The Mosquitoes have Arrived! :-(

It seems like the past few days have once again flown by.  It seems as if they just like to keep us extremely busy so we don’t really have time to slow down, which I guess is good in some ways but bad in others.  This weekend was extremely warm and I am slowly trying to adjust that you can’t just walk into air-conditioning to cool down but rather am learning how to cool down with fans and multiple showers per day.  Luckily the weather seems to warm up for a few days and then cool back down so we our bodies are slowly able to adjust.  We have a lot of people in my group from the Pacific Northwest and other northern states and they are already having a hard time with the heat so I guess I’m luckily to be somewhat used to it.  I’m sure we will all get through the summers here hopefully without complaining too much but I can honestly say I’m not looking forward to the 110-115 degree days so hopefully we have a “mild” summer! 

I have also learned that my mosquito net doesn’t allow any air circulation but rather acts as an oven so sorry to say I took that off my bed.  Unfortunately though the mosquitoes have made their official appearance and you walk outside and there are just swarms of mosquitoes.  Luckily for some reason they haven’t taken up residence in my room I think because I constantly have the fan on so I think being without my net for now will be okay.  The problem is if you walk outside you just get swarmed especially right before a big storm like we had yesterday (Monday) and unfortunately they just came back with a vengeance after the storm.  There seems to be a major problem throughout Paraguay with Dengue Fever and unfortunately one of the other trainees is currently in the hospital with it.  The Peace Corps has been sending out numerous emails about it but there is really only so much you can do.  We have been thoroughly educated about how to reduce our risks but it is very treatable illness even though you have really bad flu like symptoms for a few days and our medical team is awesome and does a good job of taking care of us!  So I will try and keep my fingers crossed and try and use my bug spray and net (on cooler nights!).  Sadly though it sounds like even among the local people just about everyone has had Dengue at some point and it is quickly on the rise throughout the country despite the health warnings and information posted everywhere.  I think the main reason is there is just no way to escape getting mosquito bites, but I guess time will tell. 

On Saturday night I had all of the trainees in my community (11 of us left) over to my house for a small get together to help unwind and we ended up having a wonderful time playing UNO and my mom was so nice because even though I told her not to she made many little finger foods for us.  We ended up staying up way later than we should have but we had a great time just getting to know each other better outside of classes and we had a lot of fun playing UNO.  It was also nice because I was able to sleep in on Sunday.  One of my friends here Jennifer (from Oregon) lives close to me and on the weekends we have been walking around the “community” which basically just means down the mud roads into the countryside with many cows and sugar cane.  We have fun just talking and trying to unwind from the week plus get a lot of great exercise!  Around noon my family and I left the house and we went over to my grandparents’ house (my mom’s parents) for a small celebration. 

One of the big cultural events here is anniversaries of family members death’s so evidently one of their family members died a year ago so we had a small celebration of their life.  It really just involved about a twenty minute prayer recitation and then we just had a big BBQ with the entire family so I was overwhelmed meeting all of my “new” family and my grandparents, especially my grandfather were trying to ask me so many questions.  I was not able to participate in the prayer recitation but rather was put on animal duty to keep all of the chickens, dogs, cats, flies, and any other animal away from the food while they had their ceremony, which was a TON of work in and of itself.  Sadly the chickens are very persistent and managed to get some Sopa Paraguaya (this is one of my favorite dishes here so far, it’s like corn bread with fresh corn and cheese that my mom makes).  I also learned that my host brother has a one year old daughter so he brought her to the picnic so I was able to play with her a little bit.  It was a warm afternoon but we had plenty of shade and cold Terere to drink all afternoon.  We stayed until midafternoon and then I was able to come back and get some homework done. 

At this point we have a huge stack of reading the want us to start doing in our “free time” which we don’t really have any between class and family activities so I have been trying to get ahead on our technical reading on the weekends which is a lot easier than my language lessons mostly because technical skills are taught in English.  I am learning a lot of technical information mainly on organic gardening, environmental education in the schools, agroforestry, as well as history of natural resource management in Paraguay.  It seems like the majority of my work in my community should revolve around agroforestry since there are only 2 people “trained” in forestry.  I am really looking forward to this because this is something that can be incorporated into nearly anything with a positive result.  My task now is to just try and learn about all of the important trees here in Paraguay and what is normally used in different agroforestry practices.  I am also trying to express to my teachers an interest in biodigestors so hopefully I can be on the “PC Paraguay Biodigestor Team” who is only a select few from each group.  They are able to travel throughout Paraguay to install and inform the people about biodigestors and this is something that I studied/worked on in Costa Rica and what I worked on a little bit with Porter. 

