Peacin' Out: Freedom of the South, my a**

It’s been a busy time since the last blog post so I have a lot to catch up on. Sorry for such a long gap with no news, but this one will be especially long to make up for it. Here goes:

Two weeks ago, I visited the place where I’ll be a real PC volunteer for the next two years, also know as my “site” in PC lingo. As I said in the previous post, it’s in the Department of Itapúa, way in the southeast corner of the country, in a place called Libertad del Sur. After being there for 5 days, I can certainly say that rich foreigners with gigantic, mechanized soy (transgenic, of course), wheat and sunflower plantations are the only ones feeling this “freedom of the south”, as its name implies. France, Germany, Japan, Argentina and Brazil are some of the countries where these landowners are from. This area that was once completely covered with the subtropical forest known as the “Bosque Atlántico de Alta Parana” (BAAPA) now looks like the mid-west US with mechanized agriculture as far as the eye can see, at least in most directions. In other directions are these small Paraguayan settlements established along long, straight, dirt roads and down into the few valleys that do exist. Apparently these villages began with squatters coming in and setting up camp after the last dictator of many, Alfred Stroessner (who had encouraged the foreigners coming in and owning land), lost power in 1989. Squatting turned into living, and, 20 years later, we have Libertad del Sur. Needless to say, I have a lot of work ahead of me.

My community is along one of these long, straight roads, spread out over at least 5 km. The daily bus to and from Encarnación (the closest big city) goes right past the house where I’ll be staying for at least the first month. At least when it’s not raining. If it’s raining, all bets are off, especially concerning transportation. The soil out there is pretty much as red and clayey as a soil can get. I’ve heard the term Laterite being thrown around, for those soil nerds out there. What this means in practical terms is that it’s impossible to drive/run/walk/bike on when it’s wet, and the red mud sticks to EVERYTHING. So being stranded is a regular occurrence given that I’m at least 40 km to the nearest paved road. However, this past trip I was stuck in just such a situation where it was raining, rain was predicted for the next 3 days, and I wanted/needed to get back to my training community to celebrate Thanksgiving with the other Nortes. Brian, another volunteer-to-be in another community just a few km away, walked to my site amidst the crazy thunder and lightning that happens in a humid climate (way different than storms in the western US……I never knew the difference until now) and relayed the message that we were essentially ordered to get out now or be stranded for days. The daily bus leaves at 4 am, so that was out of the question, and we were informed the only person in “town” with a 4x4 that would be able to drive in the current conditions was a French guy named Pierre. Lo and behold, Pierre drives by a few minutes later so we flag him down and proceed to beg for a ride to the paved road, in Spanish of course. As soon as he found out we were PC volunteers, we stopped talking about the ride and instead began to get ridiculed for being ignorant Americans who have no business being there and don’t know anything. He was your typical aging Frenchman, with lots of opinions and no shame to share them all. After standing in the rain for a good 10 minutes, listening through the car window to this crazy, animated, shirtless, old bald French guy yelling in Spanish, we finally got back around to the whole ride situation. To make a long story short (and least shorter than it could be), he gave us a ride. It was a long 40 km, trying to argue in Spanish about the benefits of having forest over soy plantations and about how I do actually know things and have some experience in life, all the while fearing for my life because his arms and hands were flailing about to emphasize conversation points instead of being on the steering wheel. We made it safely, though, and I ended up really enjoying talking to/antagonizing him. I think he really liked my argumentative nature. Of course, he is the antithesis of everything I’m working for/towards here in Paraguay, but he’s also a good ally to have, especially in emergencies.

Other things that happened on the trip:
-Walked about 3 hours (one direction) to visit an NGO in the San Rafael Reserve that´s working to save some of the last remnants of the BAAPA. It´s run by an awesome Swiss couple who fed us the best food I´ve had so far in Paraguay. They also have a gorgeous lake that´s supposedly free of alligators and snakes. I took their word for it and jumped right in. Anyone who comes to visit me, we´ll definitely be headed here.
-Watched ´From Dusk till Dawn´ dubbed in Spanish with my Paraguayan host family in site while sitting in their dirt floor kitchen. That was strange....
-One of the first conversations I had with my ´contact´ (the person Peace Corps talks to in site who really wants the volunteer to work there and who agrees to kind of help the integration into the community process) was about yoga and geology. And these were subjects he brought up. That kind of progressiveness and awareness out in the campo is pretty damn rare, to say the least. I´m looking forward to talking with him a lot more, especially once I can actually speak in Guarani like an intelligent adult. But that´s going to be awhile.
-Went to meet and visit another of my contacts one day who is the 6th grade teacher in the local school. We chatted for a bit but then he had to leave to go to some work stuff. Before he left, I was invited to stay at his house with his very sweet wife and teach her how to make pizza dough, because we had been talking about how one of my ¨jobs¨ is going to be to cook with the women of the community (trust me, they need new ideas). So me and Jorgelina spent the day in her little kitchen cooking away. To make the sauce, we went out to her garden and picked fresh oregano, tomatoes, green onions and carrots. Then she taught me how to make arroz con leche. We had a great time, and she barely speaks any Spanish. Somehow we managed to communicate effectively. I´m hoping for lots more days like those.

Okay that´s enough about that. You´ll hear many more stories about this place over the next 2 years. I don´t want to bore you yet. Now on to the next subject: Thanksgiving. Half of our traninig group got together and cooked up a huge feast (see pictures below). Chicken was substituted for turkey and there was no gravy, but other than that it was just like the real thing. This was my first Thanksgiving ever away from my family, so it was a little strange and a little sad, but I´ve made some pretty good friends here over the past couple months and they were good family stand-ins. I was also able to Skype with almost all of my family back in the states--thanks everyone for making that happen! It was wonderful to talk to and see you all. I hope we can do it again soon!

I need to give some big shouts out to all you awesome people who have sent me packages. Things at the post office here sometimes take a really long time, so in the last couple of weeks I finally recieved a whole bunch of things. I now officially have plenty of notecards and folders. Thank you sooooo much for responding to my pleas! Aunt Patt--the magazines were a great suprise, and I almost cried when I saw the Alibi--it was perfect. Kenna--you kick ass. I couldn´t ask for a better cousin. Grandma and Grandpa--the folders have let me become an organizing fool. My life feels much calmer now because of it. Nina--how freakin´sweet of you. I can´t wait to read the book and I´m using the Burt´s Bees as we speak (or type). I know there are other packages out there in postal no man´s land that are trying to find me, so don´t depair if I haven´t received yours yet. I will be extremely happy and grateful when I do.

IMPORTANT: If you are planning on sending packages during the next couple of months, I have a huge request. The post office in Asuncion (where I have to go to pick up any packages that are sent to me) only keeps the packages for about a month, after which time they are returned to sender if they´re not claimed. Since I´m going to be living so far away from Asuncion, I will definitely not be making it back there on a monthly basis. So, what I´ve learned recently is that courier services, i.e. DHL, FedEx, UPS, USPS Express Mail, deliver directly to the Peace Corps office where the packages are kept indefinitely. So my request is that any packages sent during the next couple months use one of these courier services, if you want to ensure that I get it eventually. I know they´re much more expensive so I understand if my package supply decreases, but I just want to make sure that I get whatever you want to send me. There is no change for letters. Just send those the cheapest way possible.