Wintertime

Last winter in Paraguay, I was freezing most of the time. It was hard for me to leave my sleeping bag and all I thought about was going into the city to take a hot shower. Not so this year. While there have been a couple short cold spells, the majority of the time has been like a New Mexico Fall. Blue skies, bright warm sun, taking cold showers in my outdoor shower place (granted, they're rather quick, but still...), getting up early and going to bed late because I'm not freezing to death. I know I shouldn't be complaining, but come on Paraguay! I like my seasons to change! I also shouldn't be complaining while all of you are suffering through the a particularly hot, dry northern hemisphere summer. I do feel your pain.

But speaking of seasons, this time of year is citrus season galore. At any time, starting around June and still in progress, I can walk out my door, walk 15 m and pick my fill of tangerines (called mandarinas), oranges, pomelos (similar to grapefruits, but much sweeter), and limóns (which are orange in color and look exactly like the mandarinas--don't confuse the two and accidentally eat a limón like a mandarina. That's not fun.) And when Paraguayans eat citrus, they really eat some citrus. Not just one or two tangerines or oranges at a sitting, but more like 5 or 6 or 7 or more. They'll go out, pick an entire bucket full of their choice of citrus, and then the whole family sits around and eats them all. ALL. They think I'm so weird when I only want to eat one per afternoon. Well, that's at least one of the many, many, many reasons why they think I'm weird.

In addition to having these citrus trees around the house, some families also have citrus orchards that they harvest when they're producing well. This year, my family's young pomelo orchard did much better than last year and we harvested it at the end of June. I was psyched to help out because 1)it didn't happen last year, 2)doing stuff in the field always makes me feel productive, and 3)I love doing the hard stuff with other females. At 7:00 in the morning, my host dad Cristino, host sister Cari, two neighbor girls Blanca and Mariela and I set out to pick and bag the pomelos. Cristino doesn't have any sons to help out with the physical labor required to maintain a 10 hectare farm, so Cari and I are his go-to girls. Getting the neighbor girls to help was a bonus this day and just added to my strong, female power feeling. I was initially told that that was all the work was going to entail because then a truck was going to drive into the field, pick up the bags and take them to the road where a bigger truck would then come by at noon to take them to the purchaser. But lo and behold, the field was way too muddy for a truck to drive into so instead we were going to have to manually carry the bags up to the road. With about two hours to complete this new task, the 5 of us began the slow process of carrying the 40 45-50 lb bags the 500 m uphill to the road. One (per person) at a time. I didn't think this was going to be so bad, but the combination of awkward cargo, muddy trails, slippery stream crossings and a time crunch totally wore me out! It was a good worn out though and I was really proud of all of us for getting all the bags up to road just in time to eat a few pomelos, take some pictures, and weigh the bags before the truck arrived. I was completely exhausted and took a hard core siesta after lunch. Poor Mariela and Blanca had to spend the afternoon in their 8th grade classroom! There's no way I could've stayed awake for that. Cristino was happy about the ~600 kilos of pomelos he gets to "sell" this year (it's complicated, the trees were initially given out for free from this company with the agreement that the grower when then pay them back through the harvests over the next however many years. i'm not sure of all the details, and i'm never quite sure if this is a good system, but it happens all the time here). I was appalled to learn that they were being sold at around 600 Guaranis per kilo. That's about $0.15/lb. Good thing I'm free labor.

This season is also winter break time for the schools, and I took advantage of the kids' free time and free school space to have a mini art camp. As things generally don't go as planned when you're a PC voluteer in Paraguay, my art camp plans of course did not work out. It poured rain the night before and morning of the first scheduled day, so that didn't happen. The next day was still really cloudy and wet (translation: no one leaves their house), so that didn't happen either. The third day, however, we were up and running. I purposely didn't tell many people about my plans because I didn't want to deal with 5000 kids. No, let me rephrase that. I cannot deal with more than about 20 at a time, and that's pushing it. But I told my favorite families, and I told a few more on my way to the school that morning, and it was perfect. About 15 kids showed up and we made bird/animal masks. I brought the photocopies of the outlines from the PC office (it's a very common environmental education project here) so they spent the morning coloring, cutting, gluing and then wearing their new masks. They really loved it and I had a wonderful time hanging out with [most of] them! Especially the younger ones, whom I enjoy more and more everyday. And a big thanks to everyone out there who was sent/brought markers and crayons!!! I could not have done this project without them!

