One Year Down

Two months have passed, taking with them any remaining cool summer breezes. The last days of classes are over, and the summer corn is already knee-high and begging for our hoes to unburden them of the ever-present weeds. Weeds grow incredibly quickly here. The days of following the shade have returned, and as I sit drinking endless pitchers of terere on a humid day, sweat collects and drips off my nose and into the corners of my mouth. Free sauna. I finally succumbed and bought a fan, which is helpful not only for the heat, but for fending of night bugs when I don't feel like being trapped in my mosquito net. Wow. I just made it sound awful here. Really it's not that bad. I actually love this time of year because it's time to relax and prepare for holiday festivities. The elementary school had their final presentation, and tomorrow night I'm going to the high school graduation. It's going to be a formal event, and each graduate has a certain number of invitees, and a padrino to send her off, kind of like a wedding. It sounds more like a prom to me.


Today is my one-year anniversary of living in Arroyo Moroti. Once again it is marked by the one-year reso ,or memorial, for Jorge's mother, who died two days after I arrived. I'm helping Jorge's family with a pig project. We've been planning the pig pen, and spent other day cutting the grass with a long machete (you have to squat low and use your abs) in preparation to plant corn and beans for feed. The idea is that with proper preparation, we can raise a pig for slaughter and sale in six months, and then I can use the pig pen to raise my own pig to eat for my departure party next year. Many Paraguayans don't feed their pigs sufficiently or provide with adequate accomodations, and so they end up waiting months and months past when they should be profitably slaughtered.


Now that Jorge is not playing soccer in the neighboring state, we've grown closer. A month or two ago he (finally) told me his story, about before his mom died, about how, despite being really intelligent, didn't make it past sixth grade because his alcoholic father took him to the field to work. I cried when he told me. I know it's a common story for poor people all over the world. Many poor families in Paraguay will send their kids to school to learn basic reading and math skills, and then they'll spend the rest of their days working as their parents have. I have my qualms with public education, but to hear that someone I love was denied the opportunities that come with receiving an education, hurts. He is blessed with amazing soccer skills, but to increase his chances of being discovered by a scout, he would have to move to Asuncion to practice with a more professional team, and pay for his living expenses while doing so.


I'm in Asuncion now, seeing off my friends who have finished their two years and are on their way home or travels. And speaking of travels, in a week and a half, I will be in Uruguay on vacation! A bunch of my friends and I have rented beach cabins for Christmas, and Hannah is flying in to meet up with us and come back to site with me. So, as usual, there is much to look forward to and much to love right now...

Lightning Strikes Again

As I mentioned previously, I had been hoping that my agriculture workshop would help to remind the community of what I´m here for and help to present myself as someone who knows about teh field, and not just some girl who cooks and works in the garden. I am by no mean demeaning these activities, but I also want to do the job I´ve been trained to do, which is a challenge as a female volunteer. It seems to be working. The conversations continue. I just talked to a farmer about ¨curvas de nivel,¨ a technique I´ve been itching to try that involved planting in lines that curve to the slope of the hill to prevent erosion and loss of nutrients.

I´ve become accustomed to visiting certain families that I know, but it feels good to branch out and have new people be interested in working with me, and because of the knowledge I have to offer and not just because I´m a weird enigma or because they think I´m going to give them money. Paraguayans assume that I´m the rich American, but I had to borrow money from my host dad this week. First, my stove ran out of propane, and I realized that I didn´t have the funds to refill it. So I´ve been dropping in on families during feeding time, which is more than satisfactory. Then my fridge broke. I was freaking out to a neighbor about not having ice and my food going bad, and an hour later, when I got back from hoeing in the field, two guys showed up on moto to fix my fridge. I was happy for the quick response, but it sent me running around looking for someone to lend me 200,000Gs ($40). So now I can´t cook, but I do have ice, and, at this time of year, that´s way more important. It is a luxury, though, to have that. Jorge´s family has no electricity or running water.

As I was also saying before, I finally have the energy to communicate with home. In fact, I missed my bus for teh sake of computer communication. I took a later bus that drops me off at a crossroads in the middle of sugarcane fields 10k from my house. When I left my house at 4:30am the sky was clear, and I felt comfortable in a skirt and sandals. When I began my walk, however, it was raining with a chilly wind blowing in from the south. I had to take my shoes off to get better traction in the mud. I´m usually able to hitchhike on that road, but with the combination of bad weather and a broken bridge, it was deserted. I started singing to distract myself from the groceries in my backpack weighing me down as the puddles in the road turned into full-fledged streams. I enjoy the rain, but I started thinking about the 20-year-old kid in my community who was struck my lightning two weeks ago. He was walking back from the field with a hoe on his shoulder, alongside his wife and parents-in-law, when lightning struck him dead on the spot. Lightning strikes are common here, at least more common than back home. A few days ago, my friend, Steve, was struck by lightning while sitting on his porch! Luckily he´s okay, but has a burn on his back from it.

When I reached the broken bridge, it really was broken, with most of the boards missing. A temporary path of plywood laid between the banks kept me on my way. Two hours later, I arrived at my house to find a huge piece of the tree beside my house on the ground, right beside--and luckily not on top of--my house. I quickly realized the irony of this, as it was he same kind of tree whose blossoms I had picked to make a boquet the other day. I was on a run, and all of the sudden, caught a whiff of lilacs. The scent immediately brought me back home, and I tried to make out where the smell was coming from. Unsure, I picked a few branches from a large tree, dripping white blossoms. I don´t think that was the lilac smell, but if I was ever in doubt, I now have a bouquet to fill my entire house and then some.



During Thursday´s cooking class, we made media lunas (criossants). At the end of the class, we discussed what we would make the following week, and they came to the decision that we would just celebrate my birthday that day, and everyone would bring something to share and be ready for a reggaeton dance-off. I´ve come to love that group of women. They range in age from teens to 50s, and I´ve enjoyed the female compañionship and mothering. I´ve had mostly male friends since I´ve been in PC, but I grew up in a community of girls and women, and I hadn´t realized how beneficial it´s been for me to have these women in my life. I feel honored that they want to take the time to celebrate my life.

Make it Rain

I realize that I´ve been slacking on my updates (bad), but I´ve had a lot of work to do in my community (good). I´ve been planning, organizing, and orchestrating an agriculture workshop on Soil Recuperation techniques. The weeks prior were spent inviting participants (on bike, uphill both ways, and, yes, it´s hot again), and confirming and reconfirming with invited guests and specialists. It all went down Friday, so now I finally have the energy to communicate with the outside world. As I mentioned, things have been busy and frustrating, and, of course, as seems to be the trend with events that I organize, it rained the day of the workshop. More significantly, it poured the day before, complete with peachpit-sized hail, so the roads were in a terrible, muddy condition and bridges washed out. I invited five of my volunteer friends to come and assist with the workshop, but the bus didn´t leave my community, so they had to take a different bus to the next town over and walk (and ox-cart ride) the 9k to my house.

