I can not believe it myself. But yes this past December marked one year of living and working in my community of Ayolas, Paraguay, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. So what have I done this past year? Well let me show you...

Travels:

Uruguay

I was invited by my wonderful friend Kate to visit her in Montevideo, Uruguay, this past year for a little over a week. We explored the city, checked out her work as a mentor at an orphanage and a tutoring center, ate lots of delicious food, and headed out to the Atlantic Ocean for a day.

We enjoyed an amazing modern tango show the first night in the famous Teatro Solis.

This fountain in the heart of Montevideo is supposed to bring luck to couples that write their names on a lock and then close on the fountain.

Tutoring in math

At work making lemonade with the kids!

Watching Kate play on her local volleyball team.

Day trip to Punta del Este to spend sometime by the Atlantic Ocean

The famous La Mano or The Hand statue in Punta del Este

Te amo Uruguay

Argentina

This year I was also blessed to have my friend Maggie come to visit me in Paraguay during her summer vacation and Paraguay's winter break. We explored Ayolas for a little over a week and then we headed out on an adventure to Northern Argentina. We visited the Jesusit ruins of San Ignacion Mini...

and the awe-striking Iguazu Falls.

Birthday:

This past year I celebrated my first birthday in Paraguay. I was surrounded by Peace Corps volunteers and my Paraguayan friends. I celebrated alongside a good Paraguayan friend of mine named Edgar Sanchez that was turning 26 a few days before me. After a huge dinner of delicious grilled pork, we headed out to the local discoteca where we danced until 6 am. Turning 24 never felt so good!

My host sister and cousin.Edgar and his family.

Work Projects:

EcoAyolas

I have been working with the youth group EcoAyolas for the past year with three main projects.

1. An International World Earth Day Festival

We held a neighborhood clean-up and recycled art presentation to local school age students.

2. A tree planting campaign in the plazas of Ayolas.

3. A bird camp for 5th graders in celebration of International Bird Month, October.

We sang songs, made bird masks and bird feeders, learned about migration habits, popular bird species in Paraguay, and went out on a field observation adventure.

School garden

This year long project took place at one of the local schools where the 4th-6th grade teachers were interested in restarting their school garden project from years past. I work specifically with these grades to teach the techniques and practice good gardening in Paraguay.

Practicing transplanting the starters into soil.

Students also voted using beans on what design would be used for their school garden flag design. Thanks for the help Maggie!

Learning about garden design with homemade puzzles.

I was also able to organize a field trip to the local community garden and tree nursery where all the 4th, 5th and 6th graders were able to practice their gardening techniques and take a few trees and vegetables home with them.

Murals

I also work with the local high school class of environmental science students and this spring we worked to raise money and then paint four different environmentally themed murals in Ayolas. The themes were:

Water Conservation

Biodiversity

Contamination

and Global Climate Change

Reduce and Reuse

Trash management is one of the main problems environmental Peace Corps volunteers face in their communities since there is a lack of an effective trash and recycling program in Paraguay. Here are some pictures of my work with students reusing plastic bottles to make trash cans for their school and cutting old wine bottles into drinking glasses.

Paraguayans

They are why I am here and why I stay.

So one year has come and gone. It was filled with experiences that made the memories that will last beyond my Peace Corps service here in Paraguay. Thanks to all the Paraguayans that continue to open their lives and hearts to me here in Ayolas. And thanks to all of you reading my blog that continue to encourage and support me from thousands of miles away. You all are in my heart.

Here's to year number two! May it be an even bigger adventure than the first.

My Home

After weeks of yard cleaning, painting, sweeping, dusting, organizing and paying large amounts of money for furniture and repairs, I can finally sing, dance, cook, sleep and play in my own house!

SIN VERGUENZA!!

(without embarrassment)

During my first four months in my community I lived with five wonderfully different families. In some houses I shared a room with one, two or three different people, while in others I had the luxury of my own room. However, that did not mean I had privacy! Living with anyone under the age of 12 meant hours of questions about all the interesting things they could find in my bags, such as headlamps and books in English, and of course they touch everything without permission. I know this is not culture; this is just kids being curious. But now I no longer have to eat the endless amounts of meat focused meals piled on my plate, which caused me to gain about 10 pounds, I now have my food freedom and any other freedom I want inside my house! While I am excited for the experience of living on my own, I am also nervous. I have never actually lived alone, alone before. And for Paraguayans this is almost unheard of. However, because I lived with families for my first three months in Ayolas, I am not short on houses to visit to drink some terere or mate to pass the hours.

Here is a little tour of my house. I have been living here for the past three months so I have a comfortable home for the few pieces of furniture I have acquired. I am living next door to the last family I lived with in Ayolas. They own the house and are letting me stay here for the next two years until the Grandma who currently lives in Spain returns. I am paying my rent through fix ups and electric bills.

Kitchen

Thank you Mandi for the oven and Liam for the beautiful blue fridge. Before I moved in I had to pay to get the entire plumbing in the kitchen reinstalled, replace the tile floor and buy and new sink.

Living Room

This is the first time I have ever been able to paint whatever I want on my walls, so I decided to bring a little bit of nature inside with me.

Paraguayans love to look at my photos, so I decided to put my favorite ones on display both for them and for me to enjoy.

This is my kitchen table made out of an old door left in my house.

Bathroom

Every Paraguayan bathroom seems to have a bidet that doesn't work. Thankfully! So they are more commonly used for holding the toilet paper and your clothes while showering.

The showers are also very different. There are no shower curtains to divide the space. You just shower in the bathroom and squeegee the floor when you are done. I also had to pay to replace the plumbing and floor tiles in the bathroom as well.

Bedroom

My first big purchase for my house was a bed. Instead of sizes like twin, double or queen, they use the term plazas. I bought a 1 1/2 plaza bed, a few inches wider than a twin in the states. I took it one step up from my college days!

Yard

Most of my backyard is taken up by the clothes lines, but I have been able to create a small herb garden and a rotating compost pile for my food scraps.

My Puppies

Yes I said it, "PUPPIES!" And yes that does mean that I have two dogs currently living with me in Ayolas.

Introducing Che Rubia Pora (My Pretty Blonde Girl)

So after 23 years of waiting I finally have my puppy. When my first puppy was stolen in February from my host family's house, I didn't know when or where I would find a puppy. Well it just so happens that sometimes the clapping at your gate is in fact two 9 year old girls carrying a tiny puppy in a plastic grocery bag that they found abandoned in the school yard earlier that day. That is how I got my first dog.

She was absolutely covered in fleas when I got her that day and luckily I had a friend visiting that could help me bath her for the first time.

She soon started to grow, or at least her stomach did.

The only problem was that she was a tiny puppy of only a month and a half that needed more attention than I could give her as she grew. After a month she started biting/playing really aggressive because she didn't have anyone else to play with besides my feet and I had been training her wrong, who knew you aren't actually supposed to play 'tug' with puppies! So after reading a few websites I decided another dog might be the best option. And it just so happened that the very same day I confessed this idea to my friend Maggie who was visiting from the states, we found him.

Introducing Che Chico'i (My Little Boyfriend)

While visiting the local community garden that day we came across my second and my last (I promise mom) puppy. He was the runt of a litter that the employees were trying to give away before they grew up too old to learn how to live with people or died from lack of vaccinations. Of course he as well was covered in fleas, luckily Liam carried him home that day. Thanks Tio Liam!

Of course he got his flea bath as well.

This is their dog house where they sleep together every night. I am waiting until a nice spring day comes along to paint the house a bright yellow with some of the neighborhood kids.

So now I have my little family in Ayolas. That is not to say that I have the world's best dogs. Rubia is still completely jealous if I give any attention to Chico'i and Chico'i is still working on the potty training issues. But they got each other for warmth during the nights and playmates during the day. And I now have two extra very hungry mouths to feed!

June and July were filled with the colors of red, white and blue, and the chants of 'Albirroja' across Paraguay as the national team competed in the World Cup in South Africa. And I chanted and cheer right alongside my Paraguayan friends throughout the experience. I had the opportunity to not only watch or listen to each of Paraguays games, I also had the opportunity to celebrate across the country.

In the weeks leading up to the World Cup, advertisements and songs for the games dominated the TV and radio in Paraguay. Some of the songs got so popular that I even learned all the lyrics. The popular Latin singer Shakira sang a song called 'Waka Waka' that got stuck in my head and the heads of thousands of Paraguayans for weeks. They all knew the song so well that I got my 5th grade garden class to sing the whole thing for me one day. Here's a little video for your enjoyment.

Game 1: Paraguay v. Italy

1:1

The first match was against Italy, the World Cup Champion Team of 2006. I was traveling back from visiting Uruguay for the week the afternoon of the game. Unfortunately, my flight was slightly delayed that day and I arrived in Asuncion at 12:30pm and the game started at 1:30pm. So most of the city was already shut down for the afternoon, that also meant the buses stopped running. So with about 20 other Paraguayans I listened to a small radio at a bus stop in front of the airport terminal for the nearly 3 hours. It was assumed that Paraguay would lose this first match to Italy, but we held in there to end with a tie at 1:1.

Game 2: Paraguay v. Slovakia

2:0

Luckily I was able to watch the second game Paraguay. My site mate Liam set up his projector at the local firehouse where he lives to enjoy the game on the big screen with the firemen. The only unfortunate side of this game was the 7am start time. I drank lots of mate to help me wakeup. Paraguay played a great game and ended up beating Slovakia 2:0. To celebrate the win, the firemen blared their sirens and took a victory lap around town as we sat on top of the trucks waving to all the people who had also stepped outside to celebrate.

The 'Big Screen'

National anthem

Let the celebration begin!

Riding around town on the back of a firetruck=great Peace Corps memory

Game 3: Paraguay v. New Zealand

0:0

I also watched this game at the local fire station on the 'big screen'. In order for Paraguay to qualify for the round of 16, they needed to at least tie with New Zealand. New Zealand tried their hardest to score, but it was to no avail. Paraguay pulled out a tie at 0:0, and headed on to the round of 16 as the top qualifying team from their group. Great job boys!

Game 4: Paraguay v. Japan

0:0 at the end of time

5:3 Penalty shoot-out

Round of 16. After 6 months of living in our communities, all the environmental volunteers from my group with one invited member from our communities gathered in small town two hours north of Asuncion at a agriculture high school to share experiences and knowledge between volunteers and community members. While our schedule was very full for the three day retreat, the organizers made sure there was time to enjoy the Paraguay v. Japan game. Volunteers and Paraguayans gathered together to watch our boys play a great game against Japan. After an hour and a half of regular play time and an another half an hour in extra, Paraguay and Japan took to the field for a shoot-out. You could feel that the entire country was on pins and needles, praying that their team makes it on to the quarterfinals. And after 5 beautiful penalty shoots, Paraguay wins! Here is a short celebration video I took as the 5th and final penalty shot was being made.

Game 5: Paraguay v. Spain

0:1

Quarterfinals. The day before the Saturday afternoon game, my friend Maggie from college arrives in Paraguay to visit me for three weeks. So to take advantage of the trip into Asuncion, I decide that we stay and watch the game in downtown Asuncion with a group of other volunteers. The city was beautifully decorated in red, white and blue that day, and I didn't see a single person in the city not wearing a Paraguayan jersey. While Paraguay tried their hardest to get past Spain's defense to score, the Spaniards were able to score in the last ten minutes of the game. The streets of Asuncion went silent... Paraguayans, male and female, were struck deeply by the loss. Tears were shed in the streets, plazas, and homes across Paraguay as the last few minutes of the game ticked away and then were gone. I felt Paraguayan in those moments. I cried. However, Paraguayans can find away to celebrate almost any experience. The entire country was proud to see how far their team had gone and after a half an hour or so of morning, chants were loudly sung in the streets while flags waved over head.

However, this was not the end of my World Cup experience in Paraguay. I enjoyed watching the Semifinal and Final matches in Ayolas. Spain ended up winning the 2010 World Cup, although I was rooting for the Netherlands (Go Robert!). And two weeks later, I had the opportunity to meet Paraguays most famous soccer player Roque Santa Cruz in the Asuncion airport while I was saying my goodbyes to Maggie. What a good day to have my camera!

Earth Day!

April 22nd

While not largely celebrated in Paraguay, Earth Day was my first attempt at organizing and presenting a large scale activity in Ayolas. While there were moments that felt completely out of hand, over a thousand students from my communities largest school were able to celebrate Earth Day and get to see their first tree/man. (I got you hooked, now you want to read the rest of the blog, don’t you!)

El Arbol Generoso

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

The week before Earth Day when I was in Asuncion for an in-service language training session, I happened upon the book The Giving Tree, but in Spanish. I instantly grabbed it off the shelf and ran towards the librarian to check it out. I have always loved the story and had looked for it in the office before, but that day was my lucky day. I have had the opportunity to perform the book before during my summers at Camp Lutherwood, so I was very excited to give it a try down here in Paraguay.

Every school session, morning and afternoon, begins with the students lining up around the school’s court yard by classrooms to sing the national anthem and hear the day’s announcements over a loud stereo system. So I decided to take the opportunity of having all 1700 students gathered in one spot to announce that today is Earth Day and to celebrate we have a short theatrical performance to present. Only with the help of my two site mates, Liam and David, was I able to narrate the story while my two best men put on an amazing silent performance of a tree and a man. Giggles filled the school yard as Liam walked out wearing his over 6 foot tall tree costume that I have made him out of some old boxes I had found in my new house. And David played the part of a young boy aging into an old wobbly walking man right before the kids eyes.

After the skit, we invited all the kids to spend there recess hours with us in and around the library celebrating Earth Day with some fund activities. And what were those activities you ask:

Gracias

Inside the library I made two large banners, one for the morning and one for the afternoon, that said Gracias for the students to color or write some of the things they were thankful for in the environment. Everything from trees, elephants, and family members were drawn all over the banners with crayons and colored pencils.

Quiz Show

Liam put together a great 20 question photo quiz show for the students to enjoy. All the questions were interesting facts we found about some of the local wildlife of Paraguay. Such as in Paraguay there exists 45 different species of murciélagos or mbopi or BATS!

Bottle Toss

David was the master behind the bottle toss game. We created labels for three different buckets that said trash can, water, and soil. The kids were then given two plastic coke bottles to try to throw into the correct location (the trash can). If the kid accidently threw the bottle into the water or soil bucket David would explain why its important to throw our trash in trash cans and not other places.

We spent three morning and three afternoon recess sessions of 30 minutes each, rotating the students through the activities. While I would like to say that everything was completely organized to handle over a thousands students, we were literally swarmed with students! Especially because we were giving out small candies to kids who answered quiz show questions correctly, tossed their bottle in the trash can bucket, or drew an item on the banner. We were overwhelmed and tired by the end of the day.

Oh, I forgot to mention that during the afternoon session we also were requested to watch over 10 kindergarten and 15 4th grade students for an hour and a half while their teachers held a “meeting”. Unfortunately a large group of teachers try to find the easiest way to do as little as possible. Such is the education system in Paraguay. Thank you teacher Liam for your impromptu geography class and leaf tracing session!

However, overall the day was exciting, busy, and memorable. I definitely plan on organizing more celebration days like this one for the students. But I will be sure to ask for even more volunteer support!

The chipa has risen!

The first week of April this year, known as Holy Week or Semana Santa, was filled with the smell of chipa. All across the country Paraguayans followed a traditional schedule of celebrating Easter or Pascua.