Even though the next day was Saturday (due to all the rain-out days), the kids wanted to do some more fun art projects with me so we met again for Day 2. Word spread fast the day before about how awesome me and my art projects are, so as Day 2 class got under way, there were close to 25 kids! Way too many for my liking, but what can you do? I can't blame them for wanting to hang out with me! But I can constantly tell them to "Wait!", "Be patient!", "You have to share!", "Stop yelling!" and "That's not your problem." All in Guarani. I'm fluent when it comes to disciplining children. I don't mean to make is sound like it wasn't fun, because it was. Just a little more stressful than the day before. First, we made wallets out of old milk cartons. This is an awesome and very easy recycled art project that another volunteer taught me. And thanks to the super cool colored duct tape my parents recently sent to me, their wallets are a classy blue and purple (adorned with lucha libre stickers I brought) instead of weird old milk box label colors. After the wallets came the long-awaited making of play-doh! Ever since Liv brought me a pack of play-doh when she came to visit (and I mentioned we could make our own), they've been dying to make their own. Probably so they don't have to come to my house to play with it because that means following my "no mixing" rule. I don't like my colors mixed. That's just the way it has to be. Anyway, both the making of and playing with the play-doh went wonderfully. Even though their colors aren't as cool as mine (we used food coloring and it didn't turn out very bright), they could mix away if they wanted! And normally Paraguayan children have a very difficult time being creative (creativity is severely stifled and NEVER encouraged in their school system), but they were doing great that morning! No one asked me what they should make, ideas were flowing freely and it kept them entertained for a good 30 minutes. That may not seem like much, but trust me, it is.

They left happy and content and wanting to have more art classes with me. I'm all for this, but I'm quickly exhausting my supply of low-input art projects. The one I have left is home-made paper. We'll do this soon. But I would love for anyone and everyone out there to give me their input! What else can I make with these kids? Ideally, recycled projects are the best, but anything that doesn't require a whole lot of "new" stuff would work. Just remember that I live in rural Paraguay. Help us please!!!!!!!

She's Alive!!!

(forewarning: the fonts on the post are totally funky. I can't help it. I tried...)

Hello all. Do I need to introduce myself again after that incredibly long blog break? I’m not sure what happened there…too much idleness and/or laziness? It was also so dang hot for a while that there was no way I was going to sit inside my little “shack that turns into an oven in the summer” and write anything. But now, thankfully, it’s not so hot so I can’t use that excuse anymore. I could say that I’ve been too distracted with visitors (my wonderful family came to visit in February), vacation (then we all went to Uruguay for a week of pure beach fun), and Shakira (that’s right, Shakira came to Asuncion in March), but if those things aren’t worth writing about, I don’t know what is.

I could also say that I’m just not doing much of anything in my community (as in “real” volunteer work), but, lo and behold, that has not been the case. This spring, Cristino (my main contact and host dad) and I built a ka’a vivero. Ka’a is the guarani word for yerba, the plant they harvest the leaves from to make yerba mate for drinking tereré and mate. We made two large seed beds to start with, which will hopefully produce anywhere from 1000 to 6000 seedlings. There’s a certain way to make the ka’a seed beds that involves about 7 different layers of forest soil (that has to be collected from where there is still native forest left standing…..hard to find in these parts), sawdust, organic material from a decomposing log, ash and grass to cover the top. After 5-6 months, we’ll start transplanting the seedlings into containers and our newly built, chicken-free area will become a full-fledged yerba tree nursery. Yerba saplings are selling like crazy right now, so this will hopefully be a sustainable, future income generator for my family.

When school started up again in March, I decided to suck it up and do some more work with the kids this year. My favorite thing has been brushing my teeth with the preschoolers. First I talked to them (briefly) about the importance of brushing your teeth, then I gave them all toothbrushes, and now I make sure to be at the school at least once a week so we can all brush our teeth together. It’s very cute. They all get really excited everytime they see me walking up and come running over to jump all over me. I think those ages (4-6 yrs) are my favorite. Contrast that with working with 8^th graders, who are not nearly as much fun as the little ones. I try to do cool things with the 8^th grade, mainly environmentally related activities, but it is a constant struggle. When we work in the garden, I can keep their attention for maybe 10 minutes but after that it’s all over. We did successfully make a compost pile that will eventually become a worm farming area, but I’m pretty sure that only worked because their sweet professor was hovering around keeping them all in line. She, unfortunately, could not make it the day we we’re celebrating Earth Day a month ago. That left me with 15 13-15 yr olds, 50 native tree saplings, 2 shovels, 1 hoe, and A LOT of attitude. I can’t believe how much complaining and whining I heard that day because we were planting trees around the futbol field. Somehow, despite their protests and with promises of “prizes” if they helped, I managed to corral and direct enough of them to successfully plant 20 trees. That was good enough for me and the Earth!

