First Few Weeks

Hello all! Let me start by saying that I hope there are still people that are actually reading this blog because the internet in my site is so slow that it takes me about 45 minutes of sitting (usually while sweating because of the awesome heat in Paraguay) and reloading to post one of these blogs. Okay so week one in site is officially over! I can say definitively that I have absolutely gotten better at killing evil flies and mosquitoes.  I also have about 25 spider roommates that help me out by killing these guys at night for me.  I am okay with sharing my room as long as they keep doing their part. 

On my first full day in site I decided to wake up early and walk around the community.  I wanted to make a map of all of the houses so that I could put it up in my room and mark down the names and interests of all of the people that I visited.  What I learned that first morning is that my site has about 15 houses.  Originally I had the smallest site in our G with 30 houses and now I have learned that I really have the smallest site.

I have been spending the most time with my contact’s family and a woman named Julia’s family.  Julia will eventually be my landlord when I move into the extra house on her property.  I also went and visited two other families during my first week and went to a lot of resos.  We have spent about an hour everyday talking about family and praying for Christmas.  I generally just sit there confused but I think the community appreciates my presence so I show up. 

I also went to church and then a youth group meeting with some girls about my age last Sunday.  This was interesting because initially I thought I was going to do Christmas activities in Acahay, the main town, with small children.  I learned as I was walking in that I was going into town with some ‘jovenes’ who were around my age.  My mind began racing at the change in plans and I forgot that ‘jovenes’ is not a gender specific word.  This means I thought that I was being set up by a stranger who wanted her sons to take me into town for the day.  After 2 minutes of panicking and several frantic phone calls I eventually learned that I was going into town with girls and calmed down.  We ended up attending the church service and then a 3-hour youth group session.  The session had invited different members of the communities surrounding Acahay that were active leaders in the church.  Somehow I accidentally became the leader of a group that was supposed to discuss how we felt upon receiving the invitation to attend the youth group, whether we felt it was a call from God, and what attributes we possessed to have God call upon us.  Keep in mind this is all happening in Spanish and Guarani.  I once again, freaked out.  I told my group I could not be their leader since I didn’t speak that great of Spanish and I myself had just tagged along to meet them.  They argued with me for a little and then allowed me to sit and just listen.  That Sunday I spent about 5 hours doing religious activity since we spend about an hour every day praying for Christmas in site. 

My meetings with the families generally consist of me going over and drinking terere with them.  They ask if I have a boyfriend and then if my eye color is real.  They then ask about my parents and what color eyes they have.  When they find out I have three sisters they ask if they are all “rubias” and say how lucky my parents are to have so many light eyed children.  They are really big on eye color here.  I have only been able to talk to my family and Julia’s family about anything at all agricultural but we were warned in training that integration would be slow and projects would be hard to come by in the first few weeks so we will see how it goes!

I have started a blog post about Christmas but it isn’t finished so that will probably get posted sometime later this week! I hope everyone had a great Christmas it was nice and awkward here!

First Entry as a Volunteer

Hello everyone! This is my first blog entry as an official Peace Corps Volunteer! My ten weeks of training are finally over and I swore in on Friday (12/9)! The ceremony was sort of anti-climatic. We repeated some things in English, then in Spanish and then it was just over. But one of my fellow G-37 volunteers gave an awesome speech in a mixture of Spanish and Guarani! After the ceremony, which my host sister Isa and my host mom attended, we loaded into a van and headed out to Asuncion.  We had to get to the bank before 1 so that we could get our debit cards and have access to our money. We made it there at about 12:50. Luckily it was the easiest card I have ever opened. I signed my name on a piece of paper, the banker then told me my signature didn’t look enough like my passport signature so she showed me how it should look and I tried again. The second effort seemed to please her so I was handed a debit card with a pin number and told my money would be there by five, very rigid security here in Paraguay. We then went to the Peace Corps office where I attended a seed bank meeting and got a package from my awesome grandma! It just wouldn’t be Christmas without the Christmas tree nougats!  Since I opened the package in front of people I was obligated to share but everyone appreciated them so it was worth it.  After hanging out at the office and meeting some of the other volunteers (there are about 230 in total in Paraguay), a group of us headed to our hotel to check in.  Peace Corps had a concert that night with a mixture of volunteers and local Paraguayans called Ahendu and it was really fun. G-37 made our mark as being the first new G to really dance and get into the music, we were also told we were the most well behaved new G! G-37 is keeping it classy.

I stayed in Asuncion until Tuesday morning and I spent my time swimming at the embassy, eating Mexican food and pizza, and savoring my last few days with the members of G-37 that have quickly become my family in Paraguay. Our hotel had hot showers, awesome towels, and air conditioner that sort of worked so I lived the chu-chi life for a few days. Chu-chi is what Paraguayans use to describe fancy, frivolous things. It is very possible that I am spelling it wrong but it is one of my new favorite phrases I say.  I also love ‘Ikatu’ which means ‘it is possible’.  I was warned that I would leave the States speaking one language perfectly and return sort of speaking three and I absolutely believe it. I have been here less than 3 months and most of my sentences have 3 different languages in them.

