Christmas in August and Recycled Art Day

This past week I was happy to welcome the Caaguazu VAC to my site.  This is just a small group of volunteers that all live in and around Caaguazu.  They arrived into my site on Saturday morning and stayed through Monday mid-day.  We had a wonderful time together and had fun celebrating Christmas in August and then on Sunday afternoon helping me to host a fantastic recycled art class.  Below you will be able to see all of the photos from this weekend.

On Saturday evening we celebrated Christmas in July.  We made some wonderful sugar cookies and homemade pizza and watched a Christmas movie.  We also had a white elephant gift exchange that turned into a lot of fun with some wonderful gifts.  So this picture is of the gifts before we exchanged them.

This is a picture of some of them after they opened their gifts.  After we celebrated Christmas we went outside to see the beautiful starry night that I have at my site due to limited light pollution.  We were out looking for quite a while because the stars were just so beautiful!  We were actually able to see a meteor falling and many different shooting stars. Such a great ending to a fun celebration.

On Sunday morning we got up and made a great breakfast and had some great actually Starbucks coffee, Christmas holiday blend of course.

In the afternoon we had a large recycled art day and invited all of the kids in my community.  We had 23 actually show up which I was very happy with.  We had 5 different crafts that the kids all rotated through.  This picture is of Nari showing the kids how to make wallets out of Tetra-paks which is just like a juice or milk carton. 

Pauline worked the station of magazine beads.  You cut pieces of magazines and roll them around a small stick and glue the end down to make beads that you can then make bracelets, necklaces, etc.

Katie worked a station where we had collected Styrofoam plates to make picture frames.  The kids used magazines to find pictures and then colored and added stickers. 

Sofia worked with the kids on making bracelets out of plastic bags.  There are always a lot of plastic bags all around the community so we had collected them and cut the bags into strips.  From there the kids could choose three different colors and braid them together.  Once it was braided we then ironed the plastic between pieces of paper so all of the plastic then fuses together and forms a beautiful bracelet.

One of the favorite stations was making glasses from glass bottles.  Brad and Abiu and I worked this station helping the kids use wire to get the bottle hot and then dunking in in ice cold water which usually works to cut the glass.  The kids then just had to use sand paper to smooth the edges.  The kids loved this station but it is actually a lot of work to get the bottle hot enough so we ended up having to help them a lot, especially the little kids.

After the kids went to each station we then had 20 minutes of free time where they could go back to whichever station they wanted to make additional crafts.  After that Nari and I gave a small presentation of making eco-bricks which just involves stuffing 2 L plastic bottles with plastic and other inorganic trash.  I am trying to get the kids excited about this so we can make enough in order to make an eco-bench in front of the school.  

A picture of all the participants with their new recycled art crafts.  I think all the kids had a great time and were excited about making more in the future. 

A picture that we told the kids to look crazy in but I think the volunteers here had a lot more fun with it than the kids, but fun picture none the less!

After we got the recycled art day done we when on a small walk in my community to see the beautiful overlook point and we decided to take a Caaguazu VAC picture along a fence line.  It took us a few tries to figure out the self-timer on my camera but we figured it out!

We had a lot of extra bottle tops the kids didn’t want from making the glass bottles so Brad and I made a beautiful wind chime to hang in my tree which actually works and sounds pretty cool!

So now I will be in site for a few weeks working in my community and preparing for my mom’s trip here to Paraguay.  We have a wonderful trip planned including a trip up to the Pantanal (like you see on Planet Earth, one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth), time at my site, and a trip to Iguazu Falls in Argentina.  I can’t wait!

IST Training

Last week we had our IST (inter-service training) that was held in Atyra, Paraguay, which is the same place as our last training was held.  This time I brought Victorina, who is the president of the women’s committee in my community.  We had a great three days of class learning more hand on aspects of projects ranging from tree planting, tree maintenance, cooking/ nutrition, to green manures.  The training was held at the beautiful location of Marianela.  Below you will be able to see some pictures of some of our classes and the beautiful grounds surrounding Marianela and Atyra. 

The class itself started on Wednesday afternoon where we started out with a fantastic lunch.  Just about all of the food that we eat at Marianela comes from the grounds around the church/ conference center.  They have their own gardens, orchards, and animals so each meal is full of wonderful fruit and veggies!  After lunch we had a fantastic presentation from A Todo Pulmon on the production, care, and maintenance of a native tree nursery.  The first part of the class we had a PowerPoint presentation and then the second part we went outside and had hands on activities.  The first station was on growing trees in macetas (containers) using a variety of different materials that you can find anywhere and that can have little or no cost at all.  Another station was how to actually grow the trees and tree care followed by a demonstration of proper tree pruning and care.  Below is a picture of trees growing in an old tetrapak or juice/milk carton.  

