United Nations Millennium Development Goal 2.A.: “Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling”
But does that really matter if they aren’t learning anything in the schools?
[note: this post is slightly lengthier than normal, I realize. But I think it is quite informative if you are interested to know exactly what I am doing in Paraguay, and more generally, the real ‘change’ or work that the Peace Corps does.]
John F. Kennedy, in order to answer a call from the youth of America who wanted to help people in other countries, created the Peace Corps in 1961. Or so the legend goes. Since then the PC has been met with criticism from abroad and the U.S. alike. It has been called a tool of United States imperialism, furthering U.S. interests abroad under the guise of ‘peace.’ In the widely read book Lies my Teacher Told me, James Loewen says emphatically that the greatest benefit of the Peace Corps is the intellectual growth of its volunteers. Before joining the PC one of the factors that almost deterred me was that I did not want to feel like I was imposing myself on a community in a third world country that did not want me there. Fortunately, this is not the case in Kilometro 16. I feel that as an Early Elementary Education Advisor I will be of great use to my community in the next year and a half, and this post will explain why.
At the end of the school year, I administered basic reading evaluations to Kindergarten through third grade classes in the three local schools, and the results were a little bit frightening, at least for me. None of the kindergartners could identify even a single word. Of 35 first graders, 24 were able to identify at least 5 words, but of those 24 only one was able to respond to questions after reading a first grade-level reading passage. In second grade, of 29 of 36 students were able to decode words, but of those 36 just eight were able to correctly answer at least 6 of 10 questions to pass a comprehension test on a First grade level reading passage. And finally in 3rd grade, just 3 students couldn’t decode any words, but of the other 25 students, just 14 were able to answer at least 6 of 10 on a first grade test, a figure that would have been lower if I considered the fact that one of my teachers was basically giving the students the answers to the questions.
Let me reiterate: no kindergartners can read a single word. That’s 5 and 6 year-olds, who are extremely ripe for the learning by developmental standards. A forth of 1st graders can’t read, and almost no first graders can read a short paragraph and summarize it. Less than a forth of 2nd graders can read and summarize. And finally approximately half of third graders have that skill. And I have tried to get even 5th graders to write original pieces, albeit a 3 sentence letter to their friend, which is done with great difficulty. In the U.S., to juxtapose, when I was working in a kindergarten classroom I saw a little 5 year old write an original paragraph and who was able to read short novels, while even one of the kids who was a little bit further down on the learning curve was able to recognize 20 words by the end of the school year.
This lack of literacy in the primary grades is extremely concerning for several reasons. Many students, as a result of poor early elementary instruction, still either can’t read at all in 4th grade and beyond, or else they can pronounce the words but do not think about the meaning of what they are ‘reading’ and thus comprehend almost nothing. Writing skills are sub,sub-par as well. Far behind their age level standard once they reach junior high and high school, many will drop out, disillusioned with school in general. Or they just come to class and sit quietly, understanding nothing, just to hang out with the pretty chicas (seriously!). The majority of students graduate high school never having read an entire book.
Why the lack of literacy? Bilingualism is probably the biggest reason. Almost all students speak the indigenous language Guarani in their homes. At school, however, the materials are all in Spanish, so students are taught to read in Spanish before they even know how to speak it—not exactly in sync with the latest teaching reading methods. And then the materials that the schools do have are meager at best: a few reading textbooks (never enough for all of the students somehow) and a school ‘library’ consisting of about 15 kids books. Additionally, Paraguay is just 20 years removed from a dictatorship, and many of the teachers still, out of habit (and b/c of the lack of materials), teach with methods that were in use back then. Understandable, since it is the way they were taught. But unfortunately, these teaching methods do not function very well for a majority of the students.
One of the most frustrating parts about my job is that I know exactly what could be done in the schools so that all kids, every single one, would be able to read. And trust me, if I could come right out and start openly critiquing teachers to improve them, I would. But that’s not how things work around here. So my most difficult task next year will be communication with and motivation of teachers. I have my work cut out for me for the coming school year in Paraguay. First, convince the teachers that a problem even exists—that they are not fulfilling the potentials of the students. I must do this in such a way that does not damage their egos too much, which is like walking on broken glass in the indirect culture of Paraguay. Second, I have to persuade the teachers that I have the knowledge to impart to them that will help students learn better if the teachers would only try my (from their perspective) ‘out-there, drastically different’ teaching methods. Then, I have effectively train teachers in said methods so that they will use them even when I am not here any more.
Paraguay’s literacy rate is listed at 95%, although even optimists doubt that its ‘functional literacy’ (ability to read and write meaningfully, more than a signature) is that high. If in the next couple of years I can put even a fraction of dent in that number I will be happy. Having said that, I think something becomes clear: whatever the original reason behind the creation of the Peace Corps, the fact is that it allows its volunteers to do worthwhile work abroad. And yes, let’s face it, PCVs get a lot of personal and professional growth from the experience. But no, I don’t buy the argument that sharing the latest and greatest teaching reading pedagogy with teachers in a recently democratic country is a furthering of U.S. imperialist interests.
On another note, I just killed a 5 foot long snake in my house. See y’all next week!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Six Signs You are (Still) in the Peace Corps
“We must not cease from exploration. And at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.”
-T.S. Eliot
During the first couple of months I was in Paraguay, everything seemed surreal. I would note every little tiny detail of everything that I saw or that happened to me and it was the most incredible thing ever. I.e. the time I stopped on my way to somewhere and watched carpenter ants carry leaves many times their size for a solid ten minutes. Or when I went nuts because I saw a firefly with a totally different light pattern then Illinois fireflies. Or when I laughed for about 2 straight minutes at the descriptive language for describing a cold beer in Guarani, which translates as: “This beer is nice and cool like a Penguin’s butt.”
‘Culture shock’ is the commonly used phrase to describe this adaptation process to a new culture. After several months of immersion, culture shock typically wears off, as it has for me. I am at home in my environment again, in my own element. Things in my day-to-day that I would have, at the beginning of my experience, deemed ridiculously journal-worthy often don’t even get a second thought now. This weekend I had a realization that I have become desensitized to a great many things after living in ultra-rural Paraguay for more than 7 months. So, in case I forgot, here are six signs (taken this past weekend) to remind me that I am still in the Peace Corps:
1. Saturday morning is extremely rainy. You realize this means this means that you will not be able to go into town for at least 3 days if not more because of the road conditions. Instead of reacting negatively, you celebrate the joyous fact that you will have a morning to read the classics and do yoga without interruption from neighbors randomly stopping by to hang with ‘the Americano.’
2. Water is dripping into your house in at least 7 different spots. Instead of getting upset you congratulate yourself on how much foresight you had to put your bed in the ‘dry corner’ of your hut.
3. You have an intestinal disturbance that clearly would have been ‘Kaopectate’ worthy back in the states. As you squat in the roofless latrine during a storm, being downpoured on, your only reaction is to chuckle about how smart you were to bring dry TP with you in a plastic bag.
4. When you come to a recently formed river cutting across a road, you are already knee deep before you realize you just took off your shoes to wade through muddy water. (I remember my denial the first time this happened: “well there has got to be some way around this thing…nope there aren’t too many pedestrian bridges in Paraguay”) You just have to embrace bare feet in the boondocks.
5. You are overjoyed to walk into a neighbor’s house and find them watching an (extremely) mediocre Wayne Brothers movie, let alone when in English, dubbed into Spanish. In this particular case the contraband film, obviously pirated, filmed in a movie theatre, is “White Chicks.” It may be the Waynes bros, but hey, it’s a relief from the usual 7 hour epic Chinese kung-fu flicks that everyone is always watching.
6. The highlight of your day is figuring out that you can leverage your machete against a tree in such a way that you will be able to split bamboo with maybe 400% more efficiency. So genius.
By the same token that I have been come desensitized to Paraguayan life, its going to be interesting to note what I think of Brookfield when I get back a week from Tuesday after having been gone 10 months. Trains? Snow? Chipotle burrito? Irish Times, and Guinness on tap? Chinese food? Wisconsin cheese available in a store near you? Two story houses? Indoor Heating? Hot showers? I’m going to feel like a tourist in my hometown.
-T.S. Eliot
During the first couple of months I was in Paraguay, everything seemed surreal. I would note every little tiny detail of everything that I saw or that happened to me and it was the most incredible thing ever. I.e. the time I stopped on my way to somewhere and watched carpenter ants carry leaves many times their size for a solid ten minutes. Or when I went nuts because I saw a firefly with a totally different light pattern then Illinois fireflies. Or when I laughed for about 2 straight minutes at the descriptive language for describing a cold beer in Guarani, which translates as: “This beer is nice and cool like a Penguin’s butt.”
‘Culture shock’ is the commonly used phrase to describe this adaptation process to a new culture. After several months of immersion, culture shock typically wears off, as it has for me. I am at home in my environment again, in my own element. Things in my day-to-day that I would have, at the beginning of my experience, deemed ridiculously journal-worthy often don’t even get a second thought now. This weekend I had a realization that I have become desensitized to a great many things after living in ultra-rural Paraguay for more than 7 months. So, in case I forgot, here are six signs (taken this past weekend) to remind me that I am still in the Peace Corps:
1. Saturday morning is extremely rainy. You realize this means this means that you will not be able to go into town for at least 3 days if not more because of the road conditions. Instead of reacting negatively, you celebrate the joyous fact that you will have a morning to read the classics and do yoga without interruption from neighbors randomly stopping by to hang with ‘the Americano.’
2. Water is dripping into your house in at least 7 different spots. Instead of getting upset you congratulate yourself on how much foresight you had to put your bed in the ‘dry corner’ of your hut.
3. You have an intestinal disturbance that clearly would have been ‘Kaopectate’ worthy back in the states. As you squat in the roofless latrine during a storm, being downpoured on, your only reaction is to chuckle about how smart you were to bring dry TP with you in a plastic bag.
4. When you come to a recently formed river cutting across a road, you are already knee deep before you realize you just took off your shoes to wade through muddy water. (I remember my denial the first time this happened: “well there has got to be some way around this thing…nope there aren’t too many pedestrian bridges in Paraguay”) You just have to embrace bare feet in the boondocks.
5. You are overjoyed to walk into a neighbor’s house and find them watching an (extremely) mediocre Wayne Brothers movie, let alone when in English, dubbed into Spanish. In this particular case the contraband film, obviously pirated, filmed in a movie theatre, is “White Chicks.” It may be the Waynes bros, but hey, it’s a relief from the usual 7 hour epic Chinese kung-fu flicks that everyone is always watching.
6. The highlight of your day is figuring out that you can leverage your machete against a tree in such a way that you will be able to split bamboo with maybe 400% more efficiency. So genius.
By the same token that I have been come desensitized to Paraguayan life, its going to be interesting to note what I think of Brookfield when I get back a week from Tuesday after having been gone 10 months. Trains? Snow? Chipotle burrito? Irish Times, and Guinness on tap? Chinese food? Wisconsin cheese available in a store near you? Two story houses? Indoor Heating? Hot showers? I’m going to feel like a tourist in my hometown.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Thanks, Wikileaks!
It is common in Paraguay for Peace Corps volunteers to be accused of either being in cahoots with the C.I.A., coming to secure Paraguay’s giant aquifer (2nd biggest in the world) for the U.S., or, my personal favorite rumor, we are here to “find the gold” that is allegedly all over this country (I have my eyes peeled, haven’t seen any still). The Peace Corps Paraguay country director was even recently asked, on a very mainstream radio station, if indeed the Peace Corps Volunteers were spies for U.S. interests. Personally, I have only been accused once of being a spy to my face, and it was by a very drunk Brazilian who was babbling nonsense to me one night, so I didn’t have to take that accusation very seriously. The only true suspicion I have stirred thus far up is with the local chainsaw-ists, who think I am going to ‘report them’ (whatever that means in Paraguay, there is no one honest I could report to even if I wanted to) for cutting down and selling the wood from the national forest preserve.
The rationale for the Peace Corps being a 2 year commitment as opposed to 1 year is because in isolated areas where locals aren’t used to Americans, it may take a year just to build the trust necessary to truly be able to start initiatives that will result in sustainable change. For the last 7 months I have built up a supreme reputation in Kilometro 16 as being what I will call a ‘really solid dude’ in my community. I go work in the fields occasionally which earns the farmers respect, I drink terere with old women, I have close relationships with all of the local teachers, know a ton of the kids names at the school, don’t do anything shady, play soccer with the high school kids, etc. My trust bank here is pretty big.
But what would life in tranquil, rural Paraguay be without a little drama? The ‘wikileaks’ story has caught fire in the Paraguayan mainstream media. Turns out the U.S. government asked the Paraguay embassy to find out if Hugo Chavez financially supported Fernando Lugo when he ran for president in 2008. This has substantially increased the number of times the ‘spy’ topic has been broached in conversation in the last couple of days, even here in rural Paraguay. Every time it is brought up, I do my best to convey with some suavity that, yes, the U.S. government, like any government, has good programs (i.e. Peace Corps) and some questionable, polemic ones, like all of the C.I.A. operations in Latin America in the 20th century, and yes, wanting to know everywhere that Chavez drops a nickel. Although a slightly awkward subject to discuss with Paraguayans, the wikileaks conversation is something that I think is important to have. I feel better if I talk to people here face to face about it instead of them just mentioning it behind my back. Lucky for me, my well stocked trust bank will probably ensure that anyone who knows me here will not believe that Profesor Miguel could be a spy, in spite of whatever classified documents appear on wikileaks. Or would they? My argument with people is often: honestly, if I were a spy, I would be doing a pretty bad job wouldn’t I? Teaching kids in primary school how to read? I suppose maybe they think that is my cover. But honestly, I think the U.S. would have found a more competent spy. I don’t even speak fluent Guarani yet…
The rationale for the Peace Corps being a 2 year commitment as opposed to 1 year is because in isolated areas where locals aren’t used to Americans, it may take a year just to build the trust necessary to truly be able to start initiatives that will result in sustainable change. For the last 7 months I have built up a supreme reputation in Kilometro 16 as being what I will call a ‘really solid dude’ in my community. I go work in the fields occasionally which earns the farmers respect, I drink terere with old women, I have close relationships with all of the local teachers, know a ton of the kids names at the school, don’t do anything shady, play soccer with the high school kids, etc. My trust bank here is pretty big.
But what would life in tranquil, rural Paraguay be without a little drama? The ‘wikileaks’ story has caught fire in the Paraguayan mainstream media. Turns out the U.S. government asked the Paraguay embassy to find out if Hugo Chavez financially supported Fernando Lugo when he ran for president in 2008. This has substantially increased the number of times the ‘spy’ topic has been broached in conversation in the last couple of days, even here in rural Paraguay. Every time it is brought up, I do my best to convey with some suavity that, yes, the U.S. government, like any government, has good programs (i.e. Peace Corps) and some questionable, polemic ones, like all of the C.I.A. operations in Latin America in the 20th century, and yes, wanting to know everywhere that Chavez drops a nickel. Although a slightly awkward subject to discuss with Paraguayans, the wikileaks conversation is something that I think is important to have. I feel better if I talk to people here face to face about it instead of them just mentioning it behind my back. Lucky for me, my well stocked trust bank will probably ensure that anyone who knows me here will not believe that Profesor Miguel could be a spy, in spite of whatever classified documents appear on wikileaks. Or would they? My argument with people is often: honestly, if I were a spy, I would be doing a pretty bad job wouldn’t I? Teaching kids in primary school how to read? I suppose maybe they think that is my cover. But honestly, I think the U.S. would have found a more competent spy. I don’t even speak fluent Guarani yet…
Monday, November 15, 2010
Are You Reading the Dictionary?
When I show my 5 year old host brother Fernando a drawing of a raccoon, which he has never seen, he calls it a dog. He also calls a squirrel a dog, and any animal he is unsure of is a dog. Overgeneralizing is what kids do when they are first figuring out what everything is in the world around them, but it is also used by adults. As the lightest skinned, bluest eyed, lightest brown hair, tallest and clearly foreign person around in within about a 30 mile radius, I am consistently running into people who stereotype me, or who have difficulty understanding my behavior and my motivation for living in Paraguay for 2 years.
