They always said that the second year as a Peace Corps
Volunteer goes by so much faster than the first which I didn’t believe at the
time but now am starting to realize it.
Do you ever wish in life you could just put on the brakes a little bit
or somehow create more hours in the day?
At least for me that is how my life is feeling right now which actually
is a blessing, and I am loving and trying to enjoy every moment of this
experience. This month I have been
working on many different projects, went and helped with the reconnect training
of the new environmental group, and was lucky enough to travel to my best
friend Jennifer’s site to help her celebrate her wedding (more on this in
another blog). Below you will be able to
see some pictures of this month and explanations of my March ventures.
One of the projects I have been working on lately has been
helping women with their household gardens.
For many of the women they only garden during the cooler months and grow
just basic tomatoes, peppers, and onions.
What I have been trying to do is incorporate many other vegetables into
the garden as well as help improve their current garden practices. So this time of year is perfect for working
with them in the garden as fall is finally starting to show its face. Many of the families I visit now on a weekly
basis and help them make new raised beds, as well as talk about starting
compost piles instead of burning organic material and showing them how to plant
different plants including spinach, cabbage, carrots, beets, and different
colors/sizes of tomatoes. I have been
showing them how they can start seeds in old milk/wine/juice cartons before
planting out into the garden as well as how to make homemade watering cans with
just an old two liter bottle. It has
been a great experience for all of us I think with me visiting and getting to
know the families more and them hopefully learning some more about organic
gardening. Below is one of the women I
am working with as well as the newly double dug raised bed.
One of the beautiful babies in my community, which lives
very close to me who I have been helping out.
He has such a full head of hair, and here it is tradition to not cut the
hair on babies until they reach a year of age.
My dad sent down a stuffed tiger for Mizzou so I took it down there and
he loves it, even though he is only six months old he sleeps with it and they
are constantly putting it in his hand to play with. One thing I have been learning is how many
children here don’t have any what we would normally consider “toys” but are
just as happy playing in the dirt or with what few things they have or have
collected.
One of the Sundays this month I welcomed Annie my new site
mate in San Roque over for the day and we had such a great time hanging
out. We spent the morning making
wonderful doughnut, which was surprisingly a lot of work but so worth it with
hot tea. It was just a great time to
visit and catch up with each other and eat some great food!
I know some of you might be tired of kitten pictures but I
had to include at least a few. I finally
found the mom cat a new home so she left last week and slowly each of the
kittens is going off to their new homes.
Two of the kittens live right next door, one with my mom on one side,
and on the other with my sister. They
haven’t figured out they are supposed to stay over there but it is still fun
when they come back and visit and they are smart because they know where the good food is! This is one of the beautiful
black kittens who always seems to think it needs to sleep not only in my bed
but with a pillow as well.
The kittens one afternoon after they had played a little too
hard. That is one thing I learned is the
kittens know how to play hard and then will crash for a couple of hours before
they repeat the cycle. They are keeping
me on my toes but providing much needed comic relief in my life and never a
dull moment with them around.
Last week I traveled close to Asuncion, to a town called
Aregua, to help with “Tree Day” during the new environmental volunteers
reconnect. For me it was so hard to
believe that a year has already passed since my reconnect and I remember
thinking it would be so cool to be asked to come back and help. This year they did reconnect differently had
actually had an entire week for environmental technical classes which was so
great. So I went and did a presentation
on staring tree nurseries and tree nursery management. Below you will be able to see some of the
photos of that as well as pictures from the miniature zoo and the beautiful
resort like feel to the place. This is a
picture of one of the anacondas they had in the miniature zoo.
Some of the beautiful birds that are found in the wild here in parts of Paraguay, including a toucan and macaws. The colors on the birds here were just so brilliant.
One of the super cute monkeys that just looked so funny with
all the hair.
A very large turtle that evidently thought I was the person that comes and feeds it because they all were moving at a surprisingly fast pace towards me.
Me teaching the last of the three presentation that I gave, it was a HOT day and we were under a metal tin roof building which didn’t help much but we at least had a breeze and beautifully crafted wooden benches to sit in.
One of the eleven, that’s right eleven swimming pools they have on the property. So we did work hard during the day learning and then had plenty of down time to relax and enjoy the pools.
Some of the many peafowl that were found throughout the grounds.
At one place at the “resort” they had two more “pet” monkeys
that enjoyed playing with people and climbing all over them. This one was just posed so perfectly with a
smile on his face which I had to capture and then below you can see him
climbing on me. So much fun and not something
you see every day.
One of the many beautiful flowers that was found throughout
the property.
Having fun with my underwater feature on my camera one
afternoon after class. Overall it was
just a great few days that I was able to hang out with the new volunteers who
were very eager to learn all they could about life as a PCV and trees in
general, as well as nice little break for me from my site.
Just a great quote to leave you with; stay tuned for a blog
post about the beautiful wedding adventure!
Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges obstacles,
and less than perfect conditions. So
what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow
stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and
more and more successful.
-Mark Victor Hansen