At this point I have moved from Spanish to my Guarani classes and I am quickly learning that the pronunciation is key in communication because there are many words that are spelt the same way but depending on where you accent or influx your voice it can mean a lot of different things (most of which are bad).  I will try and post some examples of Guarani when I have time!  My host mom is so awesome because she sits down with me for a couple of hours every day to help me with my homework because she wants me to do well in class so I can be good in my future community.  She is also so nice because she is always telling me how good I’m doing and how much improvement I have made even though I can’t see it.  She has also started introducing me as her daughter which means so much to me to be an official part of the family now! 

It seems like the next week I will not be able to post for a while because we will mostly be in our training communities and not at the training center where we have intermittent internet access.  Over the next week we will be focusing our technical training on agroforestry which I am so excited about.  We also have our second language proficiency interview next week and our second interviews with our environmental coordinators, who are the people are placing us in our future community, so a lot of important meetings over the next week.  I was able to talk to my dad, mom, and Thad back in the states this week which always just makes my week so much better.  I was able to get caught up on what’s going on back at home and the news as well as just such great encouragement.  I have also been getting a lot of really wonderful emails so please keep them coming as they truly help make my day.  I have also been copying the emails into word so on days when I don’t have internet I can still read all of the amazing encouragement. 

Also today I planted my first tree in Paraguay!  I will try to post pictures soon. 

My House for Training

Below you should find some pictures of my host families house and gardens!

 

3 de Noviembre

On Monday morning I left my home here in Tacuruty and traveled to the southeastern part of Paraguay.  For four days each of us were assigned a current Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) to go and stay with to see what they do in a normal day.  I was assigned to another environmental volunteer named Porter and he has been in country for about a year and been in his site a year in December.  His site is a very “campo” site which just means he is out in the countryside.  Porter is actually from Virginia and has his masters from VA Tech and worked for VA department of forestry collecting FIA data, so we had a lot in common.  I traveled to Villarica on a bus and met Porter there where we got lunch and did a little bit of grocery shopping.  He also showed me around the markets and a local park since we had a little bit of time before our next bus left.  Our next bus left Villarica and went towards his site.  It was a two hour bus ride with about 1 hour on “pavement” that turned into cobblestone road then gravel and then finally to dirt/mud road.  It wouldn’t have been a bad ride except for the wooden seats that seemed to get harder as we went along with no padding on the bad roads.  We drove through some small campo towns but nothing too substantial and went over a “bridge” over a river that was actually just a wooden structure with no sides and signs that said DANGER so I just stopped looking down and said a little prayer but we got across with no difficulties. 

When Porter said to get up and start moving to the front of the bus I looked outside and we were in the middle of NOWHERE but it was so beautiful with green rolling hills and lots of animals (cows, chicken, pigs, etc.).  So we got off and started our trek/hike into his site.  There is a “shortcut” through the fields so we went through several different farmers’ fields with cattle going through the fences and then went over a small creek, up a huge hill and about a 30 minute walk from where we got off the bus we arrived at his house.  Porter actually built his house on his host families land since he is the first volunteer in that community and I will try to post pictures later but it is a very nice house with a kitchen and bedroom with running water, a hot shower, and an outhouse that actually has a normal toilet with running water.  The house was really nice especially compared to many others in the area especially since he had running water and electricity.  His host families’ house was located about 100 feet from his house so we spent a lot of time with them.  Also he had internet and phone access which just blows my mind but was fun to have. 

His site is called 3 de Noviembre which isn’t really any city or specific place but rather a region.  His community is very spread out through a series of mud roads and the main economy is growing yerba mate which is a tree that they harvest the leaves off of and what everyone in Paraguay drinks at any time of the day (Terere and Mate).  There was also a lot of cassava grown in the region and many people had their own few banana and orange trees.  Porter’s main project is trying to get people interested in biodigestors which would give farmers a way to make fertilizer and gas using the byproducts (poop) of their animals, mainly cattle.  I had worked/ seen many biodigestors in Costa Rica so it was cool to see that this is a project worked on by the Peace Corps here in Paraguay.  At this point in his service he has just been getting people interested and has two families which he has applied and received a grant for funding to install 2 biodigestors which will occur over the next year.  He is also putting together an information session for other people to come and learn about biodigestors to try and promote their use in the area.  His other main project is working in the schools which he does once a week helping them set up a school garden for the high school.