Later in the day we had a presentation about biodiversity here in Paraguay with a great video of the Pantanal, which is where I will be visiting next month with my mom (I can’t wait!!!).

This is a picture of one of the fantastic pieces of art they have around Marianela that I evidently missed the first time I was here but is just beautiful.

On Thursday we traveled out into a nearby community in another environmental volunteer’s site for a morning of classes.  We started out breaking into two groups and my group first had a class on healthy cooking and nutrition.  This is something that was very interesting to everyone and is a major problem here in Paraguay.  I didn’t know this but in Latin American countries Paraguay rates #2 worst for malnutrition behind Guatemala.  It was also good for the PY’s to learn more about healthy eating and different components they can incorporate into their meal. They also learned the importance of hand washing and sanitation when cooking, which is a big problem here.  We ended this session learning how to make our own mayonnaise (which is surprisingly easy!) and then making sandwiches with the new mayo and fresh veggies.  

Belen teaching us how to make the mayonnaise.

Our assembly line making sandwiches for 50+ people having a lot of fun!

From there we switched with the other group and had hands on activities about double digging raised beds, and planting, as well as compost and worm compost.  For many of us volunteers it was a good review from training and for our counterparts was a very good learning experience.  

On Thursday afternoon we started out the class learning about trash management hearing from my friend Nari about her experience working in Caaguazu (she is the closest volunteer to me).  It was great to just reemphasize trash management and the consequences (personal health and environmental) of burning trash and ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle.  We then went on a walk through Atyra which was voted the most green and clean city in Paraguay and spent the afternoon in a public park.  There were six different classes that we could choose from: constructing an eco-bench, eco-trashcan, preparing homemade pesticides, agroforestry/ planting trees, water analysis, and tree grafting.  My contact went and learned about homemade pesticides and I went and learned more about agroforestry and planted trees.  There ended up only being 3 PCV’s in my group with no contacts so we had the class in English and was able to get many of our questions answered and ended up planting about a dozen trees.  

This is a picture of those of us that planted trees and we painted our faces with some mud.  In the evening we had two optional classes on Zumba and abonos verdes (green manures) which was just a fantastic review from training and eye opening for my contact.

On Friday morning we had a couple of hours in the morning where we worked with our contacts about how we can bring back what we learned at training to our community and what possible projects they would be interested in.  Just like last time my contact was very excited about starting a tree and plant nursery in the school.  We also received the final copy of our community needs assessment and my contact was just amazed looking through mine after explaining to her that the last few months I have been “working” and not just holed up in my house!  This will be something great to share with my entire community.  We then split up into PCV’s and contacts and we had a great talk with our PCMO’s (the doctors) and our new country director of PCPY.  Our contacts learned more about PC and the history and what it means to be a contact.  

This is a picture of Victorina and me standing in front of the church after we finished our class.  It was a wonderful three days and was hard to say goodbye to everyone.  The next time we will be all together will not be until December when we have our mid-service training.  I learned a lot and my contact is excited to bring some new ideas into the community and especially the women’s committee, so I guess time will tell.

On Sundays I have continued to have my English/ Conservation/ Environmental class and this week they learned how to make an “eco-bottle”.  This is just a 2 liter plastic bottle filled with inorganic trash- mainly just plastic.  So we spent about 20 minutes walking around the community and especially around the school picking up trash (which there is a lot of) and then spent the rest of the time stuffing the trash into plastic bottles.  Once these bottles are complete they can be used like a brick and we will be making an eco-bench using bottles in front of the school as a bus stop seat.  The kids are just so full of energy so it was nice to get them excited about picking up trash and stuffing it into bottles!

The first veggies that my garden produced, fresh red butter head lettuce which I put on my homemade bread and made a delicious BLT.  My garden is doing great but unfortunately was taken over by many different ants and I have used every homemade pesticide I have found and they are just eating everything so have now reverted to more drastic measures but I am putting into too much work for ants to eat all my goodies but I think I am successfully wiping them out (at least for now)! 

Well that is it for now, it is hard to believe that we have almost been here one year, already more than 1/3 through my service.  I am having a wonderful time and enjoying the cooler weather right now.  Will be hosting 7 PCV’s to my site this weekend for a recycled art day with my community on Sunday so I am really looking forward to that and will be sure to post pictures!