Hello friends and family! It's
officially been a month since I've arrived in Paraguay and I'm finally sitting
down to write my first blog post in country. I’m at the Peace Corps training
office in a small town outside of Asuncion and there is wireless internet, so a
bunch of us are escaping the brutal heat outside and using the air conditioning
and internet to catch up with people and get our internet fix. I don’t even
know where to begin with how this past month has been, it feels like forever
already – my days are packed full of an intensive training schedule for
language (Guarani), technical training in agriculture, and cultural immersion
that includes safety and medical trainings and lectures. This past month or so
has been a whirlwind of hugging goodbyes, plane rides, and bus trips; new language,
food and dietary changes, new friends, new soil, and so much more.
I’ve been training with 26 other
agriculture volunteers, and we are distributed between two satellite-training
communities where we each live with a host family and have our meals with our
family each day. My host family is great- there is Dona Carmen, Don Porfirio,
their neice Estela and her two-month year old son Ivan. The house is modest,
and I feel like a princess because I have my own room and bathroom (with a hot
water shower!) and the four of them share one bedroom with two big beds. I’m
totally spoiled right now. I am going to enjoy it while I have it though. The
food has been definitely interesting so far – but overall great. I started eating
some meat before I left before Paraguay because I knew I would have to adjust
to eating it again – after over 10 years of vegetarianism, a quick stint in
veganism, and then fluctuating between pescatarian and completely vegetarian
more recently. It’s been quite interesting and eating fish and chicken is the
easiest for me, I actually seek out chicken now in order to get protein since
the thought of eating pork or beef is unsettling for my stomach and my mind.
I’ve had pasta dishes with my host family that have the tiniest pieces of beef
in it and that is easier to stomach, but a huge hunk of beef asado (basically,
BBQ) is not something that is even remotely appetizing to me. Paraguayans
definitely love their meat and it’s a part of the culture. However, there are a
number of Paraguayan vegetarian dishes and I plan to become a culinary expert
in these over the next two years J
Since the internet is not reliable for
me right now, it’s hard to say how frequently I’ll be able to post. However, I
will try to post at least once a month and ideally every two weeks or even more
if I have regular internet. I will be staying with my current host family (the
Aldana family) until swear-in as a volunteer which is December 7th,
in Asuncion. After that, I will move to a new host family in my future site
where I will live for two years to carry out my service. After three months
with that family, I can choose to move into my own place. I don’t know what I
will decide yet, but I am definitely leaning towards finding my own little
shack so I can eat what I want and when I want, and also set up internet and
have a little more consistent contact with people. We will receive a wireless
USB connector when we swear-in as volunteers, and until then I only have
internet when I’m in the main training center – which is a couple days a week
now.
I’ll be traveling a week from tomorrow
on my long site visit, which is a trip that involves doing work that a
volunteer is currently working on and I will have language class each day while
I’m on that visit. The short site visit I went on with my fellow trainee Erin
was to visit Lauralee and you can see pictures on my Facebook of us on that
trip! It was totally tranquilo (calm, cool) and so much fun – it made me
excited to get to my site and live on my own in Paraguay and carve out my own
little life here. I think that the long site visit will be great and a real
hands-on experience to help me grasp what I am really getting myself into the
next two years. It will also prove to me how much I need to work on my Guarani
skills – which is getting better every day.
Speaking of Guarani – that is the
reason this post is titled as such – mba’eichapa is the most valuable phrase to
know, it means “how are you?” and I say it dozens of times a day when I meet
and greet people in my classes and in the community.
I’ll have to wrap up this post now –
and I had to actually write most of this off-line as the internet at the
training center cut out and we weren’t able to re-start the router since the
room was locked. Thank goodness for my friend Julia who already purchased a wireless
USB port J
I may decide to do that – but it’s expensive for right now and may not be the
right company that I will eventually want to use in my future site.
Anyways, I will conclude with one last
thing which is I am completely in LOVE with the Paraguayan skies – the sunsets
and sunrises are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The only thing
that is missing I’ve been realizing is an ocean! It’s quite bizarre to have the
wind blowing and just get the feeling I am near the beach, and then realize I am
no where near any major body of water. Unless you count the river that was my
street on Friday morning after an intense storm that monsoon rained for hours
on end. There are lakes and rivers nearby and all over Paraguay, but definitely
don’t replace the ocean. Anyways, I am not complaining because I love this
country’s beauty for what it is – but let’s just say I will be ecstatic to see
the beach again on any coast when that happens J
Hopefully you’ll see more pictures on
my blog but also I’ve posted a number of pictures on my Facebook as well. If we
aren’t friends on there, please friend me! It’s an easy way to be in touch J and definitely easier
to receive messages there since my gmail (mterry13) is so full of junk mail
that it’s hard to sort through the messages.
Sending all my love to all of you back
home and friends and family that are all over the US and beyond. Abrazos para
todos and I am thinking of you all. Thank you for your support, prayers, and
love!
More soon J
Xoxo
Meagan