Frequently, probably more than a 100 times in the last 9 months, I have had to explain myself, what are you doing here, are you a spy for the U.S. government, etc. If the person who I am talking to has heard of the Peace Corps already it makes the conversation go smoother, but that is not always the case. There are a lot of Mormon missionaries in Paraguay, so if a Paraguayan has seen missionaries before, they assume that since I look like them and talk funny like the Mormons I must be part of some religious order. No, Peace Corps is not religious and I am actually prohibited from promoting religion, I tell them. They are never satisfied by whatever I tell them next, which most often is along the lines of “Actually I am working in the schools in the boondocks here collaborating with teachers sharing participatory teaching methodologies so that all kids will learn to read in the primary grades.” Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue in English, let alone Spanish or worse still in my mediocre Guarani. Whoever I am talking to, after this statement, typically eyes me bewilderedly at best, downright suspiciously at worst. You must be a spy. Did you come here for the Gold? Or for the Aquifer? (Paraguay is home to the 2nd biggest aquifer on earth). For some reason moving abroad for two years to promote the word and convert people is more plausible to them coming to work to train teachers and do community development. In other words, people have difficulty fitting me into their world schema.
Another example: everyone assumes that I know all of the previous volunteers that were in my site, even ones from a really long time ago. I can’t even count the number of times someone has asked, ‘do you know Bren??’ (the volunteer that was here around 1996). No, don’t know him, I was in 3rd grade when he was here. There are 300 million people in the United States, and I’m facebook friends with about 700, and he’s not one of them…
My favorite generalization happens when I bring a novel to the elementary school, which is pretty often. As I sat at a desk outside during recess reading The Associate, I was confused by a question one of the students asked me: “Are you reading the dictionary?” “Why on earth would I be reading a dictionary?,” was my initial confused reaction. But after being asked this question by lots of kids and some adults too when they see me reading a big book, it finally hit me as to why: most of the kids have never even SEEN a big fat book aside from a dictionary. They don’t even have newspapers in my town, and the school hardly has any books. A “library” is a foreign concept to most. So it makes sense why they shouldn’t understand how addicting the latest John Grisham novel and that I have to carry it around and read it whenever I get a spare moment.
A cliché part of the Peace Corps, and a part that I indulge in, is just sitting around with nothing to do some days and reading lots of books. My host family, though, is confused by my behavior when I decide to spend an entire Saturday morning just lying in my hammock reading for pleasure while my host-dad and host-brothers are out working in the fields, planting crops, getting dirty and doing clearly measurable work. Again, none of them being avid readers, it is hard to convey to them that reading a mystery novel to me is just like watching a movie, but in my head… Riiiiiight. Sounds like someone is going crazy they say to me. What are you really doing there, reporting to the C.I.A.? Or worse, they just assume am a lazy bum who does nothing. Nde Kaigueeehina in Guarani. They are much more comforted when I spend the day working on my garden, like I did today, doing tangible, measurable work that they are familiar with. I walked over to their house to borrow a hoe, shovel, and hammer, and they must have said 3 times, ahhhhh going to work on the garden are we. Thataboy. And when I came back with my hands and feet caked with mud to return the tools, they looked took one look and said again, ahh working in the garden. Yep, you got those py ky’a (dirty feet). You’re so hardworking. Hows that coming along?
Then later tonight, I brought over a book (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, if you were wondering) to flip through while I was hanging out before we ate dinner, fresh chicken stew.
“Miguel, are you reading the dictionary?”
Frequently, probably more than a 100 times in the last 9 months, I have had to explain myself, what are you doing here, are you a spy for the U.S. government, etc. If the person who I am talking to has heard of the Peace Corps already it makes the conversation go smoother, but that is not always the case. There are a lot of Mormon missionaries in Paraguay, so if a Paraguayan has seen missionaries before, they assume that since I look like them and talk funny like the Mormons I must be part of some religious order. No, Peace Corps is not religious and I am actually prohibited from promoting religion, I tell them. They are never satisfied by whatever I tell them next, which most often is along the lines of “Actually I am working in the schools in the boondocks here collaborating with teachers sharing participatory teaching methodologies so that all kids will learn to read in the primary grades.” Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue in English, let alone Spanish or worse still in my mediocre Guarani. Whoever I am talking to, after this statement, typically eyes me bewilderedly at best, downright suspiciously at worst. You must be a spy. Did you come here for the Gold? Or for the Aquifer? (Paraguay is home to the 2nd biggest aquifer on earth). For some reason moving abroad for two years to promote the word and convert people is more plausible to them coming to work to train teachers and do community development. In other words, people have difficulty fitting me into their world schema.
Another example: everyone assumes that I know all of the previous volunteers that were in my site, even ones from a really long time ago. I can’t even count the number of times someone has asked, ‘do you know Bren??’ (the volunteer that was here around 1996). No, don’t know him, I was in 3rd grade when he was here. There are 300 million people in the United States, and I’m facebook friends with about 700, and he’s not one of them…
My favorite generalization happens when I bring a novel to the elementary school, which is pretty often. As I sat at a desk outside during recess reading The Associate, I was confused by a question one of the students asked me: “Are you reading the dictionary?” “Why on earth would I be reading a dictionary?,” was my initial confused reaction. But after being asked this question by lots of kids and some adults too when they see me reading a big book, it finally hit me as to why: most of the kids have never even SEEN a big fat book aside from a dictionary. They don’t even have newspapers in my town, and the school hardly has any books. A “library” is a foreign concept to most. So it makes sense why they shouldn’t understand how addicting the latest John Grisham novel and that I have to carry it around and read it whenever I get a spare moment.
A cliché part of the Peace Corps, and a part that I indulge in, is just sitting around with nothing to do some days and reading lots of books. My host family, though, is confused by my behavior when I decide to spend an entire Saturday morning just lying in my hammock reading for pleasure while my host-dad and host-brothers are out working in the fields, planting crops, getting dirty and doing clearly measurable work. Again, none of them being avid readers, it is hard to convey to them that reading a mystery novel to me is just like watching a movie, but in my head… Riiiiiight. Sounds like someone is going crazy they say to me. What are you really doing there, reporting to the C.I.A.? Or worse, they just assume am a lazy bum who does nothing. Nde Kaigueeehina in Guarani. They are much more comforted when I spend the day working on my garden, like I did today, doing tangible, measurable work that they are familiar with. I walked over to their house to borrow a hoe, shovel, and hammer, and they must have said 3 times, ahhhhh going to work on the garden are we. Thataboy. And when I came back with my hands and feet caked with mud to return the tools, they looked took one look and said again, ahh working in the garden. Yep, you got those py ky’a (dirty feet). You’re so hardworking. Hows that coming along?
Then later tonight, I brought over a book (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, if you were wondering) to flip through while I was hanging out before we ate dinner, fresh chicken stew.
“Miguel, are you reading the dictionary?”
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
A Case Study in Inefficient Bureaucracy
I glanced at my watch as I walked through the doors of the Paraguayan Ministry of Education and Culture in downtown Asuncion. My digital told me 8:49, which meant I was eleven minutes early for my appointment. I was quite pleased with my arrival time, given that it had been somewhat of a late night out with a couple of my favorite fellow peace corps volunteers that I hadn’t seen for a couple of months. In order to look professional I donned olive green khakis, a blue anti-wrinkle shirt, and the only tie I brought with me to Paraguay. A hot day but I didn’t want to take chances. Nothing was going to get between me and making sure my host community would qualify for the ministry’s program to build a new fully equipped kindergarten classroom of which it is in dire need. Oh, little did I know. 9 months in Paraguay and still naïve. I was about to get my first solid dose of old fashioned do-nothing, inefficient bureaucracy.
Strolling through the lobby on my way to the elevator I saw the first warning signs: 5 to 7 employees sitting around, doing absolutely nothing, obviously still on the clock. But when I made to Sr. Alfonso’s office is when the real fun began. I had the appointment with Sr. Alfonso, but evidently he was still out and would be back ‘soon.’ There were two ‘secretaries,’ at least I think that’s probably what their job title would be called. And I don’t have perfect gaydar, but I’m pretty sure the male secretary was hitting on me. He had curly black hair and was in his late thirties, and about 5 minutes through our conversation he proceeded to whip out a digital camera and take pictures of me which he said we ‘for the monthly publication.’ The middle aged lady sitting next to him rolled her eyes in a sort of smiling but obviously embarrassed way and said ‘He’s lying. He’s definitely not the photographer for our monthly.’ Walking past me a couple times he friendily patted me on the shoulder, the hand lingering juuust a bit too long. Luckily I became distracted by another office worker who used to be a kindergarten teacher who proceeded to amaze me by her knowledge of reading pedagogy and we talked about nerd teacher topics for a while.
Distracted by what someone so obviously adept at teaching was doing in bureaucracy, almost an hour passed. Finally around 1030 Mr. Alfonso finally saw me, but it turned out what he was really doing was talking me to see someone else more important who could actually help me. What? Why did I not just go directly to her office. Arrrgh.
We get to her office, which is a few blocks away, and low and behold she is not there. Mr. Alfonso talks to one of the lady’s two secretaries, who is sitting at a desk doing nothing, and obviously knows nothing as well. Mr. Alfonso is bumbling a little bit with what to do so I take the lead.
“Ok, when tell the director be back her and free?”
Turns out she is at a meeting right now, and, um, might be back around 1230 (this information took about 2 minutes of dialogue to squeeze out). Are you sure? Yes, he says. Ok, here is my name and number. Please call if anything changes.
Riiiiiight. Keep dreamin’ kid. I get back at 12:30. Same office, same two secretaries, still with literally nothing in front of their desks? What are you doing?
“The director is not here. Hmmm can you come back at 2:00? Or maybe 3:00?”
Anyone who knows me knows I am a patient person. Probably one of the most patient people around anywhere. But even I have my limits…I managed to filter myself, realizing that I, an American, have different cultural standards, quality standards, etc. I was beginning to fume, but what came out was a watered down version of what I was thinking:
“Listen, no, I can’t come back later. I have a lot of errands to run today. And I have a question for you all. What would you have done if some poor person from the boondocks spend his own money to get here after you SPECIFICALLY TOLD HIM TO COME on a certain date to talk about the possibility of a program request, and then he got here and you had organized NOTHING for him? Would you feel bad for making an already poor person pay for an expensive bus ticket in to Asuncion only to find out that he had wasted his money?”
I realize I was shooting at the messengers. The two ‘secretaries’ in that room are obviously not at fault for the inefficiency of Paraguayan Bureaucracy. But that’s precisely the problem: NO ONE is at fault. Almost everyone is just apathetic; the system is what it is.
My rant along with my obviously irritated mannerisms managed to get the female secretary moving out of the room, I wasn’t sure to where. I walked over to behind the desk of the other guy, and tried to make friendly conversation. “So, what do you do here?” “Not much.” At least he’s honest.
About five minutes later the female secretary comes back with another woman who she says will attend to my kindergarten room request. She tells me her title and it doesn’t sound like she is even close to the Director I actually wanted to see.
I state my case, show her the application, the pictures of the broken down school with no divider between kindergarten and 2nd grade. Have you ever tried to teach in a second grade class while you can hear screaming and singing kindergarteners all afternoon? I have. It sucks.
After listening to me for a solid 5 minutes. She looks at the application again and says to me: “Listen, this program is closed now. It’s been closed for a couple of years. Have you tried requesting money from the local government?”
Closed? And for 2 years. Well that’s fantastic. Why in god’s name did they invite me down here. Again, ready to burst but not wanted to come off as the jerk American, I try to come up with something not angry to say. “Have you ever tried requesting money from the local government at the end of the mayor’s term? I mean, he hasn’t even paid his own employees for 5 months.”
“Yea….I can take this folder and hang on to it if you like, just in case something comes up.”
Oh, and I forgot to mention, the whole reason I was here was because the Ministry had mysteriously lost the application from my school two years ago. No thank you, I’ll hang on to the app, which will probably be more useful as extra kindling if we have one more cold streak in November. Besides, the folder it’s in is quality.
Fuming angry at the Ministry after this encounter, I call my community contact to complain. He tells me, “Calm down Miguel. Remember, we’re in Paraguay.” And not one of the several to whom I retold this story found it surprising. Corruption is institutionalized here. And with corruption of course, comes its awkward cousin inefficiency, which runs wild in Paraguay.
I don’t mean for this account to show Paraguay in a negative light. At least not Paraguayans. They are all wonderful, nice people. But only 20 years removed from a dictatorship, it obviously has some ground to make up. But hey, we’ll get there, remember Chicago during prohibition? (Or right now.) C’mon.
Nonetheless, does anyone have the number of a reputed efficiency consulting firm? The Bobs are pretty good I hear.
Strolling through the lobby on my way to the elevator I saw the first warning signs: 5 to 7 employees sitting around, doing absolutely nothing, obviously still on the clock. But when I made to Sr. Alfonso’s office is when the real fun began. I had the appointment with Sr. Alfonso, but evidently he was still out and would be back ‘soon.’ There were two ‘secretaries,’ at least I think that’s probably what their job title would be called. And I don’t have perfect gaydar, but I’m pretty sure the male secretary was hitting on me. He had curly black hair and was in his late thirties, and about 5 minutes through our conversation he proceeded to whip out a digital camera and take pictures of me which he said we ‘for the monthly publication.’ The middle aged lady sitting next to him rolled her eyes in a sort of smiling but obviously embarrassed way and said ‘He’s lying. He’s definitely not the photographer for our monthly.’ Walking past me a couple times he friendily patted me on the shoulder, the hand lingering juuust a bit too long. Luckily I became distracted by another office worker who used to be a kindergarten teacher who proceeded to amaze me by her knowledge of reading pedagogy and we talked about nerd teacher topics for a while.
Distracted by what someone so obviously adept at teaching was doing in bureaucracy, almost an hour passed. Finally around 1030 Mr. Alfonso finally saw me, but it turned out what he was really doing was talking me to see someone else more important who could actually help me. What? Why did I not just go directly to her office. Arrrgh.
We get to her office, which is a few blocks away, and low and behold she is not there. Mr. Alfonso talks to one of the lady’s two secretaries, who is sitting at a desk doing nothing, and obviously knows nothing as well. Mr. Alfonso is bumbling a little bit with what to do so I take the lead.
“Ok, when tell the director be back her and free?”
Turns out she is at a meeting right now, and, um, might be back around 1230 (this information took about 2 minutes of dialogue to squeeze out). Are you sure? Yes, he says. Ok, here is my name and number. Please call if anything changes.
Riiiiiight. Keep dreamin’ kid. I get back at 12:30. Same office, same two secretaries, still with literally nothing in front of their desks? What are you doing?
“The director is not here. Hmmm can you come back at 2:00? Or maybe 3:00?”
Anyone who knows me knows I am a patient person. Probably one of the most patient people around anywhere. But even I have my limits…I managed to filter myself, realizing that I, an American, have different cultural standards, quality standards, etc. I was beginning to fume, but what came out was a watered down version of what I was thinking:
“Listen, no, I can’t come back later. I have a lot of errands to run today. And I have a question for you all. What would you have done if some poor person from the boondocks spend his own money to get here after you SPECIFICALLY TOLD HIM TO COME on a certain date to talk about the possibility of a program request, and then he got here and you had organized NOTHING for him? Would you feel bad for making an already poor person pay for an expensive bus ticket in to Asuncion only to find out that he had wasted his money?”
I realize I was shooting at the messengers. The two ‘secretaries’ in that room are obviously not at fault for the inefficiency of Paraguayan Bureaucracy. But that’s precisely the problem: NO ONE is at fault. Almost everyone is just apathetic; the system is what it is.