On Tuesday morning Mario, Elijah and I checked out of our hotel (my roommate for the weekend, Lauralee stayed until later to enjoy the comforts of the hotel) and headed to the bus terminal.  We all had massive hiking backpacks with the stuff we will need for the next 6 weeks.  Seriously, this bag easily weighed 35kg.  So after saying goodbye I caught the Salto Crystal bus to my site.  I left the terminal at 7:45 or so and miscalculated the trip so I ended up arriving to site at 10:45.  Why is this important you ask?  Well here in Paraguay it is coming into summer and the heat here is no joke.  The guy who potentially could have picked me up in his car ignored my 3 phone calls so I called my contact and told her I could just walk the 5km distance to the site. Stupid, stupid Maggie.  When I put the day pack onto my hiking bag the combined weight was enough to continuously keep me off balance and I literally had to sit on the ground to get the backpack on. This was not about to deter me.  I put on some Adele and soulfully made my way up and down the hills that lead to my site.  Around the 2km mark a crisis occurred.  My left shoelace came untied.  Not wanting to take off the huge hiking backpack I decided to try to balance and bend over at the waist to retie my shoe.  I get about half way and I am super proud of how well I am doing when all of the sudden I just sort of fall over.  I rolled around like a turtle for a minute before decided I was not being efficient.  I took off the backpack and stood up and assessed the situation.  At this point I was covered in red dirt and sweat.  I then remembered one terribly awful Crossfit class that I took with my mother this summer.  We had to put a sandbag on our shoulders and stand up with it.  During this exercise I also had trouble standing and remembered the instructor, Mario, taking pictures and laughing at me.  I did my best to channel the same feeling of shame in being defeated by a sandbag (and having it documented) to lie on the backpack and roll over on my side gradually lifting up the bag.  Luckily shame is a fantastic motivator for me and I managed to stand up and continue on my journey.  The rest of the trip was sweaty but uneventful.  When I reached the road my contact lives off of I was greeted by an unpleasant surprise.  My contact and 6 other women from the community were waiting to great me.  Keep in mind that my face gets extremely red when I exercise and I am going to consider the 5km walk with the 35kilo bag exercise.  I also am covered with an odd red mud type substance as a result of the red dirt of Paraguay mixing with my sweat.  Basically I looked fantastic.  They all freaked out.  They kept saying poor baby and got mad at my contact for making me walk and kept asking if I fell or what happened.  Naturally I lied and said I got the dirt on me when I put down the bag to readjust it.  Eventually after talking for around 2 hours I was finally able to take a nice cold bucket bath.  Welcome to site Maggie!

I have spent the past two days in site walking around and integrating.  So far I think it is going well but I know it will be extremely slow.  Everyone I have met has been very nice and happy to have me here.  I have been spending the most time with my contact so tomorrow I am going to start making house visits and drinking terere with others.  Hopefully everything goes well but considering how my entrance into my site went I am bound to have some ridiculous stories for you all. I also got a cell phone so if you want to call me from skype just email me or facebook me and ask for my number, it is free for me to answer calls from the US so it would just be the random skype cost.  Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while but Internet is getting a little harder to come by.  I miss you all and happy holidays! Jajotopata! 

Also if you missed the facebook post, I now have an official volunteer mailbox! This means my new mailing address is:

Maggie Flinn PCV Mailbox 258

Cuerpo de Paz

162 Chaco Boreal c/ Mcal Lopez

Asuncion 1580, Paraguay

South America

The chicken that would not die.

So a while back I wrote about how the agriculture trainees got 20 chicks that we were going to raise and eventually slaughter.  Well this week we were informed that the chickens were big enough and we could take them home to our families or do whatever we wanted with them.  I decided that I wanted to kill my chicken.  I think that since I eat meat I should at least be able to kill a chicken.  

So this morning I went on a walk to go pick up my chicken from the nearby school.  I got into the pen and searched for the fattest chicken that I could find.  I managed to grab it and pull it out of the pen and then I realized it didn’t exactly want to go with me and I got scared of it.  So naturally I grabbed an empty feedbag and shoved the chicken inside of it.  I then began my mile walk home with my panicking chicken flapping around.  I ran into a few Paraguayans on the way that were curious as to why I had a chicken in a bag and I told them I was scared I would lose it; they thought I was absolutely crazy.   I get home and go to my friend Mario’s house because I want him to document my first chicken kill.  We head back to my house and my mom tells me we are going to wait until later to kill it.  I had psyched up for nothing.

Then around 4 pm there is a knock on my door and my mom tells me it is time.  I told her Mario wanted to be there so I go to his house to get him.  Mario has already killed his chicken so he offered me some advice. However, Mario’s advice and my mom’s advice were different.  Mario said I should turn the neck of the chicken before pulling down (which made sense) but my mom said I just needed to pull down.  I then got worried because my sisters and a bunch of local children were all watching and I was told not to pull too hard because I could accidentally pull the head off (gross).  So I go up to the hanging chicken, grab the little head and pull down hard.  I did it wrong.  The chicken is still alive.  So everyone laughs at me and tells me to do it again.  So I go back up to the chicken and the same thing happens.  I am basically stretching out this chicken’s neck like a chiropractor.  I start to get really frazzled and embarrassed and everyone starts laughing at me. I try a third time, still no success.  My mom is looking embarrassed now too, so she suggests Mario do it.  I said she should just do it since I was obviously a chicken failure.  Somehow it ended up that Mario had to kill my chicken.  This was incredibly nice of Mario since he was a little upset after killing his own chicken.  So I now owe Mario a beer or two to make up for doubling the number of animals he has killed in his life.  His little cousin also came up to me laughing and saying, “Mario kills chickens better than you!”.  So I am a chicken killing failure.  Oddly, I am okay with that.  I think that sometime in my next two years in Paraguay I will try again, and the next time I will make sure that I succeed. 