The first night that everyone was there, we played soccer with the neighborhood kids in my yard--Paraguay versus the US. Those little rugrats won. Two of my friends are 6´4´´ and one is 6´2´´, so it was amusing to watch the interactions. We all crammed in my house, which fits one, and worked on our presentations for the following day. That morning I had been given the keys to the church, so my friend, Romelia (pictured with me) and I could straigten up. I´m continually surprized by the trust people place in me. I´m given church keys, school keys, and cash donations without question.

Of course, that responsibility also means I´m expected to take on extra burdens, and I need to learn to say ¨no¨when it´s too much. The problem is that I thrive on taking on responsibility, and I feel confident in my abilities to complete things successfully. But then, the unexpected interferes; it rains, for people are not as reliable as I think, or my email is compromised...I want to be able to trust people as much as they trust me. For the most part, though, I have to say, people general pleasantly surprize me. Still, sometimes I´m pushed to my limit. Because I was coordinating with a number ocf specialists and visitors for my workshop, I was continuously confirming and reconfirming with them because I have come to realize that Paraguayans will lie to my face and would rather tell me what I want to hear and save what they think I don´t want to hear until the last possible minute, or when I´m going to figure it out anyway. It´s not that they´re mean or spiteful people. They´re just used to reading between the lines and communicating something berbally while part of them is communicating the opposite. I just have trouble seeing the lines.

Like conversations people have around me, I think I understand because I do comprehend the words. But often the words have double or triple meanings, so that I think they´re talking about going fishing, but really they´re discussing my love life, shamelessly, right in front of me. There are not that many words in this language, compared to our vocabulary in English, but they make up for that in many subtle, and not-so-subtle, nuances.


It rained the moring of the workshop, and most of the técnicos and my Peace Corps boss showed up late because of the road conditions. The fancy people showed up with mud on their pants, including the Secretary of Agriculture, and other important people he invited. But at least they came, and so did the empanadas. And, surprizingly, for the bad weather, so did thirty participants. There would ahve been a lot more from surrounding communities, but I was satisfied with than number, knowing that Paraguayans tend to do nothing withen it rains.

I had my friends and the Paraguayan specialists each cover a topic under the subject of soil recuperation, and present on it for 10-15 muntues. I had a topic as well, but my biggest role, I quickly realized, was that of MC. It´s always been frightening for me to present in fron of a large group in my own language, but it was empowering to be in front a of a group speaking Guarani.

After the workshop, we had a raffle with tools for prizes that I received in various donations. Then we went to my house, where a couple Señoras from my comité had been cooking lunch all morning, and we feasted in my yard. Then I passed out certificates to everyone, including the técnicos, who crowded around me like little kid. They go nuts over these little papers. I´ve heard that instead of the stress we place upon resumes when visiting potential employers, they bring in these certificates and make it rain all over their could-be boss.

Finally, everyone went home, and I breathed a sigh of relief that the biggest thing I´ve done in my community--and might ever do---was done. That night, my friends and I made a bonfire and had a BBQ for some of my Paraguayan friends and family, serenading them with live American music.

I had been hoping that this ag workshop would help to advertize my presense in the community as someone who knows about agriculture. And it may be working. I´ve already been having new conversations with people. The other morning I went to a family´s house to make compost tea for their watermelon crop. That same afternoon, a man asked me how he could naturally control the bugs attacking his tomatoes. And another couple wants my advice and agroforestry systems. It´s nice to have people asking my advice about agriculture and not just resorting to chemical pesticides and fertilizers. I think the word is getting around about how dangerous it is to use that stuff, especially the way many do here, without proper equipment and protection. Two kids in the very small high school have terminal cancer, and I can´t help but thing these cases are related to ag chemicals.

And I don´t think I mentioned that I had a visit from a future volunteer, Amanda, who is going through training right now. I got to show off my community and my command of the language and customs after a year of living here. I remember being in her position last year and visiting a current volunteer. I remember being so exhausted and happy to just watch movies on her portable DVD player and not living with Paraguayans for a few days. On Amanda´s first night, my neighbor´s soccer team won the game (and a pig), and the guys invited us over the the pig roast and wine. It was good visit, and she got to witness what I love about Paraguay, and what drives me crazy. Sometimes that´s a fine line...

There´s no why (but why don´t chickens have arms?)

Sometimes I lay in bed early in the morning, listening to the sounds of Arroyo Moroti waking up. The roosters, the chickens pecking at the crumbs I´ve thrown out the window and swept out the door, moms yelling at their kids in Guarani as they get ready for school or the field. These sounds are familiar to me now, comforting even, especially when I think about when i first arrived in Paraguay--how these sounds were foreign and strange, and I would wake up feeling lonely and unsure. I know that I will miss these sounds when I leave.

And I love that there is no shame in public nose-picking! One thing (of many) that still gets me, though is watching chickens run. I always feel like they should have arms, that they´re somehow propelled forward, but things would be a lot easier if hthey had arms to swing and create equilibrium and momentum. But who am I to judge?

I was gifted another hen yesterday, so now I have a brood of two in my little bamboo henhouse. I´m keeping them closed in there for a little while until they know their new home. How are you going to eat eggs without a rooster?, they ask. Because, I´ve told them, don´t want a noisy gallo around causing trouble with my ladies. I explain that, just like women, chickens don´t need males to produce eggs, just to produce babies.

Yesterday morning I had a breakfast date with one of my host moms. I´ve been asking her to teach me how to make mbeju--a typical Paraguayan pancake made out of fresh corn flour, cassava flour, salt (of course), cheese, and some sort of oil (though pig fat is the most delicious)--because she makes the best I´ve had. Her 98-year-old husband claimed that mine was Ndahei (not tasty), though he ate it and sucked his gums contentedly afterwards.

I met with the agriculture comittee in the afternoon, and i explained the capacitation I´m planning, hopefully, with the financial support of local government and NG organizations. I´m planning a 1/2-day workshop on soil recuperation and crop diversification with the presenging assistance of soem fellow crop, ag-forestry, and beekeeping volunteers. Following that, there will be an excursion to a nearby ag-forestry institute, where they can see first-hand all the practices and principles I´ll be teaching. I feel like it´s time for me to do some of the work I´ve been trained to do and for what the community requested a volunteer. Each site placement is different, and I´ve figured out that my community is impressed and influenced by things like formal workshops, complete with fancy invitations and certificates. And if that´s what it takes to improve soil fertility, so be it.



After the meeting, I went for a run, joined by my quickly-growing puppy, Shambo, who´s now five months old. I passed Jorge´s house, where I was joined by his barefoot 8-year-old sister and 12-year-old brother, and two dogs. They followed me the entire half-hour (about 5k). I listen to music while I run (amusicahina--they turn music into a verb, which I find quite appropriate), but I enjoy having companions for motivation.

Is it ironic for a childless woman to be giving parenting classes to women with 8+ children, or is it rather appropriate? Spurred my by encounters with child abuse and with the encouragement of some fo the female leaders (the loud onces, gossipy ones, the ones with influential husbands, or who are active in the church...), I prepared a presentation with a neighboring volunteer for Dia del Niño (Day of the Child). We wanted the day to be all about the kids, so we organized games, I brought my kite, hula hoop, and waterbaloons, and the Señoras prepared chocolate milk and cookies. There must have been about 70 kids there, and while the teenage girls managed the masses outside, we gave a presentation to the mamas in the church. We went over children´s rights and divided them into groups, giving each group a hypothetical situation of a misbehaving child, and had them come up with possible solutions that did not result in violence. The whole thing went really well, and I got the kids excited for World Hoop Day. I´m organizing a festival on September 9th for the kids to make their own hula-hoops.