My rant along with my obviously irritated mannerisms managed to get the female secretary moving out of the room, I wasn’t sure to where. I walked over to behind the desk of the other guy, and tried to make friendly conversation. “So, what do you do here?” “Not much.” At least he’s honest.
About five minutes later the female secretary comes back with another woman who she says will attend to my kindergarten room request. She tells me her title and it doesn’t sound like she is even close to the Director I actually wanted to see.
I state my case, show her the application, the pictures of the broken down school with no divider between kindergarten and 2nd grade. Have you ever tried to teach in a second grade class while you can hear screaming and singing kindergarteners all afternoon? I have. It sucks.
After listening to me for a solid 5 minutes. She looks at the application again and says to me: “Listen, this program is closed now. It’s been closed for a couple of years. Have you tried requesting money from the local government?”
Closed? And for 2 years. Well that’s fantastic. Why in god’s name did they invite me down here. Again, ready to burst but not wanted to come off as the jerk American, I try to come up with something not angry to say. “Have you ever tried requesting money from the local government at the end of the mayor’s term? I mean, he hasn’t even paid his own employees for 5 months.”
“Yea….I can take this folder and hang on to it if you like, just in case something comes up.”
Oh, and I forgot to mention, the whole reason I was here was because the Ministry had mysteriously lost the application from my school two years ago. No thank you, I’ll hang on to the app, which will probably be more useful as extra kindling if we have one more cold streak in November. Besides, the folder it’s in is quality.
Fuming angry at the Ministry after this encounter, I call my community contact to complain. He tells me, “Calm down Miguel. Remember, we’re in Paraguay.” And not one of the several to whom I retold this story found it surprising. Corruption is institutionalized here. And with corruption of course, comes its awkward cousin inefficiency, which runs wild in Paraguay.
I don’t mean for this account to show Paraguay in a negative light. At least not Paraguayans. They are all wonderful, nice people. But only 20 years removed from a dictatorship, it obviously has some ground to make up. But hey, we’ll get there, remember Chicago during prohibition? (Or right now.) C’mon.
Nonetheless, does anyone have the number of a reputed efficiency consulting firm? The Bobs are pretty good I hear.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Cribs, Paraguayan Style
Today we are going to do a little perspective-building for all my loyal blog readers that still check whichguayagain for some reason (hey Mom and Dad!). Imagine, for a second, that after college you have joined the Peace Corps. What does this mean for you, exactly? Well, instead of putting your approximately $140,000 private school diploma to use at a decent job in the city, where you can continue your Eurotrip motto of ‘live fast and die young’ a la Tim Maier and enjoy the Chicago nightlife and Cubs games, and maybe even start to pay off some of your student loans, you take a different path. You decide that a better idea is to go live in one of the 76 countries in the world which are friendly enough to the USA that it is able to give some volunteers three months of training and stick them in a marginal area to try and work towards bringing some more opportunity and dignity to the people of that country/area. Lucky for you, you are an education volunteer, and education volunteers more often than not get placed in ‘larger’ towns aka towns that have not all dirt roads.
On site selection day, you realize that it was a bad idea to entertain even the thought that you would have a concrete road in your town or even a brick one when you look at your information sheet: you have been selected to ‘beautiful kilometer 16. Number of houses: 75. Population: 400.’ Incidentally, Kilometer 16 is named for the number of kilometers on a sandy dirt road you must travel on from the ‘town’ in order to get there; when it rains heavily you cannot leave for days.
The day after site selection day you meet your community contacts. You have two: Vicente, the director of the school where you will be doing the majority of your work, who is dressed so 70s its like he’s straight out of Starsky and Hutch, button down shirt with a bit of chest hair popping out of the undone buttons at the top. The other, Antolin, is the president of your site’s local parents’ commission, and he has the salt-of-the-earth seasoned look, the callused, strong hands that only can come from a lifetime of manual labor. After being introduced, you head outside for some air with the two and strike up one of those awkward first conversations (translated from Spanish and a little bit of Guarani into English):
You: So, anyhow, how many kids do you all have?
Vicente: Me, I just have four. You should ask Antolin.
You: Now I’m curious. Antolin, how many creaturas do you have?
Antolin: Nine.
You: Oh wow.
Vicente: You’ll be living in Antolin’s house. (watches for my shocked reaction, laughter ensues)
(sidenote: Kids translates into Paraguay Spanish as criatura, which is a lot closer to creatures then the English word, and cracks me up every time I hear it)
Arriving at Antolin’s house, his earlier estimate of nine kids seems like it can’t be right; there simply have to be more, judging by how many people are streaming in and out. Or maybe it is an optical illusion, a sort of tazmanian devil effect occurring because the kids are always moving to make it seem as if there are more. (In fact, at one point during my homestay there were as many as 15 people total sleeping in the house…there are 7 beds.)
My contact Vicente was quick to think that I might want to move out and into my own diggs as soon as possible, which wasn’t completely true. For the most part I came to enjoy the bustle of living with a large family. But nonetheless, this is how Vicente and I’s conversation went about my house (takes place last May):
Vicente: Miguel, it looks like there are no houses to rent in the area, but don’t worry, because we are going to build you a house.
Profesor Miguel: Are you serious? Won’t that take a while and cost a lot of money?
Vicente: Not at all Miguel. We’ll cut down some trees, use some recycled brick, some old roof, it will take no time at all. When do you want it by?
Profesor Miguel: (Some part of me in my head was saying ‘recycled brick…old roof…is this a good idea? But of course I say) Sounds awesome. How about by July?
Vicente: Absolutely. In fact, I guarantee it will be done by July, probably June.
End of May: No work on casa.
June: I pick a spot with Antolin for the house, but no work starts. I start to get worried, but keep my calm, because I understand that Paraguay is a tranquilo country where things get down at their own pace. Oh did I mention the World Cup is going on during this month? And there is no school when Paraguay plays in it? And in general, everyone just sits around watching all the games, which go from 7:30 am until 5 pm?
July: Still no work by the beginning of the month. But I get back from my 4th of July weekend at the Embassy to find a once weedy area now cleared for building. AND Paraguay has been knocked out of the world cup. Vicente’s estimate still looks optimistic though.
July 12-13: In a shocking turn of events, we put up the frame and the roof in less then 8 hours total work one weekend. I am still not quite sure how this happened, but random people from the community kept showing up to hammer for a bit and then would leave.
July 19-20: Antolin and I work one weekend and put up the brick base around the house. The next weekend we nail the wood to the frame, and it actually looks like a house from the outside. With the world cup now firmly out of the way, I am sure that my house will be done within weeks.
Beginning of August: Curveball is thrown at me: with the end of winter here, August marks the beginning of planting season in Paraguay, which means there is little time to work on the house since time must be spent planting seeds in the fields (my family plants by hand, does not own a tractor like some of the local families). Hey, I understand; my house can wait, but planting cannot. Still, a little bit gets done here and there on my house, mostly on the weekends, sometimes by me and sometimes by one of my six host brothers, who are all super-adept at anything having to do with building, from the 19 year old on down to the 5 year old. Just give them a hammer, nails, sometimes a chainsaw, and watch them go.
Now when I agreed to have a house built for me, I was naïve and did not realize all of the “little” necessities that go into turning a completely undeveloped area from scratch into a liveable space, as basic as my new house is. In the end it was quite the experience. For anyone who is interested in building their own house someday, here is a list of the various jobs that were completed from mid August-ish thru the beginning of October:
-windows, doors framed, hung
-holes in roof patched with tar
-running water pipe put in with one fossit (still no inside sink)
-brick floor put in
-locksmith puts in lock
-small table built
-shelf built
-electricity put in
-iron bars made for windows
The highlight of all these jobs was undoubtedly watching my 19 yr-old host brother David shimmy up the already dangerously shabby-looking wooden electricity ‘pole’ (looked like a piece of wood that had been rotting on the ground for a few years) across the street from my house to connect, without rubber gloves, the copper wire from the grid to my residence (oh, those gloves aren’t worth it, way too expensive, he says). After nearly having a heart-attack myself while watching David flirt with electrocution, we managed to start an electrical fire in my house, at which point he finally submitted that it might be a good idea to get an electrician to finish the job.
On October 13, a Wednesday, I put the final touch on my house, a steel inside door lock, and I was ready to move in. My host brother Gordo and I threw together a small table quickly, and I already had a shelf made, so that was it.
As I sit writing this right now, I am in my Walden in the woods house in the middle of the orange orchard with my 3 month old puppy, Lukie. I am finally able to use my laptop again, and indeed am using it to type up this blog post, which I will paste via the magic of the memory stick in a few days when I am in town.
My house is far from furnished, however. I have just one outlet, one lightbulb (not a lamp, a lightbulb), and a lot of my stuff is hung up on nails around the place. I still need necessities such as: a stove, pots and pans, a refrigerator, a sink, a shower, a latrine, a fan…probably more. Nothing is painted still. Whatever; I don’t really care. I have recently set up my hammock, and wow, I forgot about the glory of hammocks.
Some Peace Corps Paraguay volunteers walk into situations where they have furnished apartments and pay no rent. One of my good friends has a place with about six rooms, talk about luxury! I definitely feel like I am getting the full stereotypical ‘Peace Corps’ experience though. And honestly, the location could not be sweeter. I live right next to an awesome family who loves me and still cooks all of my meals, I’m in an orange orchard, I am making my garden right next to me...
Well thanks for reading y’all. Hope everything is good back in the states and I should be able to post more regularly from now on since I have access to my comp now. I’ll be back in the states in mid-December, hope to see as many people as I can!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Truman Show?
Wow, so I just realized it´s been over 2 months since my last update. Its been a while but no worries this next update is going to be just the remedio the doctor ordered for all of my extremely loyal blog followers who will soon start to settle into their post-summer work grind as august ends, and as I continue to live it up abroad.
Ohh. Ouch. Sorry if that hurts Tim and Connor but I had to throw that little jab at ya´ll who are in the ¨real¨ world. Just so that everyone doesn´t get TOO jealous, let me talk for a minute about what I mean when I say ´living it up,´ as I feel that my definition is alot different from that of many people. For the last 2 months, I have not updated my blog, yes about one third out of laziness but two thirds from the fact that I live in a place 10 miles from the nearest computer, and when it rains I cannot leave my house without wellies, which I don´t own and have not seen anywhere here for sale. So I have been, for much of the time, camping up in my house with the other 12 or so (number fluxtuates) people who are living there when it rains, heading to the fields to help out my family with machete-ing down various crops before planting season, learning to drive an oxen cart, being patient with the fact that I have no personal space (look at the pictures of the 4 kids sitting on my bed, that is everyday) that many americans my age are so used to, gotten used to being sans computer and youtube, having no work to do (school was on break for July), and still was not speaking the language that most of the people speak at in the home in Paraguay, Guarani. And throughout all of this I have been getting to know my town pretty well as PCVs are supposed to, in order to do community needs assessment. I would estimate that I have been to almost half of the houses in my town to visit and sip some of the local cold (and delicious, I might add) tea, terere.
Yes, after much reflection over these past two weeks I have come to feel that my life right now has elements of the 1998 hit movie The Truman Show . In the movie, Jim Carrey plays a man whose entire life has actually been a reality TV show. My life is similar to that movie now in that, when I head to my village, I take on another persona. I become ¨Professor Miguel,¨ speak Spanish and Guarani, listen to purely reagatton music, and generally am the man, since I am the only example of of an Americano that anyone from my town has ever seen, so I wouldn´t want them to get a skewed impression of what we are like. Luckily this is not hard for me. However, there are those trying times that I peace corps volunteer goes through, especially those who are placed in the boondocks like me. To bring what I am saying to life a bit more, check out this video, from a typical Saturday in my house. After over 3 months living where I am, I am over culture shock, but I can still remember the bewilderment I felt when I first got to my house. The video begins with my host-dad cutting meat from a cow that we had recently butchered. He is doing so on our lunch and dinner table. That table will not be sanitized before we eat lunch. I have gotten sick several times over the last couple of months (including two days in the hospital with explosive diarrea, sorry if thats TMI). Coincidence? Probably. Hopefully the upload works. If not I am putting it on Facebook.
August 22, Folklore Day in Paraguay
As you might not have guessed by the subtitle of this post, last Friday August 20th, we celebrated the Day of Folklore in Kilomter 16, my town (we just decided to celebrate it earlier to have it on Friday of course). A little background on Kilometer 16, before I get into its folklore traditions. In 1970, the place where my town now is was completely forest, as far as the eye can see. In 1971, about 6 houses sprung up around the area, and eventually a road was trailblazed. The forest was (probably) either burned or cut down to make farm land and farm animals. When people first moved here, they brought a few cows or chickens and made there fortune that way, there were no schools etc. So 40 years ago the people built these houses out of a special kind of hollow green reed, with straw roofs. Now, every 22nd of August-ish, the local high school holds a contest to see who can remake the best house in the old style, as well as perform traditional Paraguayan dance and song. The party then concludes with a great big regaton dance fest in which all of the town takes part.
I was mostly hanging out there with my community contact and the principal of the local school where I do most of my work, Vicente. They tell Peace Corps Volunteers to take their cultural cues from the people who are in your same position, aka if the principal who is a male is drinking at a social funcion you should have a beer with him in order to fit in, but if the town drunk asks you to have some cane liquor alcohol with him at 7 am on a Sunday (this has happened to me) before church, you should politely refuse. This was a night where, everyone seemed to be making merry. And I will say that I have held back, in general, at social funcions of this kind in my delicate effort to make the right impression. This was a funcion where my principal refused to let me partake in conversation with out a can of the local brew, Brahma, in my hand. I kept saying no thank you but then he kept handing me one, even if I hadn´t finished the beer I had in my other hand, which in turn made me look like I was double-fisting. So I decided the best remedy was just to keep pace with him and the other principal, and the professor from the teacher college who was also attending.
Inevitably this led to my first local appearance on the dance floor in Kilometer 16. This was important, because I had to put to rest all of the rumors that were starting to circulate about how ´el americano no sabe bailar,´or in english, ´the american doesn´t know how to dance.´ I can´t think of anything that could be much more damaging to the reputation of Americans in Paraugay if the perception of host country nationals is that we do not know how to adapt and dance to the local reagaton hits, while at the same time dominating when it came to any american dance song that I had heard a million times. It was more or less the paraguayan, outdoors version of Station, quite a sight to see. Combined with the fact that I got into an argument with an drunken Brazilian community member who insisted that I was a spy, and that I had better buy a community center for the town because I am a rich american if I wasn´t a spy, yea it was a pretty good night.
Some pictures of my site are finally up. Thanks dad for sending me the camera. Check the link to the right to have a looksie.
Papa Miguel
Ohh. Ouch. Sorry if that hurts Tim and Connor but I had to throw that little jab at ya´ll who are in the ¨real¨ world. Just so that everyone doesn´t get TOO jealous, let me talk for a minute about what I mean when I say ´living it up,´ as I feel that my definition is alot different from that of many people. For the last 2 months, I have not updated my blog, yes about one third out of laziness but two thirds from the fact that I live in a place 10 miles from the nearest computer, and when it rains I cannot leave my house without wellies, which I don´t own and have not seen anywhere here for sale. So I have been, for much of the time, camping up in my house with the other 12 or so (number fluxtuates) people who are living there when it rains, heading to the fields to help out my family with machete-ing down various crops before planting season, learning to drive an oxen cart, being patient with the fact that I have no personal space (look at the pictures of the 4 kids sitting on my bed, that is everyday) that many americans my age are so used to, gotten used to being sans computer and youtube, having no work to do (school was on break for July), and still was not speaking the language that most of the people speak at in the home in Paraguay, Guarani. And throughout all of this I have been getting to know my town pretty well as PCVs are supposed to, in order to do community needs assessment. I would estimate that I have been to almost half of the houses in my town to visit and sip some of the local cold (and delicious, I might add) tea, terere.
