Getting Flinntimate with the local Guays.: 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!