long overdue updates!

dear friends and family, i am long overdue for a blog post. i apologize for my lag in writing! I’ve been writing in my journal, a lot, but haven’t had the time or mental space to sit down and write a complete entry here. I really tried a few times – for instance, on February 10^th when I was staying at a hostel. I wrote:

hello dear ones. Hola from asuncion, el capital. I am writing from the back yard of a lovely little hostel in the Centro. This weekend I went into the city after being in my site for over a month and not leaving! I am proud of myself.

And it stopped there. It was an attempt! I think I was too distracted, going to Asunción is its own culture shock coming from the campo, and there is just so much to talk about when I’m finally hanging out with other volunteers, and speaking English. 

I think it may be easier for me to list some updates and random experiences I’ve had over the past few months of being in my community:

11.   I moved into my own little casita! I live in a little house that used to be the grandmother’s of the Gonzalez Garcia family, which is on their property. This means I basically have a whole new family – with 7 sisters and one brother, and one of the sisters (she’s also 25) has a 4-year old girl. It’s wonderful to have my own space, but I’m even more in the “fish bowl” because everybody (the family, and neighbors) visits, wants to know what I’m doing at every second, and can watch me as they pass by or just gawk from their front yard. I shouldn’t complain, really, because it usually means I get free food with every visit.  Living on my own also means that I cook my own (vegetarian!!) food, and eat when I want. I love my brand new little oven with two burners. I’ve been baking a lot of pan dulce de banana (banana bread) and random other things it’s wonderful. I’ve been sharing my food I cook a lot too (especially pan dulce and cakes) – and I think will be the main way that I bond with the family and neighbors, through food.

32.  I’ve finally gone back to no meat, except for when I eat with families I visit and they feed me more chicken then I could ever eat in one sitting. I basically am known now to not eat any meat, and I’m glad for it. When I lived with families in their homes I tried almost everything, including pig intestine, fried pig fat, cow organs, cow neck meat, crocodile, eel, and I’m sure other things I couldn’t identify. I still haven’t had armadillo, but it’s common apparently to eat in the campo. I have some chicken frozen in my freezer right now that was given to me as a gift, and I think I’ll save it for when I have some other volunteers visit. It’s been a very weird experience, this eating meat business, and Paraguayans just don’t really understand a vegetarian diet. The most popular dish for any kind of party or special occasion is asado (BBQ) of either pig or cow, with mandioca, sopa paraguaya (kind of like corn bread) and rice salad that has the teeniest amount of vegetables and a TON of mayonnaise.

(This is a photo from my host sister's 15th birthday bash - can you spot the pig head?)

43. I started my own garden next to my house with the help of some awesome community members. I’ve been slowly getting it prepared to plant tons of veggies – so far I have a starter bed with onions and lettuce that aren’t doing so well with the heat, and seedlings I’m waiting to coming up of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, kale, beets, and something else I cant remember. I also have one little cilantro plant I transplanted from the first host family’s garden. I’m excited to grow things although it’s also a lot of pressure – if things die or don’t go well, everyone will know about it. On the other hand, if my permaculture techniques are wildly successful – everyone will know about it. It’s a little Peace Corps technique – using a demo plot to experiment with sustainable gardening and agricultural practices and thus demonstrate them to the community. Wish me luck!

54. I’ve been continuing my English and yoga classes, although right now my yoga “classes” have been just me and a couple of my hermanas at my house doing yoga in the evening. It’s getting dark earlier now, and its’ hard to get my students to stay for yoga after English class lately. There are fewer students now, but the ones that come almost every class remember a lot, and it’s so amazing to see the learning process! It makes me think about teaching in the future, and definitely appreciate the teachers I know in my life – it’s hard work.

