Welcome to my life.

I’ve officially been in Paraguay for 23 months. Its defiantly been an emotional rollercoaster like they told us it would be in training. But there have, luckily, been more ups than downs. Well that’s besides the point.

This blog entry isn’t about my feelings or any of that. I wanted to take you on a tour of my “crib”. Instead of the tv show about the life of the rich and famous and their houses, cars and excess of unnecessary things, there should be a show about how us peace corps volunteers survive.

The volunteers in Paraguay are very spoiled. Every volunteer has electricity. Thanks to the Itaipu Dam one of the worlds largest hydroelectric dams which is split between Brazil and Paraguay. Almost all volunteers have running water, and if they don’t they have a well. If the volunteer brought a computer they have internet, thanks to Tigo and their internet modem. We all have fans, without a fan you would literally die. If the volunteer has a modern bathroom, which is likely unless they live way far out in the middle of no where, their shower will have a hot water head. Some have coffee pots, tvs, electric heaters, blenders, pressure cookers, comfortable beds, hot water heaters, electric ovens and other fun things.

I don’t know of any volunteers that have a washing machine but now days almost every Paraguayan household has a washing machine. There was once a volunteer I knew that had air conditioner, chuchi, but she finished her service. Other than her I am not aware of volunteers with air. But again these days in Paraguay it is becoming very common to have air conditioner. The poor little fan isn’t enough.

As for the style of the house there are a few basic designs. If you live in the “campo”, you house would most likely be made out of wood planks with a tin roof. The floor may be compacted mud, concrete, brick or tile. Other stiles of house are brick, which is cheaper, with a white wash finish. Then that white wash can be painted one or two of many beautiful colors.

My current house, where I’ve been for a year, is very nice. When I was preparing to come to Paraguay I would have never have guessed I would be living in a house with such great commodities and in such comfort, besides the humidity and bugs. Thanks to the volunteer who lived in San Salvador for 4 months before I came, I have a tv, which as helped improve my Spanish. In my house I have a living room with a big table and six chairs, two bedrooms, each room with a double bed and mattress, a modern bathroom with a hot shower, kitchen fully equipped with shelves, sink, stove and fridge. All of which came with the house, except the comfy mattress I bought. I pay 300 mil a month for rent which is about $75. My electricity bill is usually 30 mil or $7.50 and my water costs 13 mil, $3.25. It doesn’t seem like much, but being a peace corps volunteer I don’t get paid a ton so after rent, electricity and water it takes about a quarter of my monthly allowance. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of the only things that really sucks is washing clothes by hand, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it and will be very thankful for the washing machine when I get home.

My back yard is a mini forest filled with pomelo and mango trees. I have one mandarin tree and some other trees without fruit. Right now is pomelo season and I LOVE pomelo juice. I don’t have any animals but it looks like I do since my yard is always full of chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, dogs and the occasional cow that all belong to my neighbors. Sometimes I have the urge to kill them all but then everyone would hate me. Only if I take a neighbor some food will they give me an egg or two. They should really pay me for the food I feed them.

Here are some pics of my beautiful house and all its glory! Enjoy.

the back of my house/washing station
my moto

central heating and cooling

bed/office

where i keep food

beauty salon

Politics

Where do I live? What does it mean to be involved in politics?
What actually is the job of the mayor?
Can a community actually work together to accomplish a common goal?
What does it take to look at a specific project and the benifits for the community instaed of what the personal benifits are?

These are just a few of the questions that were running through my head after I heard that there was a physical fight down at the municipalidad between members of the city council.

Backtrack..

Today I was talking to the secritary about how the council is so divided by the different political parties. She told me that nothing was going to be accomplised in 5 years, none of the peojects will get passed, due to the childlike behavior of grown adults acting as city council members who call themselves politicans.

The same afternoon I met with the mayor´s wife. I am going to teach computer classes at her school. We went to the municipality to print off my lesson plans. When we arrived there were tons of people and I felt awkward and told her I could just come back the next day, I didn´t want to be in the way.

That night is when it all went down. Apparently the council had asked the mayor to make a copy of the budget. He didn´t. So one of the members pulled out 50 mil and told the president of the council to go make copies for the group. He said since the mayor doesn´t have any money to do so he would just pay for the copies, the guy decided to be a smart ass. A guy on the other side of the table, from another political party, didn´t like the way the guy with the money was talking. So he stated to yell, the guy with the money pushed the table. ( oh yeah the room they are in is TINY) They both ran from their sides of the room and met in the middle. Throwing punches, wreastling, meanwhile the secritary is yelling for help out the window which over looks the city plaza. At some point in the midst of it all one guy grabbed the brick holding the door open and hit the other guys face with the brick. One woman apparently ran leaving one of her shoes in the room. Finally the police showed up and the two guys were haulded to Villarrica and the hospital.

