I swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer two months ago.  The ceremony was beautiful. What truly made it special was that my host brother and sister from my training community came to see me off.  We exchanged a very tearful goodbye.  I miss them so much and will definitely visit them as soon as possible.  I’ve had the best luck with host families in Paraguay.  My new host family is amazing- they are very good people and the hardest workers I’ve ever met.  They are always working, whether that be in construction, fishing, maintaining or harvesting from their chacra, painting, cutting the grass, cooking, or cleaning.  And they do it all in flip flops.

A couple weeks after I first got to site, my host family took me out on their boat to one of the islands nearby to work in their chacra where they grow pineapples, melons, bananas, and mandioca.  Gliding down the canal between two densely forested islands in their boat, it finally hit me that I’m living in South America.  I harvested mandioca with my host brother Kevin by cutting down the plant and pulling out the roots forcefully but carefully so they wouldn’t break off in the ground.  Later I helped peel the mandioca with my host dad and brother.  In the time it took for me to peel one, they had each peeled three or four.

On Christmas Eve, we had a big dinner (with chicken asado for me), listened to music and danced in the driveway.  Then right at midnight, we jumped in the car and went down to the playa to visit my abuelos’ house on the playa where most of the family was congregated (shouting Feliz Navidad! to everyone we passed on the street).  Everyone was so happy to see each other when it officially became Christmas.  The kids who weren’t fast asleep shot off small firecrackers.  Then we visited my great-aunt and our neighbor for a while.  With the exception of food (predominantly sopa, a Paraguayan cake-like dish) and a couple gifts for the kids, there weren’t any gift exchanges.  On Christmas Day, we all took it easy.  This was the first Christmas I’ve ever spent away from my family and I’m so thankful that we were able to talk that morning.  While it isn’t easy being away, it was fun to celebrate the Christmas holiday season in another culture.

Have I mentioned how beautiful my community is?  There are horses everywhere!  Some are in fenced-in fields, but the majority of them roam free through the town (as do the cows and chickens).  I’m also surrounded by wetlands. It’s normal to see cows and horses “waist” deep in water munching on emerging vegetation. Cows, chickens, horses, oh my!

My primary contact during my service is the directora, or principal, of the elementary school.  I’ll be teaching English in the school to all grades, kinder through sixth, two days a week (40 minutes per grade).  I’ll also be teaching about the wildlife and ecosystems in Paraguay, animal classes and genera, the water cycle and aquifers, and local environmental issues as often as I can.  My remaining time will be spent forming and doing projects with an eco-club, working with students at the high school, working with the municipality in Ayolas (the main town about 15km away) on trash management issues and recycling, working in eco-tourism, tree planting, composting, gardening projects… and anything else I can do.

Last week, with the help of two of mi compañeros in Peace Corps, Manuel and Susannah, and a local environmental youth group Jovenos Unidos, I held an environmental summer camp for eight to twelve-year-old kids in my town.  Each day had a different theme (Animals, Plants, Water and Wetlands, Trash and Recycling) with about 20-25 kids attending each day. We had a hydrogeologist give a presentation with a water cycle model and had 50 trees donated from the Entidad Binacional Yacyreta in Ayolas. It was a success!

Although it’s a bit of a pain getting to the main town, I have a couple of Peace Corps friends here, Que suerte! There’s a panadería in town with actual coffee and decent wifi. I’m currently sitting at a table by the window watching dogs roam around the street and people sitting in chairs sharing tereré outside. It’s hot here. Coming from Texas, I didn’t think the Paraguayan heat would be that different from what I was used to during the Texas summer. But I didn’t think about the how much stronger the sun would be here or about the fact that air conditioning is a rarity.

I’ve had some interesting experiences in my site so far, including getting stuck between the iron bars of our window panes in an attempt to “help” when we all got locked out of the house (and having to be electric-sawed out of said window), and riding a borrowed bike the 15km to the closest town during a rainstorm and then getting a flat tire halfway through my journey.  Both were invaluable experiences.