There’s so much more to write about, but it’s time for bed right now – it’s after 10pm. I think I’m waking up early to go and harvest cotton with my neighbor Edgar and his wife Lili – they are in their early 30s. I had dinner with them tonight and the family which was a shared meal of some squash/potato soup I made last night and a Paraguayan dish that is basically a corn mash with cheese. My next blog entry I will be describing (with photos) how I made dulce de guayaba (guava jam) with some of the sisters today. I haven’t cooked the small amount I saved to try to sweeten with honey instead of sugar yet (they used 3 kilos of sugar! for 6 kilos of guava). More food talks soon, especially about the staggering amount of sugar that is in the diet here. 

Hope this finds you well and lots of love :)

el tarde es largo (the afternoon is long)

Buen dia! I’m writing from Coronel Oviedo, where I am for the day and night to have a meeting and down-time with some fellow peace corps volunteers that are in my VAC (volunteer action committee?) and live in the same area of Paraguay. I’ve been in my site for over a month now and the integration thing is getting easier – although there are things that I am still struggling with and probably will for most of my service. I’ve been moving around a bit now – I haven’t moved myself entirely but I am in the process of moving to a new family’s house that is close to the center of La Novia and right across the street from the Club Social which is a meeting place and entertainment space basically in the community. It’s super lindo and has a nice brick floor space that I have now started to use for my evening yoga classes! (Check my facebook for pictures!)

I talk about yoga with basically everyone in my site because I really want to get exercise myself and also work on health and nutrition especially with kids and women here. An idea was born to start teaching yoga after my newly started English classes that I’ll be holding right now four times a week. It was incredibly inspiring and also overwhelming to be in front of so many Paraguayans who are eager to learn and also think everything I do is just hilarious or curious. I just happened to go to Nueva Londres (the small town next to La Novia) one day last week, and my Paraguayn friend Marizol took me to the local radio station to talk to one of the radio hosts, Rafa, and see if I can eventually do some work with the radio station. He ended up interviewing me on his show (called Amistad y Tradicion) and I announced that I was starting English classes and also teaching yoga at the club social in La novia. Since that morning, he’s been announcing the class and so on Thursday evening for the first one – 30 people showed up! It was crazy, I didn’t even realize how much of an influence the radio could have. Young people from 7 years old to 20 something and also some senoras came from 3 of the neighboring pueblos and also from the La novia. We started with the alphabet, and I’ve never taught English in my life except for a few words here and there through my travels in Latin America. We shall see how it goes! There are peace corps materials I have available to me to use for lessons, so I’ll be going off of those and then just what my students (!!) are excited about learning or need/want to work on. I’m excited to already have a side project, and especially because it involves also doing lots of yoga as well.

All in all I am in a great place right now and although I miss vegetables terribly and Guaraní gives me the worst headache - especially at the 2-hour long women’s committee meeting where 25 senoras are talking over each other in guarani and change subjects every 2 minutes – and I’m happy about (probably too much so) having working internet in my site finally. It’s not the fastest internet ever, and I think skyping may be too hard to do with the connection. But expect me to be in touch more now! Although I shouldn’t be spending all my time on the internet. It’s just so damn hot out all the time so taking a 3 or 4-hour siesta is totally legit. At least in my book. 

Oh and one last on my title for this entry - it's a phrase I've heard a lot here at lunch time when I say that I can't eat all that I'm given on my plate. "The afternoon is long" - so you better eat up basically, since dinner isn't til 8:30pm and most Paraguayans just eat milk and bread or fried tortillas for dinner. Luckily my meals have been mostly vegetarian (which means chicken usually) and there's also a merienda (snack) at some point in after my siesta. I definitely am not going hungry here, that's for sure. Anyways, more soon loves hope all is well. 

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. 

Swear-in day!!

The day has finally arrived. Today I will swear-in as an agricultural extension Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. I’m feeling nervous and excited and still in disbelief that this has been real life. We’ve been tested in more ways than one to ensure we have the technical and language skills to start us off in our sites. Wednesday was a final “exam” of sorts as we sat under the great big mango tree at our centro’i (in Guarani you add ‘i to the ends of words to signify little – the little centro or center) in Cumbarity, the training community where I’ve been living. The exam consisted of forming teams of two people and answering questions about training in both Guarani and Spanish. Niko and I came in 3^rd place (we called ourselves Tavyrai – or crazy in Guarani) and the winners received two giant watermelons. Fruit is starting to be in startling abundance – the trees are heavy with mangoes everywhere you look and on the side of road basically anywhere you can find bigger watermelons than I’ve ever seen in my life.

