Site presentation, abono, and pique

"So what do you do all day??"

Just like everything else in Peace Corps, "it depends."

Since I finally arrived in site, I have been shuttling between families, living with each for a week or two, and then moving on. The idea is that I'll integrate much faster into the community and meet a lot more people this way. Right now, I'm staying with the family of a man named Teofilo, who owns some cows and makes his living growing cash crops. He's also the leader of the agricultural commission and on the board of the neighbors commission. (More on him and his family later.)

In any event, after three weeks, my boss came and presented me officially to the community. About 75(ish) people showed up for the event, which was held at the local high school/escuela basica.

Antonio, the director of the escuela basica, spoke first. Then my boss spoke, explaining my official role to the community.

After that, I spoke. Basically a "I'm very happy to be here and I hope we can do a lot in the next two years" kind of speech.

then Antonio, the director, surprised me. He'd gotten some of the high school girls to perform a dance for the event. After them, we heard a performance of a traditional song, and then there was another dance.

Finally, several school kids presented me with a canasta, (fruit basket) a 10 pound mandioca root, and two liters of milk. All in all, a fantastic day.

as for my day-to-day schedule, I have been meeting regularly with different families that don't have vegetable gardens, and helping them start them. For the people who do, I have been teaching them how to make better abono (or compost). In the afternoons, I visit new families, do laundry, play soccer, and sip terere.

Then there's the creepy crawly side of things. This morning I woke up to an annoying pain on the bottom of my foot. There was a small raised black dot in the middle of what looked like a blister. Turned out it was pique - or a larva that had burrowed its way into my foot.

Don't worry, I cut it out.

That's all for now, questions? Photos - of the site presentation, not the worm - to come.

And a few more pics

These are from my visit to La Colmena, a town that was populated with a huge group of Japanese people. Yesterday, for Mother's day, they had a parade and celebration. That first picture of me is with the extended family of one of my contacts. Anyways, there it is. Hope everybody's doing well.

what i've been up to...

As you know if you read the last post, I got to Portrero Pucu on the 4th of May with a raging case of strep throat. I'm not sure how I contracted it, but sometime on the weekend after swear-in, I started getting a splitting headache and extreme fatigue. It continued through the weekend, and on Monday, I decided to scrap my plans to come to site early in the day, and humped my gear to Asuncion and Medical Mary.
So I arrived at site later that day with some Azithromycin, strep, and a fever. I spent a night trying to sleep while the fever broke. By the end of the next day, I was feeling quite a bit better. (The double doses of extra strength Tylenol might have had something to do with that.)

As I placed my gear in the room where I'd stay the first week, I suddenly got hit by a throat constricting anxiety - I'd made it through training, I was in site - what the hell would I do now? After the initial anxiety passed, mini-flashes of it passed through me...about every five minutes.

Anyways, I spent the first couple of days hanging out at the school, renewing some connections I'd made on my first visit here a month ago. I made plans to start a huerta (veggie garden) at the school, had a couple of guarani lessons, washed my clothes... I also cooked spaghetti with sauce (success!) and pancakes (fail...) for the family I was staying with. I also started the first of my many vegetable garden projects. This past Wednesday, I moved into the house of the family of the director of the local middle school.

But to return to yesterday for a second... It was the feast of the Virgen Fatima del Rosario. (I think that's her name) We celebrated by having a baptism of the four members of the village born in the last year, a small parade, and then a lunch of noodles, chicken, and a lot of vino mixed with soda. Then we all piled into my contact's car and headed to Franco-y (literally, little Franco), for their party. They'd set up a dance floor where vaquerros put their horses through a dance routine to Paraguayan polka. (Photos to follow)

The next day , amidst a mountain of rumors that I had *gasp* DRUNK WINE! and DANCED WITH SOMEONE!!!, we started the removing the sod where we are going to put our huerta in the school. For now, we're going to plant carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, beans, chard, spinach, cucumber, squash, beets, onions, garlic, and melon.

Afterwards, my contact and I drove to the town of Paraguari to buy groceries. I ran into my friend Stephen in the cyber there, then came home and cooked spaghetti for my current host family, though a slightly nicer version than before. I used a pound of steak, cut into chunk, breaded, and fried with garlic. Then I sauteed onions and tomato chunks, added some oil, oregano, tomato puree, salt, and milk. Success!

pics

Top photos are from in site. Urban shots are of Asuncion. And me with flag is from swearing in as a PCV.

