Reconnect Training

This week (April 21-25) my entire G had what they call reconnect.  It is a training that takes place once we have been in site for 3-4 months and we all come together in the training center.  We had a wonderful week here and it was a great time to see all of my G mates, many of which I haven’t seen since we all went to site in December.  During this week in training we were able to stay with our original host family which has been a great time to catch up with my host family.  I have really enjoyed spending the week with them and nothing beats a hot shower (which I don’t currently have in site) and just the love and wonderful support of my host family.  I got a little bit of grief from my mom since it has been a couple of months since I have visited but I tried to make it up to her this week.  The training aspect of this week was divided into two different sections, so the technical session started on Monday at noon and went through the end of the day on Wednesday. 

On Monday we all met up in the training center and spent the afternoon as just our environmental conservation and education group.  We talked about our community needs assessment and also all got a chance to share our community maps and just talked about our first three months in site.  It was a great time to just share our successes as well as problems that we have all experienced in site our first few months. 

On Tuesday morning we were picked up early from our training communities and traveled to Apyragua, located in the department of Paraguarí. We went and visited a current environmental volunteer from G-40 (our sister G).  We spent the entire day at her beautiful site and learned all about starting tree nurseries, grafting citrus trees, and abonos verdes (green manures).  Below you will be able to see some of the pictures and I will tell you the story as I go.

This is a picture of the tree nursery that Tiffany (the PCV) and her committee set up.  They are currently growing citrus trees, mainly lemon trees to use for grafting on of other citrus.

This is just a picture of the “chain gang” that we had set up to help fill up the watering system.  We had to use the well to bring up water which we put in buckets and then put into the gravity fed watering system.

This is just a beautiful picture of her site with the hills in the background.

This was a picture of the charla (presentation) Tiffany gave about what she did to start this project and the grants she was able to obtain.

This is the watering system that they used to water each of their seedlings.  This system is very fancy for down here in Paraguay but works great!

After we learned about her project and had a quick lunch we then had the opportunity to learn the basics about tree grafting.  This is the wrong time of year to graft citrus trees, it should be done in the spring here, but we were mainly just practicing the technique.  This is a picture of Jason who was my partner for the project and below you can see a picture of what the new tree looked like when it was done.  We were using a limon rootstock and grafting on orange trees.

This is just a beautiful flower that I found at her site and below you can see another picture of her site.

This is just a cool looking insect that I found that landed on my hand.

When we were done with tree grafting and nursery management we walked across her community and visited with a farmer.  We went out to his kokue (field) and learned more about abonos verdes and we were able to see three that were actually planted as well as we were able to plant some ourselves.

After learning about abonos verdes the farmer showed off his onion production, and he has a very nice set up and was getting ready to move the onions into the field.  After walking around his property we were able to head back to the bus and arrived back to our training communities later that evening. 

On Wednesday morning we were once again picked up early and went into Asuncion and visited INFONA which is a national forestry institute.  It was a wonderful stop and I learned a lot more about trees and tree seeds of Paraguay.  I also got to meet many other forest engineers and was able to get a lot of questions asked.  They also give out free trees and tree seeds so I was able to drop off the request form that my community sent me with and will be picking them up in a couple of weeks.  They have a wonderful set up and when I come back I hope to spend more time there to learn more.  We then traveled into downtown Asuncion to the SENATUR office where we learned about tourism in Paraguay.  It was a good presentation to learn about the steps they are taking to get people to travel down here and around in Paraguay.  We spent the afternoon on Wednesday in the PC Office getting caught up on a lot of administrative things.

Thursday morning began the next phase of our training which was language/cultural training.  So we were able to spend about four hours in language class.  At first I wasn’t looking forward to this because I just felt like I was where I wanted to be when I came back but it all worked out great.  Our language professors are FANTASTIC and were able to figure out where we were and then we made a list of the things we wanted to learn.  So by the end of the morning I felt very confident and had learned a lot more technical vocabulary in Guarani and Spanish.  In the afternoon we heard from our fantastic medical team and then had a discussion the rest of the afternoon with our higher ups from Asuncion.  It was a great time to just share our ideas, frustrations, and just hearing from them about what resources are available to us. 

On Friday we had language class all day which I wasn’t looking forward to but they did a great job of breaking it up and by the end of the day I learned a lot.  We also got done at 4 so I was able to come home early and spend some more time with my host family.  I am sitting here at the kitchen table and just finished eating dinner with them all.  It is so fun to see how we all have changed in just a few short months.  I am much better with language and my sister now has a serious boyfriend, my brother’s daughter Mia has grown up so much since I left.  She is now talking up a storm and running everywhere.  It is so great to know that I will always have this supportive family here and so great to get caught up with everyone.  Will be heading back to site in the morning and will be working on my house this week.  

Semana Santa (Easter)

This past week we celebrated Semana Santa or the week leading up until Easter.  The celebration here in Paraguay is very different from my experiences in the US but I had a wonderful time.  So below I will summarize a little bit about what I learned about this week as well as share a few photos.  I am by far not an expert nor did I understand everything that went on, but I hope you get a snapshot.