It´s both invigorating and exhausting to work with large groups of children, but my day was far from over. I spent the next few hours helping my agriculture committee create a document about its history, vision, and project proposals to solicit to the governor the following morning. It´s been so long since I´ve written a paper like that, so it was enjoyable, expect that, being the grammar freak that I am, it was hard to do so in Spanish.

As soon as I was done, my neighbors had a wine waiting for me and were ready to pull a steaming cow head out of a hole in the ground, where it had been cooking the past few hours. This being my second time having cow head for dinner, I had fun with it. I also knew to bypass the tongue and cheeks (no pun intended), and go straight for the creamy, garlic-infused brains, spread like cream cheese on cassava root. It´s supposed to make me smarter...

I´ve taught a few garden classes to the sixth graders. They´re a really good group, and they invited me to school last week, so they could cook kamby arroz for me (a Paraguayan version of rice pudding). As it was cooking over the open fire, they taught me a song in Guarani.

I´ve been attending the girls´ barefoot soccer practices, and on Saturday, I went to the field to watch them play. First were the boys teams--the 9yr olds, then the 10yr olds, and so on. Finally all the girls aged 11-17 got to play. It was frustrating to see how little attention is given to the girls´team in comparison to the boys. The girls play two 10-minute halves (as opposed to 20-minute halves), and I waatached them scrambling aroundthe boys team just coming off the field to borrow cleats. But it´s a start. As much as Paraguay is developing and very much in a state of flux (everyone over the age of 16 has lived under a dictatorship), they are trapped between this new life brought to them on TV, via cell phone, and on quick, efficient motos, and the very traditional, Catholic, chauvenistic life.

Recently I realized that the verb they use for ¨to turn,¨ as in to turn a certain number of years of age, is Amboty, the word for ¨to close.¨ So they´re asking, how many years will you close? It makes sense to me, as do some of the other words they use, which, when directly translated into English, sound strange. Such as, when the sun sets, it ¨enters,¨ and when it rises, it ¨leaves,¨ as if the sun lives in the unknown place out there and visits us for a while during the day. Or ¨you´re welcome,¨ is really ¨there´s no why.¨

The thought patterns are different here, too. Sometimes people think I don´t understand what they´re saying. It´s not the words that I don´t understand (well, sometimes it is), but it´s the why I don´t understand. There are some things, however, that keep us on the same page. I was sitting around shelling peanuts with some friends the other day, and Romina noticed that I could change my quickdry pants into shorts. ¨So when it´s hot, you can just unzip them,¨ she commented. In Guarani, hot and horny are used interchangeably, so I said, ¨When I´m horny, I take it all off.¨ They all laughed at my cleverness. They think I´m funny, but it´s not so much that I´m funny as much as I just like words.



By the way, the two cute girls in the picture are my Paraguayan nieces!

Fuerza!

I was talking to my volunteer friend the other day about how different my friendships with Paraguayans are. I feel like I have people in my community that I consider my friends, but it is not the kind of relationship I have with my American friends, who understand my culture and (yes) my socio-economic background. It´s not that they are fake friendships with Paraguayans. I laugh all the time in my community, and I miss being there when I´m away for a few days. Yet, I cannot share myself completely with them, as I crave to do in my close relationships. I think it´s doing wonders for my communications skills, and I don´t just mean linguistically. Because of the language and culture barriers, I am forced into being extremely clear and direct in my wording, which I´m realizing I would not necessarily be in my own language. We tend to skirt around issues, say ¨you know¨ when we really don´t, and misinterpret tones and gestures. It´s harder to pretend in a different language.


There´s been another death. Eight months after my boyfriend, Jorge´s, mother died, his uncle was found dead in the river. He apparantly fell in while drunk, and wasn´t found until three weeks later. This meant another week of prayer vigil, another cow and many chickens slaughtered. I have so much admiration for the grandma, who´s lost two children, and is still such a positive, hard-working woman.

Speaking of rivers, we got a bunch of rain earlier, which washed away bridges, and sent the bus driver all over treacherous ground. We had to take the bus over tiny, wooden bridges it scares me to ride my bike over.


I can tell the progress I´ve made in my comunity because they finally let me work! During the final day of the week of prayer vigil, the family is responsible for hosting a lunch for all the friends and family--or the whole community. I remember the first reso I went to in December, sitting around, akwardly watchign people stare at each other. This time, I asked my 16-year-old friend, Griselda, and her grandmother (whom I only know as Aguela) what I could do, and, without hesitation, they put me to work clearing the table, doing dishes, reclearing the table, reclearing the table...

In order to feed everyone, three tables are pushed together, and about fifteen people at a time stand around eating out of dishes borrowed from neighbors. First, the children eat, then women, jovenes, and finally the men, who have been sitting under the shade of the mango tree, drinking caña, during this time. The Señoras prepare the food by building a fire in a large ditch, over which are placed large pots of pasta and grills of sizzling beef and chicken. It´s expensive to host this kind of event, but the community chipped in what they could, making empanadas and selling them door-to-door (a common fund-raising strategy), and by hosting loteria night, when we play Paraguayan bingo with kernals of corn.

Aside from teaching English and gardening classes, I´ve started going to the girls´soccer practice, so I´ve been getting to know the kids of the community. At the reso, a few of them asked me to play, and five minutes later, I was leading forty children in blob tag, hide-and-seek, and duck...duck...chicken (I couldn´t remember the word for ¨goose¨). It´s started getting hot again, so I was sweating by the time I walked back to my house to prepare for my cooking class. We´ve been switching up every other week, making something edible and something hygeinic. This week we made fabric softener, and next week: ravioli.


Last week, my compañera, a health volunteer, came out to help with give presentations on HIV/AIDS. We spent the morning at the high school, and then gave a more informal presentation to my womens´group, where I was asked to explain exactly what is oral sex...I had not prepared for that, but I think they understood. I did manage to get the point across, though, of the importance of having the respect for your body to get check ups, which are free now for women in Paraguay. Cervical/uterine cancers are one of the leading causes of death for woman here, so there´s been a push to educate and offer opportunities of prevention. It´s still a challenge, though, for women living in the middle of nowwhere. And most of them probably don´t want to know if they have something.

Two weeks ago, there was a race in Asuncion that I entered on a whim, not being a runner at all. I ran the whole 10k, and got hooked. So I started running in my community, with the motivation of my students, who run with me sometimes, or at least yell ¨Fuerza, Emilia, fuerza!!,¨ as I go by.

The Honeymoon is Over...

