A Day in the Life...

I have almost been here a month now.  I can´t believe it.  The days seem to pass slowly, but the weeks fly by.  It is a very weird phenomenon. 

I just returned from a three day trip to visit a current volunteer named Tom.  I went to a town called Juan E. O´Leary which was about a 4 hour bus ride plus the 40 minutes to the terminal.  The visit was basically to see a day, or in my case three days, in the life of a volunteer who is in my same sector: Environmental Conservation.  In order to get there I had to take a city bus to the terminal where I could catch the long distance bus.  It is always fun getting on city buses with a big back pack and even more so when it is very full. 

Tom´s house

I got to O´Leary around noon and met Tom and we walked about 20 minutes to Tom´s house down a very dusty road.  It was pretty hot so the first thing we did when we got there was drink the obligatory terere, which is the official drink of Paraguay.  Terere, for those of you who don´t know it is yerba mate, but with cold water.  In my option it is better than mate. His house is pretty basic with only two rooms, well three if you count the bathroom which was added later.  He also has a little garden in the back.  After we rejuvenated with terere we headed over to the school where Tom has done a few projects including painting a world and teaching English.  We showed up during the break so we were able to talk to the teachers.  

Bedroom

Kitchen

The first night was pretty exciting.  A big storm came through.  The wind was very strong and it rained very hard.  With just a sheet metal roof the rain was really loud and the wind howled through the little cracks in the walls, but we survived.  The power went out sometime around 10 that night.  When we left the houst the fallowing morning to bring some carrot cake we made from carrot from the school garden the power still wasn´t on.  By the time we got back we had power, which was actually pretty fast.  After having lunch and a siesta I helped him dig a raised seed ben in his garden.  Apparently gardening is the number one hobby for volunteers in my sector.  Also during my visit Tom introduced me to the President of the youth group and I talked with her about what they do and some of the projects they have done.    

Road to the Lake

¨Cow Pie Beach¨

On my last day, after having lunch with his host family we walked about 3 miles to a reservior created by a dam, go swimming.  I was surprised at how clean it was, aside from a few cow pies here and there.  To get there we had to walk through the owner´s cow pasture. There was a little thatched roof gazebo and a few randomly placed benches.  We spent a few hours there and then headed home and made pizza.  The trip home unfortunately took me 6 
hours.  

















Mean while back at the ranch...

The most exciting news at my houses here was that one of the pigs had piglets.  There are nine of them.  They are VERY cute.  I told some of the other volunteers and the came over to see them as well.  we also have chick running around.  It is quite the baby animal farm here.  

Apart from the normal 
classes we have taken a couple of field trips.  The first one was to an agricultural high school.  It is a boarding school and most of the students only stay 5 days a week and go home on the weekends.  There are some that live further away so they go home less frequently. They grow everything from corn to eggplant to tomatoes to green peppers.  They just finished digging three ponds to raise fish.  They have a few chickens, ducks, pigs and rabbits.  The students take the produce to the market to sell and they use the money for the school.  The school is also subsidised by the government and is free for the students.  The other field trip was to Asuncion, but we had to get there on our own, in pairs.  Each pair had a list of NGOs or parks we were supposed to visit and some brief directions.  We didn´t make it to all of out destinations because one of them was on a very small street and everyone we asked had no idea where the street was.  In the afternoon we went to the Peace Corps office and had a couple of classes and talked about where we went and how the trip was.  There there was the ¨Mentor Mixer.¨  Before I left for Paraguay they paired me up with a mentor who I talked with before I left.  It was nice to finally meet her in person.

My host mom taught me how to make chipa.  It is a very common snack here tha is made out of flour made from cassava and corm meal as well. Normally it is sold in circles, but we made some non traditional shapes like hearts, snales, and Mickey Mouse. 

Mba´échepa

After being in Paraguay just over a week I am getting this blog going.  I never thought that I would be a ¨blogger¨ but here goes.  Enjoy!

Mba´échepa means ¨how are you¨ in Guarani.

Before we left for Paraguay, we all met up in Miami for staging.  The group consists of 54 people in two sectors,  Environmental Conservation and Agriculture.  We spent one night in Miami and then boarded the plain to Paraguay.  We flew from Miami to Buenos Aires, and then then to Asuncion, Paraguay.  I am living with a host family, but we didn´t meet them right away.  We spent the first night in Paraguay in a Catholic event center.  It was pretty relaxed the first night and now I understand why because everyday here has been packed full with classes and a lot of information, but I will get into that later.  When we got off the plane I was expecting to walk into a wall humidity, but it was actually very nice, I think I even kept my sweat shirt on.  It was cool for the first couple of days, but now it is pretty hot, but they keep telling us we haven´t experienced hot yet. 

My House

I live in the small community of Tacaruty.  There are 5 people in my host family.  My host dad´s name is Mariano and he is a driver for a company that sells chicken.  My host mom´s name is Carolina.  The oldest girl is 17 and her name is Melissa, then there is Fabio and he is 16.  The youngest is Luján and she just turned 7 two days before I got here.  We live more or less in the country.  We have lots of animals.  Roaming around the yard there are  8 cows, 3 dogs (I think, they sort of come and go) tons of pigs, chickens, and guinea fowl.  Two of the cows are milk cows.  I don´t think I had been with my host family more than a couple of hours and it was time to milk the cows.  I thought ¨what a good opportunity, I have never milked a cow before.¨  They all laughed at me because I could hardily get any milk, but I have gotten a lot better.  Just tonight they told me that it is almost time for me to do it by myself.  I also plucked my first chicken the fallowing day.  I will be living with this host family until I swear into the Peace Corps the first week of December.  At this time I will move to the site where I will be working for 2 years.  I still don´t know where that will be.  The house only has one bedroom and I have it.  In the living room there is a bunk bed and a double bed.  There is another bed out where I think the table should be so the table is out on the patio.  Usually it is nicer outside now anyway, but I don´t know what is going to happen when it starts raining.   

My daily schedule goes something like this:  I wake up around 6 and have breakfast which usually consists of warm milk with sugar and a little roll.  The first couple of days the Peace Corps office sent a van to pick us up, but now I take the bus.  I usually catch it around 7:15.  The bus ride to Guarambare, the town where the Peace Corps training center is, is about a 20 minute ride.  We have classes from 8:00-5:00 6 days a week with one hour for lunch, except from Saturdays they will only be half days.  The classes are everything from language, Guarani, to safety and health, culture, and more technical classes that pertain to the work we will be doing later.  One of the directors gave us a great metaphor to describe training.  It is like trying to take a drink from a fire hose and it is very true.  Every day I get home completely exhausted from trying to absorb so much information.  We also had classes about the money and how to wash clothes by hand.  The money here is called Guarani.  The conversion rate is about 4,500 to a dollar.  The bus to the training center costs 2,300 one way.  There are bills on 100,000 50,000 20,000 10,000 5,000 and 2,000.  There are coins of 1,000 500 and 100.          

My bedroom

World´s smallest coconut

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Plucking my first chicken with  my host sister Melissa

The patio behind my house

Making fresh cheese

Milking our cow named Mocha Negra

Looking down the road I live on.

Peeling cassava with my host mom Carolina