moving to la novia

Hola dear wonderful people who happen to be reading my blog! I am writing from asuncion in my hotel having terrible coffee and some bread and fruit to fuel me for my trip back to la novia (my site).  I was in the capital this weekend to attend a peace corps event called ahendu (in guarani this means ‘I listen’) which entails volunteer committee meetings during the day at the office, and then an open-mic fundraiser in the evening at a bar downtown.  I actually had been in my site for only 4 days before I trekked back to Asuncion, but I wanted to come back into town to collect some things I wasn’t able to bring with me the first time, and also see some volunteers before they swore out and left the country – like my awesome mentor sybil. It also was comforting to reunite with some friends my training group and have a fun weekend going out to ahendu, going to the movies, and relishing in the air conditioning before we go back to our sites. It will probably be 3-4 months before we all are together again, and also before I’m back in asuncion. Although – anything can happen really when you’re in the peace corps. Life changes so quickly and people come and go so fast it’s hard to catch up.

I’m really excited to get to my site and start figuring things out in la novia. There are about 50-55 households and a lot of those are families that are related. My counterpart, Lucia, has a family of 10 – all sisters! Paraguayans have HUGE families, it’s almost impossible to remember everyone’s names. I started a list in my notebook and I have to reference it in secret to make sure I’m getting someone’s husband or child’s name right. I am living with a new host family right now probably until after the new year – 2013 what!? – and then move to a different families house to get to know more people in the community.  Right now its my host mom Dona Petrona, her husband Don Silvio, their son Juan who is 22, her sister Dona Silvina, her daughter Luz Maria who is 11, and the grandmother who is in her late 80s and only speaks guarani. I’ve already gotten project ideas with Don Silvio for agroforestry, designing their garden plot and to keep records of planting and methods, and to build a worm box in their garden to use lombriculture. He’s super guapo and I’m excited to work with him. Dona Petrona is the treasurer of the women’s committee I’m working with, and goes to the farmers market with her sister and the president of the committee in Coronel Oviedo (the closest big city about 30 minutes away from La Novia) every Tuesday and Saturday to sell food – empanadas, chicken soup, chicken milanesa (breaded and fried) and sometimes fruit.

I will be heading into my site very soon, and will have internet when I go into Oviedo to use an internet café. I probably wont have wireless until the end of January when my site presentation is and my boss comes to formally “present” me to my community and reinforce what it is peace corps is doing in Paraguay and what my role is as an agriculture extension volunteer.

I have to run to pack up and catch my bus but I will write again next week! Lots of love and happy holidays! I can’t believe it’s going to be Christmas when its 105 degrees out. Oh, Paraguay.