So here are some pictures of my first and failed attempt at chicken killing (my Grandma will be so ashamed!)

Fail. Fail. Fail.

Thanksgiving

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving!  All of the trainees went to the U.S. Ambassador’s house in Asuncion for lunch.  We all had to make food to bring with us.  I made my grandma’s deviled eggs.  The issue with this was that we made the food Wednesday and then had to travel on buses and walk down dirt road with the food in makeshift Tupperware.  By the time my food got to the fridge it had seen better days.  Pretty much every egg had fallen over and spilled out into the container.  On Thursday while we were waiting to enter the embassy a few friends and myself broke into the deviled eggs before we went in.  This ended up being a good idea since my deviled eggs mysteriously never made it to the table.  This is understandable since the lunch that the embassy staff had made was gorgeous.  There were 4 huge turkeys and everything was on silver trays.  This looked rather amusing when you saw the random fruit salads and popcorn that the trainees had made as their contribution to the meal. 

It was one of the most fun days that I have had in Paraguay.  I was able to use the phone for free and call the states, which was amazing.  I also got to go swimming and play sharks and minnows, always a good time!  It was just an awesome chance for all of the trainees to relax and hang out.  The ambassador was extremely hospitable and made all of us feel welcome in his home.  Holidays outside of the U.S. and away from family can be pretty hard so the fact that we were all able to get together, eat pecan pie, and pretend that the day held any importance in Paraguay meant a lot to me. 

Unfortunately the day after Thanksgiving another trainee decided to go home.  She was in the other training group, Environmental Education and Conservation.  Her reasons for going home were obviously well thought out and she knew what decision she was making.  Still, it is always sad to have someone in our group go home.  Hopefully the rest of us can see this through until the end but I guess we will see how it all goes! 

Future Site Visit

So last Friday I went with the other 35 volunteers to meet our contacts at a conference center in Asuncion.  The plan was to meet our contacts, spend the morning with them, then travel with them to our site.  My contact’s name is Eugenia.  She is 60 years old and the mother of 11.  Eugenia is also the president of the Women’s Agricultural Committee.  Our morning was awkward and informative.  We then set out together and went to our site!  The trip to our site was about a 2-hour bus ride and then it is a 5km walk in.  Eugenia arranged for a car to pick us up from the main route and then we walked down a path to her house.  Her house is very nice; nicer than my current homestay house is.  I have my own room and although only the mother and father currently live there the kids are coming into town and visiting.  I met four of my new siblings;Magda, Georgina (who has a 2 year old son, Fabre), Manuel, and Mierta.  The three girls were all in their late twenties and it was awesome having them around.  The brother, Manuel, just turned 19 and is in the Paraguayan Army.   I could have done without him.  The reason is that he is absolutely ridiculous.  He spent the entire two days he spent at home doing pushups and pull-ups in front of me.  Literally, he got on the ground and started counting pushups and then asked if I heard that he did 34.  He also told me his muscles were sore and hinted that he wanted a massage.  When this happened I looked directly at him and said “no”.  He was a little caught off guard by my directness (Paraguayans are very indirect) and he laughed a little and asked his sister for a massage.  Since my site doesn’t have running water we also have to bucket bathe; Manuel curled the bucket full of water while he talked to me.  This kid has no shame.  Luckily he doesn’t live at home so I will only have to deal with him when he visits (hopefully not too often). 

The site itself is very small.  I was told it had 30 families and around 150 people but I think that was an exaggeration after visiting.  I met about 12 women and I think I met a person in every family in the community.  I think that having a small site could be awesome! I will have the time to get to know everyone in town on a more personal level.  This also means that I will most likely be the main topic of gossip but I didn’t have any plans to do anything crazy while in site; hopefully they just talk about how guapa I am (once again guapa in Paraguay means hardworking, not good-looking).  

The community is very excited about working in gardens and improving the library at the school.  I was not able to visit the school during my visit because it rained (seriously Paraguay does not function when it rains).  The kids are also done for the summer so I will have to wait until February until I can get started in the school.  My homestay/contact also has 2 beehives that she wants to work with and another family in town has hives so I will be able to do some work with bees which is exciting!

I spent most of the 5 days in my future site following around Eugenia.  I decided before I met my contact that I would do my best to integrate and that I would force myself to deal with awkward situations and suffer through it.  This is exactly what I did.  I sat in the outdoor kitchen from 7am until 11am drinking mate and eating breakfast.  After we ate lunch I took a siesta some days and then went right back to following Eugenia around.  When we weren’t talking I was watching the chickens and trying not to stare at my watch.  At times it was a little bit painful but I felt like it was important to let Eugenia know that I wanted to know how she spent her day and that I did not want to be treated like a guest but like a community member.  By the second day I had her allowing me to help cook! I started off with little tasks, like peeling mandioca, and by the end of the week I had upgraded to making milenesa and cutting up potatoes!

