A thought as I head out: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” – Mr. Twain.
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(Something I wrote back when I moved to the city. Before I started following my own advice.). A mentor, a friend – funny how the way we define our encounters with other people changes over time – once gave a … Continue reading →
The NYT printed an article yesterday about Paraguay. You can read it here. It’s fairly decent and manages to cram a lot of the things I’ve mentioned on this blog over the past two years into a single page. Perhaps … Continue reading →
(I wrote this a while back, in the spirit of the original One Fine Day post here. Nothing insightful – just a slice of a morning in site. The afternoon portion will follow shortly. Enjoy). The grass is getting tall … Continue reading →
Looks Like it’s been a while. Sorry about that. I’m still here – and still plan on writiing here. Just having a bit of writer’s block. Check back soon! Until then here’s a photo. (and check out some of the … Continue reading →
Opening my eyes and seeing the underside of the slanted corrugated roof on its forty-five degree slope, only a couple of inches from my face, it took me a few minutes to remember where exactly I was waking up. I’m … Continue reading →
If only there were woods left. In three days, after two years here, I’ll be leaving Calle San Blas. I think that deserved its own paragraph. I’m not ready right now – mainly for time’s sake – to go through … Continue reading →
I heard a statistic last month that I finally got around to confirming – if typing a few words into Google counts as confirming. US economic growth (in real GDP) for 2010 was at 2.83%. No real surprise there. I’m … Continue reading →
iPhoto tells me I have 10,246 photos. This got me thinking about all the photos out there just sitting around taking up space on all of our computers waiting to be looked at. I guess these uncounted terabytes are history’s … Continue reading →
I’ve mentioned a few times in passing the popularity here of watching the news. In any house with a television, between 12:30 and 1:30 the news will be on – the wine glass full of water on the anchor’s desk … Continue reading →
Welcome. Or welcome back. As you can I’ve spruced things up a bit. A little spring cleaning. After two years with the old format I figured it was time to make some changes. It’s less crowed and easier to read … Continue reading →
(One from a while back that never made it up). To call Asuncion hot during the summertime just seems lazy when english has such a long list of better words to use. Sweltering. Broiling. Melting. It’s that kind of air you get a breath of on the hottest day of the year back home, somewhere [...]
I was waist deep between the rows of canavalia – peering through weeds and under and around the plant’s own lily pad-like glossy leaves – trying to catch sight of some of the foot long seed pods we’d gone to the field to harvest. Chances are I’d probably just thrown another of the dried, golden [...]
I was about to write something thoughtful for all of you to ponder, but it looks like that’s gonna have to wait. Something more important has come up. It just occurred to me that some of you out there reading this may be in the same boat I was in just about two years ago [...]
It’s no secret to anyone who’s been reading these pages that Paraguay – this landlocked, California-sized country, wedged in the center of South America between its three far more famous neighbors – is a unique place. By some standards maybe one of the most unique on the continent. One of the biggest contributors to earning [...]
Is that a rooster in the background? Well yeah, I guess it is. Apparently the human body has this property – no doubt with some complicated name that I can’t remember or maybe never even knew – where after periods of continual exposure to touch, your skin compensates somehow and can cancel out certain feelings [...]
I’m at a loss for words lately. Maybe that’s a good thing. kb
I’m not sure if any of you noticed or had the chance to look at it, but a few months ago I added the “PROJECTS” tab to the top of the blog. The idea behind this new section of the blog is something I probably should have been working on from the start of my [...]
A new study by the folks at MIT finds that people living on a dollar a day and less are likely to spend 6 cents of it on alcohol or tobacco. That’s 6% of income for those of you who are as bad at math as I am. I read this the other day and [...]
It’s easy to read stories like the one about the pig or listen to me tell one – like the one about the turkey lungs – and to be grossed out. At the same time though, that disgust comes with a bit proof of what you’ve always suspected: that the food culture outside of our [...]
A little more flavor of life in the campo. (A fair warning – this one’s a little graphic. And although no animals were harmed in the actual writing of these paragraphs, the same can’t be said for the ones in the story they tell). The pig showed up strapped to the back of a motorcycle. [...]
The water is heating in a small aluminum kettle atop the compact four burner gas stove. I’ve never seen it used for anything other then heating the kettle. A rubber hose runs from the back of the stove to a propane tank standing on the ground beside it. My neighbor and I are sitting on [...]
(I wrote this a while back – back when it was still news. Or at least back when people were paying attention to it being news. I decided not to post it, but now have changed my mind. It’s as relevant today as it was six weeks ago and even though it’s not “news” anymore, [...]
Sixteen months into living in site I thought posts on this theme would be a thing of the past. I guess Just fewer and farther between. Who knows how long I’d been chopping vegetables for singing and dancing around my kitchen and who knows how long my neighbor lady had been standing in the doorway [...]
Some new photos are up off to your left. Just click on one of them and you’ll be redirected to see the rest. Most of the them are of “the falls”. Iguazu that is. I know, I know, you’ve seen ‘em before. But these ones are a little bit different. A friend showed me how [...]
And now for something completely different. I wanted to paste the video right into this post, but the folks at WordPress don’t seem to think that should be free… So, follow the link: http://vimeo.com/20886363 paz kb
ONE liter of bottled water uses THREE liters of water to produce I understand people don’t want to drink the tap water because of the crap that makes its way in there. Fair enough. But what’s being done to keep that same crap out? Buying more bottled water probably isn’t helping. I get water from [...]