The first full day on site we walked about 5 km through the community to reach one of the families that he has worked with.  It seems like for everyone about half their time is spent sitting in a circle drinking Terere because it helps cool you off/ hydrate as well as the entire social aspect of communicating.  So we spent the first hour or so doing that and then went with the farmer into his peach orchard and helped him pick peaches for a couple of hours which is hard work and the peach fuzz gets everywhere but we had fun picking peaches and eating those that wouldn’t transport well.  He sells his peaches in the closest town so he takes them in about once per week but he had probably around 250 peach trees.  When we filled the baskets we had we went back to the house and drank Terere again and were able to eat lunch there.  Porter has it figured out that if you arrive at someone’s house in the morning and stay until about lunch time the senora will always invite you for lunch so he goes to different houses every day to get lunch, which is a good plan because you always get good food from different houses.  J

After lunch we helped him pick some more peaches and he took us to another piece of property that he owned so we looked at that.  The area is just beautiful with small mountains in the background with rolling hills but sadly much of the land has been deforested and put into production for either cattle or soy beans.  The farmer we were with had cut about half the trees out of the forest and then put way too many cattle in the woods so the understory is pretty much nonexistent and he is now running into the problem of there not being enough grass/ plants for his cows to eat.  The other field we toured he had pigs down in the bottoms where the creek was and they were just tearing up everything and polluting the water but I don’t think he realized the water quality issues.  We ended the day helping him dig up cassava which is a tree that you harvest the roots from which is a staple here in Paraguay.  Overall though it was a good day talking to him with my limited Spanish skills but I could tell how proud he was of his property and although it might not be running sustainably for the future he is providing for his large family and is so proud of that.  He also had the largest cabbage plants that I had ever seen growing in his garden!

On Wednesday morning we walked to the high school which was about 3 km from the house and there we worked with around 10 students to help put in their garden.  They didn’t get the project started until about a month ago and school will be getting out in about 2 months for summer break so they are not really planting a lot but rather getting the beds dug out and will be planting abono verdes (which are just plants that are cover crops, some of which add N to the soil, help protect from soil erosion, and some can actually be harvested like some types of beans).  For that morning at the school we were just trying to dig one bed about 1 mx 3m double dug with the addition of a lot of compost and organic matter.  About ¼ of the students were actually interested and willing to help so for the others we had to keep giving them tasks, and still even then they didn’t really do anything.  They are supposed to have school for 4 hours a day (they either go in the morning or afternoon) so they go from 7-11 but they have a ONE HOUR break from 9-10 so really they are only in school for 3 hours but even then school never starts on time and I doubt they have any more than 2 hours of instruction in any given day, which is the sad truth.  Working at the school though gave me a good perspective about working in the schools and trying to set up a school garden with not a lot of students interested. 

After working in the schools for the morning we walked just a little ways down to another house of one of the families that will be receiving a biodigestors.  He has a wonderful garden where they grow their fresh vegetables and he actually grows and sells the yerba mate plant to other local farmers.  We walked around his farm awhile, drank more Terere and then was “lucky” enough to be able to stay for lunch.  After lunch he walked us to another part of his property where he was digging for gold.  Evidently there is a huge deposit of gold here in Paraguay but unfortunately they just don’t have the technology to extract it so instead other companies from outside Paraguay come in with the expensive technology and extract the gold.  For the farmer that we visited I know he paid a lot of money and had just an huge “hole” about the size of a football field about 50 feet deep on his property and he was disappointed that he hadn’t found gold, which I unfortunately don’t think he will find with the limited equipment he has.  We talked to him for a while and then walked to another house for about an hour or so followed by another on our way home.  It seems like about half the time is just spent sitting talking to people and allowing them to show you all of their land and animals which they are so proud of. 

On Thursday morning we left around 6:15 and walked back the “shortcut” to the road with a beautiful sunrise but very wet grass (so I had wet feet all day).  I caught the bus back into Villarica and from there traveled back to my house which took around 8 hours and I was completely exhausted when I finally arrived home.  Luckily though on my way back to Asuncion we took the northern route instead of the southern one so I was able to see an entirely new landscape.  Today (Friday) we are all together at the training center sharing what we learned over the past few days and having more medical/ safety and security lectures. 

A few things I learned over the last week…

1.       ALL of the cats in Paraguay are named Michi

2.       The bathrooms on the bus are horrible so it’s better to not eat or drink when you’re traveling; I learned this one the hard way.

3.       Everyone stares at you when you’re the only white person on the bus and no one will sit by you.

4.       It’s beginning to get hot (about 90’s) and everyone keeps telling me to just wait because it really isn’t hot yet. L

5.       Paraguay countryside is BEAUTIFUL!

6.       The red clay does stain everything and my socks will never be white again, but oh well!  My mom was horrified by how dirty I was when I got home since my shoes were muddy and the bottom half of my pants were muddy but I didn’t really have a choice so she insisted that I wash all my clothes which actually takes a lot of time doing laundry by hand after a long day of travel.

7.       The insects must like pale skin because I was eaten alive.  My mom once again was freaking out and had to touch all of my bites to make sure they weren’t boht flies.  She also wasn’t happy with all of the sun I got because I am losing my “paleness”.  She is just so funny sometimes!

8.       I am starting to lose some of my English words; I know them in Spanish but for the life of me can’t remember in English.  So I know my grammar/ spelling may be getting bad, sorry. 