Eugenia wants me to live with her for the whole two years that I am in site.  I would much rather live on my own since I don’t think I can handle eating so much fried food (she went through a bottle of oil in the 6 days I was there).  I also would like to be in charge of my own coffee and breakfast.  This is how she made my coffee: 2 small spoonfuls of instant coffee, 5 HUGE spoonfuls of sugar, splash of boiling water, and heated up milk.  It was basically warm sugar milk.  The bad thing was it was actually delicious but after drinking it I felt horrible and immediately had an intense sugar crash.  I think I need to get the coffee without the sugar like my current homestay mom makes it.  There was a volunteer in my site about 5 years ago named Tara.  She was a health volunteer and lived with Eugenia for the full 2 years.  This is making it hard for me to explain why I want to live in the little house by myself.  The house that I can rent is perfect (from the outside, I haven’t been inside yet).  It has solid walls and a ceramic roof! Most places are wood walls with holes in between and thatch roofs, so this is really nice!  I am planning on living with Eugenia for the first month or so, possibly the first three months when I have to live with a family and then moving out on my own.  Hopefully by then she will understand my need for independence.

All in all I think my future site visit went really well. I am extremely excited about spending two years there! Sure there are things that will obviously be challenging, for example they want me to get them running water which is not something agricultural extensionists are qualified to do.  I am also sure that the fact that my town is tiny will drive me crazy every now and then.  I just am glad that the town is excited to have me there and they want to work with me! 

My new sobrino Fabre!

Map of Paraguay showing where we are all heading!

They thought my name was Elisabeth and not Margaret, but nice gesture!

November 16, 2011

Today was an extremely busy day in Paraguay.  I woke up at 5 and ran somewhere between 7.5 and 8 miles, which normally would be enough to write a blog about since a lot of crazy things happen when running in Paraguay.  Then I went on an adventure with the other trainees. We saw rock formations, a convent, climbed to the roof of a castle, watched a group of trainee boys jump into a polluted lake in their briefs, and saw hundreds of ceramic nativity scenes. However, I am not going to elaborate on any of those things.  Why you might ask? That would be because something WAY more important happened today.  That is correct blog readers that keep up with what I tell them, today I received my future site location!

I am convinced that the reason the Peace Corps took us on so many adventures this morning is because they knew how insufferable we would be during normal class in the training center.  They brought us back to the training center at 2 with plans of telling us where we were going at 3 (rude).  They tried to distract us with Paraguayan music and dancing (as if the polka could distract me from the folders they were laying out on a table and held the exact location of where I will live for the next 2 years).  I had some predictions before I learned my site; I thought I would be out in the middle of nowhere and that I would not have running water (we all have electricity!).  I ended up being half right.  So which would you prefer? No running water but close to civilization or running water out in the boonies?  I would prefer no water but close to civilization, which luckily is what I got! My site is located in the district of Paraguari.  I am between 3 and 5 km from the main road, which happens to be one of the main rutas in Paraguay and has buses to the capital coming by every half hour.  The closest town is at most a 5km walk (this is awesome in case you weren’t sure whether to be happy or sad for me).  Seriously, I am beyond excited! I am also terrified because this Friday I meet a group of people that want me to move to their town and teach them everything I know about agriculture (not a lot).  More on silly fears later, I am sure you guys are dying to know more about my site!

The site already has a ‘comité de agricoltores’, which is made up of all women! This is basically a women’s agriculture group. I told them in my interview that I was more comfortable working with women and children since Paraguay is very ‘machismo’. I feel like this aspect of the culture makes it hard for female volunteers to be taken seriously in the fields and that more I also found out that the town had a volunteer about 5 years ago and she started a library which they would like me to continue working with.  This is especially awesome! I am thinking about trying to help organize the library (shout out to the staff at SandorTeszler) while I integrate into the community and decide what the agriculture committee would like to do. The volunteer prior worked in the health sector but it means that the town should have an understanding of what the Peace Corps is and my role in the community.  It also means that the house the former volunteer lived in should be available for me!

So now part of the mystery is gone.  I know where I am going.  I know that I won’t have water.  I do not know who is coming to meet me on Friday or whom I will be living with for the 5 days I spend in my future site.  I am terrified, nervous, excited, and awkward all at once.  It is a magical bundle of emotions!  I am sure that I will have my ups and downs with Peace Corps and that right now I am on one of the ‘emotional highs’ that we learned about in training, but right now I cannot believe that I considered going to law school or doing anything other than what I am right now.  Seriously, imagine the stories I am going to come home with after 2 years of using a latrine and bucket bathing?

Hopefully during my trip next week I can take lots of pictures so that people that actually take the time to read my blog can see where I will be living! I hope everything is going well in the states and you all should write me a letter and be my penpal!

