A Quarter of a Century

It is hard to believe that I am a quarter century old now.  Earlier today I was thinking about all of the beautiful places I have celebrated birthday from Thailand, various mission trips across the US, Olivet Float Trips, Costa Rica, and then my second birthday here in Paraguay.  It never seems to be easier  celebrating so far from home but I was blessed enough to be able to talk to both of my parents today and helping someone else celebrate their birthday was a great way to celebrate.  This year I was able to celebrate my birthday with one of Alcides’ nieces who shares my birthday, but she only turned 5 while I turned 25.  So we went into Caaguazu with Alcides and his sister, mom, and many other nieces to help her celebrate her 5^th birthday.  Below you will be able to see just a few of the many photos of her birthday celebration. 

On Friday I spent the entire day baking making 48 cupcakes, 4 loaves of whole wheat bread, and a couple of other desserts.  I had some great helpers though 2 of my nieces Adriana and Diana who were a big help and we had a lot of fun both making and decorating the cupcakes.  This is a picture of them taste testing the icing to make sure it was edible for everyone else.

A photo of Adriana and I making up the icing for the second batch of cupcakes, we ended up making 24 white cake cupcakes and 24 chocolate and then had fun making chocolate frosting as well as dyed pink and blue frosting.  In the end we ended up with very colorful and festive cupcakes with enough to go around.

In the afternoon we had a wonderful visitor from Annie (my closest PCV) that came over and helped us finish decorating cupcakes.  She also brought me a wonderful carrot and coconut cake that we took over to Alcides’ house to have a little mini early birthday celebration.

Alcides getting his hair cut in preparation for the traveling into town.  It was very interesting to me how much work everyone went to before we went into town.  They collected mandioca, all the women washed their hair, collected corn and fresh fruit, and just generally got all cleaned up for the trip into town.

So this doesn’t have to do with my birthday but those are the two baby pigs that Alcides worked a week in the field for and his brother made a very nice pen for them and we are starting to feed them so they will be nice and big for Christmas/New Year’s celebrations.  In the US we don’t think nearly this far ahead but just go to the grocery store and buy a turkey or ham.  Here if you want meat for your family for the holidays and you are smart you buy various animals now (calves, chicks, piglets, ducklings, etc.) and then grow them out yourself because if you wait to buy just the meat around the holidays the prices skyrocket.  So needless to say at least one of these piglets we will be butchering and eating for the holidays!

Just a cute picture of me with one of my kittens that is almost all grown up now that lives with Alcides and his family.  At first they hated cats and didn’t even want one but now Raul (the kitten) is a large part of the family and is spoiled more than any animal I have seen in Paraguay.  It might be due to the fact that he has eaten all of the rats they used to have but whatever the reason Raul is in good hands and is part of the family.

For our birthday celebration we came into Caaguazu and for lunch we had a wonderful duck and rice stew but in order for that to happen we had to kill the duck.  I didn’t really help too much but rather used the excuse to take photos so I wouldn’t have to be the one to kill it.  This is just a photo of Alcides with his mom plucking the duck.

As per Paraguay traditions for birthdays the people hosting the party (or their mother) makes a whole bunch of food to give to everyone else.  It isn’t the US where people throw parties for you and you just show up and enjoy.  Anyway so Edie (Alcides’ sister) had already made up all of the food the day before and then I spent about 4 hours frying it all.  

Alcides and our niece Diana standing in front of all the little plates of food that we made up.

For the birthday girl, Janina, her parents had a bounce house brought in so all the party goers had a fantastic time playing around.

Just a picture of me with one of the cupcakes I made that I called my birthday cake, complete with my dollar store purchase of cupcake molds and little flags that read Happy Birthday!

Alcides and I with my cupcake.  Although it might not look too cold it was in fact only about 60 degrees with a cold southern wind (we are in the middle of winter), not the 100+ temps that I am normally used to in the US for my summer birthday.  

Just a family photo with Alcides and his family standing in front of the themed party she had of Pippa (which is a popular cartoon pig here in Paraguay).  

On Sunday we had a small celebration for my birthday since I didn’t want to take away from the 5 year olds party, so we had a wonderful asado (BBQ) filled with lots of yummy grilled pork, rice salad, and leftover sopa.

So overall I had a fantastic birthday filled with good company and great food.  This week I will be heading on a short vacation to Argentina to help celebrate my birthday with Alcides.  So stay tuned for a blog post our trip to visit Iguazu, the third trip there for me but the first for Alcides ever outside of Paraguay, so it should be a lot of fun!

