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.