Thursday, February 7, 2013

Ahecha

As I publically announced on my blog my New Year’s Resolution was to blog more.  I then successfully wrote and posted one blog.  Two days later, my computer died the true death.  This effectively put an end to my blogging ambitions. I am currently at the Peace Corps Office using an official government computer (so fancy). 
January has actually been a pretty exciting month for me. I did a project with the kids in my community called ‘Ahecha’, which means ‘I see’ in Guaraní.  The program allows a Peace Corps volunteer to borrow a kit containing 4 digital cameras and books about teaching photography.  I had 6 kids take the course with me; I wish there had been more but my site is small and it is summer down here so it was a little harder to organize.
The kids loved it. I have probably 600 photos of my entire community. This is also helpful because I am terrible at remembering to bring my camera with me and now these kids took pictures for me! My next few blogs (when they finally happen) should hopefully have lots of pictures! There were 3 girls in the group and they seemed to love having an excuse to hang out with me so I am going to start a girls group in my site. Granted the group will consist of only 4 of us but I think they will really enjoy it!
Another big thing in my site is that I am starting a group! My site consists of about 30 families and there is no organized group.  This is important in Paraguay because if you form a group you can do projects and request funding from the government to help.  Individually these families will not receive help but together they can do a lot.  I started inviting people to my meeting about 4 weeks in advance. I also had been talking about starting a group for around 2 months.  I wanted to have time to visit everyone in my community so that no one could claim I didn’t invite them.  The day before and day of the meeting I ran around my site like a crazy person. I was cutting my lawn with a machete and scissors, sweeping my dirt, and reminding everyone about the meeting.  The meeting was held at my house and I am very pleased to say that it was more successful than I even dreamed!
There were 13 people present at the meeting, 9 different families were represented.  We decided to form a commission and started making rules for the group.  My main concern was that the group be formally recognized by the government and that we have attendance rules; the group wanted to know what we could do.  The women voted (unanimously) on a chicken coop project.  We appointed positions and tasks to different members and decided that if more people were interested they could join for the next meeting.  We are going to continue meeting every 2 weeks, at my house.  A lot of the people in my site think that groups won’t work, because they never have in the past. I am hoping that my being there will help lower the gossip rates and allow us to keep the group together. Jahechata! (We will see)
Now, ahecha photos:
Main road in my community

Veiw from the field


Junior in his new house!


Josius and Jani playing on a fence

Favorite old man in site

4 comments:

  1. when you reference your computer's 'true death', please tell me you had true blood in mind...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I always have true blood on my mind, eric in particular.

      Delete
  2. So happy you've had some successful projects! Can't wait for you to get back. Also I want to skype soon! Funny stories to tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That sucks about your computer, Maggie!! I hope you have plans to somehow get a new one? Let me know if I can help!
    Congrats on all your success on site. I will call you soon.

    ReplyDelete