Long Field Adventure

So this week we had our long field visit.  This is when a group of trainees goes to stay with a current volunteer in their community.  My language class, which consists of myself, Elijah, Brian and Lauralee, all were sent to a community in Paraguari called Potrero Garay to visit a Beekeeping volunteer named Teresa.  We left on Tuesday morning and stopped in a town for lunch, I mention this only because the town had peanut butter, which all of the trainees freaked out about! When we arrived around lunchtime Teresa took us around to meet our homestay families for the week.  She also mentioned that one of us would be sharing a room with a 13-year-old boy (I immediately got the feeling that person would be me).  We first drop of Brian and then walk for about 10 minutes and drop off Elijah so I am starting to get concerned that we will all be extremely spread out among the community.  After dropping off Elijah we walk about 10 yards and stop again at my house for the week (the distance between the houses will be important for another part of the story).  I meet my mother who is extremely sweet and I am shown where to put my things; naturally, it is in the room where the 13-year-old boy, Alexa is napping.  Luckily Alexa and my family were awesome.  Things did get interesting when I asked Alexa where the restroom was and he pointed outside the fence, I walked outside the fence and he said, “keep going” so I kept going.  He then yelled, “left, to the left”.  This is what I saw to my left:

I wish I could say that I understood how this was supposed to work, but I still honestly have no idea.  I think I get the basic concept but the stool keeps throwing me off.  I also constantly had this fear that I would misuse this “latrine” and end up falling through the wood and get stuck in a gross hole.  Once I had that idea stuck in my head my imagination ran wild and created an elaborate story in which I fell through and my tiny host mother (she was about 5’2’’ and 100lbs) was too weak to pull me out so we had to get Elijah to save me.  Then the rest of my time in Paraguay I’d be the girl that fell in the latrine.  Since I have always felt that any nickname that centers around being any sort of “girl” has a negative connotation (crossfitters remember my reluctance at being labeled “demogirl” in krav class), I avoided the odd latrine as much as possible.

So as you might have gathered by this picture, Teresa’s site does not have running water.  I also learned that the woman I was staying with, Na Vire (na basically means Mrs. in Guarani) was embarrassed by her bathroom situation and almost didn’t host one of us.  Once learning about this I did my best to reassure her that I did not mind at all and not to worry!  She then asked me if I wanted to bathe, after traveling all-day and hiking around Teresa’s site I absolutely wanted to bathe.  So outside we went and we walked down a path carrying a silver bucket and a yellow pitcher.  When we arrived at our destination, a well next to a stream, I couldn’t help but notice the complete lack of privacy.   My mother helped me fill my buckets and left to go back to the house so I could bathe in “privacy”.  During my first bucket bath I couldn’t help but notice how it was sort of awesome that I was standing next to a stream in Paraguay rinsing my hair with water from a well.  Once I was fresh and clean, I walked back to hang out with my family and eat dinner.  The next day I was telling Elijah and Lauralee about my “bathroom”, I told them both that they should not wander around outside between 7 and 8 because that is when I bathe and it would be awkward to have them stumble upon me naked, except for my shower shoes, next to a well.  They both laughed and agreed, or so I thought.  That night when I was leaving the shower I see Elijah and his mom (my host mom’s sister), strolling through the gate to fetch a pail of water.  I scowled at Elijah and he responded that his mom said the water from our well was better for drinking (likely story).  Luckily he saw nothing, although, I may have given a few of the Paraguayan men working in the fields a good view.  All in all I did not mind life without water, which is a good thing since I find out my site on Wednesday and it is completely possible that I will spend the next two years without running water.  Here is a picture of my well:

During the visit we spent a good bit of time practicing Guarani with our language teacher (poor Delphina was forced to come along for the ride) and meeting local members of the community.  I also learned that I am currently speaking Guarani at an intermediate low level.  This is exciting because you have to be at a intermediate mid in order to swear in as a volunteer.  This is also exciting because I am sort of a slacker when it comes to Guarani (I know everyone reading this just gasped since I normally have such a stellar work ethic when it comes to school).  We also gave a charla (talk) on reforestation to a group of women that are in a committee that is raising chickens; the talk went really well! We also helped the women in the chicken committee harvest some plants that they are going to eventually use to make their own chicken feed.  We toured local gardens and learned more about life as a volunteer.  Unfortunately, the Peace Corps forgot to send us down with enough Epipens so we weren’t able to do any beekeeping and it rained when we were supposed to plant Abonos Verdes.  Rain in Paraguay means nothing happens.  School is canceled, men stay home from work and everyone just takes the day off. It was an awesome trip.  Friday was our last day in the community and also my 23^rd birthday.  I was sort of unsure how a birthday in Paraguay would go so I didn’t tell Na Vire it was my birthday. The other trainees and Teresa were awesome about it being my birthday.  Lauralee made me a card, which had 23 mandioca on it, one for each year of my life (mandioca is a plant that they eat here with basically every meal, they are obsessed with it and it has become a running joke because all of the volunteers and trainees).  

Teresa made me an awesome cake of random items she had in her kitchen which turned out to be delicious (it was an oatmeal, chocolate, banana cake).  The best card was made by Elijah, which he then had everyone sign.  Look at how epic this birthday card is:

We then got on the bus and headed out of town.  Long Field was really good for me because it was the opposite of what my Volunteer visit was: no running water and 10k from the nearest bus stop.  The great thing about that is that I loved both of the experiences so hopefully I am ready for anything that Peace Corps throws my way!  Thanks for all of the birthday wishes, I wish that I could be celebrating with all of you but it is nice to know that you still haven’t forgotten about me!