Yes, after much reflection over these past two weeks I have come to feel that my life right now has elements of the 1998 hit movie The Truman Show . In the movie, Jim Carrey plays a man whose entire life has actually been a reality TV show. My life is similar to that movie now in that, when I head to my village, I take on another persona. I become ¨Professor Miguel,¨ speak Spanish and Guarani, listen to purely reagatton music, and generally am the man, since I am the only example of of an Americano that anyone from my town has ever seen, so I wouldn´t want them to get a skewed impression of what we are like. Luckily this is not hard for me. However, there are those trying times that I peace corps volunteer goes through, especially those who are placed in the boondocks like me. To bring what I am saying to life a bit more, check out this video, from a typical Saturday in my house. After over 3 months living where I am, I am over culture shock, but I can still remember the bewilderment I felt when I first got to my house. The video begins with my host-dad cutting meat from a cow that we had recently butchered. He is doing so on our lunch and dinner table. That table will not be sanitized before we eat lunch. I have gotten sick several times over the last couple of months (including two days in the hospital with explosive diarrea, sorry if thats TMI). Coincidence? Probably. Hopefully the upload works. If not I am putting it on Facebook.
August 22, Folklore Day in Paraguay
As you might not have guessed by the subtitle of this post, last Friday August 20th, we celebrated the Day of Folklore in Kilomter 16, my town (we just decided to celebrate it earlier to have it on Friday of course). A little background on Kilometer 16, before I get into its folklore traditions. In 1970, the place where my town now is was completely forest, as far as the eye can see. In 1971, about 6 houses sprung up around the area, and eventually a road was trailblazed. The forest was (probably) either burned or cut down to make farm land and farm animals. When people first moved here, they brought a few cows or chickens and made there fortune that way, there were no schools etc. So 40 years ago the people built these houses out of a special kind of hollow green reed, with straw roofs. Now, every 22nd of August-ish, the local high school holds a contest to see who can remake the best house in the old style, as well as perform traditional Paraguayan dance and song. The party then concludes with a great big regaton dance fest in which all of the town takes part.
I was mostly hanging out there with my community contact and the principal of the local school where I do most of my work, Vicente. They tell Peace Corps Volunteers to take their cultural cues from the people who are in your same position, aka if the principal who is a male is drinking at a social funcion you should have a beer with him in order to fit in, but if the town drunk asks you to have some cane liquor alcohol with him at 7 am on a Sunday (this has happened to me) before church, you should politely refuse. This was a night where, everyone seemed to be making merry. And I will say that I have held back, in general, at social funcions of this kind in my delicate effort to make the right impression. This was a funcion where my principal refused to let me partake in conversation with out a can of the local brew, Brahma, in my hand. I kept saying no thank you but then he kept handing me one, even if I hadn´t finished the beer I had in my other hand, which in turn made me look like I was double-fisting. So I decided the best remedy was just to keep pace with him and the other principal, and the professor from the teacher college who was also attending.
Inevitably this led to my first local appearance on the dance floor in Kilometer 16. This was important, because I had to put to rest all of the rumors that were starting to circulate about how ´el americano no sabe bailar,´or in english, ´the american doesn´t know how to dance.´ I can´t think of anything that could be much more damaging to the reputation of Americans in Paraugay if the perception of host country nationals is that we do not know how to adapt and dance to the local reagaton hits, while at the same time dominating when it came to any american dance song that I had heard a million times. It was more or less the paraguayan, outdoors version of Station, quite a sight to see. Combined with the fact that I got into an argument with an drunken Brazilian community member who insisted that I was a spy, and that I had better buy a community center for the town because I am a rich american if I wasn´t a spy, yea it was a pretty good night.
Some pictures of my site are finally up. Thanks dad for sending me the camera. Check the link to the right to have a looksie.
Papa Miguel
Monday, June 21, 2010
Paraguayan Hospitality
I´ve just missed the one bus that goes back to my little pueblo Kilometro 16, so looks like I will be spending a little more time in the bigger ´city´ of San Juan this afternoon. Luckily, my friend Toro (translates as ´Bull,´ I don´t think the name works in English like it does in Spanish) is coming into town later with his truck and will be able to give me a ride back. This whole transportation situation would be a lot easier if the PC just permitted me to ride motorcycles (even 7th grade girls ride to class on them), but for now they are still prohibited. The bicycle I have is nice, and its a great workout to ride 16 km on sandy, hilly roads like sand dunes to get to town. The problem is that I arrive to wherever I am going with a shirt full of sweat, even in the dead of the Paraguayan ´winter.´ Being from Chicago I still have a hard time believing 70 degree weather during the day can happen in the middle of winter. I can´t imagine how things will pan out with the bike in the summer, when temps are 100 and humid.
A big shotout to all the fathers out there for fathers day. Yes, I´m sure you are dying to know, they do indeed celebrate fathers day here in the Guay. It´s not as big as mother´s day, but nonetheless is celebrated. Yesterday night I happened to find myself at the fathers day party of a gentlemen who has 19 children. Let´s just say we did indeed eat buffet style. Also notable is that the mom schooled me in billiards after we ate.
Saturday my host family and I did some more work on my house-to-be. Did I mention that it is in the middle of an Orange Tree Orchard? If I did already, I apologize but being from the suburbs of chitown I am overly-estatic about the fact that I will be able to reach out my window and grab oranges off trees. Unfortunately, there is no avocado tree (my favorite fruit of all time or possibly second to michigan blueberries) nearby. I am in talks with people to have one transplanted to within reaching distance of one of my windows, and it looks promising.
Which brings me to a point I´d like to make about Paraguay. The people are so nice and accomodating it is often outrageous when I take a step back and think about what is actually happening. I was having this discussion with one of Fransisco´s (the dad of 19) kids yesterday night. He was wondering if people would be as accomadating to me as the town of Kilometro 16 has been to me in the last 2 months. I explained that I wasn´t sure; it is quite a complex question to be sure. My response to him was that the U.S. is a huge country, and I guessed that people in rural areas in the U.S. similar to the one I am in in Paraguay would also tend to be very accomodating. He wasn´t very satisfied with my answer, however, tending to believe that his town was the most hospitable, more than any town in the U.S. would be.
Now Paraguayan hospitality has to be up there in the top 10 in the world, and having said that YES I realize that I have only been to about 10 of more than 200 countries in the world. But here hospitality is ridiculous. It is over the top. Here are some examples. #1 I have already had at least 3 chickens and or pigs killed specifically to make dinner for me at various houses, which I had no saying in whatsoever. #2 I have to be extremely careful about what I say in front my family bc if I say something it is likely to become reality. I mentioned in passing that my favorite food here is chipaguasu (its kind of like cornbread but not cornbread) to my family. Days later, they made chipaguasu and they continue to make it about once every week or two weeks. It is usually more of a once everyone couple of months food, kind of expensive to make. I have also mentioned in passing that I like a certain flavor of terere (cold tea) and now everyone consistantly prepares it for me. This happens as well with most things that I talk about, sometimes just to make conversation. #3 reason I can walk up to any house at all in the neighborhood, and even if they do not know me, they will put up a chair, bust out some terere, and often invite me to stay for a meal afterwards. #4 My community is working together to build me a HOUSE.
The list goes on. I feel very lucky to be where I am in a place where people are very nice and whatsmore they are pumped to have an education volunteer trained in pedagogy to work in the schools. I´ve already begun teaching English classes in the high school twice a week, and hopefully I will start getting more work done in the elementary schools as far as material making goes. Tomorrow and Wednesday I am off to visit two nearby elementary schools and meet with the teachers and observe classes.
Oh yea and Paraguay plays again in the World Cup next Thursday. It was madness when they played and won last Sunday morning (in accordance with my previous assertion that futbol is the national religion of Paraguay, church was canceled for the morning world cup game) and surely it will be even moreso this Thursday, since if they win they qualify for the 2nd round, and they are in good shape to do so having tied and won the first two matches of the round. I really can´t exagerate the amount of energy that Paraguay puts into the World Cup. Literally, the last 15 minutes of the news are devoted COMPLETELY to the World Cup (no other sports beside soccer) and mostly to Paraguay´s preparation for future matches. There are only 3 channels here, but rest assured that every single game is broadcasted live here, the govt was smart enough to assure that all classes could view the game.
House update: roof is up. And we laid some bricks for the foundation. Pics...I hope theyll be coming soon who knows though.
A big shotout to all the fathers out there for fathers day. Yes, I´m sure you are dying to know, they do indeed celebrate fathers day here in the Guay. It´s not as big as mother´s day, but nonetheless is celebrated. Yesterday night I happened to find myself at the fathers day party of a gentlemen who has 19 children. Let´s just say we did indeed eat buffet style. Also notable is that the mom schooled me in billiards after we ate.
Saturday my host family and I did some more work on my house-to-be. Did I mention that it is in the middle of an Orange Tree Orchard? If I did already, I apologize but being from the suburbs of chitown I am overly-estatic about the fact that I will be able to reach out my window and grab oranges off trees. Unfortunately, there is no avocado tree (my favorite fruit of all time or possibly second to michigan blueberries) nearby. I am in talks with people to have one transplanted to within reaching distance of one of my windows, and it looks promising.
Which brings me to a point I´d like to make about Paraguay. The people are so nice and accomodating it is often outrageous when I take a step back and think about what is actually happening. I was having this discussion with one of Fransisco´s (the dad of 19) kids yesterday night. He was wondering if people would be as accomadating to me as the town of Kilometro 16 has been to me in the last 2 months. I explained that I wasn´t sure; it is quite a complex question to be sure. My response to him was that the U.S. is a huge country, and I guessed that people in rural areas in the U.S. similar to the one I am in in Paraguay would also tend to be very accomodating. He wasn´t very satisfied with my answer, however, tending to believe that his town was the most hospitable, more than any town in the U.S. would be.
Now Paraguayan hospitality has to be up there in the top 10 in the world, and having said that YES I realize that I have only been to about 10 of more than 200 countries in the world. But here hospitality is ridiculous. It is over the top. Here are some examples. #1 I have already had at least 3 chickens and or pigs killed specifically to make dinner for me at various houses, which I had no saying in whatsoever. #2 I have to be extremely careful about what I say in front my family bc if I say something it is likely to become reality. I mentioned in passing that my favorite food here is chipaguasu (its kind of like cornbread but not cornbread) to my family. Days later, they made chipaguasu and they continue to make it about once every week or two weeks. It is usually more of a once everyone couple of months food, kind of expensive to make. I have also mentioned in passing that I like a certain flavor of terere (cold tea) and now everyone consistantly prepares it for me. This happens as well with most things that I talk about, sometimes just to make conversation. #3 reason I can walk up to any house at all in the neighborhood, and even if they do not know me, they will put up a chair, bust out some terere, and often invite me to stay for a meal afterwards. #4 My community is working together to build me a HOUSE.
The list goes on. I feel very lucky to be where I am in a place where people are very nice and whatsmore they are pumped to have an education volunteer trained in pedagogy to work in the schools. I´ve already begun teaching English classes in the high school twice a week, and hopefully I will start getting more work done in the elementary schools as far as material making goes. Tomorrow and Wednesday I am off to visit two nearby elementary schools and meet with the teachers and observe classes.
Oh yea and Paraguay plays again in the World Cup next Thursday. It was madness when they played and won last Sunday morning (in accordance with my previous assertion that futbol is the national religion of Paraguay, church was canceled for the morning world cup game) and surely it will be even moreso this Thursday, since if they win they qualify for the 2nd round, and they are in good shape to do so having tied and won the first two matches of the round. I really can´t exagerate the amount of energy that Paraguay puts into the World Cup. Literally, the last 15 minutes of the news are devoted COMPLETELY to the World Cup (no other sports beside soccer) and mostly to Paraguay´s preparation for future matches. There are only 3 channels here, but rest assured that every single game is broadcasted live here, the govt was smart enough to assure that all classes could view the game.
House update: roof is up. And we laid some bricks for the foundation. Pics...I hope theyll be coming soon who knows though.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The World Cup in Paraguay
So, yes, the World Cup has arrived and I´m in Latin America in a country that indeed is playing in the world cup, which makes for an exhilirating experience. Soccer, for various reasons, has not become so popular in the U.S., but here in Paraguay it is more or less the national religion. To back that statement up I will say that I went to church a few Sundays ago here, and I estimate that about 25 people came. I went to the local soccer game a few hours later and I think about 300 people were there. And now with all of the madness that is the World Cup having started, the excitement in Paraguay is hitting the fan.
Allow me to make an analogy to the U.S. sporting scene. Imagine, for a moment, that Dan Elwood is President of the US of A (I would move to South America). For those of you who aren´t familiar with this living legend, his first order of business is to dissallow all other sports aside from college basketball. In addition, he decides to make the March Madness tournament just once every four years, to pump up the excitement of it. This is a little bit like what Paraguay is like right now...Soccer, or ´football´ as those elitist Englishmen call it, is largely the only sport played all over Paraguay, and it is played by all social classes equally. When Paraguay had their first World cup match this past Monday afternoon, school was effectively canceled because teachers knew that about 2 students would show up, so it wasn´t worth it at all to try and have class. Everyone was huddled around their TV sets watching the game, as was I. And in case you didn´t catch Maier´s prediction come true, they tied the 2006 World Cup winnner Italy in a dynamic performance. Honestly, I´m truely impressed with the talent Paraguay puts up for the Cup. The national population is about 7 million, yet I take them in a game over the US.
I gave my first workshop yesterday in the schools here. We made some primary school alphabets to put up in the classroom and shortly I will be showing the teachers how to use them to improve pedagogy via songs and more participatory activities.
Allow me to make an analogy to the U.S. sporting scene. Imagine, for a moment, that Dan Elwood is President of the US of A (I would move to South America). For those of you who aren´t familiar with this living legend, his first order of business is to dissallow all other sports aside from college basketball. In addition, he decides to make the March Madness tournament just once every four years, to pump up the excitement of it. This is a little bit like what Paraguay is like right now...Soccer, or ´football´ as those elitist Englishmen call it, is largely the only sport played all over Paraguay, and it is played by all social classes equally. When Paraguay had their first World cup match this past Monday afternoon, school was effectively canceled because teachers knew that about 2 students would show up, so it wasn´t worth it at all to try and have class. Everyone was huddled around their TV sets watching the game, as was I. And in case you didn´t catch Maier´s prediction come true, they tied the 2006 World Cup winnner Italy in a dynamic performance. Honestly, I´m truely impressed with the talent Paraguay puts up for the Cup. The national population is about 7 million, yet I take them in a game over the US.
I gave my first workshop yesterday in the schools here. We made some primary school alphabets to put up in the classroom and shortly I will be showing the teachers how to use them to improve pedagogy via songs and more participatory activities.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Build it, and they will come
What up Yall,
So it´s been too long since I´ve last posted, that´s for sure. I´m hoping this blog won´t turn into an Elwood where I rarely post updates. However, the last month it has been slightly difficult to get to the internet cafe to update. A lot more has happened than I will be able to say in this post. Anyhow, here we go.
I have decided that I got pretty lucky with my site placement, and these reasons I´ll tell you why. I believe I described a little bit in the previous post the sort of family I am living with but what I didn´t say was how lucky I am to be living there...My community and my family are way happy to be having an education volunteer in their town. They have had other volunteers in the previous years, so they are familiar with the peace corps but they have never had a volunteer who is going to work in the schools so they are happy to have me. So happy, in fact, that my entire town is rallying to build my house. That´s right, I am having a house built. And at very little cost. It is going to be an amazing place, right in the middle of an orange tree orchard. Plus with some banana trees behind it. Just last Saturday we started building it, and already we have the frame ready to go, just need to add some roof and some walls and the concrete floor and its all done. Now when I say house, I do just mean a 4 by 6 meter shack basically. With running water I hope, but probably not a shower. I think it will have a gas stove so I will be able to cook to my hearts delight though, which will be fun. I mean not that I haven´t been enjoying the Paraguayan cuisine, but they tend to eat very few vegetables, on average about zero per day, so my greens intake has greatly dropped here. Anyhow I am looking forward to my walden in the woods hut in which I will be living for two years. Pictures of the construction process to come. Hopefully.
