Pique!

I have officially been living in Paraguay for over a year, and I cannot believe how quickly it has gone by.  About a week before my one-year anniversary with Paraguay something I had been hoping to avoid for my entire service happened – I got pique.  Pique, or chigoe flea, is something I had never heard of before Paraguay and it didn’t exactly sound fun to me.  Our medical training book describes it as a tiny flea that burrows into the skin and starts producing eggs.  The result is a small white patch with a small black dot.   You have to take a needle and remove the egg sack.  I thought it was kind of cool so I documented my first ever pique removal!

My first removal was a great success! I don’t know if it seems that way to an outsider, but I was really proud. Some might say I even got a little cocky. Since Paraguay has a way of sensing when I am overly confident the country decided to knock me down a peg or two. My next few pique were AWFUL. One was in between my toes, so hard to get to, then one top of my foot, very little fat or thick skin to make it not hurt, and finally I got one next to a healing pique wound, it didn’t like being touched.  I have learned my lesson – pique is terrible. If I can finish my service with no more fleas laying eggs in my body I will be one happy camper!

Poor Copper has also started getting pique and she has it rougher than me since she has to chew them out of her feet.  This has also caused me to kick her out of my house since I don’t want any pique in my house just waiting to burrow.  The only thing they really do for dogs is put their feet in gasoline to kill the pique but I usually only notice them after she has chewed on them, creating open sores; I’m going to pass on pouring gasoline into my dog’s open wounds.  I think she appreciates that.

Yuyo!

Since around June the people in my site have begun working out in the fields gathering ‘yuyos’.  These are plants that people put in their terere (I think I explained what this is earlier, but it is like a tea they drink here. Often they put these plants in the water to give different flavors or for medicinal reasons.).  My site has been gathering kapi'i katí.  The main site that we have been gathering is the field of the local estancia.  They have been burning their fields (I know, I know as an agricultural volunteer I should be working against this…) once the field is burned it is easier for the people to come in with their shovels, hoes, and machetes to cut up the earth and find this root.  I started going out with the women to help out.  It is awful work.  You can’t really sit down because there are tons of ants that bite you and it is also really muddy so the women laugh about how it looks like you pooped your pants.  This means that you spend around 4 hours in the morning squatting over the ground, go in for lunch, and come back out for another 4 hours doing the exact same thing.

Not only is it not the most pleasant work but it also took me around 4 days to really get the hang of what I was looking for.  Part of the issue is an 11-year-old girl was training me. She goes to school in the morning (in Paraguay kids go either in the morning or afternoon) and then comes out in the afternoon.  She would just laugh at me when I picked out the wrong plant and didn’t explain her system for choosing a spot.  I later realized that was because she had no system, she was just wondering around.  Towards the end of the day the women (sometimes men) would start burning another section of the field and head home to clean what they had gathered.

Unfortunately I don’t have pictures for the next part, which is odd since I prefer this part and generally try to get invited to the wrapping, not the gathering.  This is when the yuyos are prepared to be sold.  The women take their clean yuyos and begin wrapping them into bundles about 4 inches long and an inch in diameter.  They use a part of a coco tree to wrap them.  After they wrap them into smaller bundles they wrap 6 bundles into a bigger bundle, two of these bundles (a dozen smaller bundles) is sold as one unit.  The price of these units varies between 1.000gs and 1.500gs.  That is somewhere between $0.25 and $0.37.  I spent an hour wrapping and kept track of how many I was able to complete- I wrapped 4 units.  That would come to about a dollar an hour except for you have to take in consideration the time spent in the fields gathering these plants.

Copper does her best to help out with the digging.

Some of the women gathering yuyos.

This picture isn't that clear but there is a red and white stripped root somewhere in there. 

Also should be a 'where's waldo' root in here. 

Super guapa.

Burning the field (bad).

Ña Copper gets tired after a long days work. And yes Mom, I know her ears are huge.

Ña Artemia and Dehlia (my teacher)

My pitiful bounty. 

Finally calling it a day. 

Working with these women has really made me appreciate how ‘guapa’ they are (hard-working).  They all have something that they are saving up for and they all manage to do this on top of their daily work of raising children, animals, gathering firewood, and more.  My host sister is saving up for some dental work for herself and her mother.  One of my neighbors wants to build a place for her pig to live.  Whenever I help out in the field I give what I collect to different women in the community.  If I help them attach them I usually stay for lunch since they refuse to allow me to work for free.  Although collecting yuyos isn’t something I ever really want to do or will ever do after Paraguay; it has been a great way for me to further integrate into my community and to respect how hard they work for what little spending money they have.  

I don't think I edited this blog...

There are a few problems that I constantly encounter with my blog.  The first is that I always forget what I have blogged about (I generally assume if I don’t remember blogging about it, you guys don’t remember reading it).  The second is that I only have a chance to post a blog every week or two (I can sometimes use my kindle to check facebook and email but writing a blog on a kindle is something I refuse to do, seeing as kindles don’t have spell check and I am already self-conscious about my writing).  The third is that I get really excited about random blogs during the week.  I don’t want to overwhelm you guys and post 4 at once and often my enthusiasm wanes and blogs are left unfinished and unedited, never to be read again.  The result is that my blog is a random assortment of stories and highlights from my service with no unifying theme, other than I felt like posting them at the time.  I would like to apologize for my lack of blogging skill; however, I didn’t major in blogging and you guys can stop reading at any time (but I secretly like that you do read, so please don’t leave me).

Enough rambling, the theme of this blog is Why All Peace Corps Paraguay Volunteers Love Rain.

First, let me state that this is a HUGE generalization. Possibly only Agricultural Volunteers like rain, or maybe only myself and my 3 closest volunteer friends.  Probably this should be titled “Why Maggie Flinn loves Rain”.  Well readers, this is why I love rain.