 

Below you should see a few pictures of my volunteer visit and the house that Porter built as well as a few of the peaches we picked and the beautiful sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2 Adventures

I just wanted to give you all an update about what has been going on the last week or so.  I have now been in Paraguay for over a week and some days it feels like I just got here, while others seem like I have been here for years.  I am so far really enjoying my time here.  I am living with a wonderful host family and my siblings are very nice and fun to be around, but five of us trying to share one small bathroom has become a fun experience.  I also have a new very good friend, Michi, the family cat.  He is my new best friend because he has learned to sit under me during meals because I will feed him the food I don’t want (mostly meat fat).  I would never do this in the states, feed animals under the table but I my host mom feels bad if I don’t eat all the food, so feeding the cat a little on the side I think is okay because he is just given my “extra” food scraps anyway J.  He also slept with me my first couple of nights here, but once I put up my mosquito net he hasn’t quite figured out how to get in which is alright.    I finally decided to not let him in my bed when I saw him carry a chicken head and feet around the house and he was disappointed when he couldn’t put it in my room.  Also it is a lot of work to keep the chickens out of my room while still maintaining air circulation, but I am getting much better!  It’s amazing the variety of new “skills” you can learn in such a short period of time!

                They have been keeping us very busy and will continue to the next 9 weeks or so until December 9^th which is our official day to swear in to be an official PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer).  I am living with one of the small environmental groups in a town about 2 hours outside of Asuncion.  We started out with 12 in our group but sadly have already lost one PCT (Peace Corps Trainee).  We were all very supportive of her decision, even though we were very sad to see her go we all knew it took a lot of inner strength to make that decision and return home, so I wish her the best in her future plans!  They told us that it is quite normal and that they normally expect 5-10% to go home during our training here and out of 46 in our group I guess we will still expect to lose some more.  I have also learned how quickly you can get to know people, even though we have known each other less than two weeks I know many of these people will be lifelong friends and I have a wonderful support network here. 

The majority of our time (about ½) is spent on language training which we are trying to learn both Spanish and Guarani which gets very confusing at times.  I have three people in my language class which is very nice because we have to actively participate and get a lot of one on one attention and feedback which I feel is necessary for language.  Along with language training is cultural training so we learn what the norms are and things that we do in the states here is seen as very bad or rude.  So far we have learned about many different hand gestures, which was a very fun experience. 

We spend about ¼ of our time on technical training which I am having a ton of fun in thus far.  Just about all of our sessions are hands on.  So far we have built a compost pile as well as a small garden that is actually located in my backyard.  I am learning a lot of new information and getting very good using a machete and bamboo to make fences and just about anything else that is needed.  We are also double digging our garden, which is a new concept for me but seems like a wonderful idea.  We have a very small garden with three small raised beds but as a demonstration garden I think that it will be okay.  Our compost pile we built right behind our small school in our community that the Peace Corps rents out for our training.  I have heard of composting and used it a lot in Costa Rica but never had a true compost pile of my own so I am now learning the science behind the compost pile and learning that making a compost pile will be essential for my garden success in the future with the soils here.  I am also learning a lot about sustainable community development and what that looks like.  I have been very interested in this topic and am reading an amazing book titled Two Ears of Corn which discussed agricultural development which can also closely relate to environmental development.  My favorite quote thus far that I am trying to remember is that “our job isn’t to become heroes, but rather to make heroes out of the people with whom we are working”.  We have just begun to talk about this topic so I can’t wait to learn more about it and read more in my book. 

The other small amounts of our time are spent on community development, personal adaptation, personal health, and safety and security.  We have a wonderful team of three doctors who are all Paraguayan (and have their own regular practice), but are very passionate about what they are doing and helping PCV’s.  I am very lucky that I already had many of the shots because they are giving shots about once or twice a week and so far I haven’t had to have any so I am hoping for the best.  J We also have a wonderful Safety/Security guy that is very entertaining but knows how to scare the heck out of us with a scenario but then teach us how it can be avoided.  This seems like a very safe country thus far with the main incidents being pickpocketing mostly on the bus and in the big cities, but so far everyone has been good. 

After this week we are not really going to be at the training center too much more as a big group together but rather in our small satellite communities meeting.  This week we have an exercise where we are given a task to do in Asuncion and we are paired up with someone and we have to make our way into Asuncion and complete our tasks.  When we are finished with them (or at 1:30) we have to make our way to the Peace Corps office in Asuncion.  I am very nervous about this since we will be taking many different busses to get there but it will also be fun to explore and to stock up on things that we can’t buy in our small community.  My task is to go to the natural history museum which looks like a lot of fun because I just have to find the museum, tree nursery, and the taxidermy museum.  It seems like my group got the best places to visit because they are evidently doing some outstanding research on tree grafting and creating blight resistant citrus trees, which seems very interesting.  They also evidently have many extinct animal specimens so they should be fun to learn about.   Will try and report back on how this trip into town is.  From the pictures I have seen Asuncion is a VERY large city with skyscrapers and an enormous amount of people so I guess we will see how it goes, I usually don’t like cities (regardless of where they are), but I am hoping for the best!