I finally have my bike here which means I can ride the 16 km to town to use the internet and whatever else I have to do in town. I rode in today and its quite a pleasant ride, expect for the bumbyness of the dirt road that I have to endure. And its way bumpy, plus I have to watch out for motos that come up behind me and sometimes clip me pretty close. Its nice to have the bike though and not have to depend on the daily bus.
Things continue to go well though. My Guarani is getting better, although I still dont understanding alot of the conversations happening in my everyday life. For example, all of the negociations surrounding my house take place in Guarani, and I am usually standing around when they take place. However, I understand very little of what is said. Usually, I end up just helping to lift whatever needs to be lifted after this is communicated to me via gestures, and just continually reinterate to my host-dad that I want to make sure the door frame is tall enough that I do not have to lean my neck down every time I enter my house--my only request.
In the schools this week I will probably be starting to do some participatory activities, making alphabets in the school and other materials of which they are in neccesity. I could go on a very long rant here about what I will be doing in the schools but I will hold back. For now. Until next time, go Hawks.
So it´s been too long since I´ve last posted, that´s for sure. I´m hoping this blog won´t turn into an Elwood where I rarely post updates. However, the last month it has been slightly difficult to get to the internet cafe to update. A lot more has happened than I will be able to say in this post. Anyhow, here we go.
I have decided that I got pretty lucky with my site placement, and these reasons I´ll tell you why. I believe I described a little bit in the previous post the sort of family I am living with but what I didn´t say was how lucky I am to be living there...My community and my family are way happy to be having an education volunteer in their town. They have had other volunteers in the previous years, so they are familiar with the peace corps but they have never had a volunteer who is going to work in the schools so they are happy to have me. So happy, in fact, that my entire town is rallying to build my house. That´s right, I am having a house built. And at very little cost. It is going to be an amazing place, right in the middle of an orange tree orchard. Plus with some banana trees behind it. Just last Saturday we started building it, and already we have the frame ready to go, just need to add some roof and some walls and the concrete floor and its all done. Now when I say house, I do just mean a 4 by 6 meter shack basically. With running water I hope, but probably not a shower. I think it will have a gas stove so I will be able to cook to my hearts delight though, which will be fun. I mean not that I haven´t been enjoying the Paraguayan cuisine, but they tend to eat very few vegetables, on average about zero per day, so my greens intake has greatly dropped here. Anyhow I am looking forward to my walden in the woods hut in which I will be living for two years. Pictures of the construction process to come. Hopefully.
I finally have my bike here which means I can ride the 16 km to town to use the internet and whatever else I have to do in town. I rode in today and its quite a pleasant ride, expect for the bumbyness of the dirt road that I have to endure. And its way bumpy, plus I have to watch out for motos that come up behind me and sometimes clip me pretty close. Its nice to have the bike though and not have to depend on the daily bus.
Things continue to go well though. My Guarani is getting better, although I still dont understanding alot of the conversations happening in my everyday life. For example, all of the negociations surrounding my house take place in Guarani, and I am usually standing around when they take place. However, I understand very little of what is said. Usually, I end up just helping to lift whatever needs to be lifted after this is communicated to me via gestures, and just continually reinterate to my host-dad that I want to make sure the door frame is tall enough that I do not have to lean my neck down every time I enter my house--my only request.
In the schools this week I will probably be starting to do some participatory activities, making alphabets in the school and other materials of which they are in neccesity. I could go on a very long rant here about what I will be doing in the schools but I will hold back. For now. Until next time, go Hawks.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Here we Go: First Week in Site
And what I week it has been! I am in the town of San Juan sitting in an internet cafe, known in Paraguay as a Cyber. It is around 9 am right now, and the principle reason for my journey into the town today is to find myself a Jacket. Contrary to what I thought after the first 3 months of constant sweating in Paraguay, it actually does get somewhat cold here. Although it doesn´t freeze, the temperature during the night can get as low as 6 degrees celcius (too lazy right now to figure out the fahrenheit for yall), which is pretty damn cold when you have walls with holes in them. And with the cold just setting in the las few days, and me only having my Knox College Cross Country hoodie (Represent, woot woot!) to keep me warm, I´ve been freezing my cohones off here in Paraguay.
So, in order to get to the town of San Juan from my tiny country area known as Kilometer 16 (you know your town is small when it is named for how many kilometers it is from the nearest town), I had to take a 1 and a half hour ride on a bus over a bumby dirt road. There is only one bus per day, and it leaves at 6 am and comes back at 11 am. So I am a bit limited as to my options of when to go to the town until I have my bike here. But it´s all good, bc the bus is fun; and I always take a little bit of hot mate for the ride. Today I met an 84 year old lady who was taking the bus into town, and she gave me a little backround on my town, like the fact that in 1970 when she moved to the town, there was literally nothing there. Anyhow, she seemed really happy when I told her it was my own Grandpas 85th birthday tomorrow. I love talkative older ladies.
So I arrived in my site last Tuesday, and since then I will admit I think I´ve been experiencing a little bit of culture shock to say the least. Mostly I´ve just been going to the schools to observe classes and see in what I will be helping the teachers. Friday though, we had a rain day, so I stayed home and had my first chance to work on my family´s farm. Basically for a couple of hours I macheted some weeds. It was actually a pretty solid workout, and also hilarious bc my 5 and 6 year old brothers had little machetes and were out working right next to their dad doing the little they could. It kind of made me think of when I was little and would take a pretend lawnmower out when my dad mowed the lawn, except that these kids have real super sharp machetes. Gotta put em to work, I guess.
The house where I am living is a blast and I feel that I got pretty lucky with how nice everyone is. I have 10 siblings: Fernando, 5, Arnaldo, 6, Gricelda, 8, Delfi, 10, Antonio, 11, Milciades, 14, Norma, 16, Agustin, 18, David, 19, and another one who lives in Buenos Aires whose name I do not recall right now. And needless to say it is a madhouse. As of 6 am everyone is up and doing chores, milking cows, herding cows into the pasture, making food, etc. But in the afternoon and night there is very little to do; I showed them crazy eights last wednesday and since then we have played probably around 12 hours total of the game. If I sit by myself in my room they will come stop by and kind of look at me until I ask them if they want to play crazy eights and then they get all crazy excited, its supercute. Even my 5 year old brother knows how to play the game which is pretty cool considering his kindergarten teacher hasn´t even started teaching him numbers and letters yet. They also get a huge kick out of the way I shuffle and do the bridge. I have been trying to teach them but so far to no avail. The other night I also decided to teach them the numbers in english from 1 to 10, and afterwards my house became a madhouse of people yelling one tou free four fiv seex seven eixs nine ten, which I found absolutely hysterical. I feel like I might regret this decision sometime in the future when I get annoyed with this yelling, but right now they are all so supernice I want to try and teach them some english.
As for Guarani, I am learning all I can by osmosis and listening to people especially the kids, but its become apparent that I´m going to need to find a tutor, at least for the first few months here. It is getting a bit frusterating to hear people talking all the time and have little idea what they are saying, except for when they address me directly since they do that in Spanish. Alright well I have to get going to buy my jacket and catch the bus at 11 am. Happy belated mothers day to all the moms and moms to be out there!
So, in order to get to the town of San Juan from my tiny country area known as Kilometer 16 (you know your town is small when it is named for how many kilometers it is from the nearest town), I had to take a 1 and a half hour ride on a bus over a bumby dirt road. There is only one bus per day, and it leaves at 6 am and comes back at 11 am. So I am a bit limited as to my options of when to go to the town until I have my bike here. But it´s all good, bc the bus is fun; and I always take a little bit of hot mate for the ride. Today I met an 84 year old lady who was taking the bus into town, and she gave me a little backround on my town, like the fact that in 1970 when she moved to the town, there was literally nothing there. Anyhow, she seemed really happy when I told her it was my own Grandpas 85th birthday tomorrow. I love talkative older ladies.
So I arrived in my site last Tuesday, and since then I will admit I think I´ve been experiencing a little bit of culture shock to say the least. Mostly I´ve just been going to the schools to observe classes and see in what I will be helping the teachers. Friday though, we had a rain day, so I stayed home and had my first chance to work on my family´s farm. Basically for a couple of hours I macheted some weeds. It was actually a pretty solid workout, and also hilarious bc my 5 and 6 year old brothers had little machetes and were out working right next to their dad doing the little they could. It kind of made me think of when I was little and would take a pretend lawnmower out when my dad mowed the lawn, except that these kids have real super sharp machetes. Gotta put em to work, I guess.
The house where I am living is a blast and I feel that I got pretty lucky with how nice everyone is. I have 10 siblings: Fernando, 5, Arnaldo, 6, Gricelda, 8, Delfi, 10, Antonio, 11, Milciades, 14, Norma, 16, Agustin, 18, David, 19, and another one who lives in Buenos Aires whose name I do not recall right now. And needless to say it is a madhouse. As of 6 am everyone is up and doing chores, milking cows, herding cows into the pasture, making food, etc. But in the afternoon and night there is very little to do; I showed them crazy eights last wednesday and since then we have played probably around 12 hours total of the game. If I sit by myself in my room they will come stop by and kind of look at me until I ask them if they want to play crazy eights and then they get all crazy excited, its supercute. Even my 5 year old brother knows how to play the game which is pretty cool considering his kindergarten teacher hasn´t even started teaching him numbers and letters yet. They also get a huge kick out of the way I shuffle and do the bridge. I have been trying to teach them but so far to no avail. The other night I also decided to teach them the numbers in english from 1 to 10, and afterwards my house became a madhouse of people yelling one tou free four fiv seex seven eixs nine ten, which I found absolutely hysterical. I feel like I might regret this decision sometime in the future when I get annoyed with this yelling, but right now they are all so supernice I want to try and teach them some english.
As for Guarani, I am learning all I can by osmosis and listening to people especially the kids, but its become apparent that I´m going to need to find a tutor, at least for the first few months here. It is getting a bit frusterating to hear people talking all the time and have little idea what they are saying, except for when they address me directly since they do that in Spanish. Alright well I have to get going to buy my jacket and catch the bus at 11 am. Happy belated mothers day to all the moms and moms to be out there!
Monday, May 3, 2010
I Have my Shoe...REMIX!!!
Hey everybody. Sorry again for the lack of updates the last couple of weeks, but its been an action packed period. Life is good right now. I've been in Asuncion for the weekend with the rest of the other 46 volunteers from my training group, as kind of a transitionary period from ending training and moving out of our host family's houses to heading to our respective sites where we will all be spending the following 2 years. There has been a lot going on lately so this is going to be just a stream of consciousness post, we shall see where that takes us.
The swearing in ceremony where we take our oath as official volunteers took place in the American Embassy here in Asuncion. Maybe an arbitrary distinction but nevertheless throughout training it is something the PC continuously reminds you of, and it is nice to finally be an official volunteer and get the monthly stipend. The American Embassy here is high class, they even managed to get the address 1776. The The U.S. ambassador to Paraguay attended the ceremony as well so that made us all feel important. She gave a little speech, which honestly was dwarfed but one of the most amazing speeches I have ever heard in person by our volunteer speaker. In addition, after the ceremony, there was some of the most delicious chocolate cake that I have ever eaten in my life, no exageration. Top 5 for sure.
After we became official volunteers we were finally given cell phones, which was awesome after not having them for 3 months. I mean, in our training community if we wanted to talk to each other's houses we had to do it old school (cerca 1990) style and simply walk to the person's house and ask their host parents if they are home. Some of you may know I am personally a fan of doing without excessive modern convenicences but I take back everything I have said about cell phones. They are awesome. And after a 3 month period of no cell phones us PCVs definitely abused them a little bit this weekend, but I'm okay with that.
As part of the finale as we ended training there was a talent show. And I am proud to say the Early Elementary Education group came out on top against some pretty stellar competition. In order to explain the greatness of our act I need to give some background. When PCVs go to the our sites, some of the major work that we do is helping educate kids on how NOT to get worms. Something like 90% of Paraguayan kids get worms or other parasites, which is obviously outrageously high, and much of it is due to lack of education on how worms are contracted. One of the big things we do to educate kids is sing this song in Guarani which is to the tune of London Bridge and translated comes out "I have my shoe, shoe, shoe/And I'm feeling good, I don't have worms/And I'm feeling good"...and it continues with other such phrases. So, for the talent show we decided to spice up the song a bit, and invented the "I have my shoe...REMIX!!!" (In Guarani it is "Areko che zapatu"). I will hopefully be able to post the video either on the blog or on facebook but it is quite a spectacle. It features myself and 2 other dudes from my EEE group throwin down some mad lyrical flow, and we had the luck to have a professional beatbox in our group who strikes up a kickin beat. We even used giant mandioca roots as microphones. The lyrics we came up with are a mix of English, Spanish and Guarani:
I see you playin' futbol after school
Maaan why you ain't wearin no zapatu? (zapatu=shoe in Guarani)
Yo listen up all you little mitai (matai=little kids)
You don't want to quedar with that chivivi (=get diarrehea)
We're education and we're here to say
You gotta wash your hands, every day
And while we're at it can't you see
We're doin' participatory activities
And promoting gender equality
'Cuz we don't like our ladies with sevo'i (sevo'i=worms in Gua)
You know what you necesacitas?
You need some Goshdarn Zapatillas (shoes)
That's right big booty I'm lookin at you
Why you ain't wearin no Zapatu?
Now when I say "Sevo", you say "I"
Sevo I Sevo I
And when I say Zapa, you say 'tu'
Zapa Tu Zapa Tu
Now Papa Miguel's gotta pass the mic (Papa Miguel is my rap name)
To my brotha Rikzilla come and say what you like
(My buddy throws down probably my favorite line of the song right here):
Listen to the Rikman (his rap name is Rikzilla)
I'll give you the scoop
Giardia's no joke son I'm talkin' frothy poop
You don't get it from kissin'
So Stop Drop and Listen
Heed my advice or from your butt you'll be pissin'
No drip from the anos
When you lava los manos
So cuidate every day
Keep your poop sano
Now when I say Frothy you say Poo
Frothy Poo Frothy Poo
And when I say Lava you say Po
Lava Po Lava Po (Wash your hands)
Thanks ya'll for listenin' to our charlita (talk)
You can pay us back with a cervecita (beer)
That's Triple E
with Anne Marie
Comin at ya from Naranjaisyyyyyyy
It might seem a little graphic at points, but it is indeed parasites result in awful consequences for kids such as bad diarrhea, you can't really sugarcoat parasites. And it is a problem in the classroom b/c kids who are consistently sick tend to have a lot of trouble paying attention in class, which is part of our mission in Early Elementary Ed in Paraguay..Anyhow, This song was a first place winner in the talent show so represent EEE (Early Elementary Ed). (Take that SWAG.)
Tomorrow I head to my site where I will be spending the next 2 years of life! It's excited although it will certainly be weird to be away from all the friends I've made during training and be out on my own so to speak. One of the weirdest things is transitioning from interacting with other PCVs in English to conducting your daily routine soley in Spanish and Guarani. Well that and getting used to my host dad cutting an enormous chunk of raw cow with a tablesaw on the same table that you will be eating lunch on in an hour or so. Oh and not to mention using bags of cotton as couches. And actually a million other things. But indeed I got a really good vibe from my host family when I visited, so I am more excited then nervous about finally heading there and starting my 2 year service. It's going to take a bit of getting used to though. I mean, my entire town is on one street a little less than a kilometer long. If you want to try and googlemaps it, google 'san juan nepomuceno paraguay' and scroll 16 km to the east. Yea you won't see much, but that is indeed my life for the next 2 years.
Well I'm off to spoil myself with some filophals in the city, hasta la proxima!