I´ve had a hot and cold romance with Paraguay. It´s home to me now, but I must come to terms with what I don´t like about Paraguay...and Paraguayans. While I´m grateful for the welcome I have received in my community, there are things I abhore. It´s mostly ignorance I´m confronted with, which is no fault of theirs, but that doesn´t make it any easier for me. I´m tired of listening to gossip--even if it´s true. Funny thing is that they tell me, no, it´s not gossip if it´s true. Still gossip, I say, and say´s who? it´s true. I know it´s gotten to me when I spend an hour with a dictionary looking up comebacks. Another thing I dislike? Child abuse. I´m just funny like that. Dislike is a mild word. I should say it sickens me to the point that I cry and want to vomit, mostly from feeling helpless. I can´t stand that physical beauty means everything. It doesn´t matter how intelligent, driven, or thoughtful someone is--just don´t get ugly. And if they think someone is ugly, they´ll make a loud point of expressing their opinion, even to that person. And I don´t understand why my Paraguayan friends don´t warn me about things--they don´t tell me about the creepy guy or the rip-off almacén. And I can´t just be friends with a man. And that I should find a husband before I´m old.


That´s the bitchfest I usually save for my fellow volunteers. But apart from all that, I´m giddily happy. Maybe it´s because this all just feels like a game. It doesn´t matter if I screw up, I can just just over. My friend compared this life to being the star of a TV sitcom. It feels like that sometimes. If people back home were watching this, it would be funny, or at the least, entertaining. I can almost hear the laughtrack in the background.

I´m in the process of building my chicken coop, so I can eat eggs...and chickens. I get another week off from teaching English. Winter break was extended because of the swine flu scare. My hands are all cracked and scratched from working in the sugarcane field and from putting the straw roof on my hen house. Sugarcane is taking everyone´s time right now. It is cut and stripped by hand, and then hauled off on oxcart and tractor to where a larger truck loads it off to a nearby factory. There it is processed into sugar and ¨black honey¨, or molasses, the byproduct of sugar, which I actually prefer. My neighbor´s just made mosta, the juice made from grinding up the sugarcane stalks. It looks like green koolaid, and is super yummy.

I felt like I was getting used to the cold, roving from house to house to get warm by the fire and drink hot mate, while we talk about how cold it is. Which is basically what we do in the summer, except we talk about how hot is is while drinking ice-cold terere. You may not think it could get cold in Paraguay; I didn´t believe it, arriving here at the start of the warm season. I have to protect my tomato starts from frost, and my ¨shower¨ consists of splashing water on my face and neck and putting a hat on. Lastnight I changed into the clothes I´m wearing today, so I wouldn´t have to change at 4am to catch the bus.


And I guess it´s about time I admit to having a Paraguayan boyfriend, though it´s still a secret in site. I´m trying (probably unsuccessfully) to keep gossip at bay. But he´s super cute and makes me smile!

Her feet have already widened at the ball of the foot, beginning to take the shape of the men who work barefoot or in flipflops all day in the field. Eventually the delicate arch will disappear altogether, an unnecessary frill in a vocation that demands all the square coverage possible to grip this earth, as if she might fall off the face of it. It strikes me as sad or nostalic, though she is smiling. I make a mental note to think about it later when I´m alone in my house. I look forward to having a good cry that will put me into a deep sleep. But later, lying in bed, I try to conjure the feeling back up, and I find I feel nothing at all.

I´m on the Bus...

Mucho mucho has happened in the past month, but michi michi has been my internet time. It´s been over six months now since I´ve lived in Arroyo Moroti, and my service is one quarter complete. That´s hard to believe. My arrival in my community coincided with the death of a woman whom I didn´t know. She died the day after I arrived. It was one of my first weeks here that I went to the ñemboehape (like a memorial service) and was forced to eat the horrible cow-organ soup. When someone dies, the family hosts a 9-day prayer vigil immediately after the death, and then again every three months for the following year. I went back for the three-month mark, and just recently completed the week of prayer for the six-month mark. After this first year, we will make chipa and celebrate the life of Sophia once a year on the anniversary of her death. It´s an interesting way to deal with grief. For the family and friends of the deceased, that first year can be incredible tough, their absence noticeable during holidays and events. Here, there are designated grieving times.

This has been especially poignant for me because I´ve grown close with Sophia´s son, whose arms she died in. He´s talked to me very rawely about missing his mom. But you move on. Everyone has known everyone else here their entire lives. People die all the time, even more are born, and everything is celebrated oñondivepa (together). With all the anniversaries, festivals, births, deaths, and holidays, it´s wonder there´s any time at all left for work or school.

I´ve continued with my English classes, and I´ve been surprized by how attentive they are. They´re probably relieved to be playing learning games, and not just copying off a board. Every class, a few kids bring me cookies or candy, and they call me Profe, which gives my ego a good tickle pickle. I always dread going to class, but I always leave in such a great mood. There´s something about pretending to be happy and energetic that tricks me into thinking I really am!



On a hygeinic note, I haven´t been showering because it´s been too cold for me to even think about getting undressed. Yet another reason for my neighbors to make fun of me. I need to suck it up if I´m going to be clean in this country. Winter has just started, too! Paraguayans are very religious about bathing daily, sometimes twice a day. I find this ironic, since they don´t brush their teeth or even wash their hands. I believe this irony is lost on them.

And on a reproductive note, my 20-year-old Paraguayan friend is pregnant, and she says I´m going to be the godmother! We´ll see though. I don´t know that my non-Catholic ways would bode well with Grandma. Still, we´ll get to have a wedding.

I realized the other day that in the nine months I´ve been in paraguay, I now speak better Guarani than Spanish, which is ridiculous, considering how many years I studied Spanish. I guess there´s nothing like immersion. Though I still understand Spanish better. All that grunting throws me off. I´ve had a theory that Guarani clicks so much more with me because it´s a feminine language. Don´t roll your eyes. Most, if not all words, as in Spanish, end in vowels--the opposite of English. I just made vowels female and consanants male, if that´s ok. And it´s femininity would make sense of a language that comes from the indegenous peoples, who live closer to the earth.

Last week, I had the flu, and, as expected, I didn´t want to see anyone, yet I wanted to be taken care of. Those are the days I stare out the cracks in my walls and wish I had a DVD player. Alas, no movies, so I went to for a walk to clear my head and try to avoid people, which was difficult, as everyone´s been working in the field for the sugarcane and yerba maté harvest. Eventually, I got to a deserted forest trail, and I found myself in the place where I had gotten lost back in December trying to find my community for the first time! I´ve looked for it before because I wanted to find the farmer who gave me directions and a ride on his tractor. I found his house, where he was drinking terere with his brother. He´s a young guy who lives by himself in his ranchito in the middle of nowhere. That´s very odd for Paraguay. I chatted with him for a bit, and a few days ago, I brought him homemade bread and left it on his door. Where my house is located has come to feel like downtown, with all the moto traffic and visitors. I need some peace and quiet--and solitude.

The other day, though, I had a visit that I didn´t mind. I was doing laundry and other ¨housewife¨ things, as they say, when two 8 and 9 year old neighbor girls came by. They actually put me in a better mood and were extremely helpful. Having grown up helping their mothers around the house, they knew exactly what to do. They were handing me things that I needed one step ahead. That´s why people have kids...