Like this one: Every year in America 45 billion pounds of carpet are thrown away. Billion. Take a minute and try to wrap your head around that. A question that eventually comes up when meeting the new trainees or new volunteers or just old volunteers you’ve never had the chance to talk with before, is, [...]
I’m not sure why, but the more I run into turbulence these days, the more actually give thought to my plane falling from the sky and smashing into the ground. I find myself looking out the window on the approach to land and wondering if we’re low enough yet to make it should we start [...]
Merry Christmas everyone! It’s summertime here – and Christmas in the summer pretty much just feels like any other day. Some snow or a little gift giving would probably make it feel a bit more festive but as much as I’d love to send you all a gift – a little piece of Paraguay to [...]
The alarm creeks from my phone on the other side of the room. It’s 5:30 am. Somehow it’s already light out and that light is trying it’s best to make it inside, creeping through every crack in the wooden walls and every seam between the misplaced roof tiles. I get up off the ground, find [...]
Talking on skype the other day I was reminded of just how incredible technology is and just how lucky I am to have it at my fingertips. I’ve talked about this before – what the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer is today versus that of one 5, 10 or 15 years ago – and [...]
I think I’ve watched the bootlegged Will Smith Collection DVD at least four times now on the double-decker headed east out of Asuncion. I can tell you just about anything that’s going on or about to happen in I am Legend, Hitch, I Robot, The Pursuit of Happyness or Enemy the State – even though [...]
I visited a new family today – new to me and new to the block. They moved over this way six weeks ago. The house went up in about two weeks, all their stuff showed up on the back of a pickup piled three-stories tall shortly after that. I’ve never seen anyone move in this [...]
One year. Check. Half way. Almost. I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write for this one – but that doesn’t mean I’ve come up with anything good. Rather then do something that’s whole and complete, leading to some sort of actual conclusion like I like to do, I’m just gonna go for a [...]
It’s a question I’ve been getting a lot lately (like for the past year), and I’ve gotten almost as good as a midterm incumbent at dodging it: What exactly are you doing day-to-day down there? I dislike this question mainly because answering it makes me feel guilty sometimes, because some days the truth is I [...]
I returned to site the other day, exhausted and crashed early. A thunderstorm shaking the house woke me a little after midnight – peeking outside I saw the sky lighting up, pulsing over and over again in a spider’s web of electricity. The light show in the pitch blackness of the blackout was eerie and [...]
Apparently great drama is afoot amongst the neighbors. Came across this a few minutes ago: Chile Prepares for Long Rescue Effort So if you reading this, bored at work, just remember – it could be worse. A lot worse. Hopefully, when the ordeal is over, none of them will ever have to work again.
I’ve let an anniversary slip right by… No, I haven’t been in Paraguay a year yet – but earlier this month we passed the one year mark since this blog began. I say we because as entertaining as I find this all, it’s you guys out there who continue to read it. 3,603 times it [...]
I was without power once for close to 2 weeks. In the United States. Granted, a combo of an unusually high number of tropical storms and very large shallow-rooted oak trees were to blame, but nonetheless it’s far longer then I’ve ever gone without power here. Yesterday was the recorded since I’ve moved into my [...]
I haven’t been to all that many places in Latin America, but I think I may have found the most un-latin place of them all. I’m not sure if I realized it right as we got into the brand new KIA cab or if it was a few minutes later flying down what appeared to [...]
It’s election time. And with it comes yet another observation of just how similar we all really are. That is, if crazy counts as a similarity. One of the hidden brilliance’s of democracy must certainly be its ability to take people who otherwise could give what (and will gladly tell you so) and for a [...]
I’m now a little bit closer to understanding some of the fanaticism felt by followers of the world’s most popular sport. The 90 minute build-up towards the inevitable victory or defeat surely imparts on the fan one of the most intense feelings of anticipation in all of sportsdom. FIFA could get away with selling just [...]
The first 120 minutes of Tuesday’s game are being described by most of the things I’ve read in English as “boring” or “tactical” (read: boring). What followed was certainly not. I assure you too that those first 2 hours were anything but boring in these parts – unless boring has the same feeling as I [...]
I’ve been racking my brain for the past 2 weeks for something to say about my trip to Ecuador, some story, some lesson, something, anything other then just a list of things done, each one of them ending with “and it was amazing…” Unfortunately, I’ve come up with no such thing. So rather then wait [...]
We’re gonna break from the cross-cultural educational experience to bring you something that no doubt more than a few of you will find worth a look. Over the past 7 years I’ve been asked approximately 926 times “when are you going to cut your hair?” Despite having it cut somewhere around 18 times during all [...]
Paraguay turned 199 today. Something tells me next years celebration should be a little more extravagant, but I’m not putting money on it just yet. It also happens to be Mother’s Day here – a strange, if not apt coincidence. To claim that every country doesn’t owe it’s existence to the mother’s within it would [...]
We ask ourselves a lot what it’d be like to be a PCV before things like cell phones to keep in touch daily to help keep our sanity. Before the internet for research and talking to home… It’d be a different experience. Even just a few years ago there weren’t blogs like this, let alone [...]
By chance of luck, Paraguay may have stumbled onto the next big cash crop. Okay, well, the second biggest. Stevia, or ka’a he’e as it’s known locally, is a non-caloric sweetener native to Paraguay that (if it isn’t already), will probably soon be in everything you drink that says sugar-free or diet on it. Saccharine [...]
Some days down here (and even a few up there) you just need a little inspiration. The Tao Te Ching is my favorite book for this (or the card rack at Whole Foods – but that’s out of reach at this point). I read it again as I was putting my life into storage just [...]
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