In the blink of an eye, everything can change.  So forgive often and love with all your heart.  You may never know when you may not have that chance again.

Winter Camp in July!

The past two weeks I have had the pleasure and excitement of putting together a winter camp for my students since they are on winter break right now.  We decided that our topics would focus on eco-regions and animals here in Paraguay since many of the students have not ever been outside the community, much less thinking about other animals that can be found in other parts of the country.  We spent some time going through a powerpoint that I put together with each of the eco-regions of Paraguay and pictures associated with each.  We also spent one entire class period talking about the Pantanal and looked at many of the photos I took during my journey last Nov/Dec.  Each of the students made their own nature collage that we covered in masking tape so they could hang it up at home and we had a lot of fun cutting out pictures from the Missouri Department of Conservation magazine.  During class times we also watched Planet Earth to see some of the other eco-systems worldwide.  We ended the class and celebrated by making a wonderful chocolate and beet cake and watched The Lorax which was a great movie to help tie together some of the conservation issues here in Paraguay that we have been talking about.  We ended up having a lot of fun together two mornings a week and did a variety of activities, some of which you can see below.

The first class period we talked about the classification of animals and talked about birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and amphibians.  So in order to see if they learned some of the material at the end I had a habitat poster with ten different animals labeled and they had to match up the correct classification win the animal.  

Students working on their nature collages.

On one of the Monday’s during winter break I was able to take two of the students to a regional environmental camp.  So they had a great time going into Caaguazu (only the second time they have ever been) and we had a good breakfast and played in the plaza at the park for while waiting for the bus to come.  We also took out picture in front of one of the statues in the plaza.  

Once we traveled about 30 minutes outside of Caaguazu we arrived at the location for the regional camp and started out with a fun ice breaker activity.

This was one of my favorite activities for the students to do.  There was a large piece of paper with tree stumps drawn on and we used popcorn as the living trees.  We started out giving about half the kid’s cards representing different occupations: house wife, carpenter, farmer, etc.  and they each went around and “cut down” each of the trees they would need over a one year time and they had to explain what they would be used for- firewood, construction material, etc.  We then talked a little bit about natural regeneration and that only about 10 new trees each year grow.  So we kept going in the circle and them cutting down the trees and explaining what they use each of them for.  We also had a few new families move into the community thus requiring wood for the houses.  At the end the students were just able to see how easy and quickly it is for deforestation to occur, especially in our rural communities where the trees are cut down for firewood, construction material, etc.  We then went on to talk about tree planting so we ended on a positive note!

The students and I with our new poster talking about tree planting that we have brought back and hung up in our classroom!

The last day of class we had a little celebration and made wonderful chocolate beet cake so this was just us preparing all of the ingredients!  Notice the dog in the corner trying to stay warm in his dog house/box.

The students eating the warm cake as we watched The Lorax which was the first time any of them had ever seen the movie.  After the movie we had a quick discussion about the main environmental problem but how simple it is for one child to make a difference.

The students with their certificates and nature collages.

Another picture but one with me in it, there you go mom!

Life here has just been cool and rainy lately but perfect gardening weather and stay tuned for some more blog posts about birthday celebrations and a trip to Argentina which is planned for next week!

Given a chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, and turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion…

In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy; a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.

~Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods 

Unexpected Blessings

“I’ve seen better days, but I’ve also seen worse.  I don’t have everything that I want, but I do have all that I need.  I woke up with some aches and pains, but I woke up.  My life may not be perfect but I am blessed.”

Well as many of you know (or at least have heard) that I had some major health issues over the past couple of months.  Glad to say that now they are all resolved with just a few minor follow up tests set to occur in a few months.  Over the past months I have seen just some wonderful unexpected blessings and I just wanted to share some of those with you all.

The first blessing occurred when my bosses from PC came out here to my site and I had a fantastic visit with them showing them around my site and my most recent biodigestor project.  It was just a great time to show off some of my hard work and talk to them about possible future activities.  I also was scheduled to go into the office to get my flu shot and to turn in all of my receipts for my grant so luckily I got a ride back to Asuncion with them, a trip that takes me ~7 hours takes about 3.5 in a car.

 

This later turned into a blessing because during the couple of days when I got really sick I was already in Asuncion and visiting daily with the doctors instead of in my site. At first I just thought I had the flu or something of that nature so honestly if I had been in site I would haven’t thought too much about it and when it did get serious I could have been in serious trouble being so remote.  So that Friday I ended up in the hospital being at first treated for dehydration and was told just a short overnight stay in the hospital with some routine tests. 