Also over the next few weeks we will begin visiting other volunteers in their communities so we can see what they are doing over the course of a few days.  This country seems very beautiful and I can’t wait to explore it.  So far my favorites have been the cute baby goats that live right across from me because I can see them from my window and can always make me laugh even when I’m not having the best day.  Also the kids here are so nice and just so interested in everything about us, I don’t have any small children in my home since they are 19 and 29 but there are still plenty of visitors.  The life here seems to move at a very slow pace with a lot of people just visiting each other in the afternoons and they said as it begins to get hot the kids will be out of school for the summer and life really slows down because it’s too hot to do anything else.  We have also just gone through the time change, springing forward, so we are now two hours ahead of Missouri time instead of just one.  I have also learned to not become too attached to really any animal because they all serve a specific purpose, but I do have a new friend who is a rhea which is sort of like an ostrich.  He walks beside me each morning on his side of the fence on my way to school!   

This morning (Sunday) I was able to help my mom wash all the clothes from the family this week.  It is amazing how many clothes there are from the family.  I am trying to wear things at least twice unless they are really dirty to help cut down on laundry, and have become very good at washing my undergarments in the shower each day.  She has a small washing machine that makes our lives a lot easier because it does the main wash but doesn’t drain like in the US so then we have to take the clothes out, rinse them a couple of times in buckets, last time with fabric softener, and then hang them up to dry.  At first I didn’t like the fact that our clothes line was barbed wire but now it makes since because we don’t have very many clothes pins so the barbed wire holds the clothes on the line and if you are paying attention and are careful it will not rip the clothes J.

My host mother here has a beautiful garden all around the house; I have to keep remembering that it is spring here which explains why there are so many beautiful flowers all around.  Many flowers that we grow in the US are present here and many are even on a much larger scale, for example everyone here as a poinsettia tree instead of the small plants we have for Christmas.  Also I have learned that sweeping the dirt to make it nice and smooth is very important and my mom “cleans” the yard every day and gets rid of every broken branch or even just dead leaves that fall of the tree.  I do love our yard though with the huge fruit trees (which we should be harvesting soon) including bananas, many citrus trees, and many others that I don’t even recognize or know the English name for.  We do spend a lot of time on our patio which is beautiful shaded and surrounded with wonderful flowers, I have taken some pictures so will try and post at some point. 

I have also learned that community get-togethers or family festivals are very common here.  Many of them revolve around religious holidays (which there has already been 2-3 since I have been here) mostly for different saints.  These festivities usually consist of a lot of wonderful food and grilling of meat is very popular here.  Also loud music is pretty much normal at all times of the day and night for people even if they are just at their house.  Also people having big speakers in the back of their vehicles that drive all around the community is very popular!  I am very glad that I brought ear plugs! American music especially rap/ hip hop is very popular here and they don’t believe me that I don’t listen to that music back in the states.  I think if they realized what they were singing they might not like it as much as they think they do, but oh well it is very entertaining.  My dad really likes to sing girls just want to have fun, I think he just likes the beat of the song but would be totally humiliated if he knew what he was saying, so I will not burst his bubble.  Also at gatherings the men and women/ boys and girls do not really interact very much but rather sit on different sides of the yards and drink among themselves (usually with one glass) and if a girl would drink (usually alcohol) with a boy it would be seen as a very bad thing, so many of these social customs we are slowly learning about in our cultural/language class.

….(Thursday morning)

I just wanted to give you another update about this week, this blog post just keeps getting longer and longer because I haven’t had the opportunity to update/ connect to the internet.  On Tuesday we all received the first round of our rabies vaccination which wasn’t very exciting and they tell us we still have at least one more rabies shot to go, plus all of our other ones.  It seems like we have a couple shots a week now for awhile L

Yesterday we had our adventure into Asuncion and I had a wonderful time.  We were luckily able to just catch the bus right in front of my house and took it all the way through to San Lorenzo which is a suburb of Asuncion.  We got off there at the university and started out by going to INFONA which is sort of like their forestry service/research sector run by the government.  The museum is called the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural del Paraguay.  We went to the natural history museum there which was simply amazing.  The museum isn’t like one you would find in the US that is like a self-guided, everything laid out and displayed to see.  Rather we showed up at this museum that looked a small house and was greeted by one of the workers.  He then proceeded to show us the museum which was just a series of small rooms with each room being for something different.  The first room he took us to was the entomology lab where there were hundreds of small clear containers filled with tarantulas and other HUGE spiders.  Since this was a museum I assumed they were all dead samples so I proceeded to pick one of them up and just about died when the spider started moving and proceeded to quick drop the container and then I really freaked out when all of the containers started to move with the spiders inside.  The two other guys in my group and the tour guide thought that it was so funny, but I just didn’t especially after he was telling us how poisonous some of them were.  Luckily I was able to quickly move through the lab and into the next room.