The swearing in ceremony where we take our oath as official volunteers took place in the American Embassy here in Asuncion. Maybe an arbitrary distinction but nevertheless throughout training it is something the PC continuously reminds you of, and it is nice to finally be an official volunteer and get the monthly stipend. The American Embassy here is high class, they even managed to get the address 1776. The The U.S. ambassador to Paraguay attended the ceremony as well so that made us all feel important. She gave a little speech, which honestly was dwarfed but one of the most amazing speeches I have ever heard in person by our volunteer speaker. In addition, after the ceremony, there was some of the most delicious chocolate cake that I have ever eaten in my life, no exageration. Top 5 for sure.
After we became official volunteers we were finally given cell phones, which was awesome after not having them for 3 months. I mean, in our training community if we wanted to talk to each other's houses we had to do it old school (cerca 1990) style and simply walk to the person's house and ask their host parents if they are home. Some of you may know I am personally a fan of doing without excessive modern convenicences but I take back everything I have said about cell phones. They are awesome. And after a 3 month period of no cell phones us PCVs definitely abused them a little bit this weekend, but I'm okay with that.
As part of the finale as we ended training there was a talent show. And I am proud to say the Early Elementary Education group came out on top against some pretty stellar competition. In order to explain the greatness of our act I need to give some background. When PCVs go to the our sites, some of the major work that we do is helping educate kids on how NOT to get worms. Something like 90% of Paraguayan kids get worms or other parasites, which is obviously outrageously high, and much of it is due to lack of education on how worms are contracted. One of the big things we do to educate kids is sing this song in Guarani which is to the tune of London Bridge and translated comes out "I have my shoe, shoe, shoe/And I'm feeling good, I don't have worms/And I'm feeling good"...and it continues with other such phrases. So, for the talent show we decided to spice up the song a bit, and invented the "I have my shoe...REMIX!!!" (In Guarani it is "Areko che zapatu"). I will hopefully be able to post the video either on the blog or on facebook but it is quite a spectacle. It features myself and 2 other dudes from my EEE group throwin down some mad lyrical flow, and we had the luck to have a professional beatbox in our group who strikes up a kickin beat. We even used giant mandioca roots as microphones. The lyrics we came up with are a mix of English, Spanish and Guarani:
I see you playin' futbol after school
Maaan why you ain't wearin no zapatu? (zapatu=shoe in Guarani)
Yo listen up all you little mitai (matai=little kids)
You don't want to quedar with that chivivi (=get diarrehea)
We're education and we're here to say
You gotta wash your hands, every day
And while we're at it can't you see
We're doin' participatory activities
And promoting gender equality
'Cuz we don't like our ladies with sevo'i (sevo'i=worms in Gua)
You know what you necesacitas?
You need some Goshdarn Zapatillas (shoes)
That's right big booty I'm lookin at you
Why you ain't wearin no Zapatu?
Now when I say "Sevo", you say "I"
Sevo I Sevo I
And when I say Zapa, you say 'tu'
Zapa Tu Zapa Tu
Now Papa Miguel's gotta pass the mic (Papa Miguel is my rap name)
To my brotha Rikzilla come and say what you like
(My buddy throws down probably my favorite line of the song right here):
Listen to the Rikman (his rap name is Rikzilla)
I'll give you the scoop
Giardia's no joke son I'm talkin' frothy poop
You don't get it from kissin'
So Stop Drop and Listen
Heed my advice or from your butt you'll be pissin'
No drip from the anos
When you lava los manos
So cuidate every day
Keep your poop sano
Now when I say Frothy you say Poo
Frothy Poo Frothy Poo
And when I say Lava you say Po
Lava Po Lava Po (Wash your hands)
Thanks ya'll for listenin' to our charlita (talk)
You can pay us back with a cervecita (beer)
That's Triple E
with Anne Marie
Comin at ya from Naranjaisyyyyyyy
It might seem a little graphic at points, but it is indeed parasites result in awful consequences for kids such as bad diarrhea, you can't really sugarcoat parasites. And it is a problem in the classroom b/c kids who are consistently sick tend to have a lot of trouble paying attention in class, which is part of our mission in Early Elementary Ed in Paraguay..Anyhow, This song was a first place winner in the talent show so represent EEE (Early Elementary Ed). (Take that SWAG.)
Tomorrow I head to my site where I will be spending the next 2 years of life! It's excited although it will certainly be weird to be away from all the friends I've made during training and be out on my own so to speak. One of the weirdest things is transitioning from interacting with other PCVs in English to conducting your daily routine soley in Spanish and Guarani. Well that and getting used to my host dad cutting an enormous chunk of raw cow with a tablesaw on the same table that you will be eating lunch on in an hour or so. Oh and not to mention using bags of cotton as couches. And actually a million other things. But indeed I got a really good vibe from my host family when I visited, so I am more excited then nervous about finally heading there and starting my 2 year service. It's going to take a bit of getting used to though. I mean, my entire town is on one street a little less than a kilometer long. If you want to try and googlemaps it, google 'san juan nepomuceno paraguay' and scroll 16 km to the east. Yea you won't see much, but that is indeed my life for the next 2 years.
Well I'm off to spoil myself with some filophals in the city, hasta la proxima!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Welcome to the Campo
It´s been awhile since my last post, sorry about that. Some of it has been due to the lack of internet access, and also to the fact that I´ve been ¨busy¨lately, slash I´ve been sitting around with Paraguayans drinking lots of terere and assimilating into the culture. Anyhow, I did finally find out where I will be for two years! I am in a tiny rural town of about 400 people or so called Sant Blas. It is 16 km from the nearest ¨city¨of ten thousand people, although as I found out yesterday, the 16 km bus ride ends up being about 2 hrs because it is on a bumpy dirt road. And if it rains, forget about it. So as we say in Peace Corps spanglish, my site is super-campo, or super-rural.
My site is awesome, though. For the past five days, all PCVs went out to visit their future sites, and mine did not dissapoint. Honestly, I could not have picked a better living situation if I could have created it like create-a-player on hangtime, for all of you out there that played that marvalous sega game. I will living with a family that runs a farm and owns about 20 hectares of land, with a variety of crops including cotton, soy beans, grapefruit trees, pear trees, orange trees, and several others. In addition, they own about 10 cows, several oxen, 4 horses, 6 pigs, 100 or so chickens (although it was down to 99 after we ate lunch last Saturday), and there are about 6 to 7 dogs who roam about the house at any given moment. Oh and I almost forgot there are 9 kids ranging in age 4 to 19 living in the house, whichy means no I will never be bored. Everyone is hilarious...although it took me a good 4 days to get all the names down. Also this week, since I am super rural I experienced the glory of a cold shower at 6 am, which is a pretty good way to wake yourself up. Also, I don´t have a toilet, more of an oversized keyhole shape in the ground. Yes, pictures will be forthcoming at some point.
Aside from my living situation, I found out a great deal of what I will most likely be doing during my 2 years here. In general, I will be trying to create slash bring in more materials to the schools here, as well as give workshops to all of the teachers here on topics such as how to use didactic materials and involve students more in the learning process. Be it for a lack of materials or a lack of pedagogical knowledge, often times school for kids here consists of the kids just copying stuff off of the board instead of critical thinking, which I am going to try to work on through bringing in better activities for math and reading. I might also be teaching a class in the teacher college in the adjecent larger town, and teaching a little bit of English in the high school or middle school.
So, a couple of funny stories from the week. First, my friend in town slash the principal of one of the local schools took me all around town to visit all the schools in the area. And in one particular school he took me to visit, the professor was not there for the day (for the freshman class). Miguel, do you want to give a talk to the class? he asked me. I said sure, what like 5 or 10 minutes on American culture? And he said well, more like 2 and a half hours, the teacher isnt here today so maybe you could teach the class. So yea, ended up in a class of 24 freshmen teaching them random stuff off the top of my head for 2 and a half hours, including some English and some creative writing. Honestly I could have done whatever I wanted for that time and they would have loved it I feel like.
Second little story. So, I was unpacking my bags yesterday night after the 8 or so hour bus ride home. I take my shoes out of my backpack, which are in a plastic bag, and notice that one shoe seems to weigh slightly more than the other. I look in my left shoe, and low and behold, a huge toad is wedged into the toe area, laying on its back. It had made the 8 hour bus ride with me from my future site to my training site. I yell to my 11 year old host brother and host mom to come and look as I freak out, assuming that the toad is obviously dead from being tossed around on a bus and being enclosed in a plastic bag for 8 hours. Laughing hysterically (because I had of course told them my previous toad story), my host mom and brother stare at it deciding what to do. Abel grabs it, and tosses it on the ground, where it lays on its back for about 15 seconds, starts to wiggle, eventually hops off to start a new lineage far away from its hometown. I don´t know what it is about the left shoe of my TEVAs, but toads just love it.
Needless to say it was a weekend filled with surprises. I realized definitively that I need to learn Guarani this weekend, because too often my family would talk in Guarani and I would hear jibberish jibberish jibberish...MIGUEL! followed by a lot of laughing and pointing at me. I cant let this continue going on for two years. In general though, most people in my town have heard of the peace corps and seem excited to have a volunteer around for the next couple of years, which is good news for me, as long as I can get used to the cold showers...which are going to be pretty rough in the winter, as the temp keeps getting cooler.
My site is awesome, though. For the past five days, all PCVs went out to visit their future sites, and mine did not dissapoint. Honestly, I could not have picked a better living situation if I could have created it like create-a-player on hangtime, for all of you out there that played that marvalous sega game. I will living with a family that runs a farm and owns about 20 hectares of land, with a variety of crops including cotton, soy beans, grapefruit trees, pear trees, orange trees, and several others. In addition, they own about 10 cows, several oxen, 4 horses, 6 pigs, 100 or so chickens (although it was down to 99 after we ate lunch last Saturday), and there are about 6 to 7 dogs who roam about the house at any given moment. Oh and I almost forgot there are 9 kids ranging in age 4 to 19 living in the house, whichy means no I will never be bored. Everyone is hilarious...although it took me a good 4 days to get all the names down. Also this week, since I am super rural I experienced the glory of a cold shower at 6 am, which is a pretty good way to wake yourself up. Also, I don´t have a toilet, more of an oversized keyhole shape in the ground. Yes, pictures will be forthcoming at some point.
Aside from my living situation, I found out a great deal of what I will most likely be doing during my 2 years here. In general, I will be trying to create slash bring in more materials to the schools here, as well as give workshops to all of the teachers here on topics such as how to use didactic materials and involve students more in the learning process. Be it for a lack of materials or a lack of pedagogical knowledge, often times school for kids here consists of the kids just copying stuff off of the board instead of critical thinking, which I am going to try to work on through bringing in better activities for math and reading. I might also be teaching a class in the teacher college in the adjecent larger town, and teaching a little bit of English in the high school or middle school.
So, a couple of funny stories from the week. First, my friend in town slash the principal of one of the local schools took me all around town to visit all the schools in the area. And in one particular school he took me to visit, the professor was not there for the day (for the freshman class). Miguel, do you want to give a talk to the class? he asked me. I said sure, what like 5 or 10 minutes on American culture? And he said well, more like 2 and a half hours, the teacher isnt here today so maybe you could teach the class. So yea, ended up in a class of 24 freshmen teaching them random stuff off the top of my head for 2 and a half hours, including some English and some creative writing. Honestly I could have done whatever I wanted for that time and they would have loved it I feel like.
Second little story. So, I was unpacking my bags yesterday night after the 8 or so hour bus ride home. I take my shoes out of my backpack, which are in a plastic bag, and notice that one shoe seems to weigh slightly more than the other. I look in my left shoe, and low and behold, a huge toad is wedged into the toe area, laying on its back. It had made the 8 hour bus ride with me from my future site to my training site. I yell to my 11 year old host brother and host mom to come and look as I freak out, assuming that the toad is obviously dead from being tossed around on a bus and being enclosed in a plastic bag for 8 hours. Laughing hysterically (because I had of course told them my previous toad story), my host mom and brother stare at it deciding what to do. Abel grabs it, and tosses it on the ground, where it lays on its back for about 15 seconds, starts to wiggle, eventually hops off to start a new lineage far away from its hometown. I don´t know what it is about the left shoe of my TEVAs, but toads just love it.
Needless to say it was a weekend filled with surprises. I realized definitively that I need to learn Guarani this weekend, because too often my family would talk in Guarani and I would hear jibberish jibberish jibberish...MIGUEL! followed by a lot of laughing and pointing at me. I cant let this continue going on for two years. In general though, most people in my town have heard of the peace corps and seem excited to have a volunteer around for the next couple of years, which is good news for me, as long as I can get used to the cold showers...which are going to be pretty rough in the winter, as the temp keeps getting cooler.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Jajecepilla va´era!
Jajecepilla va´era! Or, in English, I have to brush my teeth! This was the basis of the song that two other volunteers and I were singing with elementary aged-kids in Guarani this week. We taught some kids who had never before used (or probably seen for most of them) toothbrushes. But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Allow me to properly set up the week.
This past week was practicum week, which meant that I went with two other trainees to visit a volunteer at their site. We were tapped to go to one of the most rural sites. After about 2 hours of driving on Monday morning from Guarambare we met up with a dirt road that we followed for several miles before reaching our community, a small town of about 750 people. It has two elementary schools, one which is more near the ´center´of the town and another which is way out in the middle of nowhere. We would be working at both, giving dental health talks to all of the students from both schools, and helping to set up the library which the volunteer had started. I would be staying with a family whose parents speak Guarani, while I speak very little Guarani. This indeed led to hours of entertainment at the dinner
table, where I had to resort again to smiling and nodding, something I
haven´t done since I was first studying abroad in a Latin American
country in Buenos Aires long ago. I used all of the words I knew, and
even found out the exact quantities of their animals: 75 chickens, 10
pigs, 12 cows and ox´s, and 2 dogs. Yes it was fun for everyone.
Anyhow, after about 9 hours of rain Monday night and Tuesday morning,
school was canceled for Tuesday. Yes thats right we have snow days in
Chicago they have rain days in Paraguay. At first I thought it was
just a cop-out not too have school, but when I walked to the school to
work on the library with the kids gone, I found out why. In order to
arrive I had to wade through a recent formed river. I attempted to
long jump the river in parts, but this only ended up in my getting my
shoes wet. I then resolved to just roll up my khakis and take off my
shoes to wade through huck fin style.
The rest of the week we gave about 12 different talks on dental health
and helped with the library. Thursday was the highlight, when we
showed the kids at the super isolated school (no running water in this
one) how to brush their teeth and they were all holding the
toothbrushes like flutes or cigars or something, definitely not like
toothbrushes though. The first class was drooling a lot once we got
about 1 minute in to the brushing, and we realized it was because we
forgot to tell them that they should spit out the excess paste.
Overall this was one of the coolest things I think I´ve done so far,
pictures hopefully will follow sometime.
A funny story from Thursday morning, as I went to put on my shoes at
630 in the morning before heading to school, a huge toad jumped out of
one of them. I screamed like a little girl and nearly had a heart
attack, which caused my host mom to rush into my room speaking rapid
fire Guarani. I said the broken Guarani equivalent of`` I have frog
in shoe´´ and she laughed harder than I think I have heard anyone
laugh since I´ve been here.
So life is alright here right now, we find out about our sites in
about a week and a half. Next week is holy week, which means a little
bit of vacation and seeing out they celebrate in our little town.
Hope everyone is good,
Mick
This past week was practicum week, which meant that I went with two other trainees to visit a volunteer at their site. We were tapped to go to one of the most rural sites. After about 2 hours of driving on Monday morning from Guarambare we met up with a dirt road that we followed for several miles before reaching our community, a small town of about 750 people. It has two elementary schools, one which is more near the ´center´of the town and another which is way out in the middle of nowhere. We would be working at both, giving dental health talks to all of the students from both schools, and helping to set up the library which the volunteer had started. I would be staying with a family whose parents speak Guarani, while I speak very little Guarani. This indeed led to hours of entertainment at the dinner
table, where I had to resort again to smiling and nodding, something I
haven´t done since I was first studying abroad in a Latin American
country in Buenos Aires long ago. I used all of the words I knew, and
even found out the exact quantities of their animals: 75 chickens, 10
pigs, 12 cows and ox´s, and 2 dogs. Yes it was fun for everyone.
