Site Presentation

Last week on the 22^nd I had my site presentation.  This involved my bosses coming to my site from Asuncion to explain to my community what PC is, what my role as a volunteer is, as well as talked about what they should expect of me, as well as what is expected of them. My boss did a great job just explaining to them that Paraguay is a completely different culture than I come from in the US and to be patient with me with language but at the same time to treat me as they would any member of the community.  It was a great hour and a half presentation with many members of my community and I had twenty five different community members showed up which I was very pleased with.  I visited and hand delivered about 50 invitations to every house in my community but I was extremely pleased with my turnout! 

Everyone was very interested in learning more about me, as well as PC, and many are very excited about the next two years.  Many people are just so shocked that I am going to be here for two years and they don’t understand how I can leave my family and friends in the US to come here.   I explained that it is very hard but that my community here is my new group of friends and I still do have everyone back home supporting me and that I do talk to my family about once a week.  Also I was very lucky and had two current PCV’s also speak at my site presentation and just talked about the projects they have worked on.  I served juice and cookies/ candy when the site presentation was done and everyone LOVED that, so I told them that at all of my events I will have some sort of snack, so hopefully I can incise them to come to my events with food!

Once the presentation was over we went to my old host family’s home for a wonderful lunch and then PC looked at my two different housing options in my community.  Unfortunately they didn’t approve the house that I really wanted but I understand their reasoning mostly because since I am the first volunteer in the community and a female safety and security is their number one concern, which is should be.  The house I really liked was great but unfortunately the closest neighbor was across a corn field and wasn’t visible from my house.  So the house that I did get approved is right next to my first host families house and is a beautiful small but nice house.  It is also a pink house which I am just trying to forget about, I don’t think they will let me paint it though so I guess I will just get used to it.  So over the next week or so my bosses will be working out the fine details (rent costs, responsibilities, etc.) so when I find out more I can let you all know.  It sounds like I will be trying to move in the first part of March so I will be sure to take some pictures as soon as I can. 

The new host family that I am staying with through Feb. 10^th has been so amazing; I for sure prefer a 6 year old girl and 2 year old boy any day over 3 tween females!  They have brought a lot of laughter to my life and I am learning that it doesn’t matter that I don’t speak the language the best because they don’t either but we can still have a wonderful time playing together.  So I have included some of the pictures I took of them so far.  This weekend I also attended a 6 year olds birthday party so I have some pictures of that below. 

I have now been in Paraguay for 4 months now and honestly the time has flown by.  I am having a wonderful time down here and it just seems to be getting better and better as I get to know my community more and feel more comfortable with my language skills.  Over the next couple of weeks I will be finishing up and starting to conduct my community needs assessment which is just a long series of questions that I have written up to see what projects and information my community is interested in.   

This is one of my two bosses explaining the technical aspect of things.

This is my wonderful boss Eli who is Paraguayan herself explaining more about PC and cultural differences.

Above is a picture of Nari who is also an environmental conservation and education volunteer in Caaguzau (the largest closest city to me) sharing her experiences.  She has been here one year already and will be leaving this December.  Below is Ted who is currently the closest volunteer to me about 5 km away but he has been here 2+ years and is actually leaving in late February.

This is the pet parrot at my new house who loves to eat little candies every afternoon.

One of the two adorable kittens that always amazes me that they are comfortable enough to sleep like that. 

The two year old little boy named Junior drinking terere.  He is just always full of energy and can always bring a smile to my face.

This is a normal afternoon for us.  Nika is my host mom and the two children are her grandchildren. 

This is the six year old girl Rosie with one of her two kittens who are her favorite activity and best friends.  She has such an imagination and is constantly talking to the kittens and other animals like they are her best friends.  Also she grew up in Argentina so she speaks very good Spanish so I can easily communicate with her since the others speak Guarani.   

 

Below and above is some pictures of the birthday party.  As normal with PY culture the top pictures is with the boys at the party and below the separate pictures with the girls.  Also the last picture is the normal food for a birthday party which is two hot dogs with mayo on top and soda.  I just explained to my host family that I don't even eat hot dogs in the US and I don't here either, luckily there are always hungry dogs around to take care of them for me!