Big News

So the decisions have been made and we have finally been informed of our sites for the next two years. Yours truly is headed down to Libertad del Sur. It´s in one of the poorest parts of the country, in the department of Itapua in the far southeast of Paraguay. Apparently there´s been a lot of deforestation going on over the past 20 years to make room for large foreign-owned soy and wheat plantations. What forest remains is the last bit of the BAAPA (I´m not sure what that stands for, but it´s something about the Atlantic Forest--google it). The BAAPA used to cover about 70% of the country, but now only 3% of it is left. Sounds like I have lots of work and challenges ahead of me, but I´m excited about it all. Right now I´m in the city of Encarnacion waiting for the bus to Libertad del Sur. The next 5 days are our formal ¨site visit¨, where we stay with a ´contact´ who is supposed to start showing us around the place. My contact speaks very little Spanish, just like the rest of the community, so there´s going to be a lot of sitting around staring at each other while they talk about me in Guarani and I have no idea what´s going on. Good times..... I´m the first volunteer in this site so no one is going to have any idea why this crazy Norte is hanging around talking about trees and soil. Fortunately, there´s another volunteer just a few kilometers away from me so that´s going to make life very nice when I desperately need to speak English.

For those of you interested in knowing a little bit more about this place, you can google Procosara, which is an NGO working in the area to spread environmental awareness and help save what´s left of the forest. I´m sure I´ll be working with them at some point. In addition, the US Forest Service is actually involved in work in this part of Paraguay and I´m going to be meeting up with them the second week of December. Apparently there´s also a huge garden at the local school and the school also has a worm composting project which they make a lot of money off of by selling the castings to a local cooperative of some sort. I´m very excited about it all right now. My attitude may change after spending the next 5 days there, but I hope not.

I´ll be back in Guarambare next Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. A lot of us Peace Corps trainees are getting together to make a huge meal and celebrate in style. To all of my relatives reading this right now: I would absolutely love to talk to the fam on Thanksgiving. I´m thinking the easiest and cheapest way for me to do this will be on Skype. I´ll be able to get to a computer and log onto my Skype account around 5:00 or 6:00 pm my time, which is 4 or 5 hours ahead of you (I´m not sure which one). So, wherever everyone is, i.e. Rob and Carole´s house, Hal and Patt´s house or wherever, make sure there is someone with a Skype account. You can easily make one if you don´t already have one. My Skype username is leahguay, so look me up on Skype and add me to your contact list. Also, email me your Skype username so I can add you to my contact list and call you as soon as I get on the internet on Thursday. My email is: leahmro@gmail.com. And keep your computers on and logged onto Skype that day.

Wish me luck this week!!!!!!!!

Campo livin´

One more week of campo livin´ can now be checked off my list. We just returned from what Peace Corps calls ¨Long Field Practice¨, and I am glad to be back with my host family where there are no bugs that leave me looking like I have chicken pox. That´s right, my body is covered in red, itchy spots---and I mean covered and they´re not from mosquitos. This is my first experience with bedbugs or mbymby or whatever these little biting critters may be and it is not fun. I really hope that wherever I end up for the next 2 years does not have the same thing. But enough about my bodily problems......... The rest of the trip was pretty fun and eye-opening and a good prep for our lives as volunteers. We traveled about 5 hours away, some of the trip on horrendous dirt roads, and reached the site of a current volunteer who was our host for the week. He put us up with host families and introduced us to all of the projects he has been working on for the past 2 years. My host family, a young couple with two little boys, was very sweet and, thank god, spoke a little bit of Spanish. The only bad part about staying with them was the horrible bug bits that I must have acquired at their house. It rained A LOT while we were there, to the point that we thought we may be stuck out there for quite a while. But the last day the clouds cleared, the sun came out and the roads dried enough for us to leave. The coolest thing we did was begin the process of building a stove/oven for a family out of sand and clay. It´s called a Lorena stove, for those who are interested, and it starts with a sand/clay block that you let dry and then carve out holes for the the pots on top and a hole in the side for the fire and then tunnels connecting them all. It´s pretty cool and supposed to be much more efficient than cooking over open fires. I hope that I can make more of them once I start doing real projects in my site.

Speaking of, I find out this Wednesday where my site for the next 2 years is going to be. Exciting and nerve-racking, all at the same time. This also means that training is getting closer to being over--yay!!! Until I have more news, here are some pictures..........

The storm rolling in...........

The volunteer´s house at his site. This is the typical style of a volunteer´s house when they build them themselves. We were hangin´out on the porch watching the storm get closer.