Hello all

I´ve been hampered lately by terrible internet access. When I can get to a cyber, I´ll be posting pictures of some of my contacts, more of portero pucu, the veggie gardens i´ve helped start, and most importantly, horses dancing to the waltz.

ciao

And now, a big shout out

My friend Trude Raizen swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda a couple of days ago, on the 5th. Besides being a friend from way, way, WAY back (junior year in high school I think), Trude and I started our Peace Corps applications within a month of each other, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had the cojones (cajones?) to pull this stunt off without her tough love.

Her blog is here: http://enrootrwanda.blogspot.com/

Word to the wise - apparently she has way too much time and energy on her hands, she posts almost daily. Don't get any ideas, people...

Training's over, HERE WE GO!!!!

So training is finally over. We swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers on Friday. There was a speech by the Ambassador and by our boss, Don Clark, and then Rob (our super guapo/leader volunteer) gave an excellent speech - I don't remember a whole lot except for one line about "our only assured immortality being the memory of the acts that we leave behind," or something to that effect.

Anyways, then we had some cake and explored Asuncion over the next couple of days. It was a bit of a shock, being cooped up together as a unit for the last 11 weeks, and then to find ourselves surrounded by other volunteers.

Needless to say, there was some dancing and barhopping over the course of the weekend by many in our group. We also had a sort of "sports day" with Koica and JICA volunteers - basically volunteers doing the same work as us but from Korea and Japan. There are also fewer of them, and from what I've heard, they have a *ahem!* higher standard of living than we do.

It was great though. We played some kickball, ultimate frisbee, soccer and volleyball together. It was a great time. Over the weekend, I ate brazilian steak, drank a gin and tonic, had PIZZA HUT, and a few of us even managed to find a korean restaurant near Mercado Cuatro, a huge, open air market in the middle of the city. On Sunday, I returned to Santo Domingo to say goodbye to Na Marie, Lissa, and Eva, and to pack my things.
Of course, in the middle of all this, I started feeling wretched (and it wasn't the partying!). On Tuesday, before coming to Portrero Pucu, I went into Asuncion to talk to the doctors. Turns out that I had a fever of over 100, and le strep throat. By the time I got to site later that day (dehydrated and overheated, but medicated), the fever was probably a few degrees higher. Anyhoo, fear not - the meds I'm on knocked it out later that night, and I was fine, but for waking shivering in pools of sweat. TMI?

..........................

So this ends my time as a Peace Corps Trainee. I'm officially a Volunteer, and we are now at T-2 years and counting. I've been thinking a lot about what I've learned through this process, how I might have changed, how I might change in the future. See below...

First, I'm learning how to handle awkward and uncomfortable better. This is a skill I think I'd already started to develop as a reporter - it's not particularly fun or easy to ask a man how his mother was shot to death by her cracked out boyfriend for a story on deadline. And I've done that. But where reporting sometimes required a more direct, take-no-prisoners-approach, being in Peace Corps is making me learn patience. Especially patience to hang in the unknown, and just wait, and to find some measure of comfort stretched out like that. When we first applied, we had no idea if we'd be accepted. Then, no idea where we'd be sent. Then, no idea, really, what our countries would be like. Then, how our families in training would be like.

At every turn, we were told "It depends." (This becomes the inside joke/swear-word of all volunteers.) "What's it going to be like? Oh wait....it depends."
From there, we had to put our old lives in a box, and get acclimated to a new country, new friends, and a totally new schedule - one with minimal privacy, minimal contact with home, and no internet or cellphones the vast majority of the time. Quelle disastre!

And JUST as we finally had wrapped our heads around that situation, our training ended, and now we're scattering to the corners of Paraguay, where now, practically every second I (and I know from conversations with my friends) wonder "what the heck do I do now?"

Another thing I've learned more about is thinking big picture/keeping things in perspective. being a Rural Health Volunteer is to be a 2-year-unit in a 6-year rotation that my bosses have set up. As a first time volunteer, I'll be building lots of human infrastructure, like setting up committees, teaching the people here leadership skills and how to lobby different parts of the government for the changes they want and need. I'll also be working on long-term behavioral change, as in changing tooth-brushing habits, or daily diets, or encouraging more exercise. Its a job where I might see very few direct results - quite a bit different than banging out the hundred or so stories I wrote back in Philadelphia.

So, here's to perspective.

That's all for now. Sorry I can't post photos, but my internet in site is incredibly slow. I'll try from a cyber later this week.