The next few rooms were huge rooms with hundreds of tall wooden storage closets and just plain shelves that contained over 300,000 specimens of invertebrates (30,000 species), 31,000 specimens of fish (including 231 species), and thousands of birds, mammals, reptiles, and other insects.  Many items were stuffed as well as many sitting in alcohol, or just pinned and dried.  My favorite part was the extensive plant collection with over 30,000 specimens of plant species that were found in Paraguay over a 30 year time period.  Everything was very well organized and they just had so much to look at, there is no way it could probably be done even within a few months, they just had so much stuff.  The tour guide was so passionate about the museum and all that it had but even though it is a free museum there are not many people that come to visit unless they are a student that has to come for research purposes.  The sad thing was that pretty much anything he touched/ tried to show us kept falling apart but he just kept on moving through.  They also do not get a lot of funding and the money they do get goes towards more research/collection.  Sadly many of the plant and animal specimens we found are no longer found in Paraguay or even anywhere else in the world and he said the major reason was from deforestation.  The craziest thing we saw (which was luckily dead) was a snake that took up an entire 55 gallon drum; I just don’t even want to think about coming across that thing in the woods.  There were so many beautiful butterfly and insect samples I wish we could have stayed longer and I know many of my professors and friends could spend years in there just looking at everything. 

Once we were done looking at everything there we went next door to the house where they invite student groups to come in that has everything geared towards environmental education for students.  They had many stuffed animals, plants, trees, and a lot of recycled art.  The lady we met there is so passionate about her job and loves to teach kids about conservation and the animals that sadly have gone extinct as well as those that still call Paraguay home.  One of the aspects that I really loved was all of the recycled artwork that she helps the kids make when they visit, I was able to get many of new ideas that I can’t wait to try in my community.  It was amazing that through our short visit we could just see how excited they were to see us visiting and how they were able to make the place run with such a small budget and facilities that were falling apart around them.  They have so many valuable specimens that truly need to be preserved because many are the last of the kind. 

After we left the natural history museum we walked across the national university campus and quickly looked at their huge garden where they grow many of their own vegetables, toured the tree nursery where the public can come and buy both plants and seeds, and toured their own smaller version of a natural history museum.  One thing that I learned so far is that everyone here is so nice even though our communication is limited I was still able to learn so much and have a lot of valuable resources that I can use though my service here.  When we were leaving the campus there were a group of Gideons handing out bibles that we were trying to ask directions to and they pointed us in the right direction and while we were walking away the older guys all started laughing because they said, “you know it would have been a lot easier to talk in English for all of us” because as I found out they had moved here from the states, but we still got our free new testament, psalms and proverbs in Spanish. 

We took the bus closer into downtown Asuncion where we got off close to the PC office.  It took us a little while to find the office because everything has tall brick walls and guards and the sign that said PC was about 2 inches by 6 inches wide on a plaque so we went and grabbed lunch before we reported back to the office.  We had to go through intense security screening to get into the “compound” which is huge with many buildings and beautiful gardens.  We had a follow up security talk about our experiences in Asuncion and the bus system and then had to learn all about government computers/ internet and all of the rules/regulations and then had to sign our life away so we would in the future use them.  After all of the policies we had a quick mentor mix where we were able to meet our mentors who are current volunteers and talk to them and was able to ask a lot of question and hear many different stories.  It is always great to just get a bunch of different perspectives of everything.  Sadly we only had about an hour with them and then had to go back through security and get our id’s back so we could leave and luckily they put us on the PC bus so we were delivered right back to our communities and didn’t have to worry about public transit.  Overall it was a wonderful day and I now know how to get around a small part of Asuncion. 

This morning our class is starting late (9:30) so I am able to take a little bit of time to write.  This was the first day that I woke up to a storm and sadly the thunder stopped but so far it has been raining for a few hours very hard and water is beginning to stand everywhere so I can’t wait to try and go out in the red clay, now mud, but I know we need the rain.  I have also learned that our chickens don’t have a chicken coop but rather just a tree they go in at night and when it rains they are trying to come in the house because they evidently don’t like to be wet.