A nest of spiders living on the porch of the volunteer´s house......freaky

The two little boys at the house where I stayed. They were very cute and sweet and liked to climb all over me. That´s there dad´s moto in the back, which is the main form of transportation in the campo

Me and Jake mixing up the sand and clay for the Lorena Stove

A nice view of the Paraguayan countryside

Walking back a little late after building the stove all afternoon

A beautiful sunset I managed to capture

I´ve never loved the rain so much in my life

It rained today!!!!!!!!!! I´ve been waiting for this for a good 2 weeks. It rained all last night and all this morning and now the temperature has dropped to at least 30 C. I´m loving life again.

This will be a short post because not much has happened since the last one, but since I made it to the internet cafe today, I couldn´t neglect the blog. Something a little crazy did happen last night that I may as well talk about. Right before it started raining, I was sitting in my room, reading Collapse by Jarod Diamond (which i am really getting into right now and highly recommend), when my host sister, Marianna, opens my door hysterical and crying and saying her mom (my host mom) is not feeling well. I rush outside to where they are and find my host mom slumped in a chair and Marianna screaming at her to wake up. I helped Marianna get her out of the chair and onto the ground, where my host mom then goes unconcious. Keep in mind, I have no idea what the hell is going on and definitely do not have the language skills to ask such questions in a time of crisis. The grandmother from across the yard comes over and is also trying to wake her up and putting cold things on her head. I totally thought she was either dying or dead. I kept feeling for a pulse, but couldn´t find one. I was getting so worked up about it at this point that I almost passed out, too. Marianna kept screaming and calling people on her cell phone, while the grandmother keeps saying her name over and over and massaging her limbs. My host mom is diabetic so I assumed she was in some sort of insulin shock. I also thought for sure that they were calling people with a vehicle to come and get her and take her to a hospital. But no. Some neighbors come by, my host dad finally gets home from who knows where, and truck comes, but no one really does anything different. They just keep putting cool things on her head and saying her name and massaging her limbs. I thought they were crazy and wanted to yell and scream and tell them to get her to a doctor, but I don´t know how to say the in Guarani yet. Or Spanish, for that matter. Eventually, after at least 30 minutes of her being unconcious, she starts to come to and they´re able to move her to a chair and one of the first things she asks is if I still need my tea (I had not been feeling well that day). I assured her that I was fine, relatively, and that no, of course I don´t need any tea right now! The whole situation was absolutely crazy and I had a very difficult time sleeping last night. When my language teachers came for our language class this morning, I asked them to talk to my family so they could explain to me what the hell happened. Apparently, she had just worked herself up into a frenzy and passed out, maybe a panic attack, unhealthy conditions, she had been at the funeral of her uncle the day before, her son was being confirmed the next day, etc., etc., etc. I still don´t really buy it, but I guess that´s what happened. Hopefully it does not happen again. It really opened my eyes to some of the health problems I may be witness to once I´m out in the campo, where a trip to the doctor is not an option. (Except for me, of course. Dont´worry. I can always call the PC medical people and they´ll come pick me up immediately). I hope I can help if the need arises, at least more than I did last night.

We´re all leaving for what they call Long Field Practice next week for the whole week. We´re going to another volunteer´s site to get more of a taste of what it´s like to be a volunteer and practice some of the things that we may be doing as volunteers. The host family I stay with will probably only speak Guarani, so it should be interesting, to say the least. The week will be full of awkward sitations. But that´s what the Peace Corps is all about.

Until next time----

Hakueterei

It is HOT down here. The title of this post, “hakueterei”, means “it’s really hot” in Guaraní. And that’s pretty much what everyone says at least once an hour, if not more. For the last week or so it’s been hovering right around 40°C (~105°F) with no rain and it doesn’t cool off much at night. What’s really bad is that it’s only Spring right now so I can’t imagine how I’m going to survive the Summer. Wish me luck.

A few of us from my agroforestry group decided that we needed to spend last Saturday afternoon drinking some beer to help battle the heat and to celebrate Halloween. It’s a good hour walk into the nearest town where this can occur, and we have class on Saturday mornings, so of course we didn’t start walking until 3:00 pm. Did I mention how hot it is? Especially in the middle of the afternoon? Anyway, we managed to complete the trek all nice and dehydrated and ready to drink some liters of really light, weak Brahma beer. The local favorite. And the only option, I might add. We had a great time, spoke lots of English and in general recuperated from the past week of language and technical classes. Before we knew it, it was too late to walk home (not supposed to walk in the dark) so we decided to stay in town for the Paraguayan Halloween fiesta that was going on and take a taxi home later. Fiestas like these don’t really start hoppin’ until pretty late at night, like 11:00 or 12:00, but by 9:00 pm we had nothing else to do but help start the party early. The bumpin’ music led the way to the big, open field where we paid the admission and started dancing to the odd mix of reggaeton and polka. Keep in mind, however, that there weren’t many Paraguayans there yet at this hour and the ones that were there were sitting in chairs surrounding the obvious dancing area in front of a huge stage. If not for the stage and the music, you would not have been able to tell that this was a big outdoor fiesta. But that did not stop us Nortes from dancin’ and dancin’ and dancin’, with all Paraguayan eyes on us because there was no one else on the dance floor for a good hour or two. I can’t imagine what they were thinking, nor do I want to. Eventually the party really started going and we were joined by others, but that did not help hide the obvious American-ness of us. At their dancing max, Paraguayans tend to move around about as much as my grandma (no offense, grandma) which is encouraged by their regular dancing formation of two long lines facing each other. Needless to say, us Nortes did not join the lines and my flailing hippie dance must have shocked and appalled the onlookers. But it was by far the most fun I’ve had so far. We danced and laughed so much for so long that my whole body was sore the next day. Even without costumes, that will be a memorable Halloween.

