Well I know many of you have been worried about me since I
haven’t posted for a while but out here I don’t have the best internet
connection. It is highly dependent on
the weather and quite frankly whatever else it feels like, so I am only
connection every few days or so, so you will have to be patient with me. From here on out I will probably only have a
blog post once or twice a month. So I
have officially been in my community, Yukyry Central, for about two weeks
now. So I am once again living with a host
family with Hugo (host dad), Mabel (host mom), and two sisters Pilar and Maria,
and then their cousin Teresa. So we have
a very full house now, especially with three female pre-teens! I will probably be living with them for three
months until I can move out on my own.
My first few days in site I hung around my host families
house a lot and just observed and helped out around the house. Hugo is a farmer here in the community since
school isn’t in session so he leaves usually before I get up and then doesn’t
return until dark. I have really enjoyed
watching him working with the oxen that pull the plow as well as a nice wagon,
when I look at the agriculture here it seems like I have stepped back in time. My host mom Mabel just works around the house
a lot and every morning she is outside sweeping the dirt all around the
house. The family here just throws
everything on the ground so all of the trash gets swept up. Mabel also is mainly responsible for milking
the cows and taking care of them during the day when Hugo is out working in the
fields. The girls are also constantly
busy mainly dealing with cleaning up mandio for consumption as well as shucking
dried corn for many of the animals around.
Every member of the family has a very important job to do! But don’t get me wrong there is plenty of
time to have fun as well.
It has been quite hot these last couple of weeks and we have
reached a high of 44°C. It is unlike
home in the US where you can just walk into the air conditioning and cool
off. So here I have been relying on cold
showers and fans that work. We do have
electricity here in my site but occasionally it decides to not work, but for
the most part it does. Also for some
reason our water has been pretty sporadic, so you always get a shower and fill
up the water bottle whenever possible. The
last couple of weeks I have been trying to get up early and go and walk around
the community before it gets too hot for the day. I have made a map of my community so far with
showing the houses, fields, major trees, etc.
Once I get back from my walk by around 9 am or so it is already
scorching hot so the rest of my day is pretty much just sitting around
underneath a shade tree drinking Terere and working on my language and
technical skills. It seems like this is
going to be pretty common the next few months since it is just such a scorcher
outside, but it is kind of a nice slow pace of life. I have also decided to just take off my watch
for a few months and just embrace the Paraguayan culture and life.
The last few days I have kind of been comparing living here
to camping. Although we do have a house
we spend the majority of our time outside.
We sleep inside the house but with the windows open and fans going, wake
up and go outside where our “dining room” is, and then spend the rest of the
day outside because the house is too hot to go into with the clay tiles. We take all of our meals outside and the only
things really in the house are the beds.
In the afternoon if it is cool enough right after lunch we go in to take
a quick nap which is only possible because by about 2 pm it is too hot to sleep
because you just wake up drenched in sweat.
I keep telling my host family I need to just move my bed outside but
they are worried about all the mosquitos at night. Also I made the mistake of putting my hammock
in long term storage so it will not be here until the end of January but then
it is for sure going up outside under the shade tree. We also have an outdoor kitchen where they
cook over a wood fire to try and keep the heat out of the house. We also have our outdoor “bathroom” (hole in
the ground) and shower hut. I love it so
far, it is nice to go outside at night and just look up at the sky which is
just so beautiful here without the light pollution, and it is crazy to think
that the stars down here are different from those back home, but they are. Also the sunsets here are spectacular; I just
need to start taking some pictures of them.
My family and community are very active in their local Catholic
church and for the ten days leading up until Christmas they have a devotional
service for about 30 minutes each night.
It has just given be the opportunity to get to know many people in my
community and also try to remember that it is in fact Christmas time. It just doesn’t feel right but I think that
perhaps may make it a little bit easier to take since this is my first holiday
season away from home.
Below you should be able to see a list of some of the things
I learned down here so far.
1)
My family has a lot of different animals
(puppies, kittens, piglets, chicks, calves, etc.) and I have learned to not
become attached to any animal down here.
All of the puppies and kittens have been given away that I had become
slightly attached to my first week. I am
trying to decide if I want the responsibility of an animal down here but I
think it might be nice to have some company.
Also the other animals are used strictly for food purposes. My first two days here we killed a chicken
and piglet for food, and since then we kill about one chicken per day to
eat. We are also killing a cow for
Christmas so that should be a new experience for me!
2)
Time here just slows down and pretty much just
revolves around the weather and sun schedule.
Also when it is really hot only the men work in the fields and even they
usually come in a couple of hours in the afternoon when it is so hot to water
the animals and take a quick nap before they go out for the rest of the day. Also meal times are quite different, we have
breakfast (hot fresh milk, with little stale bread things) at about 6 and then
eat lunch around noon (which consists of a hot soup/stew) and then don’t eat
dinner until around 9-10. I have learned
that for some reason even though it is so hot outside they still love to eat
hot food, which doesn’t make sense to me but I am adjusting. Also I can honestly say that the milk down
here is just wonderful since it is less than hour from the cow, to the stove to
boil, and then to me to drink!