This makes me wonder what people remember about me when I leave in two years. The first volunteer in my site is known for loving her dog so much that she took him back with her to the states when her service ended. They tell me this story and laugh and laugh. Hopefully they’ll remember me as someone who loved animals and nature and not as the girl that got stuck in the window. But we’ll see. I’ve got two years to do other ridiculous things.

(P.S. I wanted to add more photos to this post, but an array of technical difficulties are preventing me from doing that so I’ll leave you with this small glimpse of paradise on the river.)

Well, this is my last week in training and on Friday I’ll officially swear in as a Peace Corps Volunteer!  Then I’ll jump on a bus and head south to my site for the next two years.  Speaking of my site… a couple of weeks ago I found out that I’ll be heading to a small fishing community in the department of Missiones on the Rio Piraná near the Argentinean border.  It’s a beautiful area with welcoming people and I can’t wait to get to know everyone and to start working in the schools. 

My future host family is the sweetest and they made me feel right at home.  My host mom Delfina makes delicious juice throughout the day for me and cooks fish that her husband Lauro catches in the river.  Delfina and Lauro own a dispensa at the front of the house and are currently constructing a couple more rooms in the back of the house to host tourists.  Lauro takes tourists out on fishing trips during the fishing season.  They also have a chackra on one of the islands where they grow a ton of pineapples.  I have a 14-year old host brother named Kevin and a 4-year old host sister named Juana (mi Juanita).  I’ll be living with them for about three months until I find my own place in site.

While I’m excited to officially start my service and get to site, I’ll really miss my host family and friends here.  I’m so grateful to my training host family for welcoming me into their home, being patient with me as I stumble awkwardly over two languages, inviting me to parties of their friends and family, teaching me the ins and outs of Paraguayan life, and for everything they’ve done for me in the last three months.  I’m already ready for them to come visit me in my site.

And I’m thankful for the dope friends I’ve made through the Peace Corps community and for everything we’ve shared together in training.  A couple of weeks ago, a group of us visited Capiatá (where we went to a beautiful church and to a history museum with a room dedicated to statues of Paraguayan mythological creatures) and Areguá (where we hiked up a beautiful cerro, the Monumento Natural Cerro Koi y Chorori).  Last week we had FriendsGiving, which involved about 45 of us cooking and sharing a ton of food, friendship bracelets, and music.  We’ve been through a lot together in the last three months and I know there are many good times to come!

I Love Paraguay

The past three weeks have been filled to the brim with traveling, tree planting, gardening, tech sessions (including glass cutting, recycled art, and ecobenches), Paraguayan cooking, and a lot of empanadas.

My host brother Felix and I took the micro to San Lorenzo a couple of weeks ago and then stopped in Itá before heading home to see a laguna filled with caimans!  That was a dream come true.  I finally got to visit San Piedras to celebrate a birthday for one of my favorite AG trainees.  And then a couple of days ago, a group of us visited Villeta, a small city on the bank of the Paraguay River, for a gardening project and I got my first glimpse of Argentina from across the river.

My friend and fellow trainee Alex and I have hosted two environmental camps over the weekends for kids in our training community as part of an ongoing project.  Our first camp was themed “Arte y Animales.”  We talked about different classes of animals and the differences between mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish (in Spanish, mind you) and the types of habitats in which they live.  The kids loved drawing pictures of animals and being creative.  The second camp was themed “Arte y Basura” and involved an interactive talk about decomposition and the effect of trash on ecosystems.  We made wallets out of milk cartons and butterflies with toilet paper rolls.  We also played “Pato Pato Ganso” (a.k.a. Duck Duck Goose) with about six kids at the end of each camp.  This was kind of a disaster during the first camp- all the kids would get up and run around madly every time someone shouted “Ganso!” no matter how many times we explained the rules and showed them examples.  By the second camp, they were asking to play it again and had it down.