Nancy´s husband, Oscar, said it perfectly “these people aren´t politicians, they don´t care about the town, each and every one of them is apart of the council for person reasons.”

That next morning I had to go to the municipality beacuse I had made a request for money to take participants to the business workshop, and it was the day before the workshop I had to get the money. When I arrived the mayor looked like he hadn´t slept at all. Luckily I got the money.

That evening I went to the mayor´s house because I had plans to print off my lesson plans with his wife. She made a funny comment “Good thing we didn´t stick around last night at the municipality for the party.”

Then I stated to ask myself, How does everything I am involved in right now have something or someone to do with the municipality?
What does it take to stop such a vicious cycle of corruption?
Will San Salvador ever grow up?

I am really fed up with corruption. The people are finatics for their political groups. They spend all day talking and stratigizing. Who they will vote for depends on what they get of the deal of voting. It has nothing at all to do with the person or their ideas, just what is in it for them. I know this has been going on FOREVER but I have never had to deal with it, see it, or hear about it all day long. I am tired of saying “you know the guy you are voting for is a narcotrafficer.” Equally they vote becuse that person gives them money.

This love/hate relationship I have with Paraguay

After returning from a wonderful and relaxing vacation in Uruguay, a beautiful developed country, I’ve been noticing a few things about Paraguay that I really love and a few things that I really hate.

Paraguay is not a terrible place. Paraguay has been the catalyst to so much change in my life. It has been the place where I have grown so much as a person; I’ve found myself and the love of my life here in Paraguay. My time as a Peace Corps Volunteer has been amazing and flown by, in a short while my time will be done here in Paraguay and will cry when I leave.

I guess it’s time to fill you all in with the love/hate relationship I have with this querido country, Paraguay.

I Love that the yard of my house is currently filled with mandarins, pomelos, oranges and guava fruit.

I Hate how things just don’t work or break easily.

I Love the way of living, tranquilo.

I Hate how so very few people have goals and aspirations. (Save the $ for school instead of buying a new cell phone or moto.)

I Love how every time I am reading or on the computer the people automatically think I am studying.

I Hate having to practically force people to want to work and do something good for their community. (It’s not like they are busy doing other constructive activities, at least here in San Salvador.)

I Love fat. I have a new found love of meat fat. It’s so good. Why did I used to cut it off and throw it away?

I Hate being so far away from home. I feel like this whole time I’ve stayed strong and really tried not thinking about home. But now that the end is getting close and I have other things on my mind, like getting married, I am starting to get anxious. At least I have lots of fun work to keep me busy.

I Love chipa guazu. Muy Rico.

In other news…We, the centro cultural, have receive the grant money for the project in the train station. Today I went with my contact and we bought 45 chairs for the train station to have, permanently. It was an amazing feeling. Today I accomplished my biggest goal, chairs for San Salvador!!! Hooray!!!

It is still CRAZY hot. I have taken to showering about four times a day. I really want a kiddy pool.

Went to another volunteer’s site one day and got a bunch of new movies and TV shows. But its actually kind of dangerous, because now I don’t want to leave my house.

I learned how to make ñanduti, traditional lace work.

Time keeps rolling on. I’m still trekking. But if it doesn’t cool down soon I may melt.

At the beach in Punta de Diablo, Uruguay

The hand sculpture in Punta del Este, Uruguay

Nanduti that I made!!


Our CHAIRS!!

Ñande Ha'e Tenoderá - We are the Future - Photos

Here I am, still in Paraguay, and the heat continues rising. It is defiantly hotter than last year, but luckily the house I live in now isn’t an oven like my last house. I am able to sleep past 7 am without waking up sweating.

So I am starting to get back to work after the LONG holiday season. During Christmas and New Years the people really don’t do anything. Their families from out of town usually come to visit, therefore when it comes to working and projects, nothing will get done. Oh and lucky for us San Salvadoreños our fiesta patronal happens to be January 6^th but they always have the big party the first Saturday of January. Making the holiday season extra long. This year it happened to fall the 1^st of January. Therefore we had a New Year’s party and the next day a huge patron saint party. Then the entire first week of January was filled with festivals, concerts, bull fights, carnival rides and much more. Therefore the second week of January the town was back to normal, silent. And I was really ready to get to work.

The first thing I had on my plate was a Youth Leadership Camp, Ñande Ha'e Tenoderá, we are the future. I took two girls from San Salvador and we went to Tati Yupi the biological reserve that the company Itaipu is in charge of. Itaipu is the huge hydroelectric dam that is on the border of Paraguay and Brazil. The dam supplies almost all of the electricity for all of Paraguay. When they built the dam, obviously the water rose on the other side flooding part of the jungle. The now “lake” and land around has been made into a biological reserve with space to have camps. We were lucky enough to have the privilege to stay at the camp for 4 beautiful days. Filled with activities and talks such as; what is a leader, communication, human rights, civic education, how to plan projects, working in groups, self esteem and much more. We played tons of games, danced, sang and had a blast. The people from Itaipu also donated a tour of the dam at night to see the lights. Some of the kids said that these were the best 4 days of their lives.

