Mud, Trees and Worms. Oh My!

Things here are getting exciting because in tomorrow we will find out where we will be working for the next two years.  There are so many emotions.  I am both excited to finally be done with training and start working, but at the same time it is a little scary to move again to a new place and be more or less on my own.  Unfortunately this doesn´t mean that training has slowed down.  We are still having class 8 hours a day 5 days a week plus half day on Saturdays.  The technical classes have been about agro-forestry techniques and different types of trees here in Paraguay and how to prepare the seeds for planting.  Our tech trainer brought some little trees that we transplanted into larger pots to practice transplanting.  We had a week that was about working in schools and making recycled crafts like wallets out of Tatra Paks which are a type of plastic/cardboard/aluminum package that 90% of milk and juice are sold in.  Also, we learned how to make cups out of wine bottles. Various times current volunteers who have had a lot of experience with a specific topics have come and talked to us as well.  Between classes we had interviews about what type of site we would like and what type of work we would like to do.  The can´t make any guarantees, but they like to have as much of our input as possible.  There are a lot of factors that go into site selection.  If a community wants to have a volunteer they have to fill out a request form stating why they want a volunteer and then the Peace Corps goes and visits the site and talks with the people there to find out what is in the community, what types of projects they want help with, weather or not it is a safe community and so on.

We have had a few field trips and other activities which are always fun and a nice way to break up the everyday routine.  One Saturday all of the trainees in the environment sector (we have general training with the agriculture sector as well) went to a health clinic and planted about 50 trees.  We planted some along a couple of paths for shade and we also planted about 25 citrus trees.  Hopefully they don´t all get eaten by cows.  The health post doesn´t have cows, but the lawn has grass and because the gates are open people bring their cows to graze.  The director promised us that he would take care of out trees so we´ll see.

Citrus trees

  Another field trip we took was to the botanical garden in Asunción.  They have a section of decorative plants that they use to plant along streets, a section of medical plants and herbs and then also have a tree nursery. It is a good resource for us because they donate a lot of trees and as Peace Corps volunteers, if we are doing a tree planting project, we can get trees from them.      

National flower of Paraguay

 In Paraguay they don´t really celebrate Halloween, but they know what it is. We had class and some of the trainees decided to dress up.  There was an informal recycled materials costume contest.  A few people got pretty creative.  They also had a few plates of candy and cookies in the training center for us.  Pumpkins are really hard to find here, but watermelons are in season so a few people carved watermelons.



Recycled materials costume contest



Us presenting our mini lesson

As part of the preparation and training we have to opportunity to visit volunteers before we are sent out on our own.  Last week we had what they call ¨Long Field Pratice¨  It was similar to the first volunteer visit, but this time we went in our language groups and with our language teachers.  It was a little more technical because we had to prepare an activity for a classroom.  We went to a very small community way out in the county or ¨campo¨ called Apyragua.  Apparently means from the extreme It is about 11 or 17 kilometers from La Colmena, for those of you who want to look for it on a map, depending which road you take.  We visited a volunteer name Rachael.  She will be finishing up her service in December so she had a lot of projects and was super integrated into the community.  Because we were a large group we all stayed in separate host families.  We ate all of our meals with the host families except for the last night, Rachael cooked for us.

The first afternoon we went to a kind of open house for the school.  It was an opportunity for the students to present all the projects they had done through out the year.  The fallowing morning we presented our activity which was about garbage; the different types, what can be recycled and what can´t. Then we did a time line activity with them so show how long things take to decompose.  Rachael started a recycling project in the school and they are going to sell it at the end of the year to either Brazil or Argentina because there are no recycling facilities in Paraguay.

Some students preforming at the open house

The little tree I grafted

In the afternoon we went to a women's group meeting.  Recheal´s main project was grafting.  Earlier they had grafted a bunch of trees and that afternoon they were distributing them between the women.  Now is the season to graft citrus plants so she showed us how.  We grafted to lemon trees.  Who knows if they will take.  She also showed us how to graft peaches, but it isn´t the season so we didn´t actually graft any.  The meeting was on the other side of the community from Recheal´s.  There is a road that makes a circle which is about 4 kilometers long.  Instead of walking back the way we came we walked around the rest of the loop.  It was a very nice walk with beautiful scenery.      

Tamara and Grace cutting a bud to graft

The walk home

The third day Rachael took us on a hike up a small mountain to a neighboring community to see a tree nursery and the health clinic that serves about 12 of the surrounding communities.  There is a ¨campo bus¨ that goes through the community three days a week so we took that back instead of walking.  That afternoon we  watched a lesson Rachael did on making recycled paper.

Making recycled paper

Our group at the top of the mountain

On the morning before we left we were supposed to plant some trees with a farmer, but it rained the night before and was raining in the morning so that was cancelled.  Here in Paraguay pretty much everything shuts down because of the rain.  The majority of the roads are dirt so they get really muddy.  The soil is all clay so it sticks to everything.  The Peace Corps drove us in a large van and we were driving out in the morning and the roads were pretty good until we got to the main road.  A large truck had gone up it before and torn it up.  We tried and got stuck.  Luckily a tractor passed and pulled us out and we were able to take another route out of the town.  

The trip was really fun and it was great to see what projects other volunteers have done and how they live.  I got the full experience because I got my first pica.  I say first because I´m sure I will get more during my service.  I don´t know what you would call a pica in English but it is a little worm like thing that goes into your skin, usually in your feet and lays eggs.  My toe hurt a little yesterday but I thought it was because I must have hit it on something. This morning my host mom took one look at it and knew it was a pique.  She got a needle and dug a little bit and sure enough out came the little guy.

I don´t want you all to think that all I do is got to class, although sometimes it feels like that.  I do have Sundays and evening free to spend with my family or doing other things.  Last Saturday night my host sister and I went to a little bull fight.  One afternoon when the power was out so my family couldn´t watch TV we went to a play in a large puddle.  My host brother swam but my host sister and I just took pictures.  Also sometimes we just watch my host brother do silly things like ride the cows.  One weekend a bunch of other trainees came over and played soccer.  Unfortunately I couldn´t play because Tyler(another trainee) and I were doing our ¨Aspirantes en Acción¨ (trainees in action) project...making cups out of wine bottles.  

Bull fighting ring

Melissa and I on the island of the large puddle

Fabio on the cow

Making cups

Aspitantes en Acción

My host siblings using the cups we made

Some trainees after playing soccer