My site is made up of dirt roads and when it rains, mud roads.  This means that leaving site is not really a possibility.  I only really leave site to go buy food or visit other volunteer; therefore, the lack of road is generally not an issue.  A rainy day also means that you are trapped inside.  During the first 2 months in site, when I lived with a host family, this was torture.  You are trapped.  You have to sit and make conversation all day.  Even harder for me was when my contact’s daughters all came to visit and we got ‘rained in’.  You would think that with more people it would be more fun - this is not the case.  I would sit and listen to inside jokes and stories, watching a group of sisters interacting in the way that only sisters do.  I was an outsider and just kept thinking how my sisters and I were way funnier and had way better inside jokes (not biased at all). 

Independent Maggie can now look back on those long days and appreciate them because they did strengthen my bond with my contact and force me to use my language.  Independent Maggie also knows that she never has to suffer through another one of these days.  A rainy day when you live alone is a day to yourself.  No one judges you for not working or visiting families; it’s dangerous out there! You can spend the day reading and knitting.  Your brain gets a day off because you aren’t constantly speaking in a mixture of Spanish and Guarani.  You don’t have to deal with critical Señoras telling you that you are ‘demasiada gorda’ or harassing you about dating a Paraguayan so he can go back to the states with you.  Rainy days keep me sane. They are a time for me to just relax and not let cultural differences drive me crazy.  I have lame dance parties to Top 40 mixes friends from the states send me (Jill and Amelia, thanks again), I watch lame tv shows on my computer (Leigh, I’m still watching Vampire Diaries so thank Trey for me), and I try to learn how to knit fingerless gloves. 

The weird thing about being a PC volunteer is that you are a volunteer 24/7.  The people in my community are constantly watching me and gossiping about what I do.  People randomly (and creepily) take pictures of me weekly, often without asking.  Men in town get drunk and tell people that I’m their girlfriend (I am still not dating a Paraguayan).  I am constantly told that my American boyfriend is cheating on me with a Paraguayan and that is why he speaks Guarani better than I do.  Often after this statement I am encouraged to get back at him by dating a Paraguayan.  Rainy days save me from all of this.  I don’t mean to sound like I don’t love Paraguay, I do.  The people are more hospitable than anywhere I have ever been.  My host-mom is actually insane (in the best possible way) and has taken to flashing me and asking me if she can see my ‘tetes moroti’ (white boobs).  It’s fun having everyone want to be your friend and want to learn more about you – but that doesn’t mean that I don’t LOVE a good rainy day every once in a while. 

10 Months in Paraguay

It is hard for me to believe that I have been in Paraguay for 10 months.  In a few weeks G-39 will swear in, and after that G-40 (my sister G) will arrive.  I think this is a milestone for most volunteers.  The reason is that we along with our ‘older’ sister G, G-34, help train G-40.

–Side Note: We are G’s because we are trained in Guarambare, so my group was the 37^th group of trainees to go through Guarambare.  Every third G will be the same sector because it rotates, Rural Health and Sanitation swear-in in April, Community Economic Development swears- in in August and Agricultural Extension and Environmental Education swear-in in December.  This concept was confusing for me when I first arrived in Paraguay and it took a while for me to realize my sister-G wasn’t the G directly before and after me. 

After 10 months in Paraguay and 7 ½ in site, I wish that I could tell you that my Guarani was improving; it isn’t.  I started studying more and I have posters around my room with verbs and sentence structure but it’s not coming together.  My main issue is that I can already speak Spanish. I had thought this would be awesome because I could just focus on Guarani and not worry about Spanish; unfortunately, when I don’t understand what people say in Guarani they just switch to Spanish and encourage me to do the same.  They later ask why I don’t speak more Guarani. I found out that other Ag volunteers lied about their Spanish abilities in site so they would be forced to learn Guarani.  I wish I had found this out before I got to site, not 4 months in when everyone knew my Spanish abilities.  

Besides constantly struggling with language I have also been doing more work in my garden. Unfortunately it appears that my tomatoes have caught a virus, for which there is no cure, and will all be dead within the week.  I think that is what I get for being so proud of the absurd amount of tomatoes I had.  Next summer my plan is to watch them more closely, kill any that seem to be a little sick, and not brag about my massive amount of tomatoes.  I am doing my best to eat my humble pie but it isn’t going down easy. 

Luckily, I still have my garlic, spinach, lettuce, green beans, and carrots.  For my first ever garden I am going to (humbly) say it’s a success!  My demo plot with my contact is also germinating and I think that I might try to plant crops in order to make a homemade chicken feed this spring (fall for you northern hemisphere folks).  I also am planning on buying 3 egg-laying hens in early August (Sorry Ma, I know you wanted to get them first but you were just too slow).

I am still teaching English in the school and in the church, although the attendance in church is dwindling.  In addition I am working with a commission in the community to try and get funding for pipes, a tank, and a motor in order to give 10 families access to running water.  What this means is that I am in charge of filling out the USAID forms; it’s as fun as it sounds.  My main frustration with this project is that I am not being invited to the meetings surrounding the project.  Some of the people think that I just have to call Peace Corps, tell them I need 12.000.000Gs and BOOM I get it.  No strings attached.  Actually I need to write essays, fill out forms, make spreadsheets, and explain where every last Guarani will be spent. All this being said, I really hope that this project can happen. I think I am getting nervous about how I can positively affect the community and helping to fund the running water project would definitely be a step in the right direction.  

All in all Copper and I are doing well in Paraguay.  She is getting neutered in September and doesn’t chase the chickens as often as she used to.  She also hates the town drunk, which I am insanely proud of. She is only 5 months old but she growls at him with the ferocity of a 3 year old German shepherd.  I firmly believe she is one of the best decisions I have made so far in Paraguay.  She barks a lot and chases children but I sleep better knowing I have a furry little friend watching over me. 

Cooking with Friends: A Shout Out to St. Marks Methodist Church

In December of 2008, my Grandma, Mary Kay Staples, gifted her grandchildren with the Cooking With Friends cookbook that her church wrote.  When I was home this past April I came across a copy of the book (actually, it’s Sarah’s) and decided to bring it down with me to Paraguay (sorry Sarah).  Dean Boucher’s banana bread recipe is a real hit with the women of South America!

