2013!!!

Hello blog readers! Welcome to 2013! There are a lot of jumbled up thoughts in my head about how to start/write this blog so I’m just going to wing it. One of my New Years Resolutions is to blog more. I think I started out my service pretty strong and since then I’ll halfway write a blog and never post it – well no more! You guys are going to get tired of me and have to stop following me (I have no idea if you ‘follow’ blogs but it seems right). 

For me, 2013 has already been a pretty awesome year.  It started off in America! I was lucky enough to be home for the holidays this year.  I spent Christmas in Powder Springs, Ga and then made my way down to Florida with my parents.  Elijah (American boyfriend who is also a PCV) also managed to meet me down in Florida.  He is a brave soul and agreed to spend 5 days with my parents on an island that is only accessible by boat or plane.  Little did he know that he was even luckier and my protective, self-proclaimed red neck uncle also joined us at the beach! Although there were threats of pool cue beatings, Elijah managed to make it through the trip unharmed.  He also caught a 6ft lemonhead shark, which helped inspire some male bonding.  Enough about America, you guys don’t read this blog to hear about how a 24 year old is doing in America; you just want to hear about how I poop in a hole in Paraguay.

I think part of the reason that my blogging has taken a hit is because I feel like I don’t have exciting things to post about.  This is most likely because after a year I have forgotten that most of the things in my everyday life aren’t normal.  I never used to burn my toilet paper, or be able to identify the scream of a pig being castrated.  Somehow life in Paraguay is routine; I have no idea when it happened but at some point I just started shrugging my shoulders and rolling with it. 

All that being said I am going to do my best to pull out the actually normal stories from the Paraguayan normal stories and post more blogs.  If no one actually reads them, that’s okay, I’ll still have this blog to look back on as a reminder of events in my life.  Plus, if I don’t have anything to blog about I can just put up pictures of Copper. Yes, she is coming home with me next December, and no, she won’t be quarantined.

To finish up this blog I am going to post the answer to the most common questions that were asked of me in the states:

Do you live with a family? No. I live about 20 yards from a family in their son’s house. He is working in a different part of the country. 

Do you really poop in a hole? Kind of. It’s sort of like a concrete block with a slope in it that is located inside of a little house.  I hate it. Ants live in it.

What do you normally eat? Popcorn. I eat a lot of popcorn. I also have 4 laying hens that give me an egg a day each so my egg intake has bumped up as well. If not popcorn I’ll make a rice and veggie dish.

Do you have internet at your site? No. A lot of volunteers have internet modems that they use in site but to my frustration my site doesn’t have a good enough signal. I go into town to use the internet.

How do you get to town? I have about a 4km walk that takes between 45-50 minutes. When I get to the main road I wait for a bus, from there it’s 15 minutes to the nearest internet café. If I don’t want to take a bus I can go 10km to go to a different town but they don’t have an internet café.

How often do you see other volunteers? There is a radio show in a town that is about 45 minutes away by bus every Monday. I don’t go to it as often as I’d like but if I am feeling lonely I can go and see other Americans. Other than that I usually leave site to spend the night in Asuncion or go see Elijah every 2 – 3 weeks.

What language do you speak? Paraguay has 2 official languages, Spanish and Guarani. I speak mainly Spanish but understand some Guarani. Another New Years Resolution of mine is to study more Guarani.

Are you happy? I have loved my time in Paraguay. I think it’s been really good for me as a person. I am more independent and tougher than when I left. I actually am really happy here. That being said, I love America and can’t wait to be back.

Would you recommend Peace Corps to someone else? DO IT! Peace Corps has been awesome. However, you know yourself and what you are capable of. If you can’t poop in a hole and would die before shitting your pants then Peace Corps probably isn’t for you.

What’s been your low point in Paraguay? Shitting my pants while living with a host family*.

If you are wondering about all of the ‘poop in a hole’ comments then you can blame my mother. I made the mistake of showing her this video when I was home and she had me show everyone. The song, and the phrase, are now stuck in my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUWaAr-itY

Also, this song is true in just about everything it says.

*I wrote this blog on 1/5, when this was indeed my low point. However, while traveling into Asuncion I fainted on a bus and was held up by a random Paraguayan. This may be my new Paraguayan low point.

See you guys in December!

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!