Now that winter is over we are heading into spring and that means it is the planting season for cassava. As I was walking up to my house one afternoon after teaching a class at the elementary school, my neighbor was in the little field next to my house with his two oxen tilling up the ground to plant. The following evening they planted the cassava by hand, or better described by foot. They save the stocks of the plant when they harvest it and then cut them up into little pieces and that is what they use to plant. To plant cassava you first make a little spot in the ground, if there isn't already