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...

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...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!