I also have some random pictures to add.  During our visit we had an epic snack that consisted of bananas, apples, fiber crackers (you might chuckle at this but we take our GI health very seriously these days), and peanut butter.  Delicious.

Another awesome, yet random thing, I have learned about while being down here is that sometimes hens will be sort of like adoptive mothers to baby ducks.  When I saw this I thought it was adorable. My friend then told me how funny it is when the baby ducks go into the water for the first time because the chicken mom is on the land freaking out.  Running back and forth on the shore because their babies should not be in the water.  Here is a picture of the happy adoptive family.

Homi's Farm

Last Saturday the Ag group of trainees took a trip to visit Homi’s parent’s farm.  Homi is one of our Paraguayan trainers and he is one of the smartest people I have ever met.  He can answer any question you have about farming in English, Spanish, or Guarani.  His parent’s farm is amazing.  We went to see it as an example of permaculture.  The farm was relatively small, only about two acres but every part of it was used efficiently.  They had worm cultures that were used to produce castings to be sold or used in the fields.  The fields grew food for the animals.  The cows were used for milk and me            at.  The dairy was used to make cheese, yogurt, and ice cream, which were all sold.  The pigs were sold for meat and their poop was collected and used in a biodigesture, which created methane gas that the family used for cooking in order to lower the amount of propane they purchased.  The waste that has to be collected from inside the biodigesture after a while was used to feed the fish they had in a man made pond.  They also had rabbits, which they sold for meat.  The rabbits were in cages above a trough and their poop was also used for fertilizer.  It was slightly overwhelming how efficient everything was.  It was also gorgeous and located right outside the capital.

Pictures from Homi's Farm:

            

 Homi's nephew playing with their dog

 Homi's nephew feeding the cows
 

The biodigesture

 

Rabbits hanging out in their cages

            

Homi's Mom making cheese!

Yesterday, which would also be Saturday, it rained for most of the day.  The thing about living off of a dirt road is that when it rains you can’t go anywhere.  So I woke up around 5 A.M to the sound of rain and slept until around 9, I ate breakfast and realized I was staying inside the house for the next few hours so I organized my room, played with a rubix cube, read, and slept.  Finally by 3 P.M I had cabin fever and I had to leave my room so I braved the mud.  I ran into another trainee Lydia and she and I wandered around our town for the next 3 hours, which was really fun.  Then last night we ended up going to a dance club, Tabasco, because they were having a party to help raise money for the local high school.  It was actually awesome!  The reason is that all of the trainees that went danced around like idiots not caring what the other people thought while all of the Paraguayans grinded their hearts out to weird Paraguayan Polka music.  I am fairly certain that this town will forever think that all Americans do the sprinkler and shopping cart in clubs, which I personally think is fantastic!

This coming week we have our Long Field Visit which means that me, Elijah, Lauralee and Brian are all going to spend 4 days with a volunteer. While we are there we are going to give presentations and work with different committees.  I am actually really excited.  We are staying with new families, which might be odd since 4 nights isn’t really enough time to form a good relationship with a new family, but I think it will still be really fun! I miss you guys and I hope everything is going well in the states!

Laundry Day!

So after being here for almost 5 weeks I finally learned how to do my own laundry! It was about as fun as it sounds. Doing laundry at home can be annoying and all you really have to do is add detergent, move clothes from one machine to another, and fold them at the end.  Here it is so much more.  I started laundry day on Sunday around 8:30 A.M. I learned that there is a process by which clothes are hand washed: whites, colors, blacks, and last socks.  In Paraguay it is rude to let other people touch your underwear or I guess really see it (this could be a lie they told us in training) so the trainees were all instructed to wash their underwear in the shower (about as fun as it sounds, also).  So after I learn about filling this bucket, that used to be a tire but now has a bottom, with water I add all sorts of soaps and throw in my white clothes.  My host-mom teaches me how to properly scrub the clothes and I think I catch on pretty quickly.  After I have all of the white clothes scrubbed and in a bucket waiting to be rinsed a minimum of 3 times I move on to the colored clothes.  I make the mistake of throwing a dress into the same bucket as my whites (I thought this wasn’t a big deal since we were using cold water, since that is all we have unless you boil it).  My mom runs over and re-scrubs all of my white shirts since they now have random red dye on them.  Luckily she was there to save the day and no harm came from my mistake.  Fast forward two hours and 14 buckets of water later and my clothes are clean and ready to be hung on the line! Aside form the color incident there was another highlight of my first true laundry experience.  This occurred when my mom grabbed a chicken from in front of me and flipped it over, holding it up by one leg.  As I looked at her curiously she smiles and says, “Voy a matarlo”.  Which translates as “I am going to kill it”, I then watched her break the chickens neck and hang it upside down by a string around its foot.  I also was luckily enough to eat the chicken for lunch with gnocchi (which was delicious).  After lunch I went to a benefit with some other trainees in a different part of town.  This was pretty fun mainly because it gave us all something to do other than think about how much language we still need to learn.  After I got back I went to the line and saw my clothes, although now extremely stiff, were dry.  This started the exciting second part of my laundry, ironing! Half an hour later my clothes were botfly egg free (hopefully) and ready to wear! Seriously 2 ½ of doing laundry has forever altered the way I will view those magical machines we take for granted in the states.  So the next time you put on a clean pair of underwear think of how nice it is that you didn’t wash them in the shower right after you washed your hair.  Or if you do decide to iron a shirt be thankful that you just want to look nice and you aren’t ironing out of fear of an insect laying eggs in your skin!

