On Monday morning I left my home
here in Tacuruty and traveled to the southeastern part of Paraguay. For four days each of us were assigned a
current Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) to go and stay with to see what they do in
a normal day. I was assigned to another
environmental volunteer named Porter and he has been in country for about a
year and been in his site a year in December.
His site is a very “campo” site which just means he is out in the
countryside. Porter is actually from
Virginia and has his masters from VA Tech and worked for VA department of
forestry collecting FIA data, so we had a lot in common. I traveled to Villarica on a bus and met
Porter there where we got lunch and did a little bit of grocery shopping. He also showed me around the markets and a
local park since we had a little bit of time before our next bus left. Our next bus left Villarica and went towards
his site. It was a two hour bus ride
with about 1 hour on “pavement” that turned into cobblestone road then gravel
and then finally to dirt/mud road. It
wouldn’t have been a bad ride except for the wooden seats that seemed to get
harder as we went along with no padding on the bad roads. We drove through some small campo towns but
nothing too substantial and went over a “bridge” over a river that was actually
just a wooden structure with no sides and signs that said DANGER so I just
stopped looking down and said a little prayer but we got across with no difficulties.
When Porter said to get up and
start moving to the front of the bus I looked outside and we were in the middle
of NOWHERE but it was so beautiful with green rolling hills and lots of animals
(cows, chicken, pigs, etc.). So we got
off and started our trek/hike into his site.
There is a “shortcut” through the fields so we went through several
different farmers’ fields with cattle going through the fences and then went
over a small creek, up a huge hill and about a 30 minute walk from where we got
off the bus we arrived at his house. Porter
actually built his house on his host families land since he is the first
volunteer in that community and I will try to post pictures later but it is a
very nice house with a kitchen and bedroom with running water, a hot shower,
and an outhouse that actually has a normal toilet with running water. The house was really nice especially compared
to many others in the area especially since he had running water and
electricity. His host families’ house
was located about 100 feet from his house so we spent a lot of time with
them. Also he had internet and phone
access which just blows my mind but was fun to have.
His site is called 3 de Noviembre
which isn’t really any city or specific place but rather a region. His community is very spread out through a
series of mud roads and the main economy is growing yerba mate which is a tree
that they harvest the leaves off of and what everyone in Paraguay drinks at any
time of the day (Terere and Mate). There
was also a lot of cassava grown in the region and many people had their own few
banana and orange trees. Porter’s main
project is trying to get people interested in biodigestors which would give
farmers a way to make fertilizer and gas using the byproducts (poop) of their
animals, mainly cattle. I had worked/
seen many biodigestors in Costa Rica so it was cool to see that this is a
project worked on by the Peace Corps here in Paraguay. At this point in his service he has just been
getting people interested and has two families which he has applied and received
a grant for funding to install 2 biodigestors which will occur over the next
year. He is also putting together an
information session for other people to come and learn about biodigestors to
try and promote their use in the area. His
other main project is working in the schools which he does once a week helping
them set up a school garden for the high school.
The first full day on site we
walked about 5 km through the community to reach one of the families that he
has worked with. It seems like for
everyone about half their time is spent sitting in a circle drinking Terere
because it helps cool you off/ hydrate as well as the entire social aspect of communicating. So we spent the first hour or so doing that
and then went with the farmer into his peach orchard and helped him pick
peaches for a couple of hours which is hard work and the peach fuzz gets
everywhere but we had fun picking peaches and eating those that wouldn’t
transport well. He sells his peaches in
the closest town so he takes them in about once per week but he had probably
around 250 peach trees. When we filled
the baskets we had we went back to the house and drank Terere again and were
able to eat lunch there. Porter has it
figured out that if you arrive at someone’s house in the morning and stay until
about lunch time the senora will always invite you for lunch so he goes to
different houses every day to get lunch, which is a good plan because you
always get good food from different houses.
J
After lunch we helped him pick some
more peaches and he took us to another piece of property that he owned so we
looked at that. The area is just
beautiful with small mountains in the background with rolling hills but sadly
much of the land has been deforested and put into production for either cattle
or soy beans. The farmer we were with
had cut about half the trees out of the forest and then put way too many cattle
in the woods so the understory is pretty much nonexistent and he is now running
into the problem of there not being enough grass/ plants for his cows to
eat. The other field we toured he had
pigs down in the bottoms where the creek was and they were just tearing up
everything and polluting the water but I don’t think he realized the water
quality issues. We ended the day helping
him dig up cassava which is a tree that you harvest the roots from which is a
staple here in Paraguay. Overall though
it was a good day talking to him with my limited Spanish skills but I could
tell how proud he was of his property and although it might not be running
sustainably for the future he is providing for his large family and is so proud
of that. He also had the largest cabbage
plants that I had ever seen growing in his garden!