Last weekend, I organized a meeting/party with a bunch of other volunteers, and we jammed out in the park where our friends, the carpinchos, live. I´ve been really enjoying playing music lately. We all write and share our songs, and bring new dimesions to traditionals, like Amazing Grace.

On my way back from the high school last week, I met a Señora with a fantastic garden. She even had purple cabbage and dahlias, which she gave me transplants and cuttings of. Yesterday, I stopped by her house with a list of natural, homemade pesticide recipes. We identified bugs and walked around her garden some more. She confided that she keeps such a big garden, so that she can sell the surplus to her neighbors. Her husband left her when her child (now 15) was two years old. Her comments helped me reevaluate my priorities here. I may have been trained to help men in the field, but why not help women carve out a life for themselves in the garden?

I also started working in the school garden. I was given the 6th graders for an hour the other day, all 12 of them, and we we made raised beds and planted seeds. I taught them about nitrogen and carbon, nutrient loss, organic material, and companion planting. Their teacher learned, too. It was sooo much fun. Teaching is not my calling, but there are few things more refreshing and invigorating than explaining or demonstrating something new and swatching kids´faces light up and understand. That happened in the school garden.

The next day was Day of the Tree, and we had over one hundred trees donated to plant around the community. I organized planting with the kids at the school, church, and soccer field, carting trees in an old crate I attached to my bike.

And I´ve been busy with my Cooking/Nutrition class, as well. So far we´ve made homemade bread, toothpaste, and pizza. Next week, we´re making soap. What a great idea in any country to get a group of women (men, too, I guess) together to share the cost of ingredients and make things that are useful and tasty.

Yesterday was the 42nd anniversary of el 24 de Junio, my local soccer club. Most teams here (and streets, too, for that matter) are named after important historical dates, which makes things really confusing and ahrd to remember. You know, June 24th is playing July 30th, but they better watch out for the something something of August. Definately lacking in creativity. Anyhow, yesterday I was digging holes in my yard to plant my passionfruit--which I enjoyed blended, saved and dried the seed, and planted in old juice boxes--when my neighbors came over and told me to get dressed--we´re going dancing!! At 10am? Yes. I didn´t realize what an affair this was. There was a huge firepit, over which chunks of cow were roasting, there was a music tent, sound system, live polka band, and, yes, dancing! I do not get many opportunities to dance here, so I got right out on the field to strut my stuff. I was then invited by the school principal and a bunch of others to drink wizcola, so I had caña and Coke for breakfast...and lunch...and afternoon snack. Where else in the world can you party all day with all ages on a Wednesday?

Are you happy? they ask. They always ask. I can answer sincerely that I am. It mades me sad, though, to think about home, where I don´t know my neighbors. Community is so important, and I´m realizing that it´s not something that can be replicated or reproduced. It needs to evolve out of a shared lifestyle, out of needing each other. We travel so much more, works so much more, and are so much more exposed to the world outside our 5k (or mile) radius that it´s much harder for us to create that community. But it can--and will--be done!

From Carob to Cow Brains...

Some of my high schoolers got me thinking about sense of place, a topic thoroughly discussed and worn out in college--and for good reason. Our sense of place plays a big role in defining who we are the respect we show to our temporary home---mama earth. Two seventeen-year-olds told me about their idea of planting trees all along the road that leads to the stream to protect the water, and plan it so that they would all produce flowers at the same time. Thus, creating two of my favorite things: beauty and sustainability. I repeat, these are seventeen-year-olds, not talking about how far away from home they want to go or how they can´t wait to get their parents out of their hair. They recognize this place as theirs, collectively, and they want to improve it.

How do we spread that sentiment around the world? Or, for a start, where would I plant my trees, so I could watch them flower? Someday, I say, I´ll have land that I will call my home. I had thought before that Paraguayans are mostly influenced by their families--many of which live in the same house together all their lives. American young people are so dependent upon their friends. During high school, college, and beyond, our friends become our chosen family. Though family is such a greater part of life here, peers play an important role. There are some exceptionally bright students in the senior class, and I know that it´s due to them that change will occur here.

On another note, I ate cow brain the other day. Cow head, apparently, is a much anticipated delicacy in these parts. When I was visiting a family, they showed me the cow head they had rubbed with garlic, salt, and other spices, waiting for the fire to be ready. Maybe I´ve been in Paraguay too long, but it actually looked good. They showed me the hole they had dug in the yard and built a fire. The cow head is then buried with the hot coals and covered with earth to cook for four hours. It sounded so intriguing, I agreed to come back that evening. When they lifted the steaming cow head out of the ground, I almost died laughing. ¨No tongue or brain,¨ I said. (I already tried pig tongue and didn´t like the texture), so they cut off a piece the cheek for me to try. When the cow head was set on the table, it was a mad free-for-all, with 20 hands grabbing, plucking, and stuffing into slurping mouths. It was more than an activity than a meal. I took one bite of the cheek and immediately grabbed a piece of mandioca to wash down the pungent flavor. After watching my companions thoroughly enjoy themselves, I eventually got up the nerve to stick a fork into the brain cavity and grab a gooey chunk. I was told to eat it with mandioca, so as not to get the shits. And it was not bad. All the spices had soaked in, and it didn't have a strong meaty flavor. I couldn't eat very much because of the odd texture, and because of my own brain that kept reminding me tht I was eating cow brain.

And my puppy is growing, though last week I noticed he was limping. Heś a rambunctious one, and probably got in trouble with a chicken, neighbor dog, or large foot. I didn't know what to do, not wanting to take him on a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to the vet, which Ive already done. So, I walked him up to the local health center, which all my neighbors thought was hilarious. That was not help, but I scrounged some materials together, as well as some neighbor hands, and constructed a splint, so his leg would grow straight. So, I had a splinted puppy. He kept it on for a few days, and when he finally ripped it off, he was healed!

As American as my dog may be raised, he speaks Guarani. I realized this when he was barking one night, and my Paraguayan friend said, ¨Anike. Eeesh!¨ and he stopped right away. Some of my favorite Paraguayan words are the sounds they use to shoo animals. So I´ve been working on my Guarani grunt, and it works for me part of the time.

I started teaching English in the school, and I would have started my cooking/nutrition class, but it´s been raining all week, so it was cancelled. I´m getting used to not doing anything when it rains, and I´m really starting to enjoy it. This drought we had didn´t give me enough time to read and play guitar. The negative of the rain is that I don´t have stripping or complete walls on my house, so the rain comes right in. The other day it rained the hardest that it´s ever rained (they say) in thirty years, or something like that. I literally had a stream in my house. And my fridge, backpack, and other items that I put agains the walls grew mold. Those are the days I bring my puppy inside, and stay in bed, drinking maté.

Winter is approaching, though you might not know it. It´s still hot in the sun, we still wear flipflops, and there are no geese flying north (or south). But it suddenly got cold. The kind of cold that puts me to bed at 6:30, huddled in my sleeping bag, and drinking steaming maté. But it feels good, too, like fall. And fall always feels like new beginnings to me, when school starts, and the air is so fresh and biting. I actually find myself following the sun instead of the shade, something I haven´t done in the eight months I´ve been in Paraguay. Eight months. I´m sometimes amazed that I can actually communicate in a language that, just a few months ago, sounded like gobbledygook. Exactly like that.