Even though I was deemed to be able to converse in Guarani at an intermediately middle level, I am still wondering how the heck I’m going to communicate about anything other than the weather (Hakueterei - it is so hot) and when I brush my teeth (Che arambosa rire ajecepilla - after breakfast I brush my teeth…). I also am constantly saying something that has a double meaning and making my host family crack up laughing while I stare at them dumbly not sure exactly what part was funny. For example, if you say che haku instead of just ‘haku’ when it’s hot, that basically means you are very hot in a sexual way.

A taste of Guarani:

Che (shay) – I

Nde (nnnday) – You

Ha’e (ha’eh) – him/her/them

Che arambosa = I eat breakfast

Nde rerambosa = You eat breakfast

Ha’e orambosa = He/she/they eat breakfast

What is frustrating about the language, which I just can’t wrap my head around, is the lack of the verb “to be”. When you say che haku you’re just saying “I hot” and not “I am so hot”. Its going to take some getting used to, I kept searching for a way to say “I am” in classes and it’s just easier to give in to the simplicity. Ohh Guarani. Most people speak primarily Guarani in La Novia (my site) and they understand or speak Spanish as well. Ideally after a few months or you know, at the end of two years, I will be fluent in Guarani. It’s necessary for me to speak it to work with the community and have people see that I’m actually interested in their lives and culture. One of my technical trainers Jonathan describes it in this way – speaking Spanish with Paraguayans is like watching black and white TV, and speaking Guarani is like watching in color (maybe even 3-D!). There’s a world of a difference, even though I find myself thinking b-b-but why can’t we just speak Spanish!? It would be so much easier…

Nothing about the Peace Corps is really supposed to be easy, and as I start this journey of the next 24 months I will be reminding myself that it is through the hard times that I will learn the most. I am making a commitment tomorrow to serve the people of Paraguay and the community of La Novia, represent the United States in the best way possible, and be part of a sustainable developmental process that focuses on people and their needs.

Thank you to everyone who helped me get where I am right now – family, friends, colleagues, professors, mentors, instructors, trainers, people I’ve met traveling and couch surfing, fellow travelers, everyone. I am so grateful to have the people I do in my life and for the opportunities I’ve had and the biggest one that is right in front of me. On Monday I will be moving into my site, and for the first three months be living with different families in order to integrate. After that I will have my own little house, and will really begin my own life in Paraguay working in agricultural extension. Stay with me as I embark on this journey, and know that I am thinking of you from the heart of south America. Lot of love! 

Hola de nuevo

 

Hola de Nuevo :) Hope you’re all doing well. I am writing from the training center in Guarambare, where just yesterday I found out that I will be moving to La Novia (yes, the girlfriend), a small town of about 50 households in the district of Nueva Londres in the department of Caaguazu. I am excited to go visit my site and will be leaving tomorrow to meet my community contact(s) and spend about 4-5 days in site! It’s crazy that this is happening so soon, but also we’ve been waiting since day 1 to find out where we will be living as volunteers for the next two years. Training has been a little world of its own, where it is not at all indicative of my actual life as a volunteer in agricultural extension. I am with 50 other Americans basically every day, and have my entire day from 7am to 5pm rupi (around) scheduled and almost every minute accounted for. Contrast that to my soon to be life where every moment is lived in the present and nothing is planned (well some things will be planned but not like this) and everything is tranquilo. 

I don't have time to post more - but I will be gone without internet til next Wednesday and then celebrating Thanksgiving at the US Embassy in Asuncion on Thursay! Happy thanksgiving everyone and lots of love!!!! I'll be thinking of you :)

xoxo

ps
the pic above is of me outside my homestay