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.