I also have the option of going back to paying my host-mom 1,000 guarani per article of clothing (that is 25 cents), which I just might end up doing.  Laundry was fun to learn but I may save that joy for when I am on site and have no other option.  Speaking of site in exactly 2 weeks I find out where I am going!!!! That is very, very exciting! Far more exciting than my birthday being on 11/11/11 this year, which let’s be real, is pretty exciting! Right now there are so many questions in my head.  Will I have running water? Will I be a follow up? Will I be a 10k walk to the nearest bus stop? Will I have to take taxis? Will I be close to other volunteers? If I am what if they hate me!?!?! 14 days and some of these questions will be answered! I also had my first real pang of homesickness the other night.  It was Halloween night and I had been talking to people about how my Dad dresses up as Indiana Jones far too often on Halloween.  Then that night I had a dream that had a lot of random things happen in the beginning (I won’t bore you with details) but ended with me shark fishing with my mom and dad (real parents, not host family).  I was using shark as bait to catch shark and laughing and talking to my dad when I got a bite while I was mid-question.  My dad yelled, “Shut up Maggie and SET THE HOOK”.  My dad then started laughing this super genuine laugh, and then I woke up.  So not only do I have to live with not knowing whether or not I set the hook (I think I did) but I also wake up at 2 A.M having just been dreaming about fishing with my parents and laughing with them.  It was such a mean dream! Luckily I am really good at sleeping so I put on some music and went back to bed; but before I fell asleep I definitely missed home.  So family and friends out there even though I may not have specifically dreamed about you I miss you all, despite the fact that I do still love it here. 

I finally figured out how to change the size of picture!

 Poor dead chicken/lunch.

Getting guapa with the bees!

So this week we have gotten more into our agricultural training, which is awesome! We had sessions on crop rotation, abonos verdes (green manures), tree planting, soil, and, my favorite so far, bee keeping.  My first experience with bees did not go so well. It was basically me standing with a terrified look on my face not knowing what to do.  That was about as fun as it sounds.  This time the bees we looked at were more used to being around people and the trainers were more comfortable with them.  I got to suit up in bee gear and pull out parts of the structure, which was awesome.  Unlike the first time when bees were aggressively dive-bombing at my face these bees just buzzed around.  They were very ‘tranquilo’ and therefore very Paraguayan.  I ended up being in the group being taught by Caleb, who actually is the boyfriend of the volunteer I stayed with.  He was very guapo and good with bees (guapo in Paraguay doesn’t mean good looking, it means hard-working).  We also ate some of the honey from one of the combs and it was delicious.  Now I think I have changed my mind and I wouldn’t mind being in a site that had to work with bees.  We find out what site we are in 4 weeks and the suspense is evil.  I understand that they want to take their time when placing us but I just want to know!

            In other news I am still doing well down here! I know that it hasn’t been a month but I am not homesick yet.  Although I lost the GI challenge that has probably been my lowest point here, and honestly that wasn’t even that low.  I am pretty sure we might all be out of the challenge. The group of trainees has already become incredibly close and we all are in this together.  I think it might be harder for the ones that came down with significant other’s back home but we are all there for one another. 

            The food could use a little more variety but luckily I still love bananas.  I have also come to love my fresh from the cow coffee and milk.   Paraguay is an amazing country and the people are awesome!  I was also told that I would be fine when I got to site because I am exactly what the people expect: light eyes and light skin.  This also earned me the nickname of “ojosclaros” which I am hoping doesn’t stick but we will see. We have also been talking about the different issues volunteers will face in site.  The main challenge I foresee is that fact that I am a woman working in agriculture.  Men and women go into the fields for one reason, to have sex.  In order for me to be able to go into a field without starting ‘chisme’ (gossip) I need to gain the trust of the wife.  So unlike the male volunteers who plan on integrating by picking up a hoe and being guapo in the fields, I will be confined to terere with the woman until I can be trusted with the men.  Maybe by then I will be an awesome beekeeper and I can do a wild hive capture and hang out with my bees to kill the time until I can show how guapa I can be!

            Also I am not sure if this gets repetitive but by the time I actually write a blog post I am too lazy too look back and see what all I have already said.  Also thanks to everyone that comments on the blog! I have no clue how to comment back! But I want you to know that I read them and I love them! Sky, I agree completely that bugs in your clothes are super gross! Also Heidi it is awesome that you are taking Spanish! I think I am going to come back home speaking a weird Paraguayan Spanish but I am okay with that!

Okay well I miss you guys and I hope everyone is doing well! I tried to put up some pictures but they didn´t show up so I will try again next week!