Wednesday or Chipa Day!

I know you all are asking yourselves, what is this CHIPA thing she keeps mentioning? Well let me tell you about the very traditional bread product that Paraguayans can’t live without.

Chipa

1 kilo of mandioca starch

2 cups of corn flour

1 cup of pig fat

2 eggs

1 cup of milk

3 tablespoons of salt

¼ cup of anis

½ kilo of Paraguayan cheese (and yes there is a huge difference between queso Paraguayo and

all the other cheese in the world)

Once all the ingredients are mixed together, the dough is kneaded together into almost a play dough like texture. Once the dough is kneaded, you are allowed to make the chipa into any design. I enjoyed writing my name in my chipa. The dough is then placed on top of banana leaves and baked in either an outdoor fire oven called a fagon or in my experience an indoor gas oven. It is then customary to exchange chipa with friends and neighbors for the next few days to enjoy throughout the day.

Thursday or the Last Supper or Did Someone Say Pork Chops?

I was invited to spend Eater weekend with my friend Lili and her family at her parent’s house about an hour north of Ayolas. Lili’s parents own a small store or despensa that they run out of their house in San Patricio, Paraguay. We arrived Thursday morning to help prepare the large lunch we would be sharing as a family in a few hours. The focus of the meal across Paraguay on Thursday is chancho or pork. My favorite! (It really is)

After a large lunch, we spent the rest of the day visiting her family members that live on the block. This means I spent most of the day explaining why I am here in Paraguay, how Lili and I are friends, and if I am happy here. We also went to church service that evening at the small Catholic church located in the towns small plaza.

Friday or Good Friday or the Day of Rest

Across the country families gathered together on Friday to share the day with each other. We headed out to Lili’s Grandmas house located about a 15 minute drive into the countryside outside of San Patricio. We gathered alongside a dozen other aunts, uncles, and cousins to spend the day relaxing in the shade of a large mango tree with drinking endless amounts of terere, beer, and eating leftovers from Thursday. The countryside was absolutely beautiful and the warm weather added to its splendor. I spent most of the day staring out into the countryside while the family gossiped in Guarani about family members, politics, and a hundred other things. I was usually brought back into reality when they would ask me random question about the United States.

Saturday or Fiesta Time!

While time was still spent with family and close friends, the fiesta spirit also hit Paraguay. Lots of volleyball and futbol games were played, while even more beers were drunk. Lili and I headed back to Ayolas in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening fishing along the Rio Parana. I caught the first fish! It was the size of a deck of cards, but I was proud of my work.

Sunday or Pascua or the day you are permitted to run around town hitting people

Sunday or Easter/Pascua is not celebrated the same as it is in the states. There was no Easter bunny hiding eggs for kids to find. And there were no Easter baskets full of candy and toys. I have no idea where these traditions came from that I have participated in for the past 23 years, and boy did I have a hard time trying to explain them to Paraguayans.

Instead on Sunday Paraguayans have the tradition of hitting each other on the backs, sometimes butts depending on the level of friendship, while shouting FELIZ PASCUA!

I found the Paraguayan traditions of Semana Santa to be very comforting. While many say that Paraguay’s homogeneity is one of the reasons they are so far back in terms of forward thinking and development, I wouldn’t say that all things homogeneous are bad. I mean everyone loves massive amounts of food, beer, and the opportunity to hit people without feeling bad!!

My first real work in Paraguay!

In celebration of World Water Day, I helped to organize and present three different half-day teacher workshops about the importance of teaching dynamic water activities in the classroom in Paraguay. These workshops were the concluding activities for the thesis work Mandi (the former EE volunteer from my community) did during her Peace Corps service about water education in Paraguay.

The Agenda:

Ice Breaker (o Rompi Hielo)- We played a fun game of what I like to call “pass the coin”. The object of any ice breaker is to get the group active and excited about spending time together. And I believe that this ice breaker does just that. The goal is to stand in a line and pass a coin from person to person in your team until the last person gets the coin. However the way you pass the coin is what makes this one of my favorite ice breakers. In order to pass the coin on to the next person in line, you must first pass the coin underneath all of your clothing until it reaches the floor. Almost everyone freaks out after hearing the rules, especially those in the group that happen to be wearing tight pants that day. However, once the game begins there are lots of laughs and the group is ready to see what is next.

Welcome- A short presentation of who we are, Peace Corps volunteers, and what we were going to do for the day, learn about water activities. We then presented the “how we learn pyramid” or the its really important that we teach students dynamically with hands-on activities.

Water- “Water, water all around and not a drop to drink!”

“The amount of water in the world, both fresh and salt can be represented by a bucket of water. Out of that bucket, only a ¼ of a cup is water that we can access, still both fresh and salt. Out of that ¼ cup of water, only a teaspoon of that is fresh water. From that teaspoon of fresh water only a drop is fresh water that we can drink.”

I presented this information to the teachers using all the materials listed above (bucket, ¼ cup, teaspoon) as visual aids to express the importance of water education in schools.

Sum of all the parts- Imagine that you just received a text message telling you that you have won a riverfront property and an unlimited amount of money to build whatever you like on the land. The riverfront property of your dreams! This was the opening to on of our activities for the day. Each person or group of 2 to 3 people, depending on the size of the group overall, was given a sheet of paper to represent their waterfront property. After 20 to 30 minutes of drawing and discussing with their group mates what their riverfront property dreams are, we gathered all the sheets and assembled them into a river. When all the parts were put together all the group members could observe how upstream development was causing downstream contamination. This activity demonstrated how easily we contaminate our rivers and how that contamination affects all parts of the river.

La tormenta- We then taught the group how to make the sounds of a tormenta (storm) by only using their bodies. While the groups quietly stood in a circle, I walked in front of each participant and began an action such as rubbing my hands together. Once I passed a person they then needed to begin copying my action until I passed in front of them again with a different action. The order of the storm is: rubbing hands together, snapping, clapping out of rhythm, slapping your thighs, stomping your feet, and finally slapping your thighs while stomping your feet. Once everyone is copying the last action, I then began to pass in front of the circle doing the actions in reserve, until my hands were open not making a sound.

Density and surface tension- Our final activity for the workshops was allowing the teachers to get the opportunity to practice teaching one another about a water science property such as density or surface tension. The idea was for them to understand the importance of using hands on activities in the classroom to teach. We divided into two groups and each was given information about their topic and some suggestions of activities they could teach to the other group. While it was a little uncomfortable for some to be teaching their peers, I believe that this final activity put them all to the test to be interactive with their teaching and for some of them this was new material.

Certificates- Probably the most important part of a workshop for teachers, students, community members, etc., is the receiving of the certificates. Every participant gained recognition for 4 hours of additional learning. These hours are accumulated my teachers through out the year by attending workshops and lectures to receive higher pay for the next school year. And you can’t forget the all important group photos.

These workshops were great opportunities to both practice my Spanish skills in front of a large group, and to visit two different cities in Paraguay, Valle Apu’a and Pilar.

So what do these two events have in common?... Not much, besides the fact that both took place in Paraguay and I was present for both of them. However, I thought that some of you out there would like to hear about the random events that filled my last few weeks of summer here in Ayolas, PY.

Site Presentation

The site presentation takes place within the first few months of a volunteer arriving in their community as a manner of presenting the volunteer to the community. The presentations are held within our respective communities and we are encouraged to invite community members that we feel we might potentially work with in the future. Most of the people that attended my presentation were either teachers from the local schools or youth from my environmental group. My boss Eli Cabrera for the Environmental sector and our third year volunteer coordinator Austin came to Ayolas for the evening to give my presentation and check up on how things were going for me in my site. I was very happy with the amount of people who turned out to support me and hear a little bit more about what is Cuerpo de Paz (Peace Corps).

Carnival

Unfortunately this year I was not able to travel to Rio de Janeiro to participate in the huge Carnival celebrations, but I was able to attend Ayolas's version with a few Peace Corps friends. There were 8 of us who spent the hot evening drinking, dancing, and celebrating the night away.

(school and teacher)

School has finally started in Paraguay!

Summer vacation finally has come to an end and so have the days of searching for something to do to fill my day. I no longer have to roam the streets looking for people to drink terere with. I now have a place to go. Something to sort of do...

The starting of school has brought about a lot of work opportunities for me. Since I am a second time volunteer in my site, I have found it to be pretty easy to enter the schools and find at least one or two teachers at each school that are interested in working with me. Before the school year began, I headed to all the schools in my area to pass out a short survey to the teachers presenting some possible topics I could work with them to incorporate into their curriculum this year. While I only got a few surveys back, the actual act of handing them out gave me the opportunity to present myself to the schools and meet lots of different teachers. (Now my problem is remembering about 200 different teacher´s names.) As of today, I think that I will have a pretty full schedule of work for the school year. Both of the local primary schools are interested in having a school garden program this year, while the high school teachers are interested in working with me on large community projects within the environmental technical student classes. Even the special education school has plans for incorporating my work into their weekly schedule starting in April (I am most excited to work with them).

While I am excited to work on all the projects/topics that have been presented to me thus far, the challenge is making sure that there is a balance to all my work. While I am here to share my skills and motive teachers and students with my passion for these subjects, I am not here to work alone. This might be one of the hardest things for Paraguayan teachers to understand. When I am in their classroom, it should not be an opportunity for them to leave. I am not their substitute teacher for the hour. The more that I work alongside teachers, the more they will learn and incorporate different strategies into their teaching as well. So my next steps for the following few weeks is to hold some informal meetings with the interested teachers I have met and begin lesson planning together. This is much harder than it sounds due to busy schedules, my still struggling Spanish, holidays, and/or the laziness of the teachers. Vamos a ver entonces. (We will see then)

However, I have found all the students around Ayolas to be very welcoming. The 1st-3rd grades love to stare at me, 4th-6th graders love to ask me random questions about the USA and then run away laughing, 7th-9th graders are a combination of the staring and question asking, while the high school students love asking the personal life questions (how old are you, do you have a boy friend, where do you live, etc.). I have already had the chance to teach in two different high school classrooms about the very important topic of trash decomposition. These two charlas (talks/lessons) gave me a lot more confidence in my language skills and excitement for my work in the schools in the future.

Aaprendese guarni ikatu haguàicha añe`e la gentekuèra ndive.

I want to learn Guaranì to be able to speak with people.

School has not only started for the Paraguayan children, but for me as well. For the past few weeks I have been going to Guaraní school (or my private Guaraní tutoring at a former neighbors house). And I love it! While my Guaraní is still almost none existent, I adore my Guaraní teacher and her family. Profesora Irma is a retired Guaraní teacher that lives two houses down from my third host family´s house (Señor Susana and the granddaughter Camila) here in Ayolas. Her husband is a jokester that enjoys making me say obnoxiously hard words in Guarní and her two kids (Jose 12 and Belen 13) are very mature kids that still love getting into a little bit of mischief.

Irma grew up about 30 minutes north of Ayolas in a small town that has seen about 5 different Peace Corps volunteers in the past 30 years. So she understands a little more about my work here, and about the wacky lifestyles us Americans like to live than the average Paraguayan. I go to their house about three times a week for my tutoring for anywhere from an hour to three (my lesson is usual 45 minutes and the rest of the time I sit around talking with the family). Then after my lesson I usually sit with my old host family and the other neighbors to drink some terere and hear the town gossip. These have been some of my favorite afternoons in Paraguay. And I am looking forward for many more to come.

Those who sow wheat, they prepare for the year;

those who plant trees, they prepare for various years.

Those who teach the youth, they prepare for various future generations.

So the weather here the past three months has been unbelievable. While most of you know this from other emails or letters I have sent, I thought that it would be important to state it one last time. (Sorry if you all have had enough of hearing about it, but it is a pretty all consuming matter in my life here.) On average I talk about how hot it is here about 20 to 30 times a day with my host family, friends, or random people I run into on the street or in the supermercado. The main reason why it is so unbearable here is because there really is no escaping the heat. When it gets warm in the states we have our refuges of the movie theater, the mall, our air conditioned homes, swimming pools, and lakes or rivers to pass our day away in. Here that is not so. The best you can do is either sit under a ceiling fan or hang out under the shade of a tree while drinking terere. And most of the time if you are doing either activity you are either thinking or talking about how hot it is. However this summer I have been trying to keep myself busy with random little adventures in both Ayolas and Paraguay.

Sonidos de la Tierra

In the early part of February, over 2,000 youth from throughout Paraguay and Northern Argentina, gathered in Ayolas for "Sonidos de la Tierra" or "Sounds of the Earth". Sondios de la Tierra was founded in 2002 by the musician and composer Luis Szaran. Luis Szaran was lucky enough to study composition in Europe after a prominent Paraguayan musician recognized his talent. As the eighth child of a farming family, he was extremely grateful for the opportunity, and he went on to become an internationally known composer and the conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Asuncion, Paraguay.

Wishing to return the favor, he founded Sonidos de la Tierra to inspire local towns to form musical ensembles for young people. The organization travels throughout Paraguay during the year with their "conservatory on wheels" to lead workshops for Parguayan youth interested in enhancing their musical abilities. Some of the youth in Paraguay have never seen a violin or harp, let alone have the opportunity to the learn the basics of playing such an instrument. Every year, Sonidos hosts a national music camp that is open to young musicians from all over Paraguay. Children from rich and poor families eat, study and perform music together for one week. Ayolas was lucky enough to host this annual event for Paraguay this year.

For one week, the town was full of youth praticing their instruments by day and performing for the community by night. During the day, the youth were scattered around Ayolas, practicing under mango trees in the town plazas or inside emptied schoolrooms alongside new friends from across the country. While at night they preformed pieces ranging from Motzart and Vivaldi to traditional Paraguayan folk songs. Not only was I am greatly impressed by the advanced level performers, but also by the beginner students that took to the stage to play "Twinkle Twinkle" after just three days of playing the violin.

Itaipu

The previous volunteer in my site created a jovens or young adults (15-29) group called EcoAyolas. The group focuses on raising awareness about environmental issues in the community and exploring the natural environment of Paraguay. So during this summer vacation the group decided to travel to the Itaipu dam, located outside of the Ciudad del Este along the border of Paraguay and Brazil. The Itaipu dam is the worlds largest operational hydroelectric power plant in the world. The group petitioned the dam in early December to receive an all expense paid trip to the dam for the day in early February. And we got it!

At 1am in the morning, the bus arrived in Ayolas to drive the six hour trip to Itaipu. All 37 of us loaded the bus and prepared for the sleepless ride. When we arrived the day started with a bus tour of the dam, followed by a trip to the dam´s museum and zoo. We spent the afternoon at the Refugio Biologico Tatí Yupí where we relaxed in the shaded, took a horse buggy ride, rode horses and enjoyed the view of the Itaipu Lake.

Yes he is texting while driving our horse buggy. Got love technology.

After a rest full afternoon we got back in our tour bus and headed an hour outside of the city to Los Saltos de Monday. These beautiful waterfalls were a refreshing site to visit. While not nearly as big as the famous Iguazu Falls that I hope to visit in the near future, I did enjoy the sights and sounds that the waterfall blessed us with that day.

As the day came to an end we headed back to the Itaipu dam for a second time for the evening light show. Since we arrived a little early with a few hours to kill before the show started, we decided to start an impromptu dance party in front of the visitors center. We even got some other visitors to the dam to join in with us. After the lighting of the dam tour ended, we loaded the bus for one last time and traveled the six hours back to Ayolas. It was a day full of adventures and new friends in Paraguay.

