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.