While I have really enjoyed trying out recipes from this book, I quickly realized that it doesn’t do me a whole lot of good down here.  The issue is that I can’t get 2/3 of the things I need to cook each recipe.  Grandma, I can’t tell you how many times I have looked at the recipe for Ro-Tel Fiesta Chicken with longing and then realized that I don’t have access to Ro-Tel, which judging by the name is a key ingredient.  I also have searched all over Paraguay and the only Elephant I’ve found belongs to the zoo and they said they won’t sell him for my Elephant Stew.

Due to my lack of access to most necessary ingredients (biscuit mix, cake box mix, cream of mushroom soup, brown sugar…) I have been picking and choosing which recipes to make and which recipes to look at with longing and dream about.  Bringing back a cookbook was a really good idea and I wanted to write this blog to thank the authors of this book for filling some of my boring winter afternoons with activities.  Although I have messed up numerous recipes, mixing amounts improperly since I have no actual measuring cups and making up ingredients (sugar cane honey with white sugar is pretty much brown sugar, right?); I think it has been going pretty well.  I also should thank Mr. Daniel who so kindly replied to my tweet requesting how many grams go into a pound (the different measuring systems are a killer!). 

Winter in Paraguay, especially for an Ag Volunteer, can be pretty slow. There are gardens to tend to but the major field crops won’t be planted until around late July or early August.  I have started a demonstration plot with a contact and my garden is in full swing! I have around 100 tomato plants (a minor miscalculation on my part) so the spring might end up involving me trying to make my own Ro-Tel and canning sauces. 

I have also been in site for almost 7 months.  According to most volunteers, this is when things can get a little tough.  I think I am holding up pretty well, my down fall and homesick moment will most likely be when Katy gives birth to baby girl number 2 in August and I realize how bummed I am not to be there.  For now Copper (my dog) and I are bundling up in bed, trying to escape the cold, reading, and knitting - judging by this post I have retired not joined the Peace Corps.  

I am off to try and make some fresh pig fat biscuits, but seriously Crisco is just pig fat in disguise!  

Small Town Gossip

            The past few weeks in site have felt a little bit different to me.  I no longer feel like I am constantly visiting families to get to know them; I already have established relationships with them.  I recently took my contact with me to a one-day conference on Permaculture in Paraguay and it went really well.  I started teaching English classes in the elementary school once a week and in the Church on Saturdays for the older kids.  I have also started work on a series of lectures about green manures in my community.  To top it all off I discovered that there is still one committee that exists in my site.  This is important because in Paraguay a lot of the communities request funds from different organizations and often times you have to be in a committee to request funds and some times the committee has to be in existence for over 2 years before they can request funds.  I was excited because I believed this would create many more opportunities within the community.

            My host family and my contact are not members of the committee.  I have been told that they were at one point but the primary goal of the committee has shifted to obtaining water in the community and both of these families have wells that provide year round water.  I attended my first ‘meeting’ last Sunday.  The first hour was spoken completely in Guarani and I understood barely anything.  I learned that they have already paid to have an artesian well put in next to the school and they want to raise funds to purchase piping, a tank, and a motor to run the water throughout the community.  They also talked about my contact’s family and my host family for a good bit in Guarani.  I am fairly positive nothing good was said, I understood the words liar and untrustworthy.  They then switched to Spanish and began talking to me.  I explained that I would talk to my boss about requesting funds from different organizations but I could make no promises.  If I could not help them directly get funds I told them that I would be more than willing to help with fund raising activities, such as making and selling chipa.  They seemed to understand my point of view and the meeting ended.

            The next evening I went to return a plate to my host mother and was immediately asked a series of questions: Did you say you’d work with them? Are you giving them money? Do you not want to work with us? And so on.  I explained what had happened at the meeting and how I planned on working with everyone in the community but these people had an existing project they wanted help with, and that it would not take up all of my time.  I was then told that a lot of the members of my community were mad at me because this project would not benefit everyone in the community.  Then my host mom told me she was mad at me because I did nothing to help her get money when she was putting a well in her house.  After about an hour of explaining that it would be impossible for me to request funds for a single well, for a single family, I think they finally understood. 

            What I have learned from this is that my community is completely divided and they love to gossip.  My hope is that if I do not participate and continue to do my best to work with everyone that eventually they will understand that it is not necessary to pick sides.  I am going into Asuncion this week to meet with my boss about my plans for the next 4 months and after everything that has happened I now have a lot of questions.  Most importantly I need to take studying Guarani more seriously because apparently I sat and smiled while a room full of people bad mouthed my host family and contact, not my most successful day in Paraguay. Hey, at least my English classes are going well!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I left my connector cord in the States.  The cord is in a package that hopefully gets here before Spring!  

Watch what you say...

I have developed the nasty habit of starting to write blogs and never going back and finishing them.  One idea for a blog that I had was all of the stories of my language mix-ups (of which there have been many).  I have forgotten some along the way but here are my top 4 language mistakes in Paraguay.

*Please be aware my Guarani is not perfect and a lot of these words aren’t in our books so I am doing my best with spelling, although I doubt any of you guys would realize I misspelled anything…

**Also some of this blog has more mature content, I don’t think I have a big children following but it might not be the most appropriate thing for them to read.

1. tembi’u vs. tembui:    During training we all learned the Guarani word for food, tembi’u.  During a class that I wasn’t even a part of, my friend Cari mispronounced the word, accidentally saying tembui.  The professor laughed and told her not to say this.  It turns that tembui actually means ‘little penis’.  The problem with this is that although everyone in my group has graduated college and is over the age of 22 we are all still pretty immature.  Everyone was running around saying both tembi’u and tembui and pretty soon it got mixed up in my head.  During training we were told that we needed to practice Guarani with our host families as much as possible since as Agriculture volunteers we were going to more rural areas and Guarani would be crucial to our success as volunteers.  During dinner one night my family asked if I was hungry and of course I said (in broken Guarani): Ha’use tembui.  Direct translation: I want to eat little penis. 