SuperBowl

While most Paraguayans do not understand the complicated rules of fútbol norte americano or football to us from the USA, they do understand the importance of a partido or game. So when Super Bowl Sunday approached, us volunteers in site decided to take the opportunity to cook up some tasty traditional Super Bowl Sunday food and watch the game together. Since we are Peace Corps volunteers, none of us had a TV or the cable connection needed to watch the game at one of our houses, so we took the opportunity to share a little bit of our culture with some local Paraguayan firefighters while we watched the game on their TV in front of the firestation in town.

The game started around 7pm here in Paraguay, so Mandi, David and I, took the afternoon to cook up some chips and salsa, hot pork sausage dogs, an apple salad, and for dessert Mandi prepared buckeyes in saludos to her home state of Ohio. Unfortunately, that Sunday ended up being one of the hottest days in Paraguay, making the food preparation almost unbearable in the 105 degree heat. But the sweating was well worth it in the end. For at the nights end our stomachs were full and we all cheered on the New Orleans Saints to their win.

Olympics

It was only last year I was living a little more than an hour drive away from Vancouver, Canada, the host city for the winter Olympics of 2010. Now I am living over 5,000 miles away...

While I was a little sad during those two weeks of ceremonies and competition seeing all the snow and beauty of the Pacific Northwest, I had a great time watching the games with my host family and neighbors down here in South America. Paraguay did not have any competitors in the games, but Paraguayans still took some interest and luckily I was able to watch a lot of different events. During those two weeks I became the town`s walking Winter Olympics encyclopedia. I was asked to explain many of the rules for the events, where certain countries are located in the world, what language they speak in those countries, and what the hell is curling to at least five different people. I can hardly explain that in English!

My favorite memory I will take from watching these Olympic games will be sitting with my Guaranì teacher for three hours on two different days watching the ladies figure skating. During both of those days I was supposed to be learning more Guaranì, but instead we had a great time watching each routine, commenting on their outfits, country they were from, the choreography of the routine, etc. The best part of all was that it was a Brazilian channel that showed the skating, so everything was in Portuguese!

Next

So with autumn just around the corner, I am going to say that I had a great first summer in Paraguay. While there were definitely challenges in the first few weeks with language, holidays, and new host families, I learned a lot about my community and about myself. While it wasn`t easy and I wouldn`t want to do it again, I did learn more from things being challenging.

Almost all Peace Corps volunteers say that the first three months of service in site are the most uneventful, lonely, and awkward months of service you will ever have during your two years. After three months my calendar is starting to fill up with activities at the schools, I have a handful of close friends and families I can rely on, and as for the awkwardness....that will never change.

This past week I had the most amazing opportunity to have one of my best friends Sprout-Kate, from Western and Lutherwood, visit me here in Paraguay for the week. Sprout is currently voluntering for the year in Montevideo, Uruguay, through the Young Adults in Global Missions program of the Lutheran church. She arrived in Uruguay at the beginning of September, and this was the first opportunity either of us has had to see anyone from home. So on Saturday I made the 6 hour bus ride into Asuncion to pick her up from the airport that evening. I left almost 3 hours early from the hotel to pick her up from the Asuncion International airport, I heard the bus was infrequent so I wanted to give myself some extra. The bus is very infrequent because Parguayans do not usually have the money to travel by airplane, and if they do, they also have the money for a car to drive themselves there. I waited for almost an hour and a half before the bus finally did come to pick me up. Sitting in the international capital airport of Paraguay that is roughly the size of a Macy´s department store brought to my attention that Paraguay definitely is still developing in lots of ways. I sometimes get asked the quesiton from Paraguayans of why don´t more people visit Paraguay for tourism. I think that the main reason is that it is so expensive to fly in. There are no direct flights to the USA and thus no one wants to pay over a thousand dollars to visit Paraguay when Argentina and Brazil are so much cheaper and have a developed tourist centers. I am not saying this to detour anyone from visiting me, just reminding myself and you all that visiting Paraguay is not like taking a cruise.

So after 5 months apart, at roughly 9:36pm (Paraguayan time), we were finally reunited! Everyone in the terminal stared at us as we hugged (Paraguayans kiss cheeks) and began to cry. Luckily before Sprout arrived, I met a nice gentlemen at the airport who had just returned to Paraguay after spending over 10 years in the USA. We talked in English about his time in the USA and my time here in Paraguay, and since the flight he was waiting for didn´t get in for another two hours, he was nice enough to drive us to our hotel for the night. Saving us the hassle of trying to catch a bus at that hour or an expensive taxi ride. Sprout was a little freaked out, but driving in a Mercedes is much nicer than any bus ride in all of Paraguay. We spent our first night in an air conditioned hotel room snacking on peanut butter m&m sent to Sprout by her mom and chatting all about our past five months apart. We did not sleep that much the first night.

On Sunday we traveled to my see my host family and neighbors in Guarambare. Brenda, my training neighbor and best friend in Paraguay, also joined us for our trip to Guarambare. It was great walking down the familiar streets and stopping to say hello to some of the families we met during our three months of training. However, the best part was being in the company of my host family and Brenda´s. Both families were excited to see us and comment on how fat both Brenda and I have gotten since December. We just laughed and blamed them for always feeding us white bread and sugar. It was great to feel as if we had never left. Sprout got to drink her first "ha" or turn of terere and I got to see my little Paraguayan boyfriend Derlis. The most exciting part of being back in Guarambare was seeing my PUPPY!

During training, Brenda´s dog Blanqui got pregnant. Both of us were pretty shocked by the experience of a dog going through heat. Neither of us had ever had a dog before, so whenever we were sitting around at her house we would try our best to protect Blanqui from the 5 or 6 male dogs that would lurk around the edge of the yard. So when she got pregant, both Brenda and I decided that we were going to take the plunge and ask to have one of her puppies each. On Christmas day we found out that 6 puppies were born. So on our travel back to Guarambare for the day we had the big moment of selecting our puppies. Brenda knew that she wanted a male dog, and I knew that I wanted a female. They were all sleeping under the outdoor sink when we arrived. But slowly throughout the afternoon, they came out into the shade of the trees where we were sitting insearch of food and water. While we were there we found out that my host family´s black lab was the father and I knew instantly which one of the puppies I wanted to call my own. The black female puppy with two white spots on her chest. Before I knew what she would look like, I decided to name her Che Rubia Porâ or My Pretty Blonde Girl in a mix of Spanish and Guarani. The best part is that she is all black! So far the Paraguayans are getting a kick out of her name. Right now she is one month old and still needs to stay with the mom, but hopefully when I get my own house at the beginning of March I will be able to bring her home. (However, I am not very excited for the 6 hour bus ride with a dog sitting on my lap in a box. I heard you can give them a little Benadryl they will sleep the whole time. Hope it is true!Trust me I will write a future blog about this adventure to come!)

After staying the night on Sunday In Guarambare, Sprout and I traveled back to Ayolas for the next few days. The 6 hour bus ride in midday heat, may not have been the best idea, but we got here safe and sound. The next adventure was moving houses. Since I said that I was only needing to live with Señora Susana for one week, I had to move on to my fourth family here in Ayolas. My new and current family is the Directora (or Principal as we say in the states) of the main school I will be working with. She was gracious enough to open her house to me for the next few weeks before I move on to my fifth and possibly final family. Directora Cresencia lives with her husband, 16 year old daughter, the husband´s father, and 19 year old cousin. She is one of 18 kids and her husband is one of 9! So there has been lots of family members in and out of the house. Sprout and I had a great time during our three days here, sitting around chatting with them, eating lunch, and playing some no rules Paraguayan style volleyball. At some points I thought that my new host family liked her more than me because they would always comment on her "perfecto" Spanish, but in the end they would always say that since I know some Guarani I am their favorite.

Also while we were in Ayolas we took some time to eat some ice cream, go for walks, bake some banana bread for Cresencia´s family, ride around town in the back of the firefighters truck, and eat tacos for dinner with the other Peace Corps volunteers in Ayolas. Our big adventure in Ayolas was to the Yacereta dam. I had been wanting to visit, but I thought that it would be more fun to take the tour with a friend. And that definitely was the best decision, since it was an extremely surface level information tour. I know that no one wants to hear about all the fish that actually have been killed by the building of the dam, or all the residences that have been flooded both up and down river from the dam because of its construction, but the hardest part was not having good enough language skills to ask the real questions. I know that this won´t be my last tour of the dam during my two years, so hopefully in the future I can get some more information out of the tour guides. I was able to take some pretty good pictures there anyways.

After three days in Ayolas we headed on back up to Asuncion for our final two days together. Luckily all the volunteers were called into the office that week to receive our H1N1 shots, so we were able to meet up with lots of my friends and celebrate Jessica W.´s belated birthday. We went out for some great Mexican food, saw New Moon in English, drank fresh brewed coffee, explored some outdoor markets and slept in a miraciously freezing cold air conditioned hotel room.

Early Saturday morning we loaded into a taxi and took off for the airport.After a little bit of a stressful check in process, Sprout quickly made it through customs and she was off. This was a really great opportunity to experience what it will be like when the rest of you all visit me during the next two years! (wink, wink) And it was nice to share some of my frustrations and concerns with someone who is experiencing a very similar program and lifestyle in South America.

Overall, it was one of my best weeks I have had in Paraguay. Sharing the culture, language, and my Paraguayan families with someone I love. One of the main reasons why I joined and continue to enjoy serving as a Peace Corps volunteer is because two out of the three main goals of Peace Corps is about sharing and experiencing culture. Not only learning about Paraguayans, but also providing them the opportunity to learn about some of our personal culture and experiences from the USA. Paraguayans remember Peace Corps volunteers. I have heard stories dating back 20 to 30 years about Peace Corps volunteers who ate peanut butter and jelly sandwhichs, who drank coca cola with breakfast, who married this Paraguayan or that Paraguayan, or who just visited their family once to drink terere when they were 5 or 6 years old and now they have 5 and 6 year old children of their own. It is important to be yourself as a volunteer, and become a part of the stories that Paraguayans will tell for years to come and for us as volunteers to create our own stories with Paraguayans that we will tell to friends and family for years to come as well. Sharing.

After nearly a month of living in Ayolas, my first host family returned from their three week vacation to see family this past week. While I was very excited to see both Marite and Carlos after the three week absence, I also knew that their return was the sign of coming changes to my life. Marite is currently 8 months pregnant and when they returned she was interested in preparing the room I was staying in for the coming baby. AKA you need to move out as soon as possible. Getting to know a community has not been the easiest this past month. Without a constant host family to introduce me to people or take me around town with them, I have definitiely struggled to make new friends. So I was excited and a little nervous to move on to a new family. The biggest problem was that nobody wanted to host me in their house. My contact called a few families who all said no. And after spending almost three hours walking the streets of my neighborhood in Ayolas one Saturday morning, asking different families if they could host me, and all of them sending me on a wild goose chase to ask another person that might be better suited to host (I mean who wouldn´t want to let a foreigner who just clapped outside your house one morning covered in sweat live with you for a week or so). I ended up calling on my greatest assist here- Mandi (the current Peace Corps volunteer also living in my site). After a day of text messages and phone calls to some of her friends, we were finally able to find me a new family.

Señora Susana and her 7 year old granddaughter Camila were gracious enough to open their home to me for one week. (Luckily I already knew with whom I would be living after them.) The week I spent with Susana and Camila was very refreshing. Susana treated me just like a daughter and while Camila definitely got on my nerves at times when she would dig around in my bags to look at all my stuff, I appreciated feeling like one of the family. Susana was also very interested in putting my environmental education skills to use in the neighborhood while I lived with her. I told her about some of the information that we learned while in training and she was interested in holding a neighborhood meeting to learn about compost piles.Since it is mid summer here, it is the perfect time to get started on a compost pile to use in their gardens next year. On Monday morning we walked up and down the street inviting all the neighbors and their kids to the presentation Friday evening. Luckily that gave me the rest of the week to prepare my materials and what I was going to say for about 30 minutes all in Spanish about compost piles.

While I prepared my materials that week, I also got to attend Paraguay´s version of a day camp. The camp was funded by the Yacereta dam that is located in my site and was led by a group of teacher and neighborhood volunteers. The camp ran for two weeks, from 8am to 11am with a break for the kids to go home for lunch and then started back up again from 2pm to 5pm. The morning hours were spent playing sports, which meant soccer most days, and the afternoons were craft and dance preparation time. Unfortunately I did not learn about the camp until Tuesday of the last week so I only got to spend a few days with the kids and volunteers. However, I spent most of the time walking around talking to some of the kids and volunteers, and just trying to get my face out into the community so people start to recognize me. My hope is to help out more with the camp next year, and perhaps use some of my camp skills I acquired while working at Lutherwood for three summers to make it a little more organized and entertaining for the kids.

After attending camp for the week, Friday finally came and so did my compost presentation. That morning I walked one more round of the street reminding all the neighbors and hoped for the best. I baked an apple bread cake as a snack and Susana made some delicous acerola (a mix between a cherry and an apple) juice of the occasion. As with most things Paraguayan, although the plan was to start the presentation at 6pm, most people didni´t showed up until 6:45pm. There ended up being 6 neighborhood women that attended the presentation. We talked about why we should make compost piles, what can and can not go in those piles, and how to make one. We then got some practical experience and made a small demonstration compost pile for practice. The women were all friendly and sympathetic to my still struggling Spanish skills. However, the true test is to now see if the women made their piles or not. I plan to make a trip back up that street this next week to check up on them or to help them start their own at their house if they are still unsure how to construct or maintain their own compost pile.

I am so glad that I got the opportunity to live with Susana and Camila. While it was a short stay, they were very welcoming to me and my work here. I also met some great neighbors and kids at the local day camp. I have definitely come to appreciate the importance of living with a good family here. While I am still excited to live in my own house here, I now know the importance of making these connections with families in the community. And I am looking forward to the next few families I that will be living with in Februrary.

Many of you have been asking, “So now that you are a Peace Corps volunteer, what do you do?" Well, that is a great question! And, well, I am still trying to figure out the answer…

As of today, I have been in Ayolas for exactly one month and every morning I keep waking up asking myself that same question. Arriving to site in mid-December is somewhat complicated. Since I am an environmental educator, my primary job is in the schools. However, Paraguayan schools started summer vacation in the end of November and do not start up again until the end of February. Thus, I do not have any substantial work for the first few months. I spent most of this past month drinking terere with neighbors, reading a handful of books, practicing my Spanish, and just trying to get my face out in the community. While it sounds pretty easy and tranquillo there are times when I feel really awkward. We are supposed to go up to random peoples houses, clap outside their gate (since there are no doorbells), introduce ourselves, and hopefully drink terere with them, which will help us to get to know the people better and vice versa. It is kind of an uncomfortable process – especially during the holiday season – so everyday I just keep telling myself that knowing one more person will make my site that much more comfortable for me the next day. Which is very true. As I have slowly gotten to know community members, I have enjoyed seeing my new friends around town.

The great thing about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is that everything I do is considered work. Por ejemplo (for example), writing this blog post is part of my service here since I am sharing with all of you back in the United States or wherever about my experience here with the culture and language. Some of my 'work' here in Ayolas has been quite entertaining. I went fishing at the river, was interviewed on the local TV channel about my future work here, cut wine bottles into water glasses with neighbors, have cooked and shared meals with neighbors and new friends, and I am currently walking daily with a neighgor woman.