In San Salvador there is no Youth Group, and the girls I took have come back home with a lot of energy and really want to form one. The end goal of the camp is to have the kids go back to their communities and do some sort of project. They have six months to plan the project and finish the project, hopefully. Then six months from the first came there will be a reconnect camp to share their experiences of working with their communities. One idea we have is to form a youth group and do a project involving trash. Maybe giving talks to the youth of the community and then doing a project with garbage cans. There is one public garbage can in San Salvador. We have an oil factory here; therefore there are lots of big tin drums which we can hopefully get donated to make garbage cans. So we’ll see what happens in the next few weeks.

Some good news…The SPA grant that I wrote along with the Association of the Culture and Community Center, the train station, was approved and the check is waiting for us to get in Asuncion. Included in the project will be the reinstallation of the entire lighting system inside and out. Also we will be equipping the inside of the station to be able to use the computer and other electrical devices. We will buy 50 plastic chairs to be able to hold more courses and events at the station without having to rent chairs, which gets expensive. We will also restore the antique latrines, putting in new floors, painting, doors, and lights. Currently the station doesn’t have bathrooms making it difficult to invite visitors and have courses. Lastly we will buy a printer and will the computer hopefully will be able to start computer classes. We are going to try and finish everything for March 31^st which is the founding day of San Salvador and they also do a locomotive festival or a cultural week in the train station in this time. So this project along with the youth group will keep me busy for at least a few months! Then hopefully will finally be able to start the business course for youth that I’ve been wanting to teach for ages!

Meanwhile I am going to Uruguay on a little vacation in February, I need to see the ocean and eat fresh seafood, it’s been way too long in a land locked country. Also…David and I have decided to get married!!

The whole group!

Patricia, myself and Noelia- The girls from San Salvador

At the Itaipu Dam

The lake the used to be a forest

Human Chairs

The youth

we are the future

At the beach in Iturbe, not quite the same as the ocean...

more pics from the pilgrimage

The beautiful sun set.
Cunchi and Jake

Are we there yet??

Trying to take our minds off the pain.

Myrtha fell and went boom. Getting some attention from the doctors.

All the people the in the morning.

Hanging out at camp.

Cunchi and Jake again

Pilgrimage to Itape

The Virgin of Itape

Religious pilgrimages are a big deal here in Paraguay. The biggest one is for the Virgin of Caacupe which is December 8th. People from all over the country arrive in Caacupe by walking, riding a bike or taking a bus. People from really far will take a bus to a certain point, then will walk about 7 km. The second biggest pilgrimage is to the Virgin of Itape. Well Itape happens to be semi close to San Salvador. I remember last year I had just arrived in San Salvador at this time and had no desire to go with the people to visit the Virgin. Well this year I decided to join the people and walk 32 km to Itape.

We left at 5:30 pm, the hottest time of the day, and walked directly into the sun for 2 hours. Well walking wouldn't be the correct word, running is a better description of the pace we were going. About 2 km into the journey I started to hear; my feet hurt, its so hot, i need water, etc. At one point very early into the walk one woman, Mirta, was calling all the people she knew to come and pick her up. The local doctor passed by and she asked for a ride and he said he wasn't going there. Well about 2 hrs into the walk we passed by the town where there is another volunteer and picked him and his buddies up. Oh I forgot to mention, I was walking with about 6 women who are very "chuchi" or prissy.

Cynthia, Cunchi, Noelia, Maria and Me

We picked Jake up and kept on going. By this time we were walking in the shade, the sun was going down and it was finally cooling off. My face gets very red when i work out but everyone was convinced that I was sun burnt. I was soo hot, soaking wet dripping with sweat, but my spirits were still high. I had to put my game face on because the only thing I was hearing was the complaining of the women. walking along the long dirt road

It finally got dark and the mosquitoes came out. We passed by a place to fill up our waters and one woman filled her bottle up with beer. We asked the owner how far to Itape and she said 5 km. We were close! Walking, Running, Walking, Running...5 km later, we still hadn't gotten there. We could see a town off in the distance that was at least 5 km more. By this time the people had slowed down a little but not much, and we still hadn't taken a break. My whole entire body was stiff. I could hardly bend my knees and couldn't feel my feet. But I didn't express my pain to anyone wanted to keep moving. Oh yeah since I've been in Paraguay I really haven't worked out or done much exercise.