2.  porâ vs. iporâ:             Another mistake that I made for about a week during training was telling people that I am pretty.  In Paraguay they love anyone with eyes that aren’t brown.  They don’t understand what color my eyes are and they think that I am a ‘rubia’ (which they use to indicate fair skin).  Add this to the fact that this is a very machismo culture and men constantly hit on everyone and it is not the best combination.  Lots of volunteers get annoyed with the constant attention and Paraguayans don’t understand why we don’t fall all over them as soon as they confess their undying love for us.  The common Guarani greeting is “m’baechipa” which is essentially how are you?  The standard response is “ipora” which basically means I’m good.  Che in Guarani is I.  I wanted to say “che ipora” which I later learned is repetitive and unnecessary, but what I was saying is “che pora” which means I am pretty.  This means that while men in town would ask me “How are you?” I would respond, “I am pretty”.  They would then laugh and tell me how beautiful I was and go on and on and on.  It wasn’t until my professor corrected me that I realized how I was accidentally encouraging their ‘machismo’ nature and asking to be hit on. 

3. preservativas:             This is a mistake that I made in Spanish, which is bad since I was a Spanish major.  The cooking in Paraguay is extremely repetitive and generally has a ton of oil and salt.  However, the food itself is generally extremely fresh and delicious.  I do enjoy some Paraguayan food but I try and be extra polite and tell everyone that I enjoy the food here more than in the United States.  This usually results in them asking why.  The first time this was asked this is how I responded, “La comida acá es mucho mas fresco, en los estados usamos demasiado preservativas en nuestra comida.” Now I am sure some of you reading this immediately see my problem (Mrs. Daniel, Professora Barbas-Rhoden…) I just told my Paraguayan host family that the food in Paraguay is much fresher and in the United States we use too many condoms in our food.  My host-mom’s jaw dropped and her daughter immediately started laughing. I quickly realized my mistake and tried to explain and then just starting laughing as well. I still don’t know how to say preservatives in Spanish but I think from now on I will steer clear of that one.

4. Che ro’y vs. Che ro’u:             In Guarani the y and u sounds are very hard for me to distinguish between (one of my many language problems).  Generally based on context the people know what I am talking about but sometimes it can give me trouble.  Paraguay, being in the Southern hemisphere is in the middle of fall and there have already been some pretty cold days.  I decided to tell my host sister that I was cold when she saw me walk into the outside kitchen in sweat pants, thick socks, and a big jacket.  I looked at her and said what I thought was “che ro’y” which means “I’m cold” turns out I said “Che ro’u” which means “I want you to eat me” which is Guarani slang for “let’s have sex”.  My host sister, who is 27, started laughing hysterically at me.  She made some comment about how I needed to change if that’s how I was feeling and then ran off to tell the rest of the family what had just happened. I sat in the kitchen confused.  It wasn’t until later when I was talking to another volunteer that I realized what I had said.  Winter is on the way in Paraguay and from now on I plan on sticking to Spanish and just saying “tengo frio” whenever I am cold. 

Guarani is full of double meanings and they love to trap me into saying dirty things on accident.  I have told people that I was getting drunk when I wanted to say that I was drinking maté in the morning, I have heard volunteers say they were horny when they just wanted to comment on the weather.  It is important to watch what you say in this country, something that I have learned over and over.  I only hope that eventually I get good enough at the language so that I can get in on the jokes and they can stop being about me.

Have you met Copper?

           After getting back from the wedding and spending a week at training (I don’t have the energy to write about training, it was nice to visit my first host family and see all my friends!), I made the decision to get a puppy! I knew that I wanted to get a puppy at some point during my service but I felt that I should wait until after I went home since I would be out of site for almost 2 ½ weeks.  When I was at training I found out that my neighbors (well they live about 40km away, close in Paraguay) found 4 little girl puppies that they were trying to find homes for.  I decided which of the remaining 3 that I wanted based on personality descriptions and a blurry picture. 

            On May 4^th I went to town to pick up my puppy.  She is adorable!  I eventually decided to name her Copper, after the fox and the hound.  She probably weighs around 8 lbs and is not going to be a big dog.  It has been really nice having a puppy, even though I have to wake up around 4 times a night to take her out.  She currently either sleeps in either a fruit crate or at the foot of my bed.  I am aware that some people might think this is gross because she could have fleas but she gets a flea bath twice a week.  Which reminds me, Mom if you are reading this would you mind sending me some front line? 

            Copper and I recently took our first trip back into town so she could get her first vaccines.  She managed to walk almost all the way to the route (a 50 minute walk) on her leash, which was very impressive.  She handled her shot like a little champion and everyone said how pretty she is! Although creepy men in town used petting her as an excuse to try and pet me, that did not fly with me. When I was ready to head back to site with the puppy it was around noon.  I had taken the Cardoza Hnos. (bus line) back to site the first time I returned with Copper and didn’t run into any problems. This time the driver’s assistant told me that if I wanted to bring the puppy on the bus she would have to ride below with all of the luggage - keep in mind she is an 8 lb puppy.  I said some very angry choice words in English to this man (which he didn’t understand which is lucky because the next time I rode the bus I got charged half price) and sat back down on the bench to wait for the next bus.  Thankfully the next bus driver wasn’t a jerk and Copper and I were able to ride back to site.  I also found out that for her next vaccine I could go into town with her “puppy book” and buy the shot from the vet so that she no longer has to come into town with me.  This will make my life much easier.  Copper won’t be traveling back into town until she goes to get fixed in September. 