I (and my camera) were invited to a one-year-old´s birthday party last week. We drank thick hot chocolate, like in the movie, and I watched the Paraguayan version of a piñata. All the kids hover under a big sand-filled baloon, and the mom pops it open with a knife. Then some plastic toys fall out. They love it, but only because they don´t know any better. Anyhow, at the birthday party, I overheard a Señora talking about how her husband was planting stevia. So, through her, I snagged an invitation to go work in the field with the men, something I haven´t gotten to do much of because of culturally-defined gender roles. After the party, I asked the guys, and they told me to come over at 7am the next morning to go planting. So I rolled out of bed at ten til 7, and went over to the house. Most of the guys had already left, and I soon realized that I was meant to help the Señora cook breakfast in the kitchen, so we could bring it out to the men. Of course. But I enjoyed spending an hour drinking coffee (1 part cofee...8 parts sugar...seriously) by the fire and helping to make tortillas, which I scarfed down. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. We bundled up our goodies and went back to the field, where I finally got to help.

I´ve always heard that it´s your connections that get you places, and I´ve believed it, but I´m seeing here how important connections really are. Just from running into the right people, and speaking their language, I´ve had so many offers of assistance. The other day, when I biked to my pueblo to make photocopies, word got around that I was in town, and I got a call from the the mining company who I visited on a fieldtrip with the high schoolers. They are an international company with gold stock in Canada, and I ended up spending hours at their office talking to the bossman, who speaks perfect English. Having heard about the environmental fair I was planning, they offered not only to donate 150 tree plants, but to pay for an expert to come and test ten different water sites in my district with groups of students, so it will be an educational experience. I´m psyched! And then they gave me a ride home in their fancy 4-wheel drive truck. I have friends in high places...

As for the environmental fair, I was unsure of how it would turn out, since my Paraguayan students took charge of it (as it should be). I did get to start a bucket brigade to pass tree plants, which may be one of my best contributions to Paraguay thus far. I had four of my volunteer friends come to my site to help out, and then sleep in my tiny house. We had a huge turnout, and even on the coldest night I´ve yet had in Paraguay. They made me get up and give an impromptu speech, which was fun. The next day, some of my high schoolers came to my house with bottles of wine and coke as a thank you. They know me too well. The fair definately opened eyes, and a teacher even assigned a report about how to deal with the problem of garbage. It´s a small step, but in the right direction. It also opened my eyes about how the education system works here (or doesn´t work) and how much support and guidance I need to give.

But sometimes Emilia needs Emily time. After my friends left, I spent the next couple days most working around the house and my garden. My neighbor and I went into the woods, and she helped me identify plants I wanted to use to make homemade pesticides. Bugs have been eating my greens, so I made three different stinky plant concoctions to combat them. I love making venenos caseros. It´s like I have a little apothecary, used for purposes of war. But all in the name of love, of course.

Alright, gotta go catch my bus. My English classes and cooking/nutrition class start this week, so I have some preparation to do. Until next time, keep a good song in your head...

Earth Day in May

I'm starting to see a pattern with no format here. Once in a while, for no apparent reason I'll get into a funk that will last a few days. I become reclusive, not wanting to talk to anyone (tough) or see anyone (impossible). I just get tired. So, I'll bike to the arroyo and go for a swim and read by myself, which clears my head. And then, the feeling will pass, and I'll go uninvited to visit the neighbors I had been trying to avoid. It always feels so good to get back to my old (new) social self. Peace Corps has forced me to become outgoing.

One thing that probably contributed to my antisocial attitude was a horendous itching all over my body. Apparantly my adorable little puppy gave me a wicked case of scabies. For those who don´t know, scabies is parasitic skin infection caused by tiny mite that burrows into the skin, lays eggs, poops, and itches like no other. I remember having scabies in India when I was seven years old, but I think this was worse because it covered my entire body. To treat it, I was supposed to take a hot bath and wash my sheets and clothes in hot water everyday. Hmmm...bath?...hot water? Twice a day, I heated up water and bathed out of a bucket in my house, which also worked to clean my floors. And because I wash everything by hand, much of my day was spent leaning over a tub of bleach water.

Before I left for Asunción, I visited the high school because I´m working on an Earth Day festival with them. I had wanted to do something to celebrate Earth Day (which was over a month ago...Paraguayan time), and so I brought my idea to the high school because I had heard that they were already planning a Mother´s Day festival. And who´s the greatest mother of us all? To my delight, they decided to take on the project, and each grade would take a different environmental theme (i.e. garbage and recycling, water contamination, deforestation) and create a project to present on May 16th. Tuesday the plan was to go back to the high school, so that I could answer any questions they had, and generally make sure everything was coming along.

So, I walk into the high school yard, and it´s a complete circus--as usual. There are no teachers in any of the classrooms, a few kids are copying things into notebooks, while others are chasing each other, buying soda, and sucking on candy. There is one 17-year-old kid who pretty much runs the school. I don´t know what they´re going to do without him next year. He´s the one that organizes everything and basically teaches class. He accompanied me to every class and helped me herd students into their seats. When I asked how the projects were coming along, I got blank stares. I soon realized that nothing had been done--not even research. So, I started from ground zero: What is garbage? Is garbage a problem? Why? What are the effects, solutions? I did the same for every class according to their topic. I feel like I gave a quick briefing of the entire environmental movement. At first, I was really frustrated and almost walked out, but I started having fun with it, dancing around the room, so they wouldn´t just stare at me blankly.

By way of motivation, we´ve turned the environment into a contest, and whichever class comes up with the best project gets a prize. So, this morning, I lobbied the governor for financial assitance to take the students on a fieldtrip. We walked into his air-conditioned office, explained our case, turned in the pedido , and with a flick of his pen, he gave us 500,000Guaranies. So, now we´re going to get a sweet trip out of the deal. I hope this thing works out.

I´m now on my way back to site after going to a fiesta at my friend´s site. His youth group hosted the party for a fundraiser, so, of course, I had to go dance. After sleeping in my hammock, and then going out for Japanese food (there´s a large Japanese population in one part of the country), we found a random ferris wheel! And now it´s back to see my puppy. Until next time.

Lady Liberty Tereres

Sometimes I feel better about being an American. What comes to mind is something my Dutch friend said on Superbowl weekend:

A lot of people talk shit about Americans

, he said in perfect English,

but I like you guys.

I like us, too. By us, I mean the collective we who get out of America from time to time and can look at our culture froma distance. Because it is with this outsider´s view that we can understand our place in this world--not through the eyes of the media or textbooks--but with our own. I have had the opportunity to see much of the world, and most of the American travelers I meet--not tourists, but travellers--are aware of thier linguistical ineptitude in comparison with Euro travelers, for instance. There is an air of playful humility about us, however, that I enjoy.

The backpacking world sometimes feels like a big contest reminiscent of school hallways. Who has the cooolest backpack, has the most bad-ass stories, is the most culturally sensitive? Crowded hostels can feel like cold, lonely places ifyou let yourself get sucked into that mentality. Many travelers from other countries seem to have a haughty attidue, while Americans just seem so goofy and more approachable, though I realize that this may be just because I´m an American. (It is widely agreed upon that Israelis are the coolest travelers.)