We were 1 km away and the women wanted to sit and take a break. I said "don't sit down, keep moving we are so close." We arrived at the main street that would take us to the Virgin. It was full of vendors, food and people. I felt like I was at the state fair. Of course in large crowds people get separated. But at least we had a meeting point, the medical tent. The local doctor, who originally wasn't going there, was there and the other nurses from San Salvador. It was hilarious; every person would go up to the medical tent and ask for muscle relaxers or something for the pain from walking. We finally all met up and then looked for a place to set up camp. Imagine a huge fair ground with people sleeping on every inch of the grass. There were probably about 5,000 people sleeping.

We put all our blankets on the ground and laid down. It felt soo good. There was a party but I had no desire to go dancing. We sat there and listened to the mass at midnight meanwhile trying to sleep. But not possible. At 4 am there was another mass. And at 5:30am one of the women called her husband to come and pick us up. The main mass was at 6 am but she had no desire to stay. Neither did I to be honest. So we ended up leaving at 6 am and got home by 7 am. The other people who stayed didn't get home till 6 pm, the bus broke down along the way home and no one had the energy to walk.

All in all it was a good experience, I got to know some people from my town a lot better, I was able to see the beautiful country side and see the Virgin of Itape. But I don't think I'll walk it again!

It's Summer Again

Melissa, me and Angelic at Thanksgiving.

The sunflowers infront of my house.

Yummy quiche that I made.

English class graduation, and their sweeet shirts

Veggies from the school garden

And summer is Hot, Humid, and Sticky. Luckily it started a little later this year. We actually had a very pleasant spring with a few hot days broken up between crazy rain storms. There is no such thing as "drizzle" here, when it rains there is a crazy show behind it all.

My summer is pretty packed with happenings so hopefully I'll stay busy enough I'll forget about how hot it is. One of the stores in town started selling ice cream, and I think I am their more frequent customer.

Ok...sense its been a long while sense I've written I do a little update of things that have passed.

-The school year ended, and our school garden was a huge success. I had them all write poems about the garden and they were super fun to read. Oh and the veggies are still growing and delicious.

-The nuns sabotaged the Halloween party at the train station. Now I am stuck with 2 bags full of decorations. By the way...thanks mom for dragging those down here from the states.

- I wrote and finished my first grant ever and it happened to be in Spanish. The grant is funded through USAID. We, the Association, are fixing up the train station, which also functions as our community and culture center. There are no chairs, so we'll buy those with the money. There is no bathroom, so we'll make that will the money, and the lighting system is going to be reinstalled, making it possible to have night events, plug in the computer, and the new printer we are buying with the grant. All in all the station will be a place where everyone in the community can go to take different courses offered there with all basic necessities met.

-Chase and Kimmy came to visit. But only after getting to brazil and realizing that to enter into Paraguay you need a visa. So their visit was cut down to 2 days. But two of the funniest days in paraguay! We went to Aregua to see the lake, and hung out around Asuncion.

- Peace Corps Paraguay thanksgiving was held in Encarnacion this year. A blast as always. Lots of good food, good people, new friends, boos, sun burns, and laughs.

- We had our 2nd year english class graduation. The girls were surprised when I presented them with the shirts that say "english class 2010" that some friends at home helped buy. Thanks again everyone, the girls started to cry.

- The first "Feria Atesanal" is going to be tomorrow. The Association with whom I work is putting on a fair for the women in town who make traditional artisanal work. We've been very busy prepping this, I hope they have success and can sell some stuff. I have a feeling I'll be one of the baggiest clients buying Christmas presents.

- Both of my cats had kittens, so at one point my house was full of 11 cats. Yes I was that crazy old cat woman. Now I'm down to 3.

Now a few things I am planning on for the future.

- I am finally going to start the business class for youth. There is A LOT of movement going on right now in San Salvador with the construction of the new road, and lots of construction going on in town, the people need to take advantage of the movement and open some sort of businesses. they would make a killing off all the workers.

- I am taking two youth to a leadership camp in January that will focus on civic education, leadership, and much much more. Our goal is to come back and start a youth group.

- We have more art fairs planned for january and march.

- Our patron saint day is january 1st so there will be a week of parties.

- Angelic, Melissa, and I are going to take a vacation in February and go to Uruguay for a week. Yes the beach finally. Its time to get out of this land locked country and see some salt water.

- Jake, the volunteer closest to me and I are planning on doing a few weekend summer camps filled with sports, geography, art and much more. The kids have NOTHING to do here in the summer so hopefully we can have some fun in the heat.

- In march there will be a business workshop that I'll hopefully take two people from San Salvador. There is such a huge need for business here and hopefully we can get some going.

Well that's about it. I am really starting to miss home. Starting to think about the future, what the heck am I going to do after Peace Corps.?? Makes me a little nervous and anxious.

I really truly miss everyone so very much. I hope everyone is doing well and has a great holiday season. Enjoy the snow while I die of heat.

love

liz