While there have been times when I have felt pretty lonely and have deeply missed family and friends back in Washington, I am starting to find my place here in Ayolas. However, I am anxiously awaiting the school year to begin. I need to start pushing my walking partner to run a little bit with me, so I can keep up with all the kids at recess when school starts!

Jessica-1,347 Cockroaches-0

Since arriving in Ayolas two weeks ago, I have been living in the house of a first grade teacher named Marite and her son Carlos. The three of us spent almost a week together sharing stories about life in the USA and in Paraguay when I first arrived. (Side note- Marite thinks Obama is gorgeous. Love her!) However, last week I said goodbye to Marite and Carlos as they headed off to her parents home for the holidays and most of January. She graciously is allowing me to stay in her house while she is away. So everyday I have had the comfort of making my own breakfast and dinner, and deciding more of less what I want to do for the day…drink terere with this neighbor, go to the grocery store, nap, read a book, etc. I do go over to neighbor’s house everyday for lunch to ensure that I am practicing my language and to hear what is happening in the community.

So everything was going along splendidly- spent my first Christmas in Paraguay, started meeting more of my neighbors, increased my Spanish vocabulary by reading Harry Potter in Spanish and have been playing a lot of guitar. However, there was one thing starting to ruin my comfy living situation. Every night I increasing became more and more frightened of the number of cockroaches in the house. They started coming up through the shower drain in the bathroom and floor cracks in the kitchen when it was still light outside. When Marite was still in the house I had seen a few of cockroaches in the bathroom, but not regularly. However, when she left I was unaware of exactly what to do to keep these disgusting bugs out of the house. The more I started seeing them crawling around the house, the more I knew I needed to do something. I asked a neighbor woman about the problem, she said that mopping the floor with bleach would help and using some form of a spray. After one more night of watching them crawl over the counters in the kitchen and the toothbrushes in the bathroom, I knew I needed to attack back.

The next day I woke up early and went to the grocery for some liquid bleach and roach spray. I was enticed by the Mata Rapido-Mata Cucarachas y Hormigas green bottle and decided to give it a try later that day. I waited until siesta time after lunch to begin my attack. I began in the kitchen spraying into the large floor crack where I had seen the roaches coming and going from. I then continued to spray around the kitchen appliances and in the corners. Fully satisfied with the work, and a little overwhelmed by the fumes, I decided to move onto the bathroom. In the bathroom I sprayed start down into their layer, the shower floor, where I had seen them escaping from the night before. After a few more sprays in the bathroom I felt satisfied with my work and decided to begin mopping the floors with bleach water. As I returned the kitchen with bucket in hand I saw at least 20 cockroaches swarming the kitchen floor trying to escape into the living room. I quickly grabbed my trusty plastic flip flop off my right foot and began smashing the fleeing roaches. One, two, three……fourteen, fifteen…thirty…As I realized that the dead roach count was adding up to around 40, I remembered the bathroom.

I ran to the bathroom with one shoe in hand arriving to the scene of over a hundred cockroaches climbing up out of the shower drain and escaping into the hallway and my bedroom! Quickly my total of smashed bugs around my feet numbered 50. And that is not included the previously killed roaches. They were crawling up the door frame trying to escape. One started crawling up my left leg and I smashed the roach with my sandal on my shorts, leaving a slimy stain. Another fell from the wall above and landed in my hair. After a momentary complete body freak out I swatted the bug onto the floor and triumphantly stamped down my left foot on its stiff shelled body. This was getting out of control. I slammed the bathroom door closed and ran back towards the kitchen. There I saw that they now were escaping into the living room. With no one around to ask for help, I ran to my phone sitting on the couch and called my volunteer friend Brenda.

The moment she picked up a screamed “AYUDAME!” (help me!). After I shared a quick recap about the swarming cockroaches in my house, she told me to go get my neighbor across the street for help. She is so smart. I threw down my phone and ran for the front gate. I tried to appear somewhat calmed as I walked across the street and clapped outside of their gate. (Paraguayans don’t have doorbells; you stand in front of their house clapping your hands to get permission to come in their yard.) The 8 year old daughter came to the window and I asked to speak to one of her parents. Luckily the dad, Nelson, came to the door a few seconds later and I struggled in broken Spanish to explain my problem. “Yo tengo mucha cucarachas en mi casa ahora. Yo necesito ayuda. Por favor.” He turned back into the house to grab his trusty baseball cap with an image of Jesus on it and walked with me across the street.

I tried to explain that there were a lot of cockroaches in the house right now, but I don’t think he really understood how many there were until he walked towards the kitchen. The first word out of his mouth was “impresionante”, a proper way of saying “holy shit!” in Spanish. He then opened the door to the bathroom and quickly closed it. He told me to wait outside for about an hour and that he would return to check up on the situation.

I sat outside in the patio area for the next hour calling my volunteer friends retelling my roach story for the next hour. Nelson then returned with his daughter to see how things were in the house. The floors throughout the house were littered with the dead carcasses of roaches. The spray had attacked their nervous systems and was causing them to run from their tunnels under the house into the open air. Nelson then helped me sweep up the thousands of roaches that littered the ground throughout the house and gave me advice as to how to clean up with bleach water afterwards. Nelson’s wife also came over and showed me where to put small pools of bleach water around doorways to keep them out of my room in the future. After a general sweep of the house Nelson and his family left me to continue cleaning up the remnants of the massacre.

Yes those are all dead cockroaches just in the bathroom. And that is one on the toilet seat.

I found dead roaches everywhere; under my bed, in the toilet, on kitchen chairs, etc. I bleached the floors throughout the house like nobodies business for the next few hours. I then fled the house to the internet cyber down the street to get some fresh air and to allow the fumes to mitigate. Throughout the remaining hours of the day a few roaches would randomly appear dead in the middle of the hallway or the kitchen. The stragglers I called them. That night when I got ready for bed I had no fears of seeing any live roaches in the house. That was one of my best nights of sleep in Paraguay thus far!

Christmas Eve: 95 degrees and humid

Christmas Day: 95 degrees and humid

With the weather boiling hot, I celebrated my first Christmas away from Washington in the traditional Paraguayan style. I spent my Christmas with the family of one of my community contacts that lives directly across the street from me. After lunch on Christmas Eve we began preparing all the food for the big traditional dinner that happens later that night. The traditional food is asado (bbq beef ribs), chorizo (pork sausage), sopa Paraguay (traditional corn bread), mandioca (the center of the Paraguayan diet, it is a root like a potato, all they do is skin it and then boil it), ensalada de poroto (red bean salad), ensalada de arroz (white rice and vegetable salad), and clerico (fruit and wine drink). I cut up most of the fruit for the clerico and helped with the salads. After a few hours of sitting around with the family taking about what traditions we have in the United States with Christmas, everyone returned to their houses to get ready for the evening (shower and put on your nicest outfit).

All the family gathered back around 8 or 8:30pm to go to the church for the evening mass and the baptism of Maria Paz, the 6 month old baby of my contact, at 9:30pm. Unfortunately it started to down pour a little before 9pm. We all huddled inside the house hoping the rain would stop for us to make the walk to church and for the rest of the evening so we could eat outside which is traditional. Luckily the rain did stop and we were able to walk to the church right on time. Not many people were at the church, since most of the city leaves for the holidays to visit family out in the country, but it was nice to go to church on Christmas Eve like my family always does in the states. Maria Paz was baptized during the service and she didn’t even cry. After church we all returned to the house and began setting up the table for dinner.

There were 20 of us that shared Christmas Eve dinner together. As we ate stories were told and lots of Guarani was spoken. I couldn’t understand most of it. But then when midnight came, the evening air filled with the sound of fireworks and everyone got up for the table and shared congratulations with each others. Saying “felicidades” and kissing each other on the cheeks. It had the feeling of New Years, but the congratulations were said in regards to the birth of Jesus, very Catholic country. We then returned to our food and drinks.

As everyone started ending their meals I was pressured into bringing over my guitar for some entertainment. Luckily I was able to pass off the guitar after singing only one song. Paraguayans love music. The rest of the night was spent singing and playing traditional Paraguayan songs between a few of the family members who know how to play guitar. I returned to my house around 2:30am and quickly went to sleep.

So what do Paraguayans do on Christmas day?

The answer: all whole bunch of nothing. Christmas day definitely the hardest day away from home I have had here in Paraguay. The same is true for the rest of my EE volunteer friends. With all the activity during the night before, and nothing to do on Christmas day, all of us got bitten by the homesick bug. Lots of phone calls were made between us volunteers to try to help pass the hours. I didn’t think that I would get as homesick as I did, but I definitely missed the comfort of home the whole day. Luckily I received a few packages and letters before I came down to Ayolas in Asuncion, and I passed a few hours responding. Also in a care package I got the new Wolverine movie that I saved to watch until Christmas morning. It definitely made my morning. Thanks Scott!

A Christmas Miracle

One absolutely amzing event that took place on Christmas day here was the birth of my future puppy! My volunteer neighbor Brenda in Guarambare had a small dog named Blanqi that got pregnant during training. We both fell in love with her and decided that we want to each adopt one of her babies after we got settled into site. Before we left she was getting really fat and they said she was going to give birth in the next few weeks. And it just so happened that she gave birth on Christmas day to 6 puppies. I hope to visit the family in January to pick out my dog and then take home the puppy at the end of February. I can´t wait! I always wanted a dog and now I will have one in Paraguay that I can teach tricks to in Spanish and Guarani.

So all in all I did have a great time spending my first Christmas in Paraguay; however it was challenging to spend the time away from all of you reading this blog right now. I hope that you all had an amazing Christmas with family and friends, and I would love to hear about it in a letter (wink, wink). I am keeping the same mailing address for right now, so just sit down this holiday season and tell me about all the delicious foods you are eating and what you have been doing these past three months. Miss you all!

Things I missed this Christmas-

Christmas carols

The 7pm Christmas Eve Service at my church

Baking Christmas cookies with my mom

Making gingerbread houses with Cara and Megan

Eggnog

The smell of a pine tree in the house

Christmas lights on houses

After 11 weeks of training, 10 extra pounds from the asado eating, 9 times singing the same Taylor Swift song in english , 8 piglets being born, 7 family members sleeping in one room, 6 am wake up time everyday, 5 new mosquitoe bites every night, eating 4 scoops of ice cream on the extremely hot days, having a 3 year old boyfriend, 2 twin 14 year old host sisters, and 1 experience of vomiting outside of a moving bus, I officially recommend myself for Peace Corps service in Paraguay.

After 11 full weeks of training, 42 out of the original 42 Peace Corps Trainees from Guarambare, swore in as official Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) on December 11th 2009. This day marks the official beginning of our two years of service. The night before we said our goodbyes to our host families, and early the next morning we were driven into Asuncion for the big day. First we went to the bank to get our official bank cards so we can take out our small amount of money we are given every month. And then we returned to the Peace Corps office were we spent the next few hours organizing all of our possessions for the weekend and for the long term storage room. After a few hours of organizing and moving bags, we reloaded into our vans for the drive to the US Embassy.

The ceremony was held at the Ambassadors’ house located on the property. We all anxiously awaited the arrival of the Ambassador to begin the ceremony. She arrived around 11am and the swear-in ceremony began right away.

Country Director Donald Clark gave the first speech and was followed by the Ambassador.

After her speech she then swore us in as Peace Corps Volunteers. We recited an oath that I can’t even really remember what it says, I think it was something about loyalty to the USA, hopefully it is not that important. Ikatu?

After we were officially sworn in, Carlos from the Crop Extension group gave a speech on behalf of all the volunteers. It was much livelier than the previous two and it was a great way to bring our ceremony to a close.

We then snacked on some Paraguayan finger food of empanadas and milanesa, which was followed by a delicious chocolate cake.

After some photo taking, our service as PCVs began. Our first task was walking back to the Peace Corps office in the afternoon heat. No longer trainees, no longer driven places in air conditioned vans. We all shed a little tear.

We then had the next four days off in Asuncion. We went to a goodbye party for the group that was swearing out that same day after two years of service, we walked around Asuncion finding all the best places to eat for the weekend, and just spent sometime relaxing with eachother hanging out on the roof top pool at the hotel.

Sounds like a nice break? It really was.

Three months have past in my training community of Guarambare and now it is time to move on to my site for the next two years, but there are lots of things that I will miss about this city. And I would like to take the time for myself and for all of you reading this to know what my favorite things were about Guarambare and my training there.

Heladoria

Located in the center of town, the other trainees and I frequently visited this amazing ice cream shop. And by frequently, my two friends Brenda and Jessica and I would visit anywhere from 4 to 5 days a week. The most amazing part of the ice cream besides the delicious flavors like banana, dulce de leche, coco, chocolate, and granisado, is that it only costs $0.40 for two scoops. Also there is a very cute old man that owns the ice cream shop and we like to call him "Che tua de helado" or "My ice cream papa".

Sunsets

The large open sky of Paraguay provides a stunningly colorful sunset almost every night. No matter how hot or cold the day might have been, the purples and oranges that streak the sky create a breath taking view. While the sunset can be admired from any place in Guarambare, my favorite place to watch the sunset was in front of my house over the sugar cane fields.

Family

I will dearly miss my host family. I was blessed to have had a host family like them for my first three months in Paraguay. By the end of training I felt completely integrated into my family and grateful for their hospitality. Opening their home and their lives for me to experience. I attended weddings, wedding anniversaries, baptisms, first communions, deaths, birthdays and the birth of my host sister Maria Pabla. I have all the intentions of staying in contact with them throughout my service and visiting often, especially when friends and family visit me. By the time I leave, Maria Pabla will be walking and talking! Crazy!

Neighbors

Typychaty es mi barrio. The barrio or neighborhood of Guarambare that I lived in for the past three months is called Typychaty, meaning 'place of many brooms'. And while I never saw more than two or three different brooms during the past three months, I have to say that Typychaty is the best barrio in all of Guarambare and possibly Paraguay. I became good friends with Brenda's host family and will miss them dearly as well. All the laughs that Brenda and I shared with that family will always make me giggle when I am thinking back. I also made great friends with some neighbor girls my age and I can´t wait to go back and visit with them.

Trainees

Now this is when it gets sad. I will deeply miss my new friends. We have spent the last 11 weeks together developing relationships that will bond us together for years after our service. We all experienced the ups and downs of training, host families, and language errors. It feels like the end of summer camp. We all have to part our own ways, but nobody really wants to. We just want it to keep going for the next two years. However, I am excited for all of our adventures that we will encounter here in Paraguay. The best part of training is definitely making friends with other trainees so when we become volunteers we will have someone to complain to about our work, the heat, or Paraguayans, and we will know exactly how eachother is feeling.

I will miss you G-31 Environmental Education!

The Mecca of Paraguay

The small town of Caacupe in Paraguay is the center of a yearly pilgrimage that brings thousands of people every year to view a statue of the Virgin Mary. Every year on December 8th, the Virgin of Caacupe is celebrated. Starting several days or up to a week before, over a million people start a pilgrimage to the town of Caacupe. Paraguay, like most of South America, is a predominately Roman Catholic country, around 99%. And the Paraguayan people adamantly believe in the legend of their sacred virgin.