Well after a full day of classes I have learned a few new things about Paraguay.  Today with the rain I found that everything pretty much shuts down in the rain.  We were supposed to go and observe in the schools this afternoon to see how children are taught here so we could begin to get an idea of what we can do in the schools.  Since it rained this morning evidently there isn’t any school for (as I found out) a variety of reasons including: the kids would get sick in the rain, would stain their only good clothes with the red clay, hard to get around in the wet mud, a good day to relax, and the list goes on and on.  So instead of being able to observe the classes we were able to talk to a couple of the teachers as well as look at the beautiful school garden that was built by a current PCV.  There seems to be a few problems with the education system here because there is constantly strikes occurring by the teachers due to a lack of pay as well as shuts down for pretty much anything (if it’s too hot, cold, rain, etc.).  Overall though I really enjoyed the day of rain even though the red clay is super slick and I just about hit the ground but luckily was able to catch myself in time and luckily brought an umbrella and rain coat!  The rain also really helped to cool things down so it should be good sleeping weather tonight.

I also just wanted to let everyone know that I am going to not be able to post anymore for a little while.  If you need to get ahold of me for some reason you can talk to my parents or Thad as they have my phone number and I do love to hear from people at home!  Also I planned on sending many letters from here until I found out that it cost about $4 US and considering that currently I am only making about $4.30/ day I need to save that money for other things right now, you all are worth it but we will just have to wait awhile because they said we need to save our money for settling into our new community.  I have learned that there a few people that do go back and forth to the states for visiting or PCV going home so I am trying to send a few letters with them when I find them so I can just drop them in the mail, so please just be patient.  Also I am not able to check my email very much but I do love to hear from home, so although I might not be able to respond to everyone it means so much that some of you are taking time out of your busy lives to send me a quick email!

Well so sorry for the long post but I’m just trying to keep everyone updated and have limited access to internet.  I hope you all are doing well at home and many hugs and warm thoughts and prayers are coming your way from Paraguay.

P.S. We (all PCV and PCT’s) were invited to the US Ambassadors’ house for Thanksgiving so that should be a fun experience!

Sunday Morning Parade- Celebration of Spring

On Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of a ton of people outside and they were all preparing for a HUGE parade.  They shut down the main road in town for this event.  It evidently (from what I could gather) is a parade for the celebration of spring.  They had all of the local schools come and had there marching band (consisting only of drums) as well as their dancers.  It was quite the ordeal with the entire town coming out standing at various places along the road.  After the school children got done there was a series of floats and actors (on the back of tractors, trailers, etc.) that told the story of Paraguay and how it was formed and changed over the years.  They are very proud of their history just like we are in the US.  Below you should be able to see pictures of this important town event. 

First Post From Paraguay

I have arrived safely into Paraguay!  We arrived very early on Friday morning and went straight to our main training center about an hour and a half outside of the city.  We had a HUGE welcome party of Peace Corps (PC) staff and it was a little overwhelming with so many people so excited about us getting there.  We loaded up three small busses and an entire cargo truck load of luggage and drove outside the city.  The training center is very nice with lots of PC staff including our medical team, language teachers, and many others.  We had a short introduction and were serenaded by the staff singing us welcome songs.  We then had a treasure hunt around the main office where we met and sat down with the medical team, got our schedule and groups, got paid for the next eleven days(which is about $5 US per day), got all of our training manuals and basic information, an introduction by our security team, received Spanish/English dictionaries, as well as interviewed for our host family placements.  Although it might not seem like we get paid much considering that we are living with a host family and they are providing our meals and lodging, the only thing we have to pay for is our laundry which is about $3 US/load).  (Below is a picture of my last meal in the states.)

After we had the scavenger hunt we then had a wonderful lunch prepared by our staff including many local foods.  Most meals here are usually meat (carne or pollo) and lots of bread (pan y sopa).  It seems as if we do have internet at the main training center so we should be able to get emails out/update blog a couple of times a week depending on when were there.  I have been composing my emails/blogs at home when I have down time and then posting when it is available.

It seems as if our main health concerns are not going to be malaria but rather dengue fever, botfly flies (don’t look this up as it seems very nasty), as well as many other small parasites that can be picked up.  Although we can boil/ clean our water for our entire trip they (current PC volunteers) recommend that a couple of weeks into it we just go ahead and jump in and start drinking the water, they said we would be a little sick for a couple of weeks but then our body will adjust. So I guess being sick for two weeks out of twenty seven months isn’t too bad and would be a lot less time than purifying the water all the time.  I guess we will just have to see.  They said there are no major diseases that we would contract from the water just a different bacterial load than our bodies are used to.  We also do have to use mosquito nets to sleep at night, I got mine set up but it took a lot of time and lots of help from my host family, who was convinced I didn’t need it so I had to try and explain that it was necessary as a PC volunteer.    