Many of the American travelers I meet do not try to flaunt their Americanness, but, in fact, are self-concious about it--about our unilinguilism and the unforgivable acts of our political leaders. In my travels, I have lied about my citizenship, claiming CAnada or England as my home because there is such hostility towards the USA in much of the world. Our wealth and "privilege" is a source of resentment the populations who world in our clothing factories, earning $1 a day in dangerous conditions.

And it is a privilege, I am quick to admit, to be able to get out of America and shake hands (and kiss cheeks) with the people other nations; to look back over that perverbial ocean and give a little saludos to the Statue of Liberty, and have a slightly better understanding of what she´s really standing for.

Also in my travels, when admitting apologetically to a stranger whose country has been at war for over 50 years, that I was American, he chastised me, saying that you cannot help where you come from. He made me feel guilty about feeling guilty, but reminded me to be proud of who I am. And where I come from is a big part of who I am.

I came to Paraguay with hope--I think it would be extremely difficult to be a Peace Corps volunteer if you did not have hope. But I did not come just to help Paraguayans. In short, I came to help myself. In long, I came to help my brothers and sisters break down the borders that divide us--the ones that stereotype and categorize us and that prohibit us from understanding each other, and, therefore, finding peaceful resolutions to our differences. And that´s a tall order, and one I´m not willing to take on when I just can´t eat another bite of stale sopa or when my neighbor kids won´t stop staring at me.

What I want for my Paraguayan friends is for them to have the opportunity to go to a different land and look back over that perverbeal ocean at their own land-locked country. I wish they could see for themselves where they come from, so they can not only choose where they want to go, but recognize their own privilege and the blessing they were born into.

I am in love...

He´s dark and furry, with almost-purple eyes. He sucks on my toes and wimpers when he wants lovin´. I showed up at the bus terminal the other day to head back to my community from the city, and my neighbor was there, unexpectadly. She put a cardboard box in my arms containing a one-month-old puppy. He´s all grey with little white paws and neck, and way too small to be away from his mama. So I´m taking over the position, and it´s exhausting being a new mom with no maternal leave. I´ve never even had a dog before. His name is Shambo Sununu, shambo being Hindi for Lord Shiva or ¨plenty,¨ and sununu meaning ¨thunder¨ in Guarani.

(Don´t worry, Bobo, my neighbor plans to take him when I´m done here.)

Ants Not Only Eat My Food, But My Bellybutton, Too.

I had not planned on coming into town this soon, and especially during Semana Santa, when it´s impossible to get a seat on the bus because everyone´s travelling. Alas, I forgot about taxes, so those needed to be dealt with. But this afternoon I have a date to make chipa. Then tomorrow we´ll make sopa, the Paraguayan cornbread that´s only good fresh from the oven. After that, it´s just stale, yellow bread that makes me cough. I´m going over to one of my host family´s houses to eat asado with them. Thursday is the feasting day, and then Friday no one does anything except maybe go to the river and play volleyball. I´m game...

____________________________________________________________________

...I started this entry over two weeks ago, and, guess what, the topic is still ants. The ants and I have been battling for some time now. I´m not willing to accept their presense in my house or share my food with them. I bought tupperwear containers because they will eat right through double layers of plastic bags. I woke up this morning at 4am and went into my kitchen (separated from my bedroom by a a sarong) to boil water for maté, and I found the walls moving. Ants were everywhere, pouring in over my unfinished walls, making trails across shelves, over pots, and back up the other wall--but they didn´t seem to be going anywhere in particular, just taking advantage of the peace and quiet to infiltrate my kitchen. They didn´t even touch the parts of the counter and floor where I had dripped honey the day before from ¨milking¨ the honeycombs I harvested yesterday morning. I´ve heard that sometimes ants migrate. They´ll just move from one spot to the next in a mass exodus, and there´s nothing to do but wait.

I´m finding that I now have an abundance of beans in my garden. Why did I plant so many beans? I guess they´re the closest thing you can get to instant gratification in a garden. They germinate quickly, produce a lot, and make you feel like a garden pro! Semana Santa came and went in a flurry of chipa, volleyball, and lots of sitting around. Last Friday, my Paraguayan sisters woke me up at 5:30am to go down the stream. I was awake anyway, so, still full from Thursday´s feasting, I biked down to the stream and met up with them. I was surpised by how many peopple were up and bathing already. Traditionally, on Good Friday, Paraguayans will wake up early and bathe in the river to cleanse themselves of any sins they´ve committed over the past year. Then the rest of the day is spent not doing anything. No one works, no one cooks, or even listens to music. All the food that had been prepared over the past few days (sans meat) is reserved for this day. Honestly, it looked like any other day in Paraguay, except without the bad music blaring. My sister, who scrubbed herself furiously ti give herself extra leeway for future sins, explained to me that Good Friday is quiet in respect to Jesus´s death, and that even heavy steps are like treading on Him.

I biked back home, cold and wet, as the sun was coming up, and then warmed up with maté and the company of my neighbors. And because I´m not Paraguayan or Catholic, I decided it would be ok to workin my garden that day. Besides, I work barefoot, so I´m not treading on Jesus. I bought eggs from the guy who comes around on his moto with at least 100 eggs and a few chickens strapped to the back of his rig, and I introduced my neighbors to the tradition of painting (I had to improvise) Easter eggs. I didn´t hide them, though, because I realized they would just be eaten by wild dogs, or pigs, or chickens themselves. On Easter Sunday, I woke up to bombas going off at 4am, a tradition in my community. I got out of bed, wrapped my sleeping back around myself (it´s gotten suprisingly chilly at night) and sat out on my porch. Every house was lit by candlelight, and my neighbors had stuck a dozen candles inside grapefruit halves all along the road. I lit my candles and watched a procession of my neighbors, singing their way to church.

Sometimes I´m amazed at the bredth of my job. The other morning I biked to a neighboring community because the president of the women´s comite texted me to say that they were finally ready to work on the garden--this being the third attempt. On the second attempt, I was tricked into going to mass. So, I left my dirty clothes soaking in a bucket and biked down the hill, across the stream, up the hill, down the hill, across the stream, up the hill, and over the sand to the new garden plot. We prepared the soil, put up a shade structure, and planted the seeds I had picked up from the donation of a national newspaper agency, all before lunchtime. After they fed me, I biked back to my house to get a quick shower in before going on a fieldtrip with my Ag. Comité. An hour and a half in the back of a pick-up brought us to some old politician´s dried-up stevia field. It was a beautiful drive, but a hot, dusty, squished one. When I got back home, I attempted to finish my laundry (unsuccessfully) before the sun set, watermed my garden, and left my dinner cooking in the oven while I talked to my neighbors about a potential contract they might take on to plant corn. A local company has agreed to supply all the seeds, fertilizer, and money for labor, but if the crop fails--if there´s a drought like there is right now--the farmers are expected to pay, which basically means the end. What do I think they should do? I am slightly less intimidated by paperwork than they are, but it´s both flattering and scary that they´re putting my opinion on such a high pedastle. I don´t want to be responsible for their livelihoods. So, I agreed to call my Peace Corps boss, who is Paraguayan and has a lot more experience with this stuff. And I agreed to teach an eight-year-old about multiplication tables, so Gertrudis wouldn´t spank him out of frustration. And I kick ass at multiplication.

