Chickens Snore, Too

My infatuation with my community, with the people, and with Paraguay, this week has given way to frustration. There´s no particular reason, or perhaps it is spurred on by my stomach hurting the past few days, though I recognize that I have not gotten a cold since I´ve been in Paraguay. I went to a neighboring almacen the other day to get some poha ñana (medicanal herbs). Just ask your local Señora! Everything this week has made me angrier faster--my house taking forever to build, the lack of work eithic of my socios, the constant questions, the lack of privacy. Granted, the family I´ve been staying with is really chill and even admires my independence. I may have set the precedent by staying out late the first night I moved there. I texted them to say I was at a birthday party and I´d be home later. They put a chair in front of the unlocked door, so I could get into the house. I feel like I´m in high school, and I´ve been granted later curfew.

In training, they warned us about the emotional rollercoaster. And it´s true. It´s been great to live with families that past couple months, but I´ve been feeling really ready to live on my own. There´s always something with my house. First I was told they had all the materials, then there´s no cement for the floor, then there´s not enough wood for the walls. Now they say Ikatu, it could be done on Monday. I hope so. The past two days have looked much more promising, though. The walls are up! I realize that they are building me a house for free and letting me live in it rent free, but it´s still frustrating that nothing is for sure, and I´m being constantly lied to. Many Paraguayans have no qualms with straight-up lying to my face if they think it´s what I want to hear. It drives me crazy. I just keep plying the workers with more nails, beer, banana bread, and promises of an inaugural feast.

I find myself getting used to daily life in my community. It feels almost normal, and sometimes I even forget I´m a foreigner, but there are always moments that bring me back to reality. The other day, I caught a ride on the carreta (ox and cart) with Kai Felipe, who was going to help me haul the branches I had cut the previous week to build my shade structure in my garden. (Vegetables won´t survive without shade here.) We stopped along the way to pick up an armoire and a bed frame to take down the road to a neighbor´s house. I got off to help unload the furnature, and while others carried the armoire, I was left standing in the middle of the dusty road holden a now-broken bed frame. A moto wizzed by me, and with the sun still beating down, it began to rain. Sometimes I laugh outloud, and the locals don´t know what´s so funny because I can´t quite explain how odd and amazing life here is.

There´s a chicken who snores outside my window. There´s one tree that seems to be the roosting favorite of the many chickens (and roosters) who live here. Sometimes I have to fall asleep to music just to drown out the whiny sound. At least it´s better than the roosters. If any one of the roosters within cockadoodling distance feels the need to let the world know he´s protecting his flock, he´ll set off a chain off alarms up and down the hillside. It reminds me of the dogs in 101 Dalmations, who pass along the message of the stolen puppies from the city to the country.

On a different animal note, I like to write in my journal at night, but it´s difficult for all the bugs attracted to my headlamp. I mean, HUGE bugs, and dragonflies, too. The other night, I saw a lightning bag for what it really is, without the light. I have such a romantic image of lightning bugs, but really they´re just ugly-looking beetles.

I started digging a trash pit in the backyard, and I´ve been helped my three young children, whose work was appreciated. We rotated two shovels between us, and it´s hot, hard work. What makes it harder is that there are no full-size shovels in this country. They are all the size of edging shovels. I had a little conversation with my neighbor about why I don´t want to burn my trash. I´d rather not put it in the earth either, but it´s the lesser evil. A while ago, I was talking to a farmer about his field practices, such as use of green manures and cover crops. He told me, ya, I use my trash as fertilizer and ground cover; I just throw it in my field. Except for the plastic--I burn that in the kitchen fire. I didn´t even know where to start. Starting the fire with plastic bags (which are plentiful here) is common practice.

But things are looking up. A neighbor invited me over the other night for wine and fish soup, which was delicious, though full of bones. Rather recently, a fish seller has been coming around on his moto once a week. The fish comes from a local river and is a refreshing change from the gross meat. I don´t even eat the meat anymore. I just can´t do it.

Yesterday, I hoed up a good chunk of my garden and planted some corn. It´s a local variety that´s used for animal feed. I´m hoping to get some chickens soon, and I want to have a way to feed them without relying on store-bought feed. When it gets a bit cooler, I´ll plant some peanuts and mandioca, as well. Lastnight, I went to bed, picturing my litte corn plants germinating up through the red dirt. And today I´m in the city to celebrate Carnaval!