            Copper also hates the town drunk! I am sure I have talked about Celso before but since my computer crashed I can’t check my old blogs to see (prepare yourself for some repetition).  Celso is around 36 years old and spends about 4 days a week obliterated.  After 4 years of college and working at a restaurant where I have seen grown men so drunk they try to pee on video games; I have never seen anyone get as drunk as the local drunks in Paraguay.  Since booze is so cheap here Celso spends 2 of his free days sleeping and recovering and the remaining day of the week working.  A liter of 80 proof sugar cane alcohol is about $1.75.   When Celso first met Copper he kept saying how pretty she was like her owner (he loves to tell everyone how pretty I am, and how I am “the queen of Paraguay”), Copper immediately started barking.  The hair on her spine even rose, which I have never seen before.  Copper also likes to spend her free time hanging out on my porch guarding it from people.  Although it can be annoying at times (she loves to bark) I have decided that in the long run it will be a good thing having a dog that will bark her head off if someone random comes to my house at night. 

            As of right now I am extremely pleased with my decision to get a dog. A lot of times Paraguayans kill female puppies or abandon them (which is what happened to Copper) so I think it will be a good example for the people in town to see that you can have a female dog without constantly having puppies.  I have also had a lot of people ask me if they can have her when I leave.  I have been responding that I am not sure if I will leave her or take her with me yet but it is nice to know that if for some reason she can’t come with me, people will be willing to take care of her.

Mom here is my address again for that frontline:

Maggie Flinn, PCV 258 
Cuerpo de Paz 
del Chaco Boreal 162 c / Mcal. López 
1580 Asunción, Paraguay 
América del Sur

Some people have been asking about packages getting to me.  I have been getting things eventually and I haven´t had any issues with things getting stolen from packages.  It takes between 3 weeks and 2 months for me to get packages.  I brought back a French press from the states so I would love some coffee, peanut butter is always good, cds, books, anything to help with the coming winter.  The sun sets around 5pm and I generally don´t leave my house after dark because the only people hanging out are people I shouldn´t be hanging out with. Bring on the movie marathons and charge up the kindle!

Sydney got hitched!

After seven months in Paraguay, I was lucky enough to get to go home for a week! My sister Sydney got married on April 21^st and I arrived home on April 15^th.  Unfortunately, I had mandatory training for the Peace Corps that started on April 23^rd.   The flight home was pretty long.  I arrived to the airport in Asuncion at 8 o’clock in the morning on Saturday and finally made it to Georgia by 10 am on Sunday. I went from Asuncion to Cuidad del Este to Sao Paulo to Miami and finally ended in Atlanta.  My Dad met me at the airport and back to the farm we went!  The week before the wedding went really well.  It was a little stressful since the wedding was at our house and everyone had to help out (I drug my feet a little bit here).  For some reason a part of me wasn’t too excited about spending my vacation from being an Agricultural extensionist in Paraguay by gardening in Georgia.

While I was home I also managed to go to Columbia, South Carolina to visit some of my friends from College.  I was extremely thankful that they took the time from Graduate School and real jobs to hang out with me for the night. My roommate from college, Devika, also managed to come to be my date for the wedding even though she had finals the following week. She was also nice enough to help my Mom out during the wedding, as did my friends Emily and Meredith. 

The wedding was absolutely beautiful.  My whole family obviously put a lot of work into it and it was a very special day.  All of the groomsmen wore bowties and converse and naturally my Dad wore jeans and a cummerbund.  I am extremely grateful that I was able to attend the wedding and that Syd and Jason were nice enough to hold off getting married until I had been in site for the appropriate amount of time (PCV’s aren’t allowed to leave site until they have been there for 3 months, which for me was March 13).  Seeing everyone was also a lot harder than I expected.  I think the reason for this is that when I am not seeing everyone it is easy to not realize how much I really miss them. 

After spending a week eating fantastic food and seeing family it was back to Paraguay for me.  I was sad to leave but ready to get back to Paraguay.  I am finally getting to a point in my service where I feel like there are projects that I can start. It was also really nice talking to everyone at the wedding and seeing that people actually read my blog.  To everyone that I talked to about the Peace Corps: thanks for caring enough to talk with me about it! I also managed to bring back a French press so I am back to drinking good coffee! If anyone wants to send me something to help get me through the winter (House without insulation) strong coffee is the way to go!  

Semana Santa

Hello everyone! You may notice that it has been awhile since I last blogged and for that I apologize.  I wish that I could say that I have been super busy in site and overwhelmed with projects but that would be a lie.  What really happened is Semana Santa (Holy Week) or Easter, then I went home for a week, then I went to a week of training and now, I am back!

Semana Santa is a big deal in Paraguay.  If I remember correctly (I am typing without internet so I cannot double check this stat, please don’t quote me on this or anything really), Paraguay is about 90% Catholic.  When I arrived in site everyone asked if I would be here for Christmas, New Years, and Semana Santa.  I think everyone in my G (group of volunteers that I swore in with) was a little curious about what all the hype was about.  The first few days of Semana Santa are like any normal week, and then Wednesday comes.  Wednesday of Semana Santa should just be called National Chipa Making Day in Paraguay.  This was my first experience making chipa from start to finish and I was lucky enough to get to do it 3 times in one week (it’s not really something you need to experience more than once).  This is the list of ingredients that can be found in chipa (Ña Julia’s recipe): 5 kilos pig fat (yum), 7 kilos Paraguayan cheese (make by taking fresh cow milk and soaking a cow stomach in it, the cow stomach causes the milk to curdle and they collect it and let it harden making a soft cheese), about 5 kilos corn meal (fresh, I know this because I helped grind it), about mandioca flour (has to be bought but can be made in a long process), and a little bit of anis. The flour numbers may be off a little because they had huge bags of each and poured it in until they felt the recipe was right.  We then mixed this huge mixture in a big metal pan (that we also use for bathing).  From what I gathered you have to mix it and roll it out with your hands for a while because you need to heat up the pig fat?  Some of these things may be a little wrong because I am having everything explained to me in Spanish and Guarani.  While we were doing all of this the men were heating up the ‘tatacua’ or huge brick oven outside.  We filled it with wood and let it all burn, then took a piece of bamboo with leaves attached to it and swept out the oven.  Then we put the pans of chipa (we took about 3 hours forming little shapes with the dough) into the oven and my host sister Lourdes took care of cooking them.  Then ta-da, Chipa!