The last few weeks (before vacation), I’ve been working on a different ka’a project with the other volunteer, Brian, who lives near me. He wrote a project proposal to give away 50,000 yerba saplings to people in our communities who were willing come to a series of meetings discussing the merits of soil and forest conservation, reforestation, agroforestry practices and the technical aspects of planting yerba. They also have to agree to plant other native trees on their property, which we will also be giving them. The yerba companies out in this area are always on the lookout for more product to buy, so having them plant 500-1000 yerba plants will hopefully lead to 1) a decrease in the amount of acreage devoted to soy and wheat production, 2) more trees in the ground (although yerba is a fairly small tree, it is a native Paraguayan forest species) and 3) provide them with an additional, sustainable way to make more money and thus improve their living standards. I’ve spent weeks walking/riding my bike around talking to every single household in my community to see who is interested and trying to encourage more participation. Check out this link for an article in a local Paraguayan newspaper about the project:
http://www.ultimahora.com/notas/433059-En--Libertad-del-Sur-tratan-de-superar-el-monocultivo-de-soja



Last, but not least, in the beginning of May, I took my Cristino to a project development workshop put on by Peace Corps staff. He's really wanting to start a youth group in our community, so I thought this workshop could really help make his plans actually happen. It turned out to be a great experience for both of us and I wrote about it in our little Environmental Sector Peace Corps newsletter. Here's the uncut version of my "article". Please forgive the cheesiness.

We Are All Leaders

After being in site almost a year and a half, I finally took advantage of the Project Development Workshop (PDM) that Peace Corps Paraguay organizes at least once a year for any volunteer (and a contact) who is interested. Over the past 6 months, Crisitino (my contact) and I have been discussing his grand vision of developing a youth group in our community and surrounding communities that will, essentially and eventually, provide them with activities and work that encourage respect for themselves, the community and the environment. I’ve been overwhelmed just thinking about how we can make this happen, and didn’t know where in the world to begin to help him transform all his thoughts and ideas into an actual plan with obtainable goals. Then I remembered hearing very positive things about PDM from other volunteers and realized that this was the exact tool we were both needing to progress beyond the discussion stage. So, after lots of persuasion on my part, Cristino and I headed out of Itapua the first week of May for the 12 hour trip to CAFASA outside of Ypacarai.

Through the talented facilitation of the language teachers from the Peace Corps Training Center, the PDM workshop teaches how to think about and implement the steps necessary to successfully carry out a community project. It is not a requirement to attend with a project in mind, but since we had one, I felt it gave Cristino and I more motivation and direction than we may have had otherwise. Already having a general project idea to work with also allowed me to modify some of the workshop activities that seemed a little redundant, or inapplicable to our ultimate goals. This way we could focus on the parts that kept us both engaged and that helped maintain the connection between some of the more abstract concepts to the tangible reality of our community. They teach the process of project development in a fairly simple and straightforward manner, but the amount of critical thinking and attention to detail it involves is not familiar to many Paraguayans. Cristino, who I consider one of the most aware, curious and intelligent Paraguayans I have met (yes, I am biased), was unexpectedly frustrated and intimidated at times over the course of the 2 ½ days. It was just a completely new way of thinking for him that he had to quickly adapt to in order to make the most out of our time there. I adapted to his frustrations by being very strong willed and not giving in when he just wanted to stop thinking for a while. Instead, during the hard times, I realized that by giving him a little more encouragement and a little more input from my point of view, we could almost immediately get the ball rolling again.

And roll it did. Cristino and I came out of PDM with a definite plan of how he is going to accomplish the creation of a youth group. What happens after this initial creation will require more planning, critical thinking and evaluating which he will hopefully be able to do on his own, and teach others to do with him, with the tools he learned last week. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and feel that it was an extremely productive experience for both Cristino and I. I knew things were going well when, after the end of the 2^nd day’s activities, I walked past his room a couple times before dinner and he was sitting at his desk, glasses on, pen in hand, in full concentration mode, going back over the work we had done that day. My heart wanted to burst, I was so proud. My heart almost did burst the next day when, after breakfast, I heard that Cristino had given a mini-speech at his breakfast table about how he had been a little scared and very unsure of himself at the beginning of the workshop and had never thought of himself as a leader before. But now, after only a couple days of really thinking and learning and being around others in the same mindset, he realized that anyone could be a leader, including himself. For the first time in his life, he had the courage to acknowledge not only that he CAN be a leader, but that he WANTS to be a leader for his community.