A Roof Over My Head

Yesterday morning I learned how to peal the mandi´o, a task every girl knows how to do soon after she can walk and hold a knife. My host parents went into the city, leaving my seventeen-year-old host brother and the nine-year-old girl who lives with them (her mother works in Spain) in charge of household tasks, like taking care of the Americana. I´m not sure if I´ve yet desribed mandi´o, the stable crop of Paraguay, what humans and animals alike survive on. It is to Paraguay what the potato is (or was) to Ireland. It grows underground, much like a potato, can be left in the ground for two years, and doesn´t take many nutrients from the soil. Granted, it doesn´t supply many nutrients to the consumer either; just calories. No meal is complete without it. Suprizingly thought, as much as Paraguayans love their salt and sugar, mandi´o is served sans condiment. It´s tasty, though. It´s starchier than a potato and gives us that full full feeling that is so loved here, and is what I´ve sadly become accustomed to.

Anyhow, yesterday morning, the nine-year-old, Lorena, taught me how to take a knife to the big, brown root, liberally cutting off the ends and bad parts, which are fed to the pigs, and then peeling the touch skin. Instead of cutting towards myself, however, I took a different approach, cutting away from my body. I found a new way of doing a very Paraguayan task, which is kind of what´s it´s all about--my job, I mean.

And, hurray, my house has been started!! When I arrived on Monday, five guys were standing around where my house was supposed to be, talking about who knows how to build a house. I thought you guys knew how to build houses? We just don´t know the process is all, they reply. Luckily, the guy who does know showed up. To give them credit, I was impressed by how quickly they were able to put up the frame and roof in one day, though, granted, my house is pretty small. About an hour into building, half of it just fell down, and we all laughed and put it up again, hopefully stronger. Kai Felipe, the man with the plan, is seventy-something-years-old and always works with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was working on the roof frame, when the makeshift ladder he was standing on fell out from under him. He was left hanging onto the roof frame, from where he safely landed on the ground. It was a Three Stooges moment.

While we were on a terere break, the guys asked me if I was going to kill them some chickens as reward for their labor. I promised them that when my house was done, I would have a party and kill a few chickens. In the meantime, I bought a couple bottles of local wine, which we polished off at the end of the day.

I realized the other day that the way in which people go about accomplishing tasks here is different. It´s a communal way of thinking in which people work together to do almost everything, where relationships must be formed before the job is started. I had heard all this during training--the difference between the American, individualist way of thinking, and the developing world´s common-good way of thinking. Instead of spending their time on earning money for themselves (there´s no $ to earn anyway) they form commitees and groups to build another room on the school, start a health center, or get the local government to pay for a tractor to come and fix the roads. I don´t think things work this way because they do not desire personal gain, but they grow up depending upon each other as a community. Focus must be placed upon what the community as a whole needs.

La vida has been busy lately, without much time to spend on a computer. I had my site presentation last week, when my boss from Peace Corps comes to my village to officially present me to the community and explain why I´m here. I was surpized by the turnout--twenty-something of my neighbors came. After the presentation, I got a ride back into Asunción for the weekend. There were some meetings I had to attend, and it was the first time I got to meet up with my training group. And it was superbowl weekend, not that I´ve ever been excited about football, but the American in me was looking for some tradition. We lounged by the pool all weekend, took hot showers, and slept in AC. I almost forgot I was in Paraguay...and it was great. I was sitting on the bus in the Asunción terminal, waiting to leave the city, when my friend called me from the pool at the US Embassy. I made a quick decision, grabbed my stuff and got off the bus just before it left. And that pool was worth it.

On another note, and one I never thought I would say, Paraguayan food and music have actually been growing on me. The cheesy pop songs blasted on the radio are not just the same three songs over and over again, which I had previously thought, but a few different onces that I´m only just being able to recognize as distinctive. And all the same food I´ve been eating, I actually start to look forward to. Though it´s usually the same three ingredients that take on slightly different forms, but are all drenched in oil, I´m starting to appreciate it, and I´m even using my mandioca to slurp up extra grease. God, that sounds gross. I´m always amazed by how many old people there are here.

I would have thought that high cholesterol and diabetes would have put more of a hurting on these people, but maybe the daily exercize counteracts it. Soda, however, is probably a fairly recent addition to the diet. They down it like water here--babies are given soda in their bottles. In fact, water is rarely drinken, besides in terere. They make fun of me for always carrying my water bottle around. Drinking water, Chaco sandles, backpacks, and flossing distinguish me as an American.

I had not planned to come into the city, but I had been out of site at a meeting, and it poured all day, making it impossible to get back to site, so here I am. I coming to love that rainy days mean the world shuts down. Though, back home, that would mean nothing would happen eight months out of the year. Now it´s back to site to form a beekeeping group.