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.

Trip to Argentina and back to Modern Amenities

Buenos Aires

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

Ferry

Customs Dock Alberdi

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

Formosa

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

Formosa

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

Buenos Aires

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

Mormon Missionaries

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

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

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

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

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

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

Biodigester San Roque

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

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

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

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

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

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

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