The celebrations seemed to start (at least for my family) on Wednesday night where we made chipa.  This was a very fun evening with my host mom, sister, and nephew.  Making chipa is a little bit hard to do but my host family are experts and were happy to share the process with me, it mostly just involved a lot of time kneading the dough which is a fantastic arm and hand workout (which I found out the following days).  My mom made just the “normal” chipa shapes as well as shapes of birds for the kids and then I started to get a little creative and made letters for different people’s names.  K for Katie-my name in site since no one can say Kaitlyn, A-Alcides who is a friend in site, B-Basilio for my contact, and then I also tried making pretzel shapes which were great but they didn’t understand the concept of pretzels so I guess I will just have to make them sometime.  The chip was then put in the outdoor oven (tatakua) and baked.  It turned out great and I had a great time making it with my family.  Chipa is VERY POPULAR this week and everyone seemed to be making it and I had to pace myself eating it so I wouldn’t get tired of it.  

This is a picture of my mom making up the first part of the dough.  Notice the two kittens under the table and three of the six dogs trying to get the scraps.

This is my mom trying to cook a little piece of chipa with a fork over the gas stove for my nephew and to do a taste test before we rolled it all out.  It was very similar to roasting marshmallows and we all got a kick out of it.

This is a picture with my host sister (Rosie) and her two year old son Junior.  She is just two months older than me but has her wonderful son who I love but is a handful!

Here is a picture of some of my wonderful chipa designs that I had fun with.  I even decided to “decorate” them with cheese that I cut into different shapes and pressed into the dough.  Overall the chipa turned out fantastic and we had enough to last for a few days.  I have learned that the best time to eat it is hot out of the oven!

The celebration continued on Thursday- Ultima Cenar (the last supper) where we had a huge asado (BBQ-sort of) where we had a mixture of beef, pork, and chicken that was marinated in fresh garlic and lime juice all day and then cooked in the tatakua.  We also made Sopa Paraguaya which you probably read about a couple of months ago (the heart healthy corn bread).  We had a big family dinner and it was so great to just see all the family together. 

On Friday things started to get a little messed up because it POURED just about nonstop for two days with the rain ending on Saturday night.  On Friday (Viernes Santo) you are not supposed to eat meat but we ate all of the leftovers from the night before.  Saturday (Sabado de Gloria) is just a day of reflection and a day to just spend with family. Also during this week no one played music so the community was abnormally quiet.  Sunday was Domingo de Pascua where evidently everyone normally attends church.  Unfortunately (at least in my community) Sunday ended up being a day to work since everyone lost two work days with the rain so instead of going to church we all spent the day working on various projects.  Overall it was a great week that was full of spending time with family and friends and making wonderful food, I also learned a lot and was able to share some of my Easter traditions.

During Samana Santa on Monday one of my bosses was able to come out and look at my final housing option and I was able to get approval for the house.  I have a lot of work to do including replacing all the electrical wiring, putting in running water, replacing windows, and a lot of cleaning up.  My house is just in fact the old high school and is just one big room.  It is going to be great when I get everything done and finished and will be my own space that I am very excited about.  I love my host family but living with host families for seven months now I am ready to have my own space and be able to set my own schedule and to cook for myself.  I am trying to get everything done by the first week in May but time will tell and I will keep you posted.  Below you can see some pictures of my future house!

This is a picture of when you enter what you can see.  I have moved out all of the old desks but it will be cool to have such a big chalk board in my house!

This is a view from the door looking at the other side of the house.  The cabinet that was in the house was home to a large wasp family and after three days I finally got rid of them all and was able to get it moved out and to get everything cleaned up.  

This is a view from the front outside.  As you can see I am going to have plenty of natural light and have plenty of windows to replace.  I just can’t wait to get it finished up and start on my garden/ other landscaping.  Stayed tuned for more pictures soon!

Porter's Memorial Service

As many of you know I lost a fellow PCV and friend here in Paraguay, Porter Knight.  I first wanted to start out this post with pictures from Porter's amazing memorial service that was held in Asuncion.  Below are some pictures from the service itself.  It was a very hard time for all of the PC family but it was just great for everyone to be together and PC Paraguay had the support of the PC worldwide.  Many other PC countries and NGO’s (such as WWF) send beautiful flower arrangements.  The service itself was beautiful and we all heard from his G (the people in his group G40), his two different host families (his first training community as well as his current host family), the ambassador, and many different PCV and PC Staff.  It was a very well attended service and it was just so great to be a part of it during a difficult time for all of us.

This first picture is just of a board of some of the pictures of Porter during his time here in Paraguay, many of which are just with his friends and some of his projects and his community.  He always seemed to have a huge smile on his face.

The next picture is of his G mates and each of them took turns telling stories about Porter as well as one word that they will remember about him.  They also read a wonderful poem which I have included below that was read at the service.

Not How He Died...But How He Lived (By: Summer Sandercox)

Not how did he die, but how did he live? 

Not what did he gain, but what did he give? 

These are the units to measure the worth 

Of a man as a man, regardless of birth. 

Not, what was his church, nor what was his creed? 

But had he befriended those really in need? 

Was he ever ready, with word of good cheer, 

To bring back a smile, to banish a tear? 

Not what did the sketch in the newspaper say, 

But how many were sorry when he passed away. 

This is a picture of me saying a few words about Porter since I was the volunteer who stayed with him for just less than a week during training so I was able to talk about my experience with Porter.  Overall it was a very emotional day and very hard to say goodbye to a friend.    I was also able to write a letter to Porter’s family and the entire memorial service was recorded and sent to his family.  It was just great for the entire PC community to come together from all the volunteers to staff as well as other family and friends as well as the support from PC worldwide.  Although I only knew him for about 6 months he still was a good friend and a great loss, but I will always remember Porter and the good times we were able to spend together.