The whole process took around 5 ½ hours and was exhausting.  Fresh chipa is actually pretty delicious if you try to forget about how the recipe is almost ¼ pig fat.  The problem is that EVERYONE in town makes over 200 pieces.  Then they try to share them.  Naturally everyone wanted to make sure the PCV tried their chipa so I was gifted over 20 pieces of chipa.  I think I ate only 3 or 4. 

I spent most of Friday and Saturday at the Church since some missionaries from a church in Asuncion had come in and most of the town was there.  What I enjoyed most about this is that since the people running the show were from Asuncion they spoke less Guarani (it is really a language used in homes in the campo, or countryside).  I was able to understand more and help them out.  By the time Sunday came around I was on a chipa high and just wanted to sit in my house and not be given food.  Semana Santa was an interesting experience.  I enjoyed comparing the differences since in the States (or at least in my family) we put more importance on Good Friday and Easter Sunday and here it is all about the chipa.

*I made sure to take a lot of picture of the whole process because I felt it would be easier to explain.  Then when I was in the ATL airport getting ready to head back to Paraguay my computer died and I lost all of my information on my computer. Although I had everything backed up on an external hard drive my pictures are impossible to locate! Sorry for the lack of photos, maybe I’ll find them later?

Paraguayan Women Love American Men.

A week or so ago Elijah (boyfriend) came to visit me in my site.  When I told my mom some of the different stories about his visit she said that I needed to put it in my blog. So here it is, the adventures of Elijah in Valois Riverola:

I had almost been in site for 3 months when Elijah finally came to visit. In his defense, I was living with different host families for the first 2 months so he really couldn’t visit me for those 2.  My host sister, Lourdes, is 26 and has been giving me a lot of grief about the fact that her boyfriend (who is 53) visits every weekend and mine never comes.  She went so far as to imply that he didn’t exist.  However, when she and some of the other younger women in town found out that I was dating a ‘rubio’ (blond in Spanish but they use it more to describe fair skin here), she said that I should watch my back.  When she first said this it was in a playful tone and I wasn’t too concerned. I should have realized how serious she was.

The appeal of an American boyfriend for a Paraguayan woman goes past their love of fair skin and blue eyes.  The reason for this is that Paraguayan men are worthless around the house.  Seriously, it is sad to watch.  For example, my host brother Marcus lives in Asuncion.  Marcus is 23 and recently started dating Lorena who is 17 (not illegal in Paraguay, and fairly normal).  They come visit Marcus’ family about every weekend.  When they come Marcus brings all of his dirty laundry from Asuncion.  Lourdes used to wash all of his clothes but now since he is dating Lorena it is her job.  Lourdes’ boyfriend, Alejo, also brings all of his dirty clothes for Lourdes to wash.  Keep in mind that we are in the middle of a huge drought and have to bring up buckets of water to put in a little machine that covers the clothes in soap.  We then carry the clothes in buckets on our heads and bring them down to the well (it belongs to Don Louis, but he lets us use it since ours is dry) to rinse about 3 times.  It probably takes an hour and a half for me to wash all of my dirty clothes.  This is usually only 4 days worth of clothes because we wash them twice a week. So these guys bring a week worth of dirty clothes for their girlfriends to wash.  While the women are washing clothes they are also cooking lunch. What are the men doing during all of this you ask? They are drinking terere in the shade!

Back to Elijah’s visit: Elijah came to see me on a Friday.  I had planned on washing my clothes on Thursday before he got there because I had missed the last 2 laundry days and had a ton of dirty clothes.  The problem is that it rained on Thursday so I couldn’t wash my clothes (they have to dry on the barbed wire, which yes does leave a ton of holes in my clothes).  I told Elijah this and he said not to worry, we could just do laundry together on Friday.  When I told Lourdes on Friday that Elijah was going to help me carry water from the well to put in the machine she was absolutely outraged. She said that he needed to sit and drink terere while I brought the water up.  The water buckets are really heavy, 40 pounds when full.  Elijah told her he wanted to help and proceeded to help me bring water up, wash my clothes, rinse my clothes, and put them on the line. The women of the family were mesmerized.

Then that Sunday, Elijah and I ate lunch with Lourdes’ family.  She told him to go sit down while we prepared lunch but he said he didn’t want to.  She then caught him going down to the well with my water buckets to fill them up and wash the dishes we had used the night before. Her jaw fell open.  She then yelled at me and said he would never come back the way that I treated him.  By this point Lourdes’ has begun paying more and more attention to Elijah. Telling him to sit with her and drink terere while I go fill the water buckets. She also starts telling me how she thinks he is really good looking.  Finally on the day Elijah is going to leave, Lourdes tells him he has to come say bye to her personally.  She told him he was always welcome and she’d try not to let me over work him the next time he came.

For the week after he left Lourdes has asked me questions about him and constantly made comments. “I am sure Elijah helps his family make dinner” then, “I bet Elijah knows how to dig out mandioca”, it goes on and on.  Then last week she went so far as to ask me if my parents minded that I was dating him.  I at first assumed she meant because he has a lot of tattoos, or maybe because he doesn’t have a left hand (I didn’t mention this earlier, but this adds to his ‘guapo’ hard working affect in the eyes of the Paraguayan women).  She then continues by asking if it would bother my parents that I am bigger than him.  I turn to face her with my jaw hanging down and see that she has a very smug smile on her face.  Sassy Lourdes. Also, I feel like it should be noted that I am not actually bigger than Elijah.

It was a very interesting experience seeing the way that Paraguayans view relationships. Lourdes has been dating her boyfriend for 5 years but she is currently looking for a new, younger boyfriend because she thinks Alejo is too old for her to marry.  She also thinks that any one else’s boyfriend is fair game.  She considers herself lucky because she thinks her boyfriend is too old for anyone to want to steal.  Hopefully her infatuation with Elijah will pass but for now it is pretty entertaining to watch. 

