This means that a whole new bunch of aspirantes (trainees) are on the ground in Paraguay ready to save the world (mis pesimas muchachos!), and are going through their training period right now. My bosses sent out four of the aspirantes and one of their trainers to my site for Long-Field-Practice. The basic idea of it all is that trainees spend a week living with Paraguayan families in a rural community working on projects with seasoned volunteers (hi).
Anyways, I'm happy to say it was a roaring success.
We built a fogon for my host mom, Ña Dora. I haven't talked a whole lot about my attempts to start commissions in my site, but I've basically gotten nowhere on that front. Anyways, I bought some bricks, Peace Corps bought the stove-top and oven, and the trainees, I and a volunteer named Franco constructed the oven.
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Of course, there's a larger debate here about how I shouldn't be doing work like this unless the community itself is willing to work to get these items, but I'm tired of pushing and pushing and getting nowhere.
And the bottom line is that I'm sick of the fact that my host mom - who has taught me, suffered my ignorance and clueless gringo-ness, who has shown me a mountain of kindness and generosity - has had to cook on the ground hunched over a smoky fire for the last sixty years. So I'm saying its rent and calling it a day...
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The trainees - Riso, Jenny, Eric and Emily - did a fantastic job. They spent their time integrating with families, they worked really hard, and they all had freakishly good attitudes, despite two having diarrhea.
They also worked on two charlas, which they gave at the elementary school on their last day in the community. I've got a feeling I'll be getting the question "When are your friends coming back???" a lot for the next couple of months.
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To top it all off, Franco and I built a brocal around my well, which means that cow poop will no longer be able to (potentially) run into said well during really heavy rainstorms.
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