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!