5 Months in Paraguay

I have officially been living in Paraguay for 5 months.  I have done a lot of things here that I probably never would have done in the states. I now know how to bucket bathe, de-feather a chicken, remove a chickens organs, carry 5 gallon buckets on my head, and make more fried food than I ever hope to eat again.  I have also come to really enjoy spending time with my neighbors.  It feels like I haven’t done anything in site yet, and honestly I haven’t.  The first 3 months Peace Corps only expects you to integrate and to try to gain the communities trust.  That’s what I have been trying to do. I spend my mornings milking cows and preparing lunch, I take my siesta, and then I visit with families and drink terere.  School started last week so I plan on visiting and talking with the teachers about how I can help out.  I hope to work with the students in the school garden.  My site is different from most of the other volunteers because it is so small. I only have 30 or so houses in my site where most volunteers have 100 plus houses.  I also do not have any organizations that I can collectively work with.  This means if I plan on giving lectures I have to try to organize the meetings or go house to house talking to families.  It is intimidating now but hopefully within a few months I will have a system worked out and can be more effective.  Right now I am ready to start building my own garden and talking to farmers about future crops. 

Paraguay has also become more enjoyable since I moved into my own house.  I get to cook a few of my own meals each week, which means not fried food. My dueña (landlord) is more like a host mom and wants me to eat all of my meals with her.  She is awesome. Ña Julia is a fiery, short Paraguayan woman.  She is insanely hard working and never takes a break.  She yells at the town drunk when he gets too close to me and yells at me constantly in Guarani.  I think she is yelling nice things but honestly, I have no idea.  The other day I was watching her cook in the outdoor kitchen but apparently she didn’t hear me come up behind her.  I know this because she turned around and screamed when she saw me.  Then she started yelling in Guarani about how I am “too tall” and a “giant”.  She managed to use these as terms of endearment, I promise. We milk the cows together every morning and she worries if she thinks I am out too late running. It is nice to know that there are people that care enough about me in the community to look out for me.

I wish I had come big crazy stories to tell but nothing that intense has happened lately.  I’ve had women beg me to marry their sons, ask if they can have my eyes, and I’ve managed to cut open every finger on my left hand except my pinky.  I’ve been drooled on by the town drunk, been told I’ll be getting married in November, and constantly asked why my skin is turning red instead of brown.  I think that what were crazy stories in October are now just a part of living in Paraguay.  I accept the fact that I have to look out for ants when I use the latrine because if I don’t my butt will get attacked (it really hurts).  I accept that I only get to bathe with 2 liters of water because I need to save the rest of it and it is definitely not worth carrying buckets of water up and down a hill just to wash my hair every day.  I am a much dirtier person than I was upon arrival in Paraguay and I’m only 5 months in.  I am slightly terrified to see what happens after another 21 months. 

2 Months in Site!!!

Today, February 13, 2012, marks my 2-month anniversary in site.  I also moved out of my homestay yesterday and into my casita!  For my first night the room had all of my stuff (I have no idea why I thought 2/3 of these things were necessary to bring) and a bed.  I used a hammock as a sheet and a sleeping bag as a blanket.  I have since then managed to make a deal to borrow a stove for 2 years and bought some of the essentials (ie. Two 20 gallon buckets for carrying water to and from the well).  Hopefully the drought ends soon since we are starting week 4 without water in the well.

My contact has begun asking me when I am going to start ‘working’.  This is an odd question for me to answer because technically Peace Corps literally expects me to spend the first 3 months just integrating and getting to know the people.  I have some ideas about lectures that I can give but I have no way of getting people to all meet to actually give the lecture.  I also am slightly terrified by my lack of agricultural knowledge. I am starting my garden after I get my house all set up and I have no idea what I am doing.  Paraguayans are going to be laughing at the rubia with the machete messing up her bamboo fence. 

I have brought up my concerns about lack of project ideas with some volunteers that have been here over a year and what they said both calmed my nerves and freaked me out.  Basically it took them about a year in site to figure out how to meet with the community and what projects were actually feasible.  I am extremely glad that I am not that only one that has felt like they have no idea what they are doing; I am not glad that I will most likely feel this way for another 9 months. 

When they tell you that in the Peace Corps you will have a crazy rollercoaster of emotions you sort of shrug and think “obviously…” (At least this is what I did).  Then your first low point hits you. I haven’t had a point low enough to make me consider the option of ET’ing (early termination) but I know a lot of volunteers have, and I am sure my first time is just around the corner.  It is more that I have moments where I just want to be normal.  I don’t want to have fair skin and speak with a funny accent.  I don’t want to have to think while watching telenovelas because it isn’t in English.  Then 20 minutes after I mentally list everything that is bothering me about this country I get offered a glass of mango juice fresh from the mango tree that I am sitting under.  While drinking my juice I realize how absolutely awesome it is that I currently call Paraguay home. Outside of my new house I have 2 types of mango trees, grape vines, banana trees, apple trees, and a grapefruit tree.  I could stop buying groceries and live off of the fruit I can pick from my window.  Crazy!

I have been told the first 3 to 6 months in site are the hardest, even harder for Ag and EE volunteers because we come right at Christmas and right at the start of summer when it is too hot to do anything but sweat and the kids aren’t even in school.  Luckily Paraguay has a very laid back attitude about work and often times I am told I am ‘guapa’ (hard-working) just for eating food.

Speaking of food there is another aspect of Paraguay that baffles me.  The women here love to feed me.  They enjoy nothing more than having me try something they cooked (they literally cook 4 different things, all fried and with inappropriate amounts of salt).  If I don’t eat the mountain of food they put in front of me they ask if I am on a diet, or worried that my boyfriend won’t like me if I am fat.  They then complain I don’t like their food and guilt me into eating more, when I honestly stopped eating because I was full.  They have now started telling me that I am a little more ‘gordita’ than when I arrived.  I explain to them that the reason is I am eating more than I am comfortable with and they just laugh.  This is another reason that I am thrilled to be in my own house where I can finally control what I eat! If I never see another batch of fried cow fat I will die happy.