The Legend of the Virgin

In the seventeenth century, a group of Mbaya Indians were pursuing a Guarani Indian near the mountains of Tobati. They wanted to kill him because the Guarani was a Christian convert and follower of the Franciscans, a group that caused a great deal of fear in the hearts of the Mbaya. Completely surrounded, the Guarani convert hid behind a huge tree. Trembling, he began to pray, and could feel the presence of the Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Mary. He vowed, if he survived, he would carve a statue in her image to show his gratitude for saving him. Miraculously, none of the Mbaya found the Guarani, and he lived out the rest of his life solely for the purpose of keeping his promise to the “queen of the skies”.

He later returned to the trunk of the tree where he was saved and patiently began drying the wood to begin his project of perfection. With all the fervor and skill he could muster, the grateful Guarani sculpted not just one, but two identical statues, one twice as big as the other. The larger was taken to a church in Tobati and the smaller was kept by the Guarani for his own devotion. The true identity of the creator of the statues remains unknown to this day.

The Paraguayan people then travel every to the city to view the Virgin Mary statue at the Basilica. The pilgrimage itself is supposed to be a time when people give over their burdens to the Virgin Mary to look after them throughout the night and the rest of the year.

Our Pilgrimage

Starting at 9pm on December 7th, I traveled with my two best friends, Brenda and Jessica, and 8 of Brenda's Paraguayan host family members to the Basilica in Caacupe. We had chatted with Brenda's host brothers and sisters for weeks about the pilgrimage and the three of us were really excited to experience the walk with Paraguayans. My family unfortunately were not interested in attending since they have walked in the past and my host siblings are too young.

We started our journey with a crowded bus ride to the town of Ypaacuri where we began the over 20 km walk. Hundreds of thousands of Paraguayans walked the same road as us that night. I was surprised that most of those that were walking were youth, in Paraguay youth mean those that range from 15 to 30 years old. Some carrying their children in their arms, but most were walking hand in hand with their significant others or were with a group of friends much like we were. We took a few breaks to grab some water or munch on a quick snack. Luckily Brenda's mom sent her some Trader Joes trail mix early that week in a care package and we got to munch on that the whole walk. The last break we took right before we entered the city was at an outdoor mission/homeless shelter space. As we rested our very tired feet by then, we drank delicious cocido and ate white bread rolls that were being passed out for free.

We walked until 4:30am in the morning when we finally reached the outskirts of the city. We then walked up a side road to find a place to rest our feet and heads for a few hours. Paraguayans lined the sidewalks and driveways of Caacupe for the night. We sprawled out some bed sheets on the sidewalk in front of a home and were able to get some shut eye for about an hour and a half. I was then awakened by the rising sun and the sound of the choir singing from the Basilica. It was the most refreshing alarm clock ever. We then spent a few hours in the morning walking around the town looking at the vendors, buying chipa (a traditional corn bread like food of Paraguay), and people watching the outrageous number of people who also made the pilgrimage like we had the night before. The last adventure was trying to catch a bus back to Guarambare. After two hours of walking around in the sun watching completely filled bus after completely filled bus pass by we had decided to just rest in a small park we found. Luckily once we had given up looking a parked empty bus down the street roared to life and we were able to cram us all on to a bus for the ride out of town.

I found the walk to be really fulfilling in many ways. While we walked along in the darkness I was able to spend some time thinking about my future here in Paraguay and after my service. Training has been so busy in the past 10 weeks that most of my time is concentrated on language training, technical skills and/or community integration with my host family, that I have not really had the time to think about my future seriously. Especially since I am still pretty nervous about moving to my future site since it is not exactly what I had been imagining for me, I was able to think about the positive possible work I could complete in and what I want to do after Peace Corps. While I still have two years to go, thoughts of grad school or possibly governmental work in D.C. have been floating through my head. So it was great to get the time to think. I was able to think about how things happen for a reason and what I can do to make the best out of those situations. And how the best choice I can make is how I choose to live my day to day life to make the best out of them. While hard with the language barrier still very present in my life, I am looking forward to getting to know my community more and what sort of work I can begin to keep myself busy and happy.

While walking some of my own burdens were shed that night as well.

The movie Borat is a mock documentary about a man named Borat from Kazakhstan that travels to the United States for his local TV news station to interview Americans about their daily life activities. While Borat is not a real person, the conversations and situations filmed with other people are real. This past Wednesday, a huge rain storm hit Guarambare a few minutes before the end of training session for the day. I had just received a package from my mother that day and not wanting anything to get ruined, and because of course I forgot my rain coat since it was over 100 degrees during lunch, I decided to hide out at our training center with two good friends, Lora and Brenda. Lora happened to bring her computer to training that day to show us some of her pictures from home and she happens to also have the movie Borat on her computer. Lora, Brenda and I snuggled together around her computer and snacked on the amazing treats my mom had just sent me (cashews, crasins, sour patch kids, etc.). Surprisingly we found out that all of us in training are just like Borat in Paraguay. I am the foreigner that walks into post offices and asks in broken Spanish, “I send mail here?” After watching the movie we all agreed that the movie is a true example of how hard it is to understand and assimilate into a culture.

*While I find the movie Borat funny, I am forewarning all of those who have not seen it that it does contain a lot of inappropriate humor.

Sandia

Last weekend, four strikingly beautiful women of the Environmental Education training sector competed in the ultimate challenge, a watermelon (sandia) eating contest. I was one of those women. The contest was to see who could eat the most watermelon in one hour. The winner would get the glory and a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups being sent from the States. My eating strategy was to cut the watermelon into large slices and eat the American way with my hands. Two of the ladies gave up a half an hour into the competition seeing that the others were eating much quicker. So I was left with one competitor, my best friend in Paraguay and neighbor Brenda.

She started off a little bit slower due to using the traditional Paraguayan technique of cutting the watermelon in half and eating it with a spoon. But as the minutes counted down, the watermelon juice started to stick to my face, arms and legs, and the space in my stomach started to shrink and so did my lead. Although she is little, Brenda can pack away the juice. With a supportive sponsor for the event, our good friend Jessica, Brenda took the lead in the last 5 minutes and I was unable to stretch my stomach. As time ended the difference between us was only a spoonful or two, but Brenda was the clear winner. While incredibly entertaining for the 15 Paraguayans and other trainees who were watching, the minutes after the competition were rough. I thought my stomach was going to give up on me again, and I would have yet another blog post to write about me throwing up in Paraguay. But it stayed down and the only disturbance the watermelon caused was visiting my latrine to pee at least 5 times that night. Lesson learned: hold the next watermelon eating contest earlier in the day.

Botanical Gardens

This week we also traveled to the Botanical Gardens in Asuncion to investigate a possible field trip to take students to. There was an environmental education center that we visited and were able to see the large library that they have of education materials. Within the garden there is a small zoo as well that we visited. I was a little apprehensive about viewing the living conditions of the animals. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of their cages, but I still feel sorry for them when it gets hot because I am sweating to death and I bet most of them are as well.

Pork and Milk

The day before I arrived in Paraguay one of my host family’s pigs gave birth to three piglets. The mother pig was one of the biggest pigs that I have ever seen in my life, weighing in at around 60 kilos, and thus that is why this past week my host family decided to kill the pig to sell for some extra money around this Christmas season. Wednesday morning Brenda and I woke up at 5am to enjoy a morning full of activity. We began the morning trying to milk one of my family’s cows. The old man that usually milks the cows every morning and afternoon was very patient, but we definitely struggled. I got a few small squirts, but not much.

The next activity was watching the very large pig being killed by the girlfriend of Brenda’s host brother. She is only 18 years old, but has grown up on a farm and is the only person in the neighborhood who knows how. While I wouldn’t say that I was excited to see the event, I thought that it was necessary to see how the process is completed in this country since I am now eating meat here on a pretty regular basis. I am not sharing this event to make it sound like Paraguay is some crazy country where they kill animals every morning, but I do think that it is important to share what happens in their daily lives. The actual process of killing and then processing the meat took the whole day. Finally at 9:30pm they had finished cleaning, cooking and butchering all the parts of the pig. The meat was taken to the butcher in Asuncion, the fat was cooked at my house to sell to the bakery in town, the organs were all boiled for consumption later and the skin was fried in pork rinds. It was an experience, however I don´t have any plans to see or hear it happen again in the future, but the pork rinds we ate that night were very delicious.

Thanksgiving or Día de Accion de Gracías, obviously means little to Paraguayans, but for the 42 trainees, the 190 volunteers and the Peace Corps office staff, Thanksgiving was an amazing excuse to share in the time old tradition of eating too much food and sharing embarrassing stories about holidays spent with friends and family back in the U.S.

The Paraguayan Country Director graciously opened his home to all the trainees to share the holiday in a home setting with traditional Thanksgiving food. The Environmental Education and Bee Keeping training groups took him up on his offer and we traveled into Asuncion early Thursday afternoon to begin the festivities. We all cooked a dish to bring to the gathering, Brenda, Jessica and I baked apple empanadas for the event. They tasted almost exactly like apple pie and they had the convenience of being able to hold in your hand.

The Director’s house was amazing! It is quite possibly one of the most beautiful homes in Paraguay. Not overly expansive, but capable of holding the 30 or so people that sat down to eat that day. And there was wonderful air conditioning that provided me with one of my first non-sweaty afternoons in Paraguay. The house was decorated with center pieces made out of breadsticks and rolls, quite possibly the most Paraguayan center piece ever, but very beautiful to see in a home after the past two months.

The Director provided a 28 pound turkey that I carved up for the whole group. And I did a pretty good job if I can say so. Other guests brought stuffing, mashed potatoes, pasta salads, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce (which tasted like heaven even though it was canned), and all the other necessities of a glorious Thanksgiving feast. This Thanksgiving I ate my first piece of turkey meat in 7 years and nearly died at how delicious it tasted. There are days that I am glad I am not vegetarian here in Paraguay, Thursday was one of them.

Is it possible to be so full of food that you actually stop breathing because your lungs have no space to expand? Because that is what it felt like for me after clearing my plate. And then came the deserts: cake, pecan pie, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and of course our baked apple empanadas. The rest of the afternoon after stuffing ourselves, we swam in the swimming pool and sat around sharing some quality time with one another.

I was nervous to spend my first holiday away from friends and family here in Paraguay, but I was blessed with the company of my new friends, the opening of the home of our country director, and delicious food. We took the time while eating at our table to go around in a circle to stay one thing we were thankful for in our lives and it was amazing to hear the joy that everyone had in their hearts that day for one another and their families at home. My thoughts drifted to all of you at home throughout the day and I hope you all had an amazing time sharing a meal of thanksgiving with loved ones.

Located along the Rio de Parana, I will be the most southern volunteer in Paraguay. Ayolas began as a fishing town, but its population exploded when the Entidad Binacional Yacereta dam was built between Paraguay and Argentina on the river. Affecting the fishing livelihood in Ayolas and causing permanent flooding of homes and villages up to 100 km up river from the dam.

I’m not in Paraguay anymore.

The Entidad exploded the population of Ayolas and greatly impacted the design of city. Three of the seven barrios or large neighborhood that make up the city, were constructed by the dam for the housing of its workers, the increase in that populations needs of teachers, store owners and social service workers. Because of the Entidad, Ayolas is one of the only cities in Paraguay where you can find functioning fire hydrants throughout the city, paid firefighters, preserved natural spaces within city limits, a complete asphalt grid of roads, school that is in session when it rains, and a free bus service to pick up students for school and transportation throughout the city. Ayolas is a mix of Paraguayans, Argentinas, and others who have come to the area to work for the dam. Guarani is not widely spoken as in other parts of the country. It is taught as a subject in school, but unlike most other places in Paraguay kids do not speak guarani in the household.

I will be taking over for a current EE volunteer in December after swearing in as a volunteer. However, Mandi will be remaining in the Ayolas until April completing her thesis work for her master’s program back at the University of Denver. She has left me with some continuing projects with two school gardens, a jovenes environmental club, and some well connected contacts at the dam and with the representative for the Secretary of the Environment in Ayolas.

My contact that met me in Guarambare to travel back to Ayolas is a current teacher at the largest school in Ayolas with 1700 students from Kindergarten to 9th grade. I stayed with her and her three kids for the five days that I was visiting and trying to get a grasp on Ayolas. However, as of right now I currently have no permanent place to stay when I return on the 15th of December. None of my contacts have any space for me with family members coming home for the holidays or they are traveling out of town. So far my rubia influence has not worked in Ayolas. I think I need to walk around more with my hair down and batting my blue eyes and maybe then I will find a family to spend the holiday with.

Ayolas is going to take some time to get used to. It is very different from every site that I have visited including my training community. However, I am excited to spend the rest of my two weeks of training with my new friends and host family before I head down south.

This picture is just a little tease of my site description I will write in the next few days. I am currently needing some extra shut eye and want to provide you all a literate blog post about my site and trip there this past week.

Expect a blog post about my site and my Thanksgiving Paraguayan style this weekend! (I feel like a news caster)

So the big day finally arrived and we were finally going to get the answer to the big question of ‘where are we going to live for two years?’ But of course we had to anxiously await this news until the end of the training day. However, we were distracted throughout the day with some language classes, a security exam and a session on traditional Paraguayan music and dance.

The APCD (Associated Peace Corp Director) Holly who decides where our sites will be located, thus why we call it a ‘Holly’day, finally presented us with our sites at 3:45pm. So after a short introduction we were finally given our first official Peace Corps volunteer folder with our official site information. Here is the opening letter included in my packet:

18 November 2009

Jessica Blatt

Site Assignment

We are pleased to inform you that your site assignment as an environmental education volunteer will be in Ayolas, district of Ayolas, department of Misiones. Your main contact will be Nelson Montiel (SEAM representative) and Cresencia Caballero de Alegre (directora de area) and Loudres Marin (teacher). You will be the second environmental education volunteer in the site following Mandi.

You expressed interest in a community where you could work with youth, local organizations and schools and you got it! Ayolas is a small city in the south of Paraguay of some 5000 people. It is along the banks of the Rio Parana and not so long ago was a sleepy fishing village. After the construction of the Yacereta dam, the city grew to its current size and has a uniquely modern look about it. You have a smooth ride of less than 6 hours. The city is the Paraguayan headquarters of the Bi-national entity Yacereta –“la represa” as it is refereed locally. The population gains its livelihoods from a mix of sources- la represa, businesses, teaching and as local government employees. Fishing is still a major activity in the area though it is controlled seasonally. The population is a mix from other parts of Paraguay and Argentina, Spanish is more widely-spoken (but they do love a bit of jopara).

We wanted to put your strong environmental education background to use. Ayolas offers a lot of work options. The community is looking for a volunteer who will help continue to strengthen the environmental sensitization of the community on the environment. Your primary project work should focus in the schools to help teachers use new methods of teaching and developing projects in the classroom. Teacher workshops will be the key in this big area and the local directora de area is open to continuing the work Mandi started on workshops.

You will also be working with the local youth group Eco-Ayolas. They have been doing bi-annual aquatic bird surveys and are really pumped after a recent trip to Bahia Negra. They receive support from the NGO Guyra; you can help continue those bonds.

Mandy has worked with the local SEAM representative on radio shows which can be a great activity to expand upon. She has also made some connections to the municipality, which you can explore. On-going is a great cross sector project with muni volunteer Jesus in Villa Florida on trying to get folks to use cloth bags in the two towns.

