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