a teacher in a small school in the developing world who was certified over 20 years ago how capable are you of implementing new teaching methods and devices within a highly standardized system that reforms at a snails pace? I guess my big point in saying all this is that Paraguayan teachers know how to read, but they lack the fun materials to read to their students that would help develop a culture of reading as a recreational activity. They are also are a product of a highly standardized system of education that prevents flexibility from the regular curriculum. Not to mention that the teachers in Paraguay were themselves educated in Paraguay under the same system of education that hasn’t been reformed since the early 1980s.

       The library project at the school close to my house will hopefully be done before the start of the upcoming school year at the end of February. The biggest challenge I face is being able to figure out a way to utilize this recourse effectively so that the kids benefit from the materials that are inside. I believe that if over the course of the next several years some sort of consistency is established within the library that maximizes the resources within that it will eventually allow for  transitions to newer forms of technology to occur especially as our world becomes smaller and smaller. That challenge is something that I could spend years trying to overcome, and that is the one thing I don’t have.

Biodigester Burning

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

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

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

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

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