Volunteer Visit

So I just finished up week three of training and I cannot believe how quickly it is going. I spent Monday through Thursday with a current PCV named Kendall at her site and it was awesome.  I finally did not have to sit through boring power points (which I understand are necessary) and I was able to learn what an actual volunteer does.  What I came to realize is that Peace Corps is all about integration.  We went over to her neighbors and drank terere; it is a tea type drink that is cold and is passed around in circles.  Terere is really a time to be social.  Most of the women I drank with wanted to talk about how ‘linda’ my skin is, ask if I was aware of the dangers of the sun, find out if I had a boyfriend, ask if I wanted to meet someone Paraguayan, and comment on the weather.  Honestly though, Paraguayans are some of the nicest people I have ever met.  They find out you are visiting and immediately invite you into their home and offer you food.  They are all just very curious about what we are doing here.  They are also some of the most honest people I have ever met.  For example, when I was riding back from Kendall’s I ended up taking the bus with my friend.  An old man approached us as we were drinking a beer outside of a restaurant near our bus stop and asked if we spoke any Guarani (the local language), I responded with my standard ‘michi mi’ which means a little. Generally people laugh at this and understand that I really do not speak any so they continue in Spanish.  This man decided he wanted to teach us some more words so he taught us the Guarani word for big (of course I have already forgotten it).  He then used the word in a sentence.  His first sentence basically translated as “You are big” he then explained, “vos sos alta” or you are tall while he pointed at me.  The next sentence he directed at my friend saying “You are big” but then he said in Spanish “vos sos gorda” which means you are fat.  He then starts laughing about how big can mean so many different things.  He had no idea that what he just said was considered extremely rude by American standards.  Paraguayans will be the first ones to tell you if you have gained weight or describe you by your physical features.  One girl in the group is known as “la china” because she is Chinese.  I am known in my town as “la alta” if they do not remember my name.

Okay so back to my visit with Kendall, after we met with the neighbors and discussed my lack of love life (I have a lot of Paraguayans that are trying to fix me up on dates with random people in the community, super awkward and funny) we suited up in some bee gear and went out into the fields.  After my first experience at a beehive I can honestly say that bees are terrifying.  Basically you are in a white suit that is protecting you from hundreds of pissed off bees that want to sting you.  They zip around your face and dive-bomb into your mask.  Kendall actually got stung in the face, but she handled it like a champion and we put the hive back together and got out of there. The next day I went to a different volunteer’s community and watched her and Kendall give a “charla”, or lecture, on HIV awareness.  It was very informative watching how two volunteers worked together and filled in gaps in each other’s Spanish to give this talk to a bunch of high school students.  It was also good to see that the country was teaching about proper condom use since it is 90% Catholic here and I think even the school might have been Catholic. 

On this visit I also ate more vegetables than the entire time I have spent in Paraguay and it was GLORIOUS.  Kendall said that during her PCV visit when she was a trainee all she wanted to do was nap and eat vegetables; so that is what she planned for me.  She also had a shower heater so I took slightly warm showers for a few days! 

When I got back to training I was in for a rude awakening because most of the other volunteers had very different experiences, by that I mean they were bucket bathing and using latrines. I find out in about 4 weeks what my real site will be like so fingers crossed that I get electricity! Also if I have to bucket bathe I think I will build a structure to hide behind while I do it since most of the volunteers just stood naked behind their houses to bathe.  I might want a little bit of privacy for that. 

Also a few people have asked some questions about my birthday and the package situation down here.  I have been told that packages do make it down here and generally they are not tampered with; however, they take much longer that the post office says.  Apparently they can get here after 2 weeks or maybe 3 months.  That being said I love getting mail so if you want to send me anything feel free! My address is:

Maggie Flinn PCT

Cuerpo de Paz

Chaco Boreal 162 casi Mariscal. López

Asunción 1580, PARAGUAY

Currently I am craving peanut butter of any variety (send me your favorite kind!) or almond butter, I love Halloween candy (let’s be real I love all candy), and Starbucks instant coffee.  Also if you are super tech savvy and know how to put movies on flashdrives or dvds I would love any random movies or tv shows! I also love surprises and stupid things so you could send me silly putty and legos and I would be thrilled! I also would love to have pen pals so feel free to just write a letter! I think the postage on a letter is a little under $1 so not too bad.  There are other ways to send packages that would be faster but I am pretty sure the price is ridiculous and not worth it. 

It is starting to get a little hotter in Paraguay but it is pretty similar to Georgia so I am doing okay.  I am a little bit terrified about the winters since the houses do not have any insulation.  Apparently work in the campo sort of comes to a halt in summer and winter and people spend their days trying to figure out how to cool off or warm up. My volunteer gave me a lot of good advice on this topic; she said if you need some R&R take it.  You do not do your site any good hanging out being miserable so take a day or two and visit a friend.  It was good learning how the current volunteers dealt with issues. 

Alright that is all I have for now! This week is going to be a TECH based week so hopefully I will learn some really awesome skills that I can explain.  I also found out that in about 6 weeks I will have the opportunity to kill and pluck a chicken.  The bad thing is that we have been raising these chickens for the past few weeks and I might already be too attached to do the job.  If this is the case though I can give my chicken to my homestay mom (who I love) and let her do the dirty work! I hope everyone is doing well and I miss you guys!