Anyhow, after about 9 hours of rain Monday night and Tuesday morning,
school was canceled for Tuesday. Yes thats right we have snow days in
Chicago they have rain days in Paraguay. At first I thought it was
just a cop-out not too have school, but when I walked to the school to
work on the library with the kids gone, I found out why. In order to
arrive I had to wade through a recent formed river. I attempted to
long jump the river in parts, but this only ended up in my getting my
shoes wet. I then resolved to just roll up my khakis and take off my
shoes to wade through huck fin style.
The rest of the week we gave about 12 different talks on dental health
and helped with the library. Thursday was the highlight, when we
showed the kids at the super isolated school (no running water in this
one) how to brush their teeth and they were all holding the
toothbrushes like flutes or cigars or something, definitely not like
toothbrushes though. The first class was drooling a lot once we got
about 1 minute in to the brushing, and we realized it was because we
forgot to tell them that they should spit out the excess paste.
Overall this was one of the coolest things I think I´ve done so far,
pictures hopefully will follow sometime.
A funny story from Thursday morning, as I went to put on my shoes at
630 in the morning before heading to school, a huge toad jumped out of
one of them. I screamed like a little girl and nearly had a heart
attack, which caused my host mom to rush into my room speaking rapid
fire Guarani. I said the broken Guarani equivalent of`` I have frog
in shoe´´ and she laughed harder than I think I have heard anyone
laugh since I´ve been here.
So life is alright here right now, we find out about our sites in
about a week and a half. Next week is holy week, which means a little
bit of vacation and seeing out they celebrate in our little town.
Hope everyone is good,
Mick
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Happy St. Patty´s Day.
I´ve had some requests for my mail address so here it is:
Mike Dooley PCT
Cuerpo de Paz Centro de Entrenamiento
162 Chaco Boreal c/ Mcal Lopez
Asuncion 1580, Paraguay, South America
This will be permanent, except that once I am a volunteer the heading will change to ´Mike Dooley PCV´(I will be a volunteer whereas right now I am technically a trainee). Not a big deal really.
Next week I am going to live with a family that speaks only Guarani. This should be interesting, especially if I have to communicate to them any symptoms of the recent illnesses I have been experiencing. I have self diagnosed myself with a skin parasite, and possibly Giardia. These might sound bad but honestly they are pretty common around here. My immune system is in pretty good shape so I should be able to fight them off without a problem.
So the talk around here lately, or in Spanish the chisme, if you will, has been about where we are going to be placed for our two years of service in the Peace Corps. We find out in about a week and a half, and I´m the stereotypically nervous but excited. I could end up in the Chaco desert or a tropical paradise, who knows.
Sorry for the brevity of this post but I´m gonna roll out of this internet cafe soon as I´m feeling a little bit under the weather. Hope everyone had a proper St. Patty´s Day.
Mike Dooley PCT
Cuerpo de Paz Centro de Entrenamiento
162 Chaco Boreal c/ Mcal Lopez
Asuncion 1580, Paraguay, South America
This will be permanent, except that once I am a volunteer the heading will change to ´Mike Dooley PCV´(I will be a volunteer whereas right now I am technically a trainee). Not a big deal really.
Next week I am going to live with a family that speaks only Guarani. This should be interesting, especially if I have to communicate to them any symptoms of the recent illnesses I have been experiencing. I have self diagnosed myself with a skin parasite, and possibly Giardia. These might sound bad but honestly they are pretty common around here. My immune system is in pretty good shape so I should be able to fight them off without a problem.
So the talk around here lately, or in Spanish the chisme, if you will, has been about where we are going to be placed for our two years of service in the Peace Corps. We find out in about a week and a half, and I´m the stereotypically nervous but excited. I could end up in the Chaco desert or a tropical paradise, who knows.
Sorry for the brevity of this post but I´m gonna roll out of this internet cafe soon as I´m feeling a little bit under the weather. Hope everyone had a proper St. Patty´s Day.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Top Ten Strangest Things in Paraguay that Peace Corps Trainees now take for Granted
Today marks just over one month of time that I have spent in Paraguay. And the other day as I sat in my front yard on the corner beneath my mango trees sucking out the juice of a grapefruit (also from a tree in my yard) as I watched my chickens running around, I decided that I have already begun to take a lot for granted in this country which I am fallin in love with. So, I made a list of about ten things that I thought were strange but that I now take for granted, and passed it around to most of the other PVC´s (Peace Corps Volunteers, this will be the last time I write out this abbreviation), letting them vote for their favorite four and add a write in nomination if they pleased. The results are below:
#10 Learning that chickens sleep in trees.
#9 Getting stared at wherever you go. Yea, there aren´t many gringos around these parts. The whole town notices whenver we go anywhere, its kind of ridiculous.
#8 The use of brooms to sweep away animals (out of a house, away from a fire, etc.)
#7 Throwing food scraps anywhere on the ground. Not that this one is necesarily unique to Paraguay, b/c I did this in rural Ireland when I was there as well. But I remember the look of confusion my host mom first gave me when I asked her what I should do with my banana peel. Tira en la calle!! she said. Throw it in the street!! She said this as if I had just asked her what country I was in. Since that moment i´ve had a blast...grapefruit peels, lime peels, whatever! Tira en la calle! It´s biodegradable anyway!
#6 The number of people that can fit on a bus. If you read my last post, you already know that the collectivos here are crazy crowded at peak hours.
#5 Cows being loaned out as lawnmowers. My mom here does NOT own a lawnmower. Why, when the vaca from across the street will gladly spend the day munching on some fresh grass that is our front lawn? Problem solved.
#4: Trash Fires. I have a ziplock baggie full of garbage from my first month here. I think I minimized my amount of trash pretty well; however, I have been wondering what to do with it. This morning I woke up and it smelled like a plastic factory was burning. I think I have my answer to what I am going to do with that plastic baggy...yea they burn a lot of the trash here, at least in my specific area.
#3 Ice in Bags. Now this doesn´t mean ice CUBES in bags, but rather, little clear plastic bags are filled with water, frozen, and then broken with a hammer when the ice is needed. I have not seen one tray of ice the whole time I have been here. Personally, this is my number one. I love ice in bags; it cools your drink off so much more efficiently. Already planning on bringing this one back to the U.S. in a couple of years.
#2 Saying ´Adios´ instead of ´hola´when passing people. You how in the U.S., sometimes when passing someone you say ´hey, hows it going?´ and then that person actually stops to talk to you, and an awkward conversation ensues? Worry not about that in Paraguay. If you don´t want to have a conversation with someone when you are walking by, you just say ´adios!´ and keep on rolling. Goodbye! Problem solved. I love it.
#1 Families of five riding on motorcycles. I am not surprised at all that this is occupying the #1 spot. EVERYONE and their little brother rides a motorcycle in Paraguay. My little brother here is 11 and rides one locally. I regularly see three people riding one, usually families. Five is the most I have seen or have heard of anyone seeing, and it included a baby, a couple of toddlers, a mom and dad. Sadly, very dangerous too, and moto accidents are one of the number one causes of death in the country.
So, there you have it, probably not as riveting as one of Lettermen´s lists but interesting nonetheless. Now, I would like to respond directly to some questions that people have been posting:
Q: Does Abel have a group of neighborhood friends? It seems like it'd be tough for him to stay busy all the time.
I am pretty sure Abel is related to 40 percent of my neighborhood so he has a lot of friends relatives to chill with. Honestly he stays busy though. school in Paraguay for him goes from 7 am until 11 am, and he spends the rest of the day playing soccer and working out.
Q: Also, why are Bolivian bus ceilings so short--do bolivianos top out at around 5'7"?
I´m not sure, but my Paraguayan friend told me told me they did, so I am inclined to believe her.
Q: What's the Paraguayan news like? Who are the celebrities? What are today's top stories?
I have no idea what the Paraguayan general news is like. I have not seen a newspaper in my neighborhood, and my host mom does not watch ANY tv, so therefore I am not exposed to any news. We don´t even know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, let alone the political situation. Honestly, news here is very, very local and gossipy. People like to hear the news about their own town. For example, when I got stranded in a town one over from mine and couldn´t get home until 4 am last Saturday because of the lack of busses, my entire town new this before I woke up Sunday morning. As for celebrities, Soccer players are the most well known icons. Perhaps Paraguay´s best player, Salvador Cabañas, got shot in the head while at a bar in Mexico and this was pretty big news.
Q: Mick, Fiona and I read in Guinness book of Records that Paraguay consumes the most tea. It probably ain't Lipton's? What kinds? There must be tea shops the way we have coffee shops? But that is coffee bean country, no?
The tea that they are talking about is most likely terere. It is consumed cold, and is a great way to rehydrate on a hot day if you have been working in the fields, or just hanging out with your friends and want something cool to drink. Terere is such a big component to Paraguayan culture that in the future I will probably devote a whole post to explaining the nuances of it all. Coffee isn´t very popular here. There are few coffee shops, whichy did indeed surprise me as well when I got here since we are so close to Brazil. I guess Paraguay is just ouside of coffee bean country.
The picture link to the right now works. That´s all for today. Hasta la proxima,
Mick
#10 Learning that chickens sleep in trees.
#9 Getting stared at wherever you go. Yea, there aren´t many gringos around these parts. The whole town notices whenver we go anywhere, its kind of ridiculous.
#8 The use of brooms to sweep away animals (out of a house, away from a fire, etc.)
#7 Throwing food scraps anywhere on the ground. Not that this one is necesarily unique to Paraguay, b/c I did this in rural Ireland when I was there as well. But I remember the look of confusion my host mom first gave me when I asked her what I should do with my banana peel. Tira en la calle!! she said. Throw it in the street!! She said this as if I had just asked her what country I was in. Since that moment i´ve had a blast...grapefruit peels, lime peels, whatever! Tira en la calle! It´s biodegradable anyway!
#6 The number of people that can fit on a bus. If you read my last post, you already know that the collectivos here are crazy crowded at peak hours.
#5 Cows being loaned out as lawnmowers. My mom here does NOT own a lawnmower. Why, when the vaca from across the street will gladly spend the day munching on some fresh grass that is our front lawn? Problem solved.
#4: Trash Fires. I have a ziplock baggie full of garbage from my first month here. I think I minimized my amount of trash pretty well; however, I have been wondering what to do with it. This morning I woke up and it smelled like a plastic factory was burning. I think I have my answer to what I am going to do with that plastic baggy...yea they burn a lot of the trash here, at least in my specific area.
#3 Ice in Bags. Now this doesn´t mean ice CUBES in bags, but rather, little clear plastic bags are filled with water, frozen, and then broken with a hammer when the ice is needed. I have not seen one tray of ice the whole time I have been here. Personally, this is my number one. I love ice in bags; it cools your drink off so much more efficiently. Already planning on bringing this one back to the U.S. in a couple of years.
#2 Saying ´Adios´ instead of ´hola´when passing people. You how in the U.S., sometimes when passing someone you say ´hey, hows it going?´ and then that person actually stops to talk to you, and an awkward conversation ensues? Worry not about that in Paraguay. If you don´t want to have a conversation with someone when you are walking by, you just say ´adios!´ and keep on rolling. Goodbye! Problem solved. I love it.
#1 Families of five riding on motorcycles. I am not surprised at all that this is occupying the #1 spot. EVERYONE and their little brother rides a motorcycle in Paraguay. My little brother here is 11 and rides one locally. I regularly see three people riding one, usually families. Five is the most I have seen or have heard of anyone seeing, and it included a baby, a couple of toddlers, a mom and dad. Sadly, very dangerous too, and moto accidents are one of the number one causes of death in the country.
So, there you have it, probably not as riveting as one of Lettermen´s lists but interesting nonetheless. Now, I would like to respond directly to some questions that people have been posting:
Q: Does Abel have a group of neighborhood friends? It seems like it'd be tough for him to stay busy all the time.
I am pretty sure Abel is related to 40 percent of my neighborhood so he has a lot of friends relatives to chill with. Honestly he stays busy though. school in Paraguay for him goes from 7 am until 11 am, and he spends the rest of the day playing soccer and working out.
Q: Also, why are Bolivian bus ceilings so short--do bolivianos top out at around 5'7"?
I´m not sure, but my Paraguayan friend told me told me they did, so I am inclined to believe her.
Q: What's the Paraguayan news like? Who are the celebrities? What are today's top stories?
I have no idea what the Paraguayan general news is like. I have not seen a newspaper in my neighborhood, and my host mom does not watch ANY tv, so therefore I am not exposed to any news. We don´t even know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, let alone the political situation. Honestly, news here is very, very local and gossipy. People like to hear the news about their own town. For example, when I got stranded in a town one over from mine and couldn´t get home until 4 am last Saturday because of the lack of busses, my entire town new this before I woke up Sunday morning. As for celebrities, Soccer players are the most well known icons. Perhaps Paraguay´s best player, Salvador Cabañas, got shot in the head while at a bar in Mexico and this was pretty big news.
Q: Mick, Fiona and I read in Guinness book of Records that Paraguay consumes the most tea. It probably ain't Lipton's? What kinds? There must be tea shops the way we have coffee shops? But that is coffee bean country, no?
The tea that they are talking about is most likely terere. It is consumed cold, and is a great way to rehydrate on a hot day if you have been working in the fields, or just hanging out with your friends and want something cool to drink. Terere is such a big component to Paraguayan culture that in the future I will probably devote a whole post to explaining the nuances of it all. Coffee isn´t very popular here. There are few coffee shops, whichy did indeed surprise me as well when I got here since we are so close to Brazil. I guess Paraguay is just ouside of coffee bean country.
The picture link to the right now works. That´s all for today. Hasta la proxima,
Mick
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Asuncion, Collectivos, and General Guay Para Comments
The days have been going by pretty quickly the last week or so. Training has been consuming a vast amount of our time, as we have been getting ready for workshops with Paraguayan teachers, studying a lot of Guarani, and also trying to spend as much time integrating in the community as possible. There have been a lot of very interesting happenings, and I think my next post is going to be a top 10-er, that is the top ten most shocking things about Paraguay that I already have started to take for granted. So everybody can look forward to that, I am still refining my list until later in the week though. For now just a general update.
Last Saturday I went into Asuncion with a few other volunteers and one of their host sisters, who served as our guide and made sure we didn’t get lost in the sprawling Paraguayan capital. We had decided on a day which would include comforts of home, feeling that we had earned it with all the community integration that we have been doing lately. We decided on watching Alice in Wonderland and going to Pizza Hut. In order to get to the movie theater in Asuncion from our little rural area just outside of Guarambare, we had to take 3 separate buses for a total of around three hours roundtrip. In Latin America the bus is called the ‘collectivo, and the colectivo experience is pretty unforgettable. Collectivos are more or less similar to city buses say, in Chicago, with a few exceptions. First of all, in the rural areas you can just flag down a collectivo anywhere on the road; there are no designated stop areas. Quite convenient, actually. It is not uncommon for a person to live 2 hours outside of Asuncion and take the collectivo to get to work each day. As you might be guessing, this leads to long, crowded colectivo rides with standing room only, and obviously there is no AC, that is just a given. So yea personal space is somewhat sacrificed. And sometimes they can get downright dangerous, like yesterday for example. I was the last of our group of 5 to squeeze my way onto an already sardine-like packed colectivo, and ended up kind of riding on the bottom stair for a few minutes. The door was open and I’m not gonna lie I got kind of a rush and it was a bit scary. Don’t worry I had a bar to grip though, so the actual possibility of my falling out was pretty slim. The funniest part, however, was when I finally walked up the stairs and stood on the bus for the next hour. Evidently this particular bus had been purchased from Bolivia, and as a result had been constructed with lower ceilings (or maybe high floors). To be precise, the height of the ceiling was around 5’8”. I am 6’2”. There was no way for me to quite lean or sit, so I had to bend my neck at a 45 degree angle for duration of the ride. This was hilarious to all of the other PVCs and I indeed got a great view of the tops of everyone’s heads for that ride. Definitely one of those times when I had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
In other news, throughout the last couple of weeks I have taught my host brother crazy eights or ochos locos and B.S., or mentiroso. Crazy eights is a riot to play with my host mom and brother because abel just hoards the eights and my host mom consistently forgets that you can put down a card of the same number instead of the same suit, and also confuses hearts and spadesn, so Abel and I have to look at her cards and tell her what to put down. She still wins a lot though, it’s pretty impressive. I have went on a few runs here, which are pretty picturesque. Also I played soccer last week with some Paraguayans. They way the play is the everybody on the team needs to throw down a one mil coin, (equivilant of about 30 cents maybe) and if you win you get another mil and if you lose you lose your mil. Then everybody heads to the tienda to split a 1.5 liter of cocacola between 12 people.
