The biggest event that happened here in Paraguay recently was the presidential election. The also voted for senators and governors. They have elections every 5 years and each president can only serve one term. The elections were on March 21st and for the entire month before, and even more the two weeks before, all I herd about were the elections and all of the candidates' campaigns. They all have the usual TV and radio commercials and signs around town, but something else they do here is drive around in cars with loud speakers and blast mostly songs about the candidates and the political party in general. Here there are two major parties, the Liberales and the Colorados. The Colorado candidate, Horacio Cartes, won but, he won't take office until the end of August.
The day after the elections I left for Reconnect. Through out the two year Peace Corps service there are various training sessions. The first, and longest, is called Reconnect. It is five days. For these five days we were back in Guarambare, where we had our first two months of training, and we stayed with our host families. It was really fun to be back with my first host family. I hadn't seen them since I left in December. They were all really excited to see me. It was also nice to see everyone else in my training class. Most of them I hadn't seen since December either. When I left my host family they had around 45 pigs, about 25 of them we born a few days before I left. When I showed up I didn't see a single pig. They sold all but a couple of them and bought a car. Also while I was with my host family I visited my host sister's godmother and she taught me how to make Ñanduti, which is a traditional lace made here in Paraguay. I think it is really pretty so I was excited to learn. While they are making it they use fabric streched in a frame to make the stitches, but when it is compleat they take it off the fabric; I'm not quite sure how because we didnt get that far. They starch it so it keeps it's shape. It took me about an hour to do what little I did on the small circle next to the larger design the women was working on.
Me with the women who taught me Ñanduti.
Me concentrating hard on my work.
During training we learned about grafting fruit trees, green manures and had a couple refresher classes in Guaraní. We also all had the opportunity to share what we are doing in our communities and share what has worked and what we are struggling with. It was nice to talk to other volunteers because even though we are in different places we struggle with the same things. It is nice to get advice and hear what my fellow volunteers are doing. Unfortunately while I was away someone broke into my house. They were just looking for money because they didnt take anything else form my house. Hopefully it won't happen again, but I am making a few improvements to my doors.
Back in Gral. Morinigo I am still visiting people and drinking a lot of terere. My book club is still going strong. I consistently have between 20 and 25 kids so I have decided to split it into two groups. One for the older kids and one for younger kids. We have also finally started actual work in the school garden. It took a few tries, kids not bringing tools or it being Friday afternoon and teachers not wanting to work. We built the seed beds which was a little hectic with 25 kids with shovels and hoes, but we got it done and they are surprisingly straight look pretty good. The following week we planted the vegetables. A national news paper donated the seeds and also a few students brought onions from their houses' to plant. It has been interesting working in a Paraguayan school. Their methods of teaching are very different than I'm used to. More often than not the teacher is more interested in wether their work looks good and if they have neat hand writing rather than if they are learning the material.
3rd graders making their seed bed.
3rd graders watering their freshly planted vegetables.
I now also have Internet at my house or anywhere else I decided to go. I have a little wireless modem that uses the 3G network. It seams weird that I have such great Internet reception in a place that just got running water about 10 years ago. I will try to be more consistent with my blog posts.
A test of the mail service in my town has been done and it was successful. If anyone would like to send me something here is the address:
Tirtza Dibble
Gral. H. Morinigo
Departmento de Caazapá
Paragauay
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