To top off a great weekend, I went to my first real fútbol game on Sunday. Olympia vs. 12 de Octubre (lots of things are named after dates around here, like towns and streets and fútbol clubs). Our group consisted of a few Americans and a few Paraguayans, so it was quite the cultural experience. We had to take a couple buses and walk a lot to get to the stadium where we sat for at least an hour, in direct sun, before the game started. It was so freakin’ hot I thought I was melting (I told you, we talk about how hot it is constantly). But I didn’t melt and the game began and the crowd in our section was on their feet the whole time. They also sang. The entire time. Complete with drums and waving flags and banners. Seriously, the energy never let up, even though “our” team lost. It was a very cool experience. I especially enjoyed watching a player from the other team trying to make a corner kick while at the same time dodging flying bottles being thrown over the fence from the heckling crowd. And then watching the police riot squad escorting the referees out of the stadium after the game. I love Latin America.

One last note: If anyone is dying to send me anything, I could REALLY use notecards and folders. Normal, school folders with the pockets on the inside do not exist here in Paraguay and I have so many loose pieces of paper from training that I´m about to go crazy. The notecards are for flashcards, also made of a material that does not exist here. Thanks, in advance, if anyone pulls through....

All´s well

Not much to write about today, but I´m catching you all up with some pictures that I´ve been meaning to post for a while. My health is back up to par, no need to worry. I´m taking Ciproflaxin, so anything living in my stomach or intestines is bound to be dead by now. Our agroforestry group spent the weekend at a sweet agroforestry demonstration farm so now we´re all pumped as to the possiblities when we finally get to our sites. Anyway, here are the photos:

My hose mom (left) and aunt (right) in the kitchen with some of the dead, or soon to be dead, chickens

One of our many dogs, Monito, chewing on a chicken foot. Priceless.

Part of the mess of the chicken harvest. In an obviously very sterile environment....

This is me milking my first cow. I was pretty bad at it (it´s much harder than it looks for you cityfolk out there) but I´ve since done it a couple more times and have definitely picked up the skill

This is a wall in one of the houses at the volunteer´s site whom I visited a couple of weeks ago. Those are armadillo shells hanging on the wall, some painted green, because that´s what they hunt around there for fun. I think it´s just funny.

This is what that volunteer´s site looks like. It´s in one of the prettiest areas of Paraguay, so I hear.

Part of the agroforestry gang, drinking beers at the local bar, Papu´s.

A sweet picture of a butterfly I took today when visiting a tree nursery at a University near Asuncion

While at the university, we also went to the taxidermy museum. So this is me with some weird stuffed animals.

Let´s discuss, then discuss how we discussed, then evaluate the discussion of the discussion

Kind of a long title, but that has been the theme lately down here. Even though it´s easy to forget sometimes, the Peace Corps is a government organization and that means that the paperwork never ends. And I mean never. I think I´ve filled out at least 5 different evaluations in the last week, one of them taking over an hour. We have to evaluate our language trainers, our technical trainers, ourselves, how the training is going overall and on and on and on. They keep telling us that every minute counts during training, but I´m not so sure those minutes are counting for much.

I have yet another evaluation coming up next week, but this time someone else is evaluating my language skills. Yikes! I need to reach an intermediate-mid level in Spanish so I can move on to the Guarani classes. As much as I would like to continue in Spanish and become much better than a mere intermediate, knowing Guarani in Paraguay is essential if I ever want anyone to listen to what I have to say. I´m feeling confident that I´ll pass, but who knows, I may totally freeze up and forget how to say ¨My name is.....¨. That´s happened before. But I´ve been speaking in at least 3 tenses regularly and my vocabulary is improving and I tend to get the gist (most of the time) of what people are saying. I´d say I can communicate pretty well with 10 year olds, and that must be an intermediate-mid level, right?