During training, aspirantes (trainee) get the chance to visit a current Peace Corps volunteer for a few days to get a taste for volunteer life in site.  Every site is different and ranges in size, resources, number or presence of schools, and even in language (for example, some communities are in or near cities and speak mostly Spanish while others are pretty isolated and tend to only speak Guaraní).  Our G (training group) was divided into groups of four aspirantes and one language professor and assigned a current volunteer to visit.  My group and Profe Ernesto visited Kayla in Santo Domingo, a beautiful “chuchi campo” site located approximately three hours east of our training center.

The town was breathtaking.  The roads were the richest color of orange, the trees were the brightest and yet deepest green.  Kayla arranged a host family for each of us to stay with for the duration of the visit and my host family was so sweet and hospitable.  They had a huge kokue with cattle, eucalyptus, mandioca, strawberries, cucumbers, onions, lettuce, and so much more) behind their house.  Their plot of land is shared between several members of their family and the kokue is that much larger because of it.  One of their relatives had a bin of bunnies and I felt like I was in heaven holding four tiny bunnies in my arms.  One night, my host mom made me a huge bowl of different vegetables and hard-boiled eggs from her garden for dinner with cucumber-parsley-carrot juice.

Everything depends on weather in Paraguay. As luck would have it, it rained during most of our trip and many students didn’t go to school for a couple of days in a row.  Our visit to the colegio (high school) was canceled, but we were still able to give a charla (presentation) to students at the elementary school (about decomposition, organic versus inorganic material, plastic, and littering), play soccer with the kids at recess, and plant trees with fifth and sixth graders.  Kayla also took us on the most beautiful hike to a waterfall, showed us how to set up camera traps for wildlife monitoring, and showed us a trail she and her students made through a little forest behind the colegio.  On our last day in site, our language profe taught us how to play a fun Paraguayan card game called Quince (15).  It was such a great trip. Thank you, Kayla!

I can’t even express how anxious and excited I am to find out about my future site- where I’ll be living, working, and learning for the next two years.  I find out in TWO DAYS!  Then on Thursday, I’ll meet my counterpart and together we’ll drive to my site where I’ll stay with my future host family for six days and start to meet people in my community.  After my site visit, I’ll only have a couple weeks left of training before swearing in as a volunteer and leaving my training community, training friends, and my current host family.  So wish me luck and send your good vibes my way!

And now for a few fun observations about Paraguay:

Cards are dealt to the right, counterclockwise, instead of to the left. This also goes for passing the terreré.

Pretty much every day I hear It’s a Small World Afterall playing from the ice cream vendors on bicycles.

Salad often consists of cabbage, tomatoes, and mayonnaise.

In my training community and in other communities that speak Jopara (the mixture of Spanish and Guaraní) people say “Adios” or “Adio” as they pass by.  I find myself saying this several dozen times a day.

In Guaraní, “Paraguay” actually means Asuncion, the capital of the country. “Paragu’ai” means Paraguay.

When you say goodbye in Guaraní, it’s never conclusive.  The context never indicates that you won’t be seeing them again shortly (For example, “Jajotopata” is like “hasta luego”, or see you later, but there’s no way just say “goodbye” without using Spanish).

At night after a heavy rain, hundreds of toads calling peimm peimm peimmm sound like a million laser beams sounding off back and forth across the Earth.  That, combined with the brightness of the stars and hundreds of lightening bugs, is totally magical.

When you go to someone’s house, you clap loudly several times instead of entering through their fence to knock at their door.

Paraguayans also celebrate Dia de los Muertos.  On November 2^nd and 3^rd, families gather at the gravesite(s) of their loved ones who have passed and light candles, say prayers, and hand out candy in remembrance of their loved one.  Dozens of kids play hide and seek and hunt for candy.

 

Paraguay is beautiful. This picture was taken right outside of my house yesterday.

Every morning, my host mom and I sit at the table and she helps me study Guaraní while I eat crackers with her homemade strawberry jam and drink instant coffee (which isn’t as bad as I was expecting).  She also has me take a spoonful of honey to help me retain information from my language classes.  My host family speaks Guaraní very fast and often in mumbles.  As time goes by, I’m starting to pick up on a few words here and there, poco a poco.  People light up when they hear you speak Guaraní.  Even if it’s only a couple of words or just a greeting- they love it!