That later turned into a 6 night stay filled with countless tests, getting my appendix out, and puzzling the doctors.  There were a few blessings that occurred to me during that time.  The first was that my room was very nice, a private room in a very nice hospital and I had my own bathroom (with hot water!), a couch, fridge, and even my own TV!  The other blessing was just the outpouring of support I began receiving both from my PC family and my friends/family in the US.  One of my PC friends actually came in from her site and stayed with me two nights in the hospital and I also received 3 other PC friend visiting me which helped immensely and helped keep my spirits up.  Even though many of my friends I had just met about two years ago many of them seem like I have known them forever and they were a fantastic support system and sounding board for me.  I was also just very impressed by the support given to me from PC with countless visits from the doctors and they went above and beyond to help me out.  I also had a visit from the country director and countless texts and messages from so many different friends and family.

 

After I was released from the hospital I stayed around Asuncion and luckily my awesome site mate was able to get me a bag packed (since I originally was only staying for 1 night and this was almost 2 weeks later), and Alcides was able to come in and spend the weekend with me.  It was great to just get a little bit of normalcy back after being in the hospital for so long and missing my site while also trying to figure out what was going on with me.  I ended up being “medically evacuate” which just means that I went back home in the US while I got my medical issues taken care of. 

It was a blessing in and of itself to just be at home surrounded by such love and support.  I was able to see some fantastic doctors and once again went through the gauntlet of medical tests but through it all beginning to feel better and better.  I had a lot of good time in Columbia hanging out with many different church friends and was able to spend some good quality time with my parents since I had been gone for almost 2 years now.  So my main priority while I was home was getting better and seeing the doctors but I still had some time for some fun and fellowship which you will be able to see below.  I was back in the US for just over 3 weeks before they decided I was well enough to come back to my “southern home” here in Paraguay.  Even just the traveling back and forth portion of my trip met with some amazing blessings just making all of my different flights even with all of the delays, maintenance issues, and the like. 

So my most recent blessing is being back here in my site and I came in during a dark and rainy night and luckily the driver had 4 wheel drive as it was quite the mud run.  I was very excited to be back at site and to just hit the ground running but we had a couple of rainy days which means that I was forced to stay inside, but it all worked out perfectly since I had time to get my house cleaned and get caught up on some other projects.  The weather turned quickly into winter while I was gone so temperatures have been in the 50-60 cooling down to the low of 40 the other night so quite chilly and wet and rainy but so far I am loving it!  Stay tuned for some upcoming blogs about getting my biodigester lit for the first time (scheduled to happen this Friday!) as well as some other fun activities!

“Don’t think of the things you didn’t get after praying.  Think of the countless blessings God gave you without asking.”

While I was home I was blessed in the fact that it was BBQ time for Olivet so below are some pictures of preparing for the 58^th BBQ.  This was after the guys had gotten the tent set up and everyone working so hard together on Thursday night to get all of the tables ready to go.

The wonderful fellowship on Thursday night!

The mutton cooking early Saturday morning which was one of the things that I seriously missed in PY, so I was able to get my fair share of mutton, too bad I couldn’t bring any back with me!

All of the wonderful pies being cut, that is one thing that I haven’t mastered down here is making a pie so I was able to eat some wonderful pies!

The chicken pit right before it was lit and chicken began to be cooked.

Where I spent my BBQ time working as a part of a fantastic team that served over 1,000 guests!

A few days before I left I had the wonderful opportunity to tour the Warm Springs Ranch which is the breeding facility for the Budweiser Clydesdales.   

One of the most recently born babies!

Great photo opportunity and it really made me appreciate how large these animals really are.

After the visit to the ranch I had the opportunity to go fishing with my dad so we had a great time north of Columbia, we didn’t catch a lot of good eating fish but we had fun none the less and got to watch a fantastic storm roll in!

The Saturday before I left my church sustainability group took a trip to Fulton to visit Bluebird Composting which was a beautiful facility and I was able to actually learn a few new things about composting to bring that information back here to PY as composting is one of my projects.  The scale of their operation was just impressive and they even had worm composting and made compost tea, all things that I do here in PY!

Just a great picture I got of my church on Sunday right before the baby shower of my Godmother Jennifer.  It was so great to still be in town for the baby shower and so great to be able to catch up with my Mast family!

Dad and I and then Mom and I my last night in Columbia enjoying the beautiful views from The Roof.  It was just a great time to spend with family as I recovered and rested.  It was also a time filled with great food from all around Columbia!  It was just a blessing to be able to go out to eat and not have to think a week in advanced what I would be cooking for dinner!