On top of all this, I´ve been making phone calls around the country, collecting information about starting a beekeeping project. My ag. committee has just been granted the funds from an international non-profit organization to pay for the costs of all the basic beekeeping equipment, bees for fifteen people, plus a training. As long as the money is there, I figure I might as well find an experienced trainer for them instead of relying on my own limited knowledge. But this all has to be completed--the project plan and list of prices--by...tomorrow. And who knows how to do it? Emilia does. I had gone to visit my friend´s site for two days, and when I returned, they sprung this on me. People have such a confidence in my ability to get things done, I almost feel like I can. Though all this work is really cutting into my hammock time. I rarely have time for a siesta anymore. This isn´t the Peace Corps vacation I signed up for.

I was talking to another volunteer the other day about how lucky we are. The amount of work we do is dependent upon what we choose to take on, we get 48 vacation days, and take mini holidays to ¨BA,¨ the local lingo for Buenos Aires. Granted the mita´i (local kids) can drive me crazy as much as I adore them. Last week, I was sick, and I had the first day since I´ve been in Paraguay, that I stayed in my house all day and didn´t want to see anyone. Of course, I had Señoras and kids coming over to see what was going on, and why I wasn´t out and about. It´s hard to remember that it´s a blessing to have people looking out for me when I just want to be left alone, and, oh, what I wouldn´t give to be able to watch movies in my bed.

Earth Day is coming up, pretty much unknown in Paraguay, and I´m planning a festival in May to coincide with the high schoolers Mother´s Day festival. And who´s the greatest mother of them all? You guessed it: Earth. So, I´ve been invited to do a radio show on the station in my nearby pueblo , and I´m planning fun activities to increase awareness about the environment. And one of these days, I´ll get around to doing my laundry.

Prepare to Eat Chipa Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

I´m letting go of my Buenos Aires state of mind, and getting back into the swing of living in site. I had been slightly dreading the readjustment. I was looking forward to returning to my casita and garden and the comforts that the settled life provides, but I´ve found that whenever I leave site for a given period of time, it takes a little while to get back into the rhythm of the campesina (country bumpkin--my own translation). I´ve found that not to be so true this time. I´ve picked up right where I left off, holding meetings, attending meetings, playing volleyball, and working a job that is anything but nine to five.

On my way back home, I stopped at a neighboring volunteer´s site, where I had left my bike, and as soon as I showed up, she asked me, concerned, if I was ok after the bus assault. The what?! She had heard from someone in my community, who heard from my neighbor, who heard from her son, who lives in Buenos Aires that I was attacked on the bus and my passport was taken. Paraguayan gossip is the best. I realized where the confusion lay: One of my travelling buddies got his backpack stolen in BA, so I went with him to the US Embassy, so he could get another passport, and I must have told my Paraguayan host brother about it, and word quickly spread back to Paraguay. So I knew I would have some explaining to do when I got back. People understood pretty easily, though, when I just said ijapu

(it´s a lie) because Paraguayans (especially men) are known for their tendency to lie.

I´ve been holding a lot of meetings about stevia lately because the time to plant is May, and there are a lot of people interested in planting. I´ve been organizing a training session (it´s a rather technical crop) and explaining the positives and negatives of working with different companies.

Next week is Semana Santa, also known around these parts as eat-chipa-everyday-week. So I expect to make (and eat) a whole lot of chipa , which I´m looking forward to. This week, every evening we´ve been gathering at each other´s houses, a different person´s every day, for a ñembo`ehape, where we gather around an alter to say prayers and sing hymns. Then the hostess gives out candy or cookies, we chat, and then we go home. It´s a sweet tradition, and I´m starting to learn some of the songs. I explained that most people in the US only celebrate Easter Sunday, when I was asked about my custom. And do we believe in Our Lord? I told them that I believe that I am God, you are God, and that I find God in all people and every interaction. They understood and even agreed with me, especially my neighbor, who was a nun for 25 years, but left the church for love. Community development work at its finest.

The other morning my 17-year-old neighbor, Paola, woke me up, clapping outside my house (they clap here instead of knocking), to invite me on her Senior class trip to a gold mine and that we were leaving from the cruce in half an hour. Knowing that this is a big gold area and not having anything else to do that morning, I rolled out of bed and rode my bike up to meet the rickety truck that hauled all the kids in the back. At first we didn´t find the mine we were scheduled to go to, but ended up a different, more haphazard mine, where no one wore helmets and people handled mercury with their bare hands. It was interesting to see the process. The next mine we went to was run by Argentinians, who do business in Canada. I asked about their environmental practices and relationship with the local community. They actually have strict environmental codes and international agencies that check up on them. 50% of the profits go to create services for the local community. Unlike the first mine (thrown together illegally by locals who need to make a living), they are required by the government to follow regulations.

I spoke with the bossman in English, and he explained to me that it´s better for them to try to work with the local, illegal miners for the sake of local relations, and he understands that they´re just trying to make a living. So most of their hiring comes from the guys from the other mines, who he hires on a rotational basis. I showed up not wanting to like mining, but I realized how many of our everyday products contain gold, right down to our cellphone chips. I left feeling better about the practices this company was employing. I´ll stick with agriculture, though.

Speaking of, my garden has flourished, despite the lack of rain, and I´m eating, not only greenbeans, but arugula, mustard greens, green onions, and white radishes. Yum!

The Air Really is Good

After a 19-hour bus ride (I sat on top deck up front with a reclining chair, so it really wasn´t bad), we arrived in Buenos Aires. The city´s name means good air, named for it´s clean, fresh breezes, and that really was the first thing I noticed when we stepped out of the terminal. Buenos Aires makes Asunción look like a trailer park. Besides the fresh air, the streets are clean, there are huge trees, and lots of green spaces. And everyone´s friendly. If I ask someone for directions, I´ll get a whole group of people giving me explanations in a beautiful Italian-sounding accented Spanish.

The first night, we went to see Radiohead, which was amazing. Days are spent wandering around the city, drinking good wine in the park, people-watching, and also visiting the embassy and police station because my friend got his backpack stolen the first day we were here, which contained his passport and credit cards. But that has not stopped us from taking full advantage of our time here, though I´m going to need a vacation from this vacation when I get back to Paraguay.

Lastnight, I went out with my Paraguayan host brothers who work in Buenos Aires. It was nice to speak Guarani in a place where no one else understands it. This morning, I felt very Euro, drinking my café cortado and my medialuna, which translates into half moon and is really a little croissant with a delicious honey glaze.

Tonight, I get back on the bus for Paraguay. It´s been a short trip, but I definately want to come back here. I never got to tango. Apparently, it´s hard to find spontaneous tango dancing in the streets, which is what I had been hoping for. I´ll have to make my own tango.