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve learned so much about gardening, planting and transplanting trees and vegetables, pressing vegetation for field guides, using recycled materials to make planters and eco-bricks, how to properly plan and structure swales for erosion control, how to improve soil conditions, and so many teaching tactics and hands-on activities for environmental education.

Our group starting our vegetable garden in our training community.

An incredible chakra (vegetable garden) that’s owned and managed by one of my neighbors and her team. They’re growing lettuce, chard, beets, cilantro, onions, green onions, green peppers, and pretty much everything your heart could desire.

I’ve gotten to visit several schools now, first to observe and then to help with hands-on activities.  A couple of weeks ago, I got to spend a morning observing a sixth grade class in my training community.  The structure of the class was different from anything I’d experienced before.  The kids were sweet and hilarious- and completely fascinated by us Peace Corps people.  I can’t wait to get involved with my future community, work in schools, start an Eco Club, and get involved in tree planting, trash management, or whatever my future site wants and needs.

Last week, the Environmental Conservation sector was divided into two groups and our group of 13 people took a 5 ½ hour bus ride together to Pilar, a city south of our training community.  We were invited to stay with Para La Terra (https://www.paralatierra.org), an organization specializing in conserving habitats in Paraguay through research, public outreach, and environmental education.  Their headquarters is in Pilar, a beautiful city covered in colors and flowers.  Their building is part research facility, part museum (with a breathtaking collection of specimens), and part hostel.  Following informative and inspirational presentations from Para La Tierra staff and Peace Corps Volunteers working with the organization, we were given the opportunity to all go kayaking together to see the nature preserve and their trail project that is currently underway from the Arroyo Neembucu riverside.  The views were incredible.

Our Pilar group in front of Para la Tierra with current Peace Corps volunteers Bridgette and Chance.

We were so ready to get onto the river!

The next day, we visited another Peace Corps volunteer, Emily, outside of Pilar.  She has been working with an elementary school (escuela) and a high school (colegio) in her community and has made amazing strides towards getting the students interested in and excited about the environment.  We were able to help her carry out activities for the students that were related to wildlife and the environment.  The elementary school students had a blast playing animal games (despite their attention span being pretty limited).  For the high school students, we facilitated a wildlife scavenger hunt around their school grounds (with a focus on birds).  They loved it and it was so encouraging to see everyone actively participating and interested in the material.

A few interesting observations, experiences, and tidbits about Paraguay and my life here:

• Directions between Peace Corps Trainees in my town include things like, “It’s next to the two cows” (“cerca de los dos vacas”).
• Many people drive motos and it’s completely normal for 4-6 people to be on one moto together (two adults and two or three kids, a woman holding a baby and two kids, etc.).
• Paraguayans can party. If you go to a fiesta or a town festival, don’t expect people to be ready to leave until about 5:00-6:00 AM.
• Machetes are used for everything, including cutting crops, the grass, bamboo, breaking up animal fodder, and for slaughtering. There are different types of machetes, some are used for basic household/backyard tasks and others are used in the fields or for more laborious tasks.  Kids start practicing with machetes early, and it’s common to see kids as young as five playing with a machete in the street with their friends.
• Almost everyone in my town plays music in their casas throughout the day. There’s a pleasant mixture of modern American pop music and Guarani polka that encompasses the town (the younger versus older generations). A few days ago I even heard a random country song coming from someone’s yard when I was walking back from the Centro.
• After it rains (and it rains a lot), the mosquitos, flies, and gnats are everywhere. It gets a little difficult to focus when gnats are flying into your eyes, you’re drenched in sweat, and the air is stagnant and humid.  Speaking of creepy crawlies, there were leeches on the walls of the shower the other night after a heavy storm. The good news is that with the rain come the sapos (toads, or kururu in Guaraní) and I love them.

Me with a handsome kururu (sapo, toad).

Mi mama is a hair dresser and she made my hair chuchi (fancy) for a fiesta with my host sister and brother.

Mi abuela makes beautiful Ñanduti, which is a traditional Paraguayan embroidered lace.