And then there is represa. They have on going environmental education programs, a nature reserve, a museum and tons of resources. You should look for connections with them to further develop solid program offering to the locals and visitors.

We are not sure you will have time to do secondary activities, but explore the possibilities. The local fire department has a great bunch of super dedicated folks who can help you reach out to do community work perhaps in mentoring.

You are in the Misiones VAC group which is spread out, but super collaborative.

There are a few Protestant churches to choose from in the city and trees are abundant!

Cheers and enjoy!

APCD Holly Radice

After reading this letter my brain was spinning. What does it all mean? Where is my site exactly? How far away am I from the nearest volunteer? Do I have the internet at my site? How much does it cost to get into Asuncion? These plus many more questions flooded my head and those of all the other trainees. The nice news was that all these questions were about to be answered since our community contacts would be arriving the next day for our meeting process and then travel to the future site for 5 days.

Over the course of the last 5 weeks, 42 trainees have been flooding the schools and fields of Guarambare to get some hands on practice in the sectors of Environmental Education, Bee Keeping, Agro forestry and Crop Extension. These days are an opportunity to practice the language, investigate the resources of a city, and implement some of the technical skills we have acquired during training. Luckily I was able spend these 5 days working with my two best friends in Paraguay, Brenda and Jessica.

Day 1: The three of us were really interested in getting to know what the people of Guarambare think is a major environmental problem for their city. We were not really interested in jumping straight into teaching a lesson at a local school so we decided to do some investigation. Recently we heard that Guarambare was no longer collecting trash from around the city so we decided to conduct some interviews with local merchants in the center of town to find out more about this problem. We talked with the open fruit market vendors, the supermarket owner, a small despensa owner and the environmental representative of the municipality.

Day 2: From our interviews on the first day we learned that the trash collection problem was also affecting the local schools. So we went to the largest elementary school in the city to talk with the dirrectora about their trash situation. The school currently does not have trash pick up and a major problem they are facing in the school is a lack of consciousness by students about the importance of putting trash in one specific area instead of throwing it straight on the ground. We met a wonderful teacher named Jacquelin who was very interested in working with us in her 9th grade class. She has noticed that at the school there is a lack of permanent trash cans and that these would help motivate kids to place trash in them. Usually cardboard boxes are used and then thrown in the garbage pit, but most of the time the boxes don’t make it to the pit due to the rain ruining them or kids using them as a soccer ball. We spent the rest of the day brainstorming possible lesson plans and solutions to the lack of trash cans at the school.

Day 3: We travelled back to the school to discuss with Jacquelin a little more about possible lesson ideas. During our second visit we noticed so many plastic bottles lying around and they became our inspiration. With the two remaining days we wanted to present a lesson that raised awareness and one that was hands-on and interactive for the students. The rest of the day was spent making presentation papers and creating a demo plastic bottle garbage can. Just to let you all know that in Paraguay it is more important for the presentation paper to look nice with good penmanship and artwork than grammar accuracy, a fancy border on your paper can take you a long way here.

Day 4: There were 35 students crammed in the small classroom. We broke the ice with a fun icebreaker of trying to count to 20 as a group, but if two people say the same number at the same time you have to start over at 0 (all you camp counselors out there know this one). Our focus of this lesson was to demonstrate how their use daily use of plastic bottles has a huge impact on the amount of trash at the school. We started by having the students raise their hands if they had bought a drink today that was in a plastic bottle. Over half of the class had bought at least one while others had already bought two or three. We then passed out used plastic bottles we found around the school before class to those students for them to hold on to physically. We then gathered all the bottles into a huge pile in the center of the classroom for them to get a visual representation how many bottles that class of 35 consumes in just one day. The lesson then continued with a discussion of the impacts of poor trash management and ideas for reusing their daily trash and reducing the amount of it.

Day 5: The students were excited to see us back the next week. To make things interactive with them we decided to create plastic bottle garbage cans with the students. Implementing a way to reuse a commonly found material around the school and creating some form of a permanent trash can for all the school to use. The only materials needed are plastic bottles, wire, and a plastic mesh feed bag. The students got really excited about this project, because it allowed them to be both social with each other and us and active with their hands in a school system that focuses more of its attention on written repetition for grading. While the garbage cans were a little small the students really seemed to grasp the understanding that this is a project that they can complete in their homes as well with little effort.

Brenda, Jessica and I left that last day feeling really accomplished about the work we had completed. We got to know more about a social issue taking place in the city and implement some awareness in the school setting. You all should make these trash cans back in the states as well. They are super easy and really fun at any age.

I spent this past week in the very small village of Ndavaru. The goal was to work with 4 other trainees that traveled with me to help a current volunteer, Anthony, with a two day bird festival, soap making, and cleaning a local elementary school garden. However, things just didn´t end up going as planned due to weather conditions and for me it ended up feeling like one of the longest weeks I have spent in Paraguay. I will give you all a recap of the week, but don´t worry it will be short since I really didn´t do all that much.

Ndavaru is a small countryside village about 2 hours outside of Guarambare and about 30 minutes outside of any city. Most of the people are farmers who grow mandioca (the most popular food in Paraguay, its the root of a plant and similar to potatoes) and corn for selling and their personal consumption. To supplement this income, most of the families either make hammocks or tablecloths by hand to sell to large stores in the cities to sell. During my trip I stayed with Doña Paubliña, a 62 year old woman who has lived by herself for the last 20 years. She has three children, but two live in Buenos Aires and the other lives in a nearby village. The first thing that Anthony told me when we arrived at her house was that she mainly speaks Guarani and he has never actually heard her speak any spanish in the two years he has lived next door to her. And he was correct. While she seemed to understand most of my spanish, she only spoke to me in Guarani and most of our communcation between us happened with lots of hand signals. Only two weeks of Guarani training has provided me with a pretty limited vocab. However, I did not need to hold a decent conversation with her to know that she is one hardworking woman. Her daily life consists of making table clothes, cooking on her open fire stove, caring for her ducks and chickens, and keeping her house in order.

The first day we traveled to the elementary school in the afternoon to help the students finish making their bird masks for the festival on Wednesday. While at the school I started to not feel to well so I decided to travel to the teachers bathroom in a seperate outhouse building. And for the second time in Paraguay I lost my lunch. Lucky me! There were no lights in the bathroom so I kept the door open and got to enjoy a pretty stunning view of the Paraguayan countryside and the school trash pit while losing a few excess pounds. I then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed sleeping and trying to move as little as possible.

The second day I felt a little better and ventured to Anthony´s house to prep for the soap making activity planned for the afternoon. However, a huge storm started rolling in within the first 15 minutes of all meeting up. The rain lasted all morning and we were trapped inside Anthony´s house for a few hours. Luckily it cleared up for an hour or so in the late afternoon and we gathered at a neighbors house to make some liquid dish soap with my host mom and other women who lived nearby.

The third day started raining and ended raining. The plan was to take two different groups of 60 kids to a nearby lake for bird watching, bird realted activites and a small break from the daily school life in Paraguay. Most students in Paraguay never experience field trips and this was going to be a very exciting adventure for all of them. However, due to the rain the road was too dangerous out to the site and the festival was canceled for the day. We gathered for an hour in the morning to discuss possible schedule changes for the next day, but since we were all prepared for our activities we were just sent back to our host families houses for the rest of the day. While I usually wouldn´t mind a day off from training in Guarambare, it is different when I only had my host mom to return to for the whole day and we really couldn´t communicate. I am a pretty independent person, but our time together was always pretty challenging. I definitely learned that I am pretty social and really want my future host families at my site to be really active in their family and community life. Eight hours of sitting around in the rain is little too tranquillo for me.

The rain continued until the afternoon on the fourth day. Luckily it cleared up right before the afternoon session of school started and we were able to run a revised version of our bird festival at the school for the kids. I was in charge of leading two activites about what is a habitat and why it is important to protect bird habitats. The kids were all really excited for the activities and to watch Americans singing and dancing to silly songs with them for the afternoon.

Friday morning we were also able to complete a festival at one of the other elementary schools that Anthony works at. I am bummed that we did not get to attend the festival for the two days as planned, but I think that the kids were excited to experience a different learning style for a few hours that got them out of the classroom exploring their local neighborhood. While I had a great time getting to know some of the other trainees better and seeing a new location, I was definitely happy about returning to Guarambare. I have only two days more of training this week until I find out my future site location for the next two years. I am nervous and excited beyond belief. However, it is said that there are no bad sites, only volunteers that don´t take advantage of what a site has to offer.

Halloween

All that Paraguayans understand about Halloween is that women usually dress up as witches and kids get candy. So for my first Halloween here I went with two other trainees and a couple of their Paraguayan host family members to a local fiesta. The outdoor fiesta was held at a local soccer field that had a stage and a cement area to dance. The fiesta technically started at 8pm, but Paraguayans don´t acutally start arriving until atleast 11pm or midnight. We left for the fiesta at 11:30pm and by this time only a handfull of people were dancing. But after an hour more and more Paraguayans wanting to dance started arriving and we started our dance session for the night.

This is Brenda´s host brother Julio and wife Carmen who escorted us to the fiesta. They are amazing!

The music was a mix of traditional polka style music and reggaeton. There was a boy band that played at around 1am in the morning and it was really hard to take them very seriously has performers. At this point most of us Americans went and had a seat until they were done. Paraguayan dancing is a little different than in the US for teenagers and early 20s. Dancing is done in lines and the most touching that happens between the men and women are holding hands to spin your partner. They all have pretty good dancing skills since dance is taught throughout their educational system and it is hard to find a Paraguayan that doesn´t like to dance.

During the evening there was a contest to name the next queen of the soccer club supporting the fiesta. It was like a mini beauty pagaent throughout the night. Really fun to watch and choose our favorites to win. We left about 2:30am in the morning which is really early for Paraguayans. It is normal to stay out until 6am or 7am in the morning at a fiesta, but most of us Americans were tired from a week of training. However, Brenda´s host family had a really great time with us and thought we all were really good dancers.

Mario

So I never thought that I would achieve such admiration in my life as I have over the past week from playing Super Mario with my host brother and neighbor boys. My host brother has an old playstation and he got a game that has all the old Mario Brothers games on them. They asked me if I knew how to play, since they were struggling the beat just the first level. Once I grabbed the controlled and started running and jumping through the level, they were hooked. Over the past few days I have taught them how to run fast and jump at the same time, how to fly if you have a feather on Super Mario Brothers and the importance to collecting coins to get more lives. I have never felt more like a rock star in my life. So thanks mom for allowing me to play lots of nintendo when I was a kid, it seems that it is actually helping me to assimilate into my community. Who would have thought?

Future sites

Also this week we had our last interviews with the Peace Corps staff about our future site locations. We shared information about what we would like our site to look like and some of the activities we think we would want to do over the next two years. I am interested in living in a small pueblo or city that has an interest in large community environmental education activities and the development of youth groups. We find out our sites in exactly a week and a half, and we all are really nervous and excited at the same time. Once we find out our site the next day a community contact will be traveling into Guarambare to meet us for a day and then we will travel out with them for 5 days to get to know our site and setup housing for atleast the first month. Soon I´ll know where I will be living and where you all can visit me for two years! I´m so nervous!

Upcoming

Finally I wanted to share a few of my upcoming activities. This next week I will be outside of Guarambare for the whole week with four other volunteers visiting a current volunteer for what is called Practica Larga or Long Field Practice. This is a 5 day experience to observe and participate is some activities that we could hold at our sites in the future. I will be traveling to Ndavaru about 2 hours outside of Guarambare to work at a two day bird festival, create home made laundry detergent and work in a school garden. I am excited to meet another host family for the week and get to practice my spanish even more. I hope to share lots of pictures in my next blog.

Hope you all are well and making plans to visit. Training is complete in less than 5 weeks and I am excited to see where my life will lead me next here in Paraguay.

Haku is the Guarani phrase meaning it is hot outside. While used for saying it is hot, it is usually saved until you have one of those days when you think you can no longer stand to be alive but you have no way of cooling off. This has been my life the past week.

For the past 7 days, I have experienced humid 100 degree weather. Most of these days were spent trying to avoid direct sunlight by dashing from tree shade to tree shade as fast as possible when I had to walk anywhere, trying to not touch anyone or have anyone touch me since sweat forms in the matter of milaseconds here, and wiping massive amounts of sweat off my body. The worst has been using my latrine. I am the only person in my training group that does not have indoor plumbing, so using the latrine during is an experience all on its own. Swatting away the flies while trying to not fall in the latrine is a very hazardous experience. Usually I try to wait until I get to the training facility where there is indoor plumbing or I try to go during the coolest periods of the day. Usually at night I just squat somewhere outside and hope no Paraguayans see the Americana peeing. Once I was almost caught byt the grandma, but it was dark out and she couldn´t see me. Atleast I hope not.

One nice cultural custom that Paraguay has is how often they allow you to shower. Since they are just as hot as we are when it is 100 degrees out, they shower anywhere from 3 to 4 times a day. I usually don´t get that luxury since I have training all day, but when I get back from class at night showering is my first activity. However, since it has been so hot all the frogs find my outdoor shower to be a nice place to hang out. I usually have to kick out anywhere from one to three frogs everytime I use the shower. Sometimes they hop back in while I am still showering, and I let them since I know how hot it must be for them as well. Unfortunately the other day I wore a pair of jeans to training all day and at night when I showered, I realized that since it was so hot all day and I had been sweating profusely the dye from my jeans had turned my legs slightly blue in color...that took a while to scrub off.

Night time has been the worst with the heat. I only have a tiny window that I can keep open during the night (if you read my previous post, dont´worry no jakare can fit through the window) and my fan is only helpful at keeping the mosquitos away from me while I sleep. It really doesn´t help cool me off. And four times this week and power has gone out for about an hour around 11 pm. Waking everyone up and sending them all outside, since the fans no longer work and everyone is dying from the heat. My neighbor Brenda and I just joke that we need to start an NGO in the US that sends air conditioners to Paraguayans so they can actually work during the heat and not have to take a four hour siesta.

The only thing that has been saving me from the heat is eating large hunks of sandia or watermelon. Watermelon season is in full swing right now and it is the most amazing piece of food when it is so hot. Luckily my host family gives my neighbor Brenda and me two huge pieces for our walk to afternoon training to help us forget how hot it is. Also a local ice cream shop or heladoria has been an amazing treat for cooling off. For only 40 cents you can get two scoops in a delicious handmade cone, my favorite flavors are banana and dulce de leche. However, it finally rained last night and this morning, but there was so much rain that it flooded the streets up to my knees in some places. Our host families thought it was so weird that we had to still go to class today. I agreed with them, but I went anyways and ended up getting a good washing of my chacos in the experience.

Love and especially lust is always in the air here in Paraguay. However the way they go about expressing their love and infatuation with one another is quite different than that of Americans. We have spent a few hours here and there over the last weeks hearing about different experiences both men and women have had with Paraguayans and some of the dating "rules" Paraguayans follow. Most of the Paraguayans that do follow these rules strictly live further out into country, but there seems to be a universal understanding of most of the rules. Be prepared to laugh a little.

First off, there are specific dating days in Paraguay. The official dating days are Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. If a man visits you on these days it means that he is interested in dating you official and wants to make it known in the community. However, if a man comes over only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday that means that he wants you to be his mistress. And he wants you to be friends with benefits, it is called "amigos especiales" here in Paraguay.