3)
Since I have been having so much time to walk
around my community I have found many beautiful places, trees, and
landscapes. You should be able to see
some pictures below.
4)
In order to deal with the heat, ice is a
must! Also Santa bought me an early
Christmas present of a nice thermos so I can make my own ice water in the
morning and use it all day. There is
nothing better than iced cold terere and water when it is 44+ degrees C
outside. Also watermelon has also become
very popular and can be bought in my community for the equivalent of about one
US dollar. I have found out that you can’t terere and eat watermelon at the
same time because it is thought that you will explode (which will not actually
happen) but they are dead serious about it.
You also can’t eat watermelon and take a shower, among many other
things.
5)
The fruit here is fantastic, in addition to the
fresh watermelon mentioned above there is also an abundance of grapes, oranges,
grapefruit, bananas, plums, mangos, and many other melons. So I am for sure getting my fruits every day
with all the fresh fruit and fruit juice we make.
6)
My sisters love to paint each other’s toenails
and fingernails every Sunday so I had blue toe nails one week which was great
but then we went to pink and sparkly (and if you know me both of those things
are not be at ALL!) but I guess I can live with them for one week.
7)
The red dirt stains everything, which I’m sure I
have mentioned before, but it isn’t a joke.
Everyone walks around in flip flops or just bare foot so I have joined
in on the tradition but there is only so much skin you can scrub off your feet
before you realize it isn’t coming out.
The first few days I wore tennis shoes but there is no way my socks or
shoes will ever be anything but red again, oh well!
8)
Hand
washing clothes takes a long time and is very hard on your clothes. In my last host family house they had a
washer of sorts and you just had to rinse them and hang them. Here we just have a wash station for clothes,
one side is a sink and the other is a wash board. So I am quickly learning you only want to
wait like two days maximum to wash clothes unless you want to stand outside in
the hot sun for over an hour washing and scrubbing your clothes. Also many of our fabrics are just not made to
withstand a scrub brush. For my first
tutorial on hand washing with my host mom I think she scrubbed a few holes in
some of my fabrics trying to get them “clean”.
So after that I told her I can take care of my clothes, although they
might not be clean to her inspection they are just fine to me, these clothes
have to last me two years so I need to be gentle with them. I have also found that soaking them for a few
hours before washing is nice but then the water gets super-hot in the sun.
9)
Trying to live with three tween aged girls has
been quite the experience, and I am actually glad I guess that I never had to
live in a house full of sisters. They
are quite nice when the want to be but man to they fight like cats and dogs, as
my mom says.
10)
In my community Paraguayans don’t like to walk,
in the past it was the only way to get around but now with motos that is their
favorite mode of transportation. People
look at me weird when I am just walking by and everyone is always offering to
give me a ride or wants to make sure I have plenty of water since I carry my
Nalgene with me at all times. It is PC
policy that we don’t ride motos, which I completely agree with because you have
young kids driving, as well as entire families, and everything you can ever
imagine going down the dirt roads. There
are also a lot of really bad accidents that occur here, and my host mom was
telling me that every year at least one community member is killed on a
moto. Even to go to church which is
about an 8 minute walk my family prefers to drive but I walk none the less! I am trying to get lots of exercise down here
and it is so nice to just walk and relax and just take in the beautiful
landscapes and noises.
11)
The roads here consist of the red dirt which
quickly turns to rivers during the rainstorms that have become frequent
here. It is also impossible to do
anything when they hit and you are pretty much stuck where you are for the time
being. Also the bus doesn’t run in and
out of the community if it rains, or even looks like rain, so luckily there are
some other PC volunteers in Caaguazu, the closest city where I get groceries so
I can stay with them if I get stuck.
12)
I have many new “toys” that I brought that my
host family is just amazed by. My host
dad needed a screw driver the other day and couldn’t find one to fix my fan so
I pulled out my Leatherman and he was just so impressed. I think he spent about an hour with it
looking at all the other little parts and was just simply amazed. Also my entire family loves my head lamp
because I use it at night to go out and brush my teeth and go to the bathroom
and they had never seen anything like it before.
So I hope you can tell that I am
having a wonderful time down here right now, even despite the heat. I have only been here two weeks but am
already feeling like a part of the community and language skills are coming
slowly but surely. I have been in
Paraguay for three months on Christmas; the time has just flown by. I pray that you all have a wonderful
Christmas and stay warm. Just enjoy
spending the time surrounded by your family and friends. I will be surrounded by my new host family
and community and will try and post a blog about Christmas from down here in
Paraguay!
Will have to post pictures later, internet isn't working too well, sorry!
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