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Last but DEFINITELY not least, today is my beautiful mama’s birthday- she’s the cream of the crop and I’m missing her like crazy. I wish I could celebrate with her today in person, but she knows I’m thinking about her from afar ❤ Happy birthday Mama!

 

 

It’s been about two and a half weeks since I arrived in Paraguay and began the three months of training with my G-54 Peace Corps group.  Our group falls within two Peace Corps sectors, Environmental Conservation and Agriculture.  I’m in the Environmental Conservation sector and will eventually be working in schools (and hopefully digging into the Agricultural side too) once I complete training and am relocated to my permanent site for the next two years.

With the amount of material (language, culture, technical) I’ve learned so far and with the number of activities I’ve done during that amount of time with school, my host family, and friends, it feels like I’ve been here for at least two months!  I’m taking idioma classes for two languages, Spanish (for which I’m currently at a low intermediate level) and Guaraní (an indigenous language native to Paraguay). Most people in Paraguay speak Jopará, which is a mix of the two languages (Jopará is from the Guaraní word for “mix”).  I’m staying very busy with classes, assignments and projects, material to study, and family activities every day.

Some technical skills I’ve gained in classes so far include how to:

• make and maintain an effective compost pile (and corresponding worm casting)
• make beautiful planters from old car tires and recycled material
• tackle basic planting and gardening projects
• make a durable fence out of bamboo using only a machete, a shovel, and wire
• make a variety of delicious Paraguayan food (my current favorite being empanadas)

My host family for these first three months includes mi mama Nancy (who is a hair dresser and has a little studio in the front room of our house), mi papa Felis (who works for the newspaper and works from the mid-afternoon until after midnight every night of the week), mi hermano Felix (who is 24 years old and works on motos), mi hermana Jessica (who is 16 and is a student), and mi abuela (who is adorable and about 80 years old).  My host mom cooks me food, sends me to school with a packed lunch, often walks me to school in the mornings, and does a lot of my laundry.  My host brother has been a huge help with Spanish and is always dropping knowledge.

During siesta and on the weekends, my host family sits on the front porch together and shares terreré, the national drink of Paraguay and a staple of Paraguayan culture.  Everyone sits together and shares a single cup (guampa) and the same metal straw (bombilla).  Inside the guampa is a type of yerba mate dry mixture.  A pitcher (jarra) of water containing many herbs (remedios yuyos like mint, tarope, baldo, santa lucia, sometimes rosemary) is used to add water to the yerba mate mixture and this is passed around to everyone sharing the terreré.

Some interesting things I’ve observed so far in Paraguay include:

• watching people walk their cows
• sharing almost all beverages with other people (drink and pass)
• the food tends to contain a lot of starches and sugar
• bombas, or fireworks, go off every day because someone somewhere is having a fiesta
• people tend to immediately tell you their impressions of you, whether that be “rubia” (blond), “linda” (pretty), “flaca” (skinny), “gorda” (heavy), etc.
• that roosters do not only crow at dawn (it’s more like 1:30am-6:00am)

I was a pescatarian for over a decade before joining the Peace Corps, which is a difficult diet to maintain in Paraguay.  I’ve opened up my diet to include chicken (which is easier for me considering everything is local instead of being mass-produced). That being said, the roosters have been giving me a hard time at all hours of the night. One morning I came out of my room to eat breakfast before heading to school and my host mom led me into the backyard to show me what she was preparing for lunch.  I walked outside and saw mi abuela plucking feathers out of our now dead rooster.  After many sleepless nights, I was delighted.  My family prepares chicken for me for pretty much every meal.  Everyone laughs at me for not eating pork or beef, but they sure love that I want to eat all the roosters.

Peace Corps Paraguay G-54 choo choo!

My cute escuela.

Me with my host sister and mom on the first night we met (which just so happened to be my birthday). They sang Happy Birthday to me in both Spanish and Guarani!

Me and my host sister Jessica!

Me with my barrio (neighborhood) Peace Corps amigos and my host parents on their 25 year wedding anniversary!

Me with my host brother Felix!

My host mom holding my lunch.