Gestures are used here all the time to signify if people think you are good looking or if they want to sleep with you. They range from making the motion of revving a motorcycle to wiggling a finger when giving a handshake.

If you attend a fiesta or a quincinera and dance with guy for over three dances in a row then it is said that you two are now officially dating each other.

Women should avoid walking near the chakra or crop fields, because this is one of the main places that men and women have sex since at least five people live in every house and are always home. So if someone sees you walking out of the field they are sure to send the gossip out that you were there with a guy. I think that it sounds pretty uncomfortable to come home with bug bites all over your body.

It is unbelievably hot here at night time, but women can not sleep with their windows open unless they want a visitor called a Jakare. An open window is an open invitation for a man or Jakare to jump into your house and have sex with you that night. No questions asked on either end.

One nice thing that we learned is that women set the limits here in terms of dating and sex. Men here think that being overly aggressive is the only way to get a girlfriend or baby momma, but the women are the ones who have the control to say how far the relationship is going to go. However, gestures or body language outweighs anything said verbally. So I need to keep the smiling and eye contact undercontrol since both of these are very popular signs of interest expersing interest here.

Also the obsession with foreigners is outrageous here! Just because my hair and skin are a little lighter and I have blue eyes, all the men and women here think I am very good looking. This is a really strange comment to make about myself, but Paraguayans think I am very beautiful. It has been a strange adjustment to go from being an average looking girl in the US to being a very attractive foreigner here. Most older women want to adopt me, most girls my age want to have my hair or eye color, and most men from 13 to 70 make inappropriate gestures and comments attempting to be my boyfriend.

So far my blue eyes have started a fight between two grown men at the volleyball court, many pick up attempts at the local despensa, an invitation to be amigos especiales from a neighbor, and comments about how beautiful my eyes are from the city director of the environment at the municipality during an official meeting. And over the past few weeks I have been asked countless times if I have a boyfriend, why I don´t have a boyfriend and when am I going to marry a Paraguayan. But don´t worry mom, I keep telling them that there is no way I am going to marry a Paraguayn because you would cry too much.

So for all of you out there who are feeling a little lonely, just come down and visit me here. They will all love you here and I am pretty sure I can get you paired up in less than a week. A language barrier means nothing here!

Sunday morning I awoke at 6:00am to prepare for my host brother’s first communion service being held in the central Catholic church of town. Only my host father, Abrahm, and myself attended the service since Tina had to care for the baby and the twins had confirmation class during the service time. The three of us piled into the two person truck cab with Abrahm sitting on my lap all dressed in white as we bounced down the dirt and cobble stone roads to the church.

The communion class had nearly 200 students and the church became very crowded as the service began. I had never before attended any form of a service at a Catholic Church and I was interested to see how much I could follow of the Spanish and how similar the service structure would be to the Lutheran church. All the boys and girls were dressed completely in white robes and shirts, and the girls had a small flower or bead wreath placed in their hair. The students walked in with their parents and were placed in one of the front pews for the service divided by the middle aisle into boys and girls. The average age of the students was around 10, but some appeared to be younger and older.

The focus of most of the service was of course about the body and blood of Jesus Christ and how it is represented for us at church through bread and wine. The priest, or sacerdote, gave a sermon and I understood a good 20% of what he was saying so I thought I did quite well. During the prayers, the students held lit candles while their peers read off the prayers for the day. The peace of the day was passed, offering was taken and songs were sung. It felt very much like a normal Lutheran service expect I couldn’t understand much and most people stared at me to see if I knew what I was supposed to do.

The big moment finally came for the students at the end of the service when they were ushered forward to receive their first communion. This took almost 45 minutes to get through all the students. Once all the students had gone forward, time was taken to pass bread out to all the students and parents in the church to take home to share with their friends and family not in attendance that morning. I laughed to myself a good amount as I watched lots of the students and parents start eating their bread before they had even left the church. I guess they wanted even more communion that day for all the time they had spent in class. The service took a little over two hours and most of the parents and I stood the entire service. I am glad I never wear high heels to church.

After the service Abrahm collected his certificated and passed out small communion cards to friends that stated he had received this first communion this morning. He was nice enough to give me one. They were quite silly since they had a drawing of a blonde haired pale skin boy praying and Abrahm looks nothing like the drawing, but I will hold onto it until I return to the states.

To end the morning Abahm and I both got a type of doughnut from a vendor in the plaza to celebrate his communion and to quench our hunger from being awake for 4 hours without food. The doughnut definitely put a close to the experience that made me feel like I was at church back in the states with friends and family. I always said that church makes people joyful and fat at the same time.

This past weekend, all the Environmental Education trainees got to experience the first, and only, overnight tech excursion during our training session. The overall goal of the excursion is to meet a few more current volunteers to hear about what they have done and are doing currently in Paraguay with EE, and to have the group experience of traveling to a new location in Paraguay for a few days. And our trainer Ricardo allowed us to have a little bit of fun along the way.

We left Friday a little before noon for Caaucupe, located about an hour northeast of Guarambare and east of Asuncion. Our group was divided into two different vehicles and for the whole weekend, I got to drive around Paraguay in the official supped-up black tinted windowed embassy plated Peace Corps SUV. This is pretty much the nicest looking car in Paraguay that no one would ever touch, but everyone stares at. On our way to Caaucupe we stopped for lunch at a roadside diner for one of the most amazing meals I have had in a long time: french fries, a fried egg and cheese sandwich, and a brownie ice cream dessert. I have never enjoyed fatty American style food so much. The rest of the group felt the same.

After our amazing lunch we met up with a volunteer named Dan in Caaucupe where he introduced us to the NGO REFOPAR. REFOPAR is currently working to reforest Paraguay, by providing thousands of trees to local area municipalities, schools, churches, and other community events for planting activities across Paraguay. We were invited by the executive director Paul to visit the vivero (tree nursery) where the employees’ plant, care for, and prepare the trees for their trips across Paraguay. The interesting thing about this NGO is that Paul, is from Belgium and decided to retire in Paraguay 6 years ago. He and his wife started the NGO themselves, and now employ 15 Paraguayans and have planted hundreds of thousands of native trees in Paraguay.

On the way to the vivero we were shockingly surprised to see a cow giving birth on the side of the road a few minutes from the vivero. As we drove by the first time only the front two legs were out and the cow was actually grazing nonchalantly! After we left the vivero we stopped and saw that the calf was already walking after only an hour. Crazy Paraguay!

After visiting the vivero, we returned to Caaucupe to visit a well known Basilica located in the center of town. The Basilica is well known for the December 8th walk that happens every year in Paraguay. Every year thousands of Paraguayans walk to the Basilica on December 8th in remembrance of the Virgin Mary.

The group was then divided in half, some stayed at Dan’s site for the night which was located about an hour north of town, and the rest of us traveled an additional 45 minutes into the country to meet Lindsay and stay at his site with host families for the night out in the campo. Brenda and I stayed together at a local school director’s house for the night where we were able to use indoor plumbing for the night! However, a 92 year old slightly senile grandma from the house kept asking us through at the night and morning what our mission was in Paraguay and if we were collecting information of the census. I never think she ever understood that we were apart of Peace Corps.

The next day we traveled to the National Park Cerro Kavaju. Where we met up with the rest of the group, Dan, and Dan’s group of 40 senior high school students from a local agro forestry high school he was taking on an excursion for the day. The day before had been so humid and warm, so of course the next day meant rain in the forecast. The rain started after we gathered all together at the entrance to the park and loaded into the back of a flat bed truck with the students. We were driven up a dirt road for 20 minutes in a crammed up top truck to the trail head. The park was absolutely gorgeous. It was great to finally see some of the untouched natural beauty within Paraguay, especially with a group of high school students of which most have never been on a hike before in their lives. We climbed up to the rock cliffs on top of a huge hill and slid down a natural rock waterslide that was created as the rain began to come down harder throughout the day. All of us got completely wet and completely dirty, but for all of us we were so happy to get outside after so long of being in cities littered with trash that we had huge smiles on our faces as we drove back to Guarambare.

Although we were busy during the two days we were gone, it was a refreshing break to training. We spent more time getting to know each other, our trainer, and other volunteers. And we all will remember to never go hiking in a skirt like Brenda did.

I am constantly surrounded by the sound of children. I wake up to the sound of children getting ready for school and eating their breakfast, and I fall asleep to their laughter as they get ready for bed. They are the hardest to understand since they don´t understand that I need them to speak slowly and I am still learning how to speak Spanish, but they also are the source of my biggest smiles here in Paraguay.

At my house I usually dance and draw away my lunch hour with the two daughters of Ana, the niece of my host mom. The two girls, Annie who is 5, and Vivi who is 3, play with me like I am a huge doll. I can understand a good amount of what Annie says to me since she is a little older and will repeat things if I don’t understand, but Vivi will sometimes just call me stupid and get upset at me that I don’t answer her. I wonder if you can guess who my favorite is at the moment. No, I really like passing away my time with both of them.

Abrahm, my host brother, at the age of 9 is my silent friend. We don’t talk to each other much, but he likes to water the garden we built in my family’s yard together. He also enjoys playing with his sling shot. I am trying to instill the idea of not aiming at birds, but so far I have not been that affective at convincing him that it is more fun to aim at cans or bottles. He is a great kid. He works hard and goes to school everyday, which is not true for many Paraguayan children. His first communion is coming up this weekend and I hope to attend with the family.

Derlis is the neighbor boy that fills the rest of my days with constant joy. He lives at the house of my neighbor PC trainee Brenda and is the grandson of her host mom. His mom is a good friend to both Brenda and I, since she is only 22 years old, and we enjoy sitting outside with her practicing our Spanish and playing with Derlis. Her family and I like to joke that Derlis is my Paraguayan boyfriend. No worries mom, he is only 3 years old. A little too young for me, but he sure is lindo.

And now I have a new addition to my host family to announce. Maria Pabla was born on Thursday the 15th of October at a little over 3 kilos (around 7 lbs. for all of us now metric folk). She has a full head of hair and looks like she is going to grow into a beautiful little girl. She was brought home on Saturday and so far I have not heard more than a few minutes of crying. Que suerte!

And there are lots of other neighbor kids that enjoy just staring and giggling at me while I try to practice my Spanish. The joy that kids bring to my life crosses all language barriers.

So I decided that my story of what happened to me this past Tuesday deserved its own blog entry. Technically Tuesday was still part of my travel to Yhu, but I felt that to give it justice as a day that I will never forget, it deserved its own blog post. I will now recount my day:

I woke up in the city of Yhu at the host family’s house I had been staying with for the past four days while visiting Brendan. After enjoying a warm indoor shower and a small breakfast I waited in the sun reading my new Dan Brown book for Brendan to meet up with me to tell me when I needed to catch the bus back to Caaugayzu. We waited for the bus for a half an hour and then said our goodbye and thank you for a really great weekend trip. Unfortunately the bus was already pretty crowded and when I got on the bus there were no more seats. I stood in the center aisle with at least twenty others as the bus began its two hour bumpy and curvy trip on the unpaved road back to the terminal. On the way to Yhu Brendan and I stood for the two hours as well so I did not think much of having to stand again, however this time my stomach felt differently about the experience.

After twenty or so minutes into the ride my stomach had had it with the bumps and curves and people. I knew that I could no longer hold in the nausea. I squeezed through the crowd using broken Spanish until I came to the front window right behind the driver which had a few extra inches of space in front of the two women sitting in their seats. Again using my broken Spanish I told them I was not feeling well and I need to stand next to the window. Once my face caught wind of the fresh air outside of the bus it was over. I ended up throwing up several times, luckily outside of the window, until there was nothing left in me. I stood with half of my body outside of the window for a good ten minutes trying to collect myself as the bus continued along the bumpy and curvy unpaved road. Once I turned back into the cabin I noticed almost all the passengers were staring at me, the rubia blue eyed foreigner, throwing up outside of a moving bus. Luckily the ticket fare collector was standing near the front and allowed me to then sit on the bus engine hump right next to the driver for the remainder of the trip (at least an hour and a half). There were already two men sitting on the engine and they wanted nothing to do with me so I was allowed about half a butt cheek of space to sit and the metal bar behind the driver to hold on to. However, it was much better than standing.

While I sat with my head in my hands trying to control the nausea in the my stomach one of the women I had just thrown up in front of lightly placed her hand on my knee and slowly rubbed her hand on my knee. This was the most comforting and truly giving moments I have ever personally experienced. Here I am a foreigner throwing up outside of a moving run down bus in the middle of Paraguay and this woman finds the love inside of her to comfort me not with words but with the healing power of touch. The woman only spoke Guarani and since I am still in Spanish classes during training I was only able to smile and nod my head as she slowly spoke what I presume to be comforting words into my ear.

After finally arriving at the bus terminal in Caaguazu I sat for nearly two hours with a sprite in hand trying to clam my stomach. Once I realized that the nausea was not really going to pass I waited for the next bus to Asuncion that looked like it had a clean bathroom and air conditioning. Luckily one arrived and only after a small stall on the side of the road for a half an hour when the radiator stopped functioning did my second ride get interesting. We ended up losing air conditioning for the last hour. But then the bus ride back into Guarambare was a piece of cake compared to earlier in the day

Later that night once I finally made it back to my house I went to visit my neighbor trainee friend at her house since it was the dad’s birthday. After sharing stories with the family about our trip and my experience from earlier that day, the mayor of Guarambare arrived at their house for dinner. He is a good friend of the dad and came to celebrate with him. I kept thinking that less than 10 hours ago I was vomiting outside of a bus 6 hours away from Guarambare, I was now eating dinner with the mayor of our town talking world politics. I feel that this one day is a good representation of my daily life in Paraguay. I never know what is going to happen, who I am going to meet, what new Paraguayan will fall in love with blue eyes, or if I will end up getting sick. My life is full of ups and downs. I would not have it any other way.

This past week I traveled to both the capital city of Paraguay and to a small pueblo out in the center of Paraguay. Overall, both of my travels gave me more confidence in my Spanish skills and the ability to successfully travel throughout Paraguay.

Asuncion:

The focus of this one day travel excursion was to get both an understanding of how public transportation services work in Paraguay and how to travel safely in the capital city. I traveled with a member of the Agroforestry extension to the National University of Paraguay in the town of San Lorenzo, about 20 minutes outside of central Asuncion. We meet with both the National Forest Service to talk about their tree seed bank program and with a Taiwanese government sponsored agriculture program located at the University doing experiments on local produce. At both sites the people were very friendly to both me and my traveling partner. It did not take long until we had completed our given tasks and allowed to explore Asuncion for a few hours. We ended up going to one of the largest shopping malls in Asuncion where we ate really delicious fresh vegetable stir-fry and salads. The mall was pretty crazy, since it was obviously greatly influenced by western culture in terms of the types of stores and companies. After lunch we all gathered together at the Peace Corps office in Asuncion where we compared stories of our travels and learned about what the office has to offer us as resources. At the end of the day we were then given our locations for our weekend visit to a current volunteer in Paraguay.

