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.
Monday, June 21, 2010
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.
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