List of random food I have eaten in Paraguay: Cow foot (ligaments inside the hoof), cow brain, cow cheek, cow tongue, cow stomach, pig blood sausage.

They really like to eat the entire cow. The tongue was creepy because it feels like you are accidentally chewing your tongue and eating it and the cow cheek tasted the best.   

Asi Es...

I have officially passed the four-month mark in Paraguay! I finally moved out of my original homestay family in site.  It was a little frustrating because I had planned to move out in the beginning of January but the women that wanted me to live with them kept having conflicts.  This is understandable except every time I had asked them when they wanted me to move in each of them said, “Cuando vos quieres! No me importa!” (When you want! It doesn’t matter to me.) This was obviously not the case.  Finally Lourdes, the 27-year-old daughter of Ña Julia, just told me that she wanted me to move in on Monday and stay a week.  The fact that someone had finally given me a definitive date was awesome!

So when Monday came I went to Salto Cristal, an awesome waterfall with some people in my VAC, and changed houses in the afternoon.  The week that I stayed with Lourdes and Ña Julia might have been my favorite week so far in Paraguay.  The main reason for this was they didn’t treat me like a guest, they expected me to do work so they gave me work to do. I peeled mandioca, made cheese, milked cows, swept the dirt, and made Jelly.  I also shared a room with Lourdes, except when her boyfriend came, and then I shared it with Ña Julia.  Oddly, this didn’t bother me at all. 

I also finally figured out my housing and will be living in the original house that I wanted to live in.  I am going to move into my new house in just over a week!  I love Paraguay so far and I have really enjoyed the time that I am spending in site but I really need to move into my own house. Paraguayans forget that I am actually a person and not an object here solely to entertain them.  For example, my town is in the middle of a huge drought.  Only 3 people in town still have water in their wells and the rest of us are walking to a well that is at the bottom of a hill where there used to be a house to carry water back to the houses.  This is not fun.  The other day I accidentally accepted an invitation to “banar” in a tiny stream in the middle of a random German man’s field.  In Paraguay “banar” means not only to bathe but also to swim.  I later realized when I arrived with an 8 year old, her aunt in her mid-40’s, and her adoptive mom in her 60’s all at the stream that I was actually bathing there that day.  The two Paraguayan women spent the time washing clothes and concurrently watching me bathe.  Literally these women were talking about everything from my skin tone to my weight.  To them it wasn’t a big deal but to me it was pretty rude and I didn’t appreciate it.

Hopefully the people here eventually get past my novelty and we can actually start working together. I have realized that I have one of the more unorganized communities.  There are families that are super hard working but there are no committees or groups that meet regularly.  This poses a challenge for me because it is a town full of women that love to gossip and I can’t seem to find a neutral meeting ground to try and get them to come together to work.  At least the gossip gives us something to do during the hot summer days!

Housing in Paraguay

The Peace Corps has different rules in every country regarding volunteer housing.  In Peace Corps Peru volunteers have to live with a host family during their entire 2 years of service.  Peace Corps Paraguay allows volunteers to move into independent housing after 3 months in site, or after receiving permission from their program director.  Independent housing is actually encouraged for volunteers, which is awesome.  Most volunteers move into their own housing after their site presentation, which occurs after about a month and a half in site. This means that one of the jobs of the volunteer once they get into site is to find a house that they can rent.  The Peace Corps will not place a volunteer in a site unless there is an option for independent housing.  My option that was approved by the Peace Corps was perfect.  It was next to my neighbor, Na Julia, who I really like and it had access to what is essentially an outdoor water faucet (a big deal when your site doesn’t have running water).  Unfortunately, the owner of the house only wanted to rent out half of the house (which was fine with me) but he wanted to be able to stay in the other half whenever he visited.  My boss had a problem with this and said no, so my new house hunt began. 

The next house I found looked promising.  The only issue is that this house doesn’t have access to water.  No well, no faucet, nothing.  This means that I would have to walk over to my neighbors and bring water from her well back to my house every day.  Not a huge deal but obviously not ideal.  I spoke to the owner and found out how much they wanted each month for the house and it is absurd! Granted it is only around $120 a month but keep in mind that I make around $300 a month.  Every volunteer that I have spoken to about the price has been completely outraged. I absolutely cannot afford to pay that, especially since it is 3 times what the other family wanted for their house that actually came with a water source. 

My contact then came up with a different solution.  There is a run down house in the front part of her yard that her mother lived in.  Unfortunately, no one has lived there since her mother died, except of course the ants and creatures that have taken up residence.  The house needs a new roof, a new floor, new concrete on the walls, and I would have to build a bathroom.  However, she said they would run their water supply (they have a motorized well) up to the house so I could have easier access to water and I wouldn’t have to pay rent (probably because of how much money I would have to put into the house).  

Now I have to go talk to my boss and see what she thinks.  I have no idea what I am going to do; I just know that I cannot live with a host family for 2 years because I will actually go crazy.  So far it has been almost 4 months of living with different families and the families have all been awesome, I just have no space that is mine.  My dresser in this house is ¾ full of the family’s things and they are constantly coming in and out of the room to get things and use the electrical outlets.  I completely understand since they are being kind enough to let me stay in one of their bedrooms and sometimes they have 8 people sleeping in the other bedroom but it is still hard to not have a space that is your own.  Hopefully I will be able to talk to my boss and either start fixing up the house that is completely run down or negotiate with the people that are pretty blatantly trying to take advantage of the new American in town.  Until then it looks like I am going to start house hopping.  I have 4 different families that want me to live with them so starting in a few weeks I am going to be moving around a lot more.  Hopefully constantly moving will keep me busy and help the time pass until I figure out where I am going to live!

Fixer upper 

Fixer upper again

House that my boss said no to

House that wants to rip me off.

I just want a house...