                After lunch we had a lot of information given to us about our host family and what to expect/ what is expected of us.  We were divided into four small groups (there are 12 in my group) which is based on our sector (agriculture or environment).  My community is located in a more rural area about half an hour from the main training center.  In this community we have a small house which PC has rented as our school for the next few months.  We have three of our own language teachers and one technical teacher who is actually a PCV (Peace Corps volunteer) that has extended one extra year to help with training.  So far we have only had one language class which was on Saturday morning.  Our school days go from 7:45-5 with an hour or so break in the middle for lunch time we have class Monday through Friday with a half day on Saturday.  So far it seems like our schedule is extremely busy and we will be going back and forth between our satellite communities and the main training center, as well as into Asuncion every once in a while where the main PC office is.  It seems as if we have a wide variety of classes ranging from lots of language to health, security, technical, and many other areas.  This country is for sure a bilingual country so it seems as if they want us to have basic Spanish and then they will teach us Guarani.  The language seems like it will be a fun one to learn because it is very nasally and the tone/influx of your voice can mean many different things so I know that it will also be very challenging. 

We have arrived here in spring and it is a lot cooler than I was expecting it to be. 

So far in the evenings it gets very cool so I shut my windows and wear my flannel pants and a long sleeved shirt to bed.  I do have a fan and lots of windows so when it does get hot I can open it up.  My host family is extremely nice; I have a host mom and dad who both work at a dairy operation somewhere around here as well as an older brother and sister who also work, although I’m not sure where exactly.  They live in a very modest sized house and I luckily do have warm water, although not hot it sure feels good when the sun goes down (which is at around 6:30 pm).  We do have electricity and they have given me the biggest room of the house, which I feel bad about but it sounds like that’s how they treat us down here.  I have a small bed, dresser, nightstand consisting of a cardboard box with fabric on top, as well as a small plastic table and chair and a small shelving unit.  The kitchen and rest of the house is very modest (compared to US standards) but seems to get the job done.  I will try and post pictures as soon as I get them taken.  The most interesting thing is that everyone has chickens that just run around everywhere and our chickens like to just parade around and through the house all the time since each room opens up to both inside and outside the house.  At first I was a little freaked out when I saw chickens just in the house but I guess it is normal behavior.  Also there is no noise ordinance here so in the evening many people have huge parties with loud music so I am very glad that I brought ear plugs for sleeping. 

                We went to a “small family party” last night to help celebrate a birthday and it turned out to be a huge gathering with about 40-50 people.  The meal times are also very different than ours because they have a small breakfast, huge lunch, small snacks, and dinner isn’t until about 10-11 pm, which is something that I will have to get used to. It seems as if my host mom makes me meals at normal time because I usually eat by myself because I am long asleep before they eat so I guess I will slowly try and adjust to this change although I have no idea when, and if my host mom every sleeps.  She always is busy with something.  Just like with many other host families they try to feed you A LOT of food which I have to politely refuse after a while because it is just way too much.  Luckily there was one other volunteer at the party with me because everyone was trying to talk to us in a mixture of languages and it was a little overwhelming.  There was a ton of food which you had to fight your way into get and then everyone quickly ate very quietly and then plates were cleared and the drinking and partying began once again.  It was a very new experience for me watching the many social interactions which is very different based on age, gender, etc.  Much of our training will go over this eventually. 

Top 10 interesting things that I have learned thus far:

1.       Chickens are allowed anywhere including inside the house and in fact just help clean up the scraps dropped in the kitchen/anywhere really.  Also they are very loud at ALL times of the day!

2.       Although I can pay my host mom to do my laundry, undergarments have to be washed by the wearer so you just walk into the shower with them on and wash them out and then hand them up to dry COMPLETELY (goes back to the botfly fly L ).  Right now with the cooler temperatures it takes a few days for underwear to dry, but when it gets warm outside it will be quicker.

3.       A lettuce salad here consists of normal lettuce and tomatoes but also vinegar, salt, and oil.  I have learned they use oil and mayo on just about everything. 

4.       Terere and Mate is the popular drink of choice, depending on the weather.  When it’s cold or in the morning you drink mate and when it is hot is terere.  There are a lot of herbs included in the drink which should help with a variety of problems and does taste good but there is a very proper way to drink it.  So far everywhere I have gone people are drinking terere and everyone drinks from the same glass.  I will try and have a blog specifically on drinking terere.    

5.       In Guarani hello is “Ba-achieba”

6.       You have to always wear shoes because there is evidently some parasite that likes bare feet that lays their eggs and you have to dig them out (they say that we will all experience that at some point, but I’m hoping not J)

7.       The red clay is everywhere is going to stain everything!

8.       Toilet paper NEVER goes into the toilet but rather in a nearby trash can, the septic systems here are very bad.

9.       We have one cat that actually belongs to us but we have a constant parade of various other animals including many other cats, chickens, and dogs.  You never have to worry about dropping any food on the floor because there is always an animal (cat, dog, or chicken) that will fight each other for it!

10.   They all think that I have lots of boyfriends in the states because of my “curvy” figure; I guess it is seen as desirable.  But don’t worry Thad all of the guys thus far that have expressed interest are old and married J!

That’s all for now, I hope that everyone is doing well stateside.  Will try and post pictures and more soon!