On Wednesday morning we walked to the
high school which was about 3 km from the house and there we worked with around
10 students to help put in their garden.
They didn’t get the project started until about a month ago and school
will be getting out in about 2 months for summer break so they are not really
planting a lot but rather getting the beds dug out and will be planting abono
verdes (which are just plants that are cover crops, some of which add N to the
soil, help protect from soil erosion, and some can actually be harvested like some
types of beans). For that morning at the
school we were just trying to dig one bed about 1 mx 3m double dug with the
addition of a lot of compost and organic matter. About ¼ of the students were actually
interested and willing to help so for the others we had to keep giving them
tasks, and still even then they didn’t really do anything. They are supposed to have school for 4 hours
a day (they either go in the morning or afternoon) so they go from 7-11 but
they have a ONE HOUR break from 9-10 so really they are only in school for 3
hours but even then school never starts on time and I doubt they have any more
than 2 hours of instruction in any given day, which is the sad truth. Working at the school though gave me a good
perspective about working in the schools and trying to set up a school garden
with not a lot of students interested.
After working in the schools for
the morning we walked just a little ways down to another house of one of the
families that will be receiving a biodigestors.
He has a wonderful garden where they grow their fresh vegetables and he
actually grows and sells the yerba mate plant to other local farmers. We walked around his farm awhile, drank more
Terere and then was “lucky” enough to be able to stay for lunch. After lunch he walked us to another part of
his property where he was digging for gold.
Evidently there is a huge deposit of gold here in Paraguay but
unfortunately they just don’t have the technology to extract it so instead
other companies from outside Paraguay come in with the expensive technology and
extract the gold. For the farmer that we
visited I know he paid a lot of money and had just an huge “hole” about the
size of a football field about 50 feet deep on his property and he was
disappointed that he hadn’t found gold, which I unfortunately don’t think he
will find with the limited equipment he has.
We talked to him for a while and then walked to another house for about
an hour or so followed by another on our way home. It seems like about half the time is just
spent sitting talking to people and allowing them to show you all of their land
and animals which they are so proud of.
On Thursday morning we left around
6:15 and walked back the “shortcut” to the road with a beautiful sunrise but
very wet grass (so I had wet feet all day).
I caught the bus back into Villarica and from there traveled back to my
house which took around 8 hours and I was completely exhausted when I finally
arrived home. Luckily though on my way
back to Asuncion we took the northern route instead of the southern one so I
was able to see an entirely new landscape.
Today (Friday) we are all together at the training center sharing what
we learned over the past few days and having more medical/ safety and security
lectures.
A few things I learned over the last week…
1.
ALL of the cats in Paraguay are named Michi
2.
The bathrooms on the bus are horrible so it’s
better to not eat or drink when you’re traveling; I learned this one the hard
way.
3.
Everyone stares at you when you’re the only
white person on the bus and no one will sit by you.
4.
It’s beginning to get hot (about 90’s) and
everyone keeps telling me to just wait because it really isn’t hot yet. L
5.
Paraguay countryside is BEAUTIFUL!
6.
The red clay does stain everything and my socks
will never be white again, but oh well!
My mom was horrified by how dirty I was when I got home since my shoes
were muddy and the bottom half of my pants were muddy but I didn’t really have
a choice so she insisted that I wash all my clothes which actually takes a lot
of time doing laundry by hand after a long day of travel.
7.
The insects must like pale skin because I was
eaten alive. My mom once again was
freaking out and had to touch all of my bites to make sure they weren’t boht
flies. She also wasn’t happy with all of
the sun I got because I am losing my “paleness”. She is just so funny sometimes!
8.
I am starting to lose some of my English words; I
know them in Spanish but for the life of me can’t remember in English. So I know my grammar/ spelling may be getting
bad, sorry.
Below you should see a few pictures of my volunteer visit and the house that Porter built as well as a few of the peaches we picked and the beautiful sunset.
No comments:
Post a Comment