Yhu (or Auga negra):

I spent four days in the small pueblo Yhu, located about 6 hours from Asuncion, with a current Environmental Education volunteer. My trip began at 5:30 am on Saturday. I left from Guarambare on a public bus to the terminal in Asuncion. There I took a bus 4 hours east to the city of Caaguazu. There I met Brendan, the current volunteer, who traveled the remaining 2 hours on the unpaved road with me. It just so happened that I was visiting this city during their fiesta patronal celebration and the town was loaded with relatives and friends visiting for the weekend to take part in all the festivities. We spent the first day visiting neighbors, watching the town futbol game, “working” at the town fiesta and then dancing at the huge fiesta until early in the evening be Paraguayan standards, but pretty late by the average American. On Sunday we visited more neighbors and families that Brendan lived with during his first three months at site and we attended the huge town horse show. That night a large storm hit the town and knocked at the power for the night and for the most of the next day. Luckily the weather was better by the morning and Brendan was able to show me most of the schools he currently works with and the municipalidade of the city. I had a really great time meeting lots of the people in his pueblo. I definitely think that I will be a part of the town gossip for a while. I also really enjoyed the time Brendan and I got to talk about his experience so far with the Peace Corps in Yhu and our discussions on other random topics like my broken electronics, religion, politics, and our enjoyment of JK Rowling and Dan Brown books. It was great to spend the weekend getting to know a current volunteer that I can later call for advice and added to the number of friends I have in Paraguay.

Side note for mom and girlfriends: Yes mom, Brendan is a boy and he was very nice to me during my visit. I would guess he would call you Mama Blatt if I had known him in the states. And yes girlfriends, Brendan is a good looking guy. And yes, I know that you might one day read this blog post Brendan, but you already know that you are very lindo. All the girls in Yhu think so as well.

Training for the Peace Corps focuses mainly on language, technical skills, health, safety, and community integration. However, most of the time is spent focusing on language proficiency and technical skills for our work areas. I have completed a week and a half of training so far and I have found training to be very structured and focused. Training is planned to provide the most information to us during the 11 weeks in Guarambare, to prepare us for two years of service. My schedule during the week is as follows:

6:30am- I am awoken by a knock on my door by my host mom or dad. If it is warm enough I jump into our outdoor shower, however during our first week of training it drop over 40 degrees in one night and remained around 50 degrees most of the first week. I only showered once last week since I would have been a popsicle if I showered outside during the cold mornings. In Paraguay it is common to shower at least three times a day during the summer and at least once during the winter. Personal appearance is very important here. You don’t dress to express yourself in Paraguay; you dress to impress other Paraguayans.

7:00am- I drink cocida with my host family for breakfast. Cocida is similar to a black tea in the states, but they add sugar to it before and after they pour it into their cups. I usually have cocida con leche con cochitos (small hard bread sticks that you break up into bite size pieces and place in the cup with the liquid). It is similar to cereal. However, my family enjoys laughing at me because I don’t add a spoonful more sugar to my cocida like is typical here.

7:45am- After walking with my PCT neighbor Brenda; we arrive at the environmental education training facility. It used to be the house of a police commissioner of Guarambre, so it has a pool and futbol field in the yard. We are told it is one of the nicest training sites ever rented by the Peace Corps in Paraguay. Right away we begin language practice. For environmental education we have to obtain a high level of conversational Spanish before we can begin studying Guarani. I am in the intermediate Spanish class, and should begin studying Guarani in a few weeks. I love my language professor. Her name is Pabla and she has been so helpful. There are only four of us in my group and we practice our Spanish for four hours everyday all in Spanish.

12:00pm- I return to my host house for lunch. In Paraguay, lunch is their largest meal and they greatly enjoy serving me way too much food. Usually my lunch is a pretty traditional Paraguayan dish that will consist of a madioca, rice, soup and/or beef. Luckily my family enjoys eating fruits and vegetables, so I am one of the lucky volunteers that gets a salad at every meal and usually a piece of fruit with dinner.

1:00pm- After lunch we return to our environmental education training center for an afternoon of technical skill work. Usually a current volunteer visits us during this time and will share a little about their experience in Paraguay so far and then teach us a lesson. So far we have focused on the school system, gardens, tree identification, and classroom materials. Some really cool things we have done so far with these volunteers is making drinking glasses out of wine bottles and we built a vegetable garden in my back yard.

5:30pm- I return for the rest of the night to my host house. I spend the next few hours showering, eating dinner, talking with my family, playing my guitar, studying Spanish, visiting neighbors and drinking tererre.

8:30 or 9:00pm- I try to return to my room about this time to enjoy some quiet time reading, writing or sleeping.

This is just a quick snapshot of my life here in Paraguay thus far. The training week is never the same, but this is the typical structure at least three days during the week. Some days we travel into the main training center in Guarambare to meet with all the other sector volunteers (agroforestry, bee keeping, and crop extension) to cover topics such as health and safety. We also have excursion days planned into our training. This Thursday I will be traveling with one other volunteer into Asuncion to visit possible volunteer reference sites. Also this weekend I will be traveling to visit a current volunteer in Paraguay. I will spend four days by myself with the volunteer getting to know a little bit about their site, the work they have done, the community integration process for them, and I will get to practice more of my Spanish skills as I travel across the country. I am nervous, but excited for both excursions and I hope to write soon after my return about both of them.

A very sad and tragic event happened a few days ago in my neighborhood here in Guarambare. The mother at my next door neighbors’ house passed away early Friday morning from a brain aneurism at the age of 49. This was a very shocking event to the family, my host family, the neighbors and me. I will try to recount a little of what happened before and after the incident to share some about the customs surrounding death in Paraguay.

The woman woke up Thursday morning with a severe headache. After resting in bed for a little while longer, she decided to begin her day by working in my host family’s yard with the chickens. She was hit with a severe head pain around lunch and was taken to the hospital later that afternoon. The youngest daughter informed me that her mom was in the hospital, while I was both visiting her aunt’s house across the street from me where another PCT lives. I have often played games with this daughter at my house since she is best friends with my two twin host sisters. After returning to my home for the night, I was awoken at 4:30am to the sounds of sobbing in the next room. As I listened closer I could here my host mother and sisters saying that she had died. It was so unexpected that I just didn’t know what to do with myself. I just laid in bed all morning until the time I was suppose to wake up for class. In the morning my host mom explained a little about what had happened to the neighbor, but I could obviously tell that she was very emotional as well since she said the woman was one of her best friends and like a sister to her.

After talking with some of the Peace Corps staff members that day and with the other PCT Brenda who was also awoken in the early morning to the sounds of crying, since she lives at the house of the husbands brothers house, we both were able to share some our emotions we were currently experiencing and what the future days were to hold for us as PCTs in the houses of family and friends and neighbors to this woman. Later that evening after returning home I went with my host mom and siblings to the el velorio, translated it means the sit up. In Paraguay after someone dies a table is set up, similar to an altar, in the house where people are invited to visit to say their condolences during the 24 hours after death. People are then invited to sit up with the family for the night while family, friends and neighbors visit throughout the 24 hours. At the vigil I said my condolences to a few of the remaining family members (she left behind a family of eight kids), and sat around with at least 40 or so other friends and family members for a while.

The funeral was then held the next morning. While both Brenda and I shared with our family’s that we could attend the funeral with them, they both informed us to attend school instead. Funerals are usually held one day after the death and the body is then buried directly into the cemetery that day. The funeral process happens quite quickly, unlike in the states when it can take up to a week to prepare all the necessary steps for the funeral and cemetery.

After the funeral, there is a nine day process called el rezo, or prayer. Everyday at a certain everyone gathers to say a series of prayers lead by a clergy member. After 20 minutes of the prayers, everyone sits down to enjoy refreshments and the company of one another. I attended one on Sunday with my PCT neighbor and her family.

Overall I am still in a state of shock from the experience. Hearing the cries of my host sisters at 4 in the morning, seeing the tears of my host mom, and feeling the agony of the swollen and bruised face of the 11 year old daughter that just the other day was playing tic-tac-toe with me for an hour after dinner will stay with me while in Paraguay. But not in only a sad manner. I was happily shocked at the amount of love shown between neighbors and relatives. While the Paraguay people are known for their tranquillo nature, when a tragic event of death happens the open display of emotion demonstrated the strong connection bond of love family and friends have for each other. Paraguayans spend their time in the company of one another. Living together, forming ideas with each other, and teaching one another about life, love, and family.

Although this journey for me has just begun and I am a few years away from seeing many of you again, I want you to know I love you and carry you all in my heart.

The weekends are a time for community integration during the three months of training. We have training during the morning on Saturday, but the rest of the week we have “off”. During the week we spend time with our family and very near by neighbors eating and chatting, but the weekends are a time to travel into the city with our families, meet more family members that come to visit, and just enjoy the company of our family in a tranquillopa’ setting. I don’t think I have ever been more nervous!

I kept thinking ‘My third day in Paraguay and I am spending the entire day speaking only Spanish to a family that I hardly know. What am I going to do?’ It actually ended up being one of the most eventful and entertaining Sundays I have had in a long time. Here is what I did:

I was awoken at 6 in the morning (yes it was very early since I still was not adjust to the time change) because I had plans to accompany my host father, Oscar, to one of the soccer games that he referees at on the weekend near Asuncion. After having a quick breakfast of the delicious drink cocida con leche, my host brother Abraham, Oscar, and myself piled into their two seater and well used car to travel to the game. First we stopped at the gomeria, which is a tire repair shop, where Oscar replaced one of the front tires. There are lots of gomerias along the main paved roads in Paraguay, because even the paved roads have lots of potholes, rocks, or trash in the road that destroy the tires. After that quick stop and one at the gas station we drove a little over an hour to the soccer field.

Paraguayan drivers are a slightly dangerous with their driving. Motos or motorcycles are very popular here, but are also super dangerous. Everyday in Paraguay at least three people die from a moto accident. As a Peace Corps Trainee and Volunteer I am not allowed to drive or ride on a moto during the entire 27 months. If I do and someone finds out, I will be sent home immediately, no exceptions. In addition to lots of motos on the road, no one wears their seat belts, there is no legal age for driving a vehicle and no one besides my host father seems to use their blinkers (thank God he does).

We arrived a few minutes before the game started, giving Oscar time to change into his uniform and for me to be graciously given a chair to sit in the shade with during the games. There were three games that Oscar refereed that morning. The teams that played in the games were adult club teams from the area. The first two were very competitive and required penalty kicks to determine the winner, but the last was a clean sweep by one of the teams. The games ended about 10 in the morning; however, it was already about 85 degrees out.

After leaving the game we went to an outdoor fruit market to buy oranges to make juice with and some watermelon for a snack. We then proceeded to the supermarket just outside of Asuncion. It actually reminded me of a Fred Meyer. It had food, household items like blenders and tupperware, as well as clothes. One thing that was very different was when we parked in the parking lot there were a few men loitering up and down each lane of parked cars. I learned as we were leaving when Oscar gave one a couple Guaranies (Paraguayan money) that they actually watch your car for you while you are in the store if you ask, so nothing will get stolen or broken into while you are gone.

After the hour long drive back into Guarambare in the now 90 degree heat, we return to the house where we consumed a delicious lunch of salad and panchos (hot dogs). I am actually super lucky that I get fruits and vegetables, some people only get fried food everyday, all day. After lunch I visited my neighbor Brenda, who is also a PCT. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with her family and neighbors and drinking terrere (matte with cold water). It ended up reaching 100 degrees in the afternoon. Once it started to cool down I got to play some volleyball with the neighbors. Brenda and I are actually very lucky to have a volleyball court in her backyard, because we get the opportunity to both exercise and it is a great community gathering activity so we get to practice our Spanish a lot while we watch.

Once the sunset, I returned to my house where I ate my dinner with the family and played tic-tac-toe with my host family kids and neighbors for over an hour. I was the "ganadora" for most of the games. I returned to my room around 9 and was able to take a small break for the heat. It was a long day, but I actually made it through it. Not only did I get to practice my Spanish all day, but I also got to see more of Asuncion and what the life of a typical Paraguayan is like on a Sunday. It was a pretty good day for only just arriving.

On Thursday, all 42 Peace Corps Trainees arrived in Paraguay after two full days of traveling and attending orientation sessions. We will complete our three months of Peace Corps training in the city of Guarambre. Guarambare is located about an hour outside of the capital Asuncion. While here we all will live with a host family located just outside of the main city center. Only a few hours after arriving in Paraguay we were introduced to our host families. My host family consists of Oscar (father), Tina (mother), Maria Jose and Maria Fatima (twin 13 year old sisters), Abraham (9 year old brother), Ana (23 years old and the niece of Tina), Ana’s two daughters (3 and 5 years old), and grandma (mother of Tina). Oscar is a farmer and a referee for club soccer games. Tina is a housewife and 8 months pregnant! She is due on the 10th of October. That will make 11 in the house. Jose and Fatima attend school somewhat regularly. Since I arrived neither has gone to school. They say they don’t really like school, but Oscar is very determined to make sure his kids study hard and have a future outside of Guarambare. Abraham doesn’t talk to me much, but we enjoy playing Tic-Tac-Toe together. Ana helps take care of the house as well, especially since Tina is pregnant. Her two daughters are adorable! I don’t understand much of what they are saying, but they enjoy sitting next to me at meals and I usually just make faces at them. Grandma is quiet with me, but from the conversations we have had she is very wise and has a lot of stories to tell.

I live on a farm with 7 dairy cows, 6 pigs (2 of which are piglets that were born on the day I arrived), 20 or so chickens, 5 dogs, and 2 cats. Everyday I drink fresh milk from the cows and they make cheese with the milk as well. My family wakes up around 5 in the morning to begin milking the cows and they are usually in bed by 9. I can tell that they do not have much money, but Oscar works very hard on the farm and he says that the extra money from the refereeing helps.

They have never had a volunteer live with them before. The other night while talking with Oscar he explained that he used to think that the volunteers in Guarambare were no good. He didn’t want anything to do with them, but after seeing the work that they do and the way they work with the community he wanted to have one at his house. He said he especially wanted a volunteer in his house to show his kids someone who has studied hard and attended college, and that it is possible for them to do the same.

The first day I could not communicate with the family much, but I think they forgave me because I played the guitar and sang for them. They are a very relaxed family that enjoys visiting with neighbors and spending time with each other. I am very grateful to them for opening their home to me for the next few months.

See you later!

During the past few weeks I have said this phrase quite frequently to friends and family members as tomorrow comes closer and closer on my calendar. At 6:00 am this morning I began my travels to Miami, Florida, where I will spend a little over 24 hours turning in paper work, meeting other volunteers and preparing for the 11 hour flight to Paraguay. On the morning of the 24th I will begin my new life in Paraguay as Peace Corps Volunteer for 27 months. My first three months will be spent in a small city an hour outside of Asuncion, studying language, culture, and my volunteer focus area of environmental education. After the three months of training I will then be sworn in as an official volunteer and begin my two years of service.

My emotions are on a constant roller coaster from extreme excitement to overwhelming nervousness. I am most nervous for the host family experience that will begin the first day I am in Paraguay. Hopefully all will go well and I will be able to communicate my basic needs to them and they won't laugh at me too often. The first few weeks will be challenging for me as I continue to miss friends and family that will no longer be in my daily life, but I am excited about building a whole new community of friends around me.

I am excited to continue updating this blog throughout my Peace Corps experience so I can stayed connected with all of you! Do not hesitate to write, email, and/or visit me when I am in Paraguay. I want to hear what is happening in your life just as much as you might want to hear about mine. Although I may be leaving for a few years my heart is full of memories and laughter that will never disappear. Each one of you has shaped my heart. I am who I am because of you.

Thank you

God bless

I love you!