On another note, I finally busted out my laptop in my room today in order to write this post, save it on a flash drive, and then bring it to the internet café so I can copy and paste my post. So I am sitting in my room at my desk, and my host mom keeps peeking through the crack between my door and the wall with one eye, infinitely interested in what I am doing. I did my best to explain to her that it was ‘digital’ or something along those lines. We do not even have a phone in my house here…yea we’re a little old fashioned around here. Needless to say I think she was flabergasted. I’m starting to get used to the lack of technology myself as well, I actually feel slightly spoiled typing and listening to music on my computer machine.
I am throwing some pictures up today, which can be found on picasa via the link to the right. Earlier today I tried to take a few pics around my house and property, so enjoy. Unfortunately uploading is extremely slow here so I had to pick and choose a few key pics until have a better uploading sitch. Today marks about 3 and a half weeks of being here in Paraguay, but all of the PC trainees agree that it feels like we have been here for at least twice that time. I already feel myself not being surprised by things that floored me when I first arrived, like making ice in plastic bags instead of treys and seeing families of 5 on motorcycles. Also, my little chicks have been growing a ton in the last week, and in fact they have stopped following their mother around which was a little sad. They are still cute though, no worries. Also pardon my lack of english language skillz today, I am starting to forget English with all the Guarani and Spanish being thrown my way. Hasta la proxima!
Last Saturday I went into Asuncion with a few other volunteers and one of their host sisters, who served as our guide and made sure we didn’t get lost in the sprawling Paraguayan capital. We had decided on a day which would include comforts of home, feeling that we had earned it with all the community integration that we have been doing lately. We decided on watching Alice in Wonderland and going to Pizza Hut. In order to get to the movie theater in Asuncion from our little rural area just outside of Guarambare, we had to take 3 separate buses for a total of around three hours roundtrip. In Latin America the bus is called the ‘collectivo, and the colectivo experience is pretty unforgettable. Collectivos are more or less similar to city buses say, in Chicago, with a few exceptions. First of all, in the rural areas you can just flag down a collectivo anywhere on the road; there are no designated stop areas. Quite convenient, actually. It is not uncommon for a person to live 2 hours outside of Asuncion and take the collectivo to get to work each day. As you might be guessing, this leads to long, crowded colectivo rides with standing room only, and obviously there is no AC, that is just a given. So yea personal space is somewhat sacrificed. And sometimes they can get downright dangerous, like yesterday for example. I was the last of our group of 5 to squeeze my way onto an already sardine-like packed colectivo, and ended up kind of riding on the bottom stair for a few minutes. The door was open and I’m not gonna lie I got kind of a rush and it was a bit scary. Don’t worry I had a bar to grip though, so the actual possibility of my falling out was pretty slim. The funniest part, however, was when I finally walked up the stairs and stood on the bus for the next hour. Evidently this particular bus had been purchased from Bolivia, and as a result had been constructed with lower ceilings (or maybe high floors). To be precise, the height of the ceiling was around 5’8”. I am 6’2”. There was no way for me to quite lean or sit, so I had to bend my neck at a 45 degree angle for duration of the ride. This was hilarious to all of the other PVCs and I indeed got a great view of the tops of everyone’s heads for that ride. Definitely one of those times when I had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
In other news, throughout the last couple of weeks I have taught my host brother crazy eights or ochos locos and B.S., or mentiroso. Crazy eights is a riot to play with my host mom and brother because abel just hoards the eights and my host mom consistently forgets that you can put down a card of the same number instead of the same suit, and also confuses hearts and spadesn, so Abel and I have to look at her cards and tell her what to put down. She still wins a lot though, it’s pretty impressive. I have went on a few runs here, which are pretty picturesque. Also I played soccer last week with some Paraguayans. They way the play is the everybody on the team needs to throw down a one mil coin, (equivilant of about 30 cents maybe) and if you win you get another mil and if you lose you lose your mil. Then everybody heads to the tienda to split a 1.5 liter of cocacola between 12 people.
On another note, I finally busted out my laptop in my room today in order to write this post, save it on a flash drive, and then bring it to the internet café so I can copy and paste my post. So I am sitting in my room at my desk, and my host mom keeps peeking through the crack between my door and the wall with one eye, infinitely interested in what I am doing. I did my best to explain to her that it was ‘digital’ or something along those lines. We do not even have a phone in my house here…yea we’re a little old fashioned around here. Needless to say I think she was flabergasted. I’m starting to get used to the lack of technology myself as well, I actually feel slightly spoiled typing and listening to music on my computer machine.
I am throwing some pictures up today, which can be found on picasa via the link to the right. Earlier today I tried to take a few pics around my house and property, so enjoy. Unfortunately uploading is extremely slow here so I had to pick and choose a few key pics until have a better uploading sitch. Today marks about 3 and a half weeks of being here in Paraguay, but all of the PC trainees agree that it feels like we have been here for at least twice that time. I already feel myself not being surprised by things that floored me when I first arrived, like making ice in plastic bags instead of treys and seeing families of 5 on motorcycles. Also, my little chicks have been growing a ton in the last week, and in fact they have stopped following their mother around which was a little sad. They are still cute though, no worries. Also pardon my lack of english language skillz today, I am starting to forget English with all the Guarani and Spanish being thrown my way. Hasta la proxima!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Gran Chaco
This past weekend, all the PVCs (peace corps Volunteers, I have been asked to clarify ackronyms at least initially) in my training group were sent out to spend Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with a volunteer who is already set up in their host community work in the field. As luck would have it I was sent to the most desolate and isolated of all regions of Paraguay: the Chaco desert. Pictures will be forthcoming, but first allow me to note that the Chaco desert covers about 40 to 50 percent of the land area of Paraguay, while only 3% of the population chooses to reside their. The north area has a variety of wildlife including crocodiles and Toucans, and there are still nomadic tribes that roam the area who are not documented as citizens and have little contact with the rest of Paraguay.
I arrived there at night, after an 8 hour bus ride, so the climate was actually quite comfortable and there were a lot of stars to be seen. During the day however, it was blazing hot and evidently last summer the temperature reached an astounding 50 degrees Celcius, or 122 Fahrenheit. So then it will probably not come as a surprise that the one volunteer in this area is about 500 kilometers to the nearest other volunteer (most are 25 km). Needless to say, during the day we did a lot of terere drinking, sitting around, and cooking, taking it pretty easy. The volunteer I stayed with expalained ´Paraguayan time´ to me, which is the fact that if you want people to show up to your house for dinner at 8 pm, you have to tell them 7 pm. That is not an exageration at all. Personally, I think I could get used to Paraguayan time.
The visit gave me a good view into a lot of the responsibilities that I will have as a volunteer in the future. Some of them I had thought of, but in addition it looks like I will be doing a lot of grant writing for funds, proabaly coaching or organizing a sports camp in some capacity, and working with elementary teachers to give them more participatory methods for teaching their students.
This will be a short post because internet time is limited. I promise I have some solid posts coming up on the things about Paraguayan culture that I have found surpring, since I´m sure that´s something that will interest all my loyal blog readers. Hasta luego until then.
I arrived there at night, after an 8 hour bus ride, so the climate was actually quite comfortable and there were a lot of stars to be seen. During the day however, it was blazing hot and evidently last summer the temperature reached an astounding 50 degrees Celcius, or 122 Fahrenheit. So then it will probably not come as a surprise that the one volunteer in this area is about 500 kilometers to the nearest other volunteer (most are 25 km). Needless to say, during the day we did a lot of terere drinking, sitting around, and cooking, taking it pretty easy. The volunteer I stayed with expalained ´Paraguayan time´ to me, which is the fact that if you want people to show up to your house for dinner at 8 pm, you have to tell them 7 pm. That is not an exageration at all. Personally, I think I could get used to Paraguayan time.
The visit gave me a good view into a lot of the responsibilities that I will have as a volunteer in the future. Some of them I had thought of, but in addition it looks like I will be doing a lot of grant writing for funds, proabaly coaching or organizing a sports camp in some capacity, and working with elementary teachers to give them more participatory methods for teaching their students.
This will be a short post because internet time is limited. I promise I have some solid posts coming up on the things about Paraguayan culture that I have found surpring, since I´m sure that´s something that will interest all my loyal blog readers. Hasta luego until then.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
First Full Week, First Impressions, First Giant Slabs of Meat
After having been in Paraguay for not even two weeks, I feel almost like I have been here for a month. I guess time is easily misconstrued in an unfamiliar place. I´ll try to hit the major points of the week with this post although there have been a ton.
Last Saturday, unbeknownst to me until about 8 pm and I was expecting to eat dinner in the house, my Paraguayan mama took me to her Grandson´s birthday party slash Asada. An asada is just a party with a ton of meat at it. Upon getting there I had a pretty good conversation with my host-uncle named Raul in which he explained to me his entire philosophy on life, which is ´why so much?´. I on a good role with my Spanish, and when some more people got there he invited me to play this crazy card game called ´truco.´ At this point everyone began speaking Guarani, and as a result I still do not understand the rules of truco even after playing for about an hour and a half. I think it is something like bridge because you play it in partners, but who knows. After that came the meat of the party, which was unlimited slabs of cow, I´m not sure which cut it was but it was good. The guys who I was eating with got a pretty big kick out of my estimation that the meat we were eating might cost like 20 dollars per plate in a nice restaurant in Chicago. And they insisted that I eat several slabs of it. Needless to say I had some slight gastro-intestinal problems for a couple days after that as my stomach tried to remember how to digest South American meat.
That was Saturday, Sunday was spent recovering from the discoteca the previous night and just sitting around my house, siesta-ing, and drinking load of terere. At about 5 I got up the strenght to head over to my friend´s pool, where another PVC and I succesfully taught Sharks and Minnows to the kids, which was a blast and the kids loved.
This week has been the first of getting into a daily routine. For me this includes getting up around 7 (well first around 5 when the roosters start crowing but I eventually fall back asleep) to go to Guarani language classes until 1130, eating, then heading back to school from 1 until 5 for educational studies ´technico´ classes. Basically we sing elementary school songs in Spanish, which sometimes feels a little ridiculous but is fun. After that I usually play soccer, study, head to my uncle´s pool, or some variation of those three. Dinner is around 8 and usually turns into a sit and chill session until 9 or 930 after the food has been eaten, and I head to bed after that, maybe read a bit and go to sleep.
A couple of nights this week I played my eleven year old host brother in Connect four. I beat him the majority of the times, but he is pretty competetive and keeps getting better. We also started a reading club this week, and 15 people came which was a pretty good turnout. The other PVCs and I interspersed games with reading. Another first impression notable is that there are soooo many moto´s driven here. If I had to guess I would say about half of all traffic is a motorcycle of some sort. Even my 11 year old brother drives one locally.
So overall, besides the fact that I sweat through a couple of shirts a day, life is good. The pace is wayyyy slowed down compared to the city of Chicago or even the suburbs, which I like. It´s amazing how much time I have spent just sitting around this past week watching the traffic go by and talking about the heat and/or rain. This coming week we are going to Asuncion, and next week we will all be visiting a PVC somewhere in Paraguay.
Tim and Paul, thanks for the questions. I will look into the bundles of hundreds and typical food situation. I am going to tenatively say that if you put the hundreds in a teddy bear and sewed it shut it might make it. Don´t quote me on that though. As for your question Tim, lots of meat, and also fruit. I will get you a more specific answer in a week or so.
On a final note, my older host brother just asked me my favorite American food and I explained to her the greatness of the Chipotle burrito. They don´t have burritos in Paraguay except for in the big cities, and actually ´burrito´translates directly has ´little donkey,´which definitely does not accurately describe the contents of a burrito. I know sometimes in the U.S. we think of Latin America as a whole, but burritos are definitely a mexican, not paraguayan, food. Oh and it is 97 degrees here right now, feels like 107. That is all.
Last Saturday, unbeknownst to me until about 8 pm and I was expecting to eat dinner in the house, my Paraguayan mama took me to her Grandson´s birthday party slash Asada. An asada is just a party with a ton of meat at it. Upon getting there I had a pretty good conversation with my host-uncle named Raul in which he explained to me his entire philosophy on life, which is ´why so much?´. I on a good role with my Spanish, and when some more people got there he invited me to play this crazy card game called ´truco.´ At this point everyone began speaking Guarani, and as a result I still do not understand the rules of truco even after playing for about an hour and a half. I think it is something like bridge because you play it in partners, but who knows. After that came the meat of the party, which was unlimited slabs of cow, I´m not sure which cut it was but it was good. The guys who I was eating with got a pretty big kick out of my estimation that the meat we were eating might cost like 20 dollars per plate in a nice restaurant in Chicago. And they insisted that I eat several slabs of it. Needless to say I had some slight gastro-intestinal problems for a couple days after that as my stomach tried to remember how to digest South American meat.
That was Saturday, Sunday was spent recovering from the discoteca the previous night and just sitting around my house, siesta-ing, and drinking load of terere. At about 5 I got up the strenght to head over to my friend´s pool, where another PVC and I succesfully taught Sharks and Minnows to the kids, which was a blast and the kids loved.
This week has been the first of getting into a daily routine. For me this includes getting up around 7 (well first around 5 when the roosters start crowing but I eventually fall back asleep) to go to Guarani language classes until 1130, eating, then heading back to school from 1 until 5 for educational studies ´technico´ classes. Basically we sing elementary school songs in Spanish, which sometimes feels a little ridiculous but is fun. After that I usually play soccer, study, head to my uncle´s pool, or some variation of those three. Dinner is around 8 and usually turns into a sit and chill session until 9 or 930 after the food has been eaten, and I head to bed after that, maybe read a bit and go to sleep.
A couple of nights this week I played my eleven year old host brother in Connect four. I beat him the majority of the times, but he is pretty competetive and keeps getting better. We also started a reading club this week, and 15 people came which was a pretty good turnout. The other PVCs and I interspersed games with reading. Another first impression notable is that there are soooo many moto´s driven here. If I had to guess I would say about half of all traffic is a motorcycle of some sort. Even my 11 year old brother drives one locally.
So overall, besides the fact that I sweat through a couple of shirts a day, life is good. The pace is wayyyy slowed down compared to the city of Chicago or even the suburbs, which I like. It´s amazing how much time I have spent just sitting around this past week watching the traffic go by and talking about the heat and/or rain. This coming week we are going to Asuncion, and next week we will all be visiting a PVC somewhere in Paraguay.
Tim and Paul, thanks for the questions. I will look into the bundles of hundreds and typical food situation. I am going to tenatively say that if you put the hundreds in a teddy bear and sewed it shut it might make it. Don´t quote me on that though. As for your question Tim, lots of meat, and also fruit. I will get you a more specific answer in a week or so.
On a final note, my older host brother just asked me my favorite American food and I explained to her the greatness of the Chipotle burrito. They don´t have burritos in Paraguay except for in the big cities, and actually ´burrito´translates directly has ´little donkey,´which definitely does not accurately describe the contents of a burrito. I know sometimes in the U.S. we think of Latin America as a whole, but burritos are definitely a mexican, not paraguayan, food. Oh and it is 97 degrees here right now, feels like 107. That is all.
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