I actually have plenty of time to write this blog post right now, which is in stark contrast to the weekly 20 minutes I have to dash into the internet cafe during lunch when we go into Guarambare for the day for classes. And why, you ask, do I suddenly have so much time and on a Friday, no less? Well, I´ve been feeling pretty bad lately, physically, alternating between absolutely nothing coming out of my body and weird, not good things coming out. I´ll spare you the details. But I kind of freaked out yesterday and finally called the PC doctor. The 200 or so of us PC trainees/volunteers in Paraguay have 2 full time medical doctors on hand 24 hours a day to deal with whatever problems we may be having, so they´re pretty attentive. Anyway, the doctor thought we needed to do some tests, so I was driven to Asuncion last night and Dr. Luis totally hooked me up with a swanky hotel (on the US Govn´t tab, of course). I got to sleep in a real bed with a real mattress (which I didn´t leave for about 12 hours), take a real shower with hot water, watch a flatscreen TV, eat an awesome breakfast and now get the use of free, non-rushed internet time. Ahhhh, the life. I´m feeling so much better already, in part, I think, because I haven´t had to eat a plate full of starch or fried food for the last 24 hours. Seriously, this has been a huge problem for me. It´s not the meat that´s so bad, it´s all the freakin´starch. My body can´t handle pasta twice a day, every day, with very, very few vegetables. I´m still waiting to hear from Dr. Luis about the results of my blood test, but he thinks it´s some kind of bacterial infection, like E. coli or something. Easily treated with a nice dose of Cipro, killing every living thing inside of my stomach. But at least I don´t feel like I´m going to die, which I´ve felt before in other countries. That should make all you worriers reading this right now (i.e. parents, grandparents) feel much better :)

Thanks for all the comments I´ve been getting on these blog posts! I´m sorry I haven´t responded to any of them, but my internet time has been so limited that it´s been impossible. But don´t let that stop you from leaving more because I love to hear from all of you!

A real live PC volunteer

I just stepped off of the bus from a 4 day long trek into uber ¨campo¨ Paraguay. ¨Campo¨ is how they describe backwoods, rural living here in PY, and I didn´t have a clue what it really meant until this most recent trip. If you all thought my current living situation with no running water, a wood fire for cooking and an hour walk into ¨town¨ was campo, you thought wrong. I visited a volunteer named Doug who is first time volunteer, meaning he is the first volunteer to ever live in his site. It´s in a beautiful part of the country, with rolling hills, some volcanic features, wetlands and lots of trees (at least where they haven´t been cut down yet). It´s near the town of Ybucuí, for those of you wanting to see it on a map. Doug met me in Ybucuí and then we rode the bus for another two hours, mostly on very red dirt roads. Where the bus dropped us off, we had another 2 hour walk before we finally made it to his site (and this is what he does every time he wants to leave). His community is set in the bottom of a narrow valley, with steep walls on either side. There are about 25 houses, total, and all are made of wood planks and most have grass roofs. There´s electricity that runs up the valley, but most families cannot affort it. Everyone speaks Guarani and hardly anyone speaks Spanish, so I communicated very little with them, except through Doug. He also lives in a thatched roof, one-room wooden structure that he had to have built after living there with families for awhile. It was super comfy inside (he let me sleep at his place while he slept at his neighbor´s) but also kind of like camping for two years. The latrine is just a hole in the ground out back behind his house, with no walls around it and he told me I could dump some water on myself back in the trees to shower, but I just decided not to bathe for a few days instead. Like I said, just like camping.

All the families we visited were very friendly, of course, and very welcoming. We made bread one day in a fogón (an efficient wood-burning stove/oven that a lot of NGO´s push out here) while the rain poured down all around us. We visited a few of the farmers he has been working with and I was amazed with what they´re able to accomplish with many of their fields on the steep hillsides. We also just drank tereré and chatted (well, he chatted) with a handful of families because that´s one of his main jobs as a first time volunteer. They only way they´ll ever listen to anything he has to say about agroforestry is if they trust him, and that only develops if there is lots of communication and obvious effort on his part to get to know them. Doug also has an awesome vegetable garden that we raided daily so I was finally able to eat something other than starch and meat. Yay!!! He also has a french press and coffee from the states, so my mornings were a dream.

All in all, it was a great time. Being a peace corps volunteer is not an easy job, that´s for sure, but I´m pretty sure I´m up for the challenge. These next 6 months are going to be super busy and full of ups and downs, but I think I can make it past that to the point where I make Paraguayan friends, have a real community, get to cook for myself and get to sit in a hammock and read for hours every now and then. Until then, however, it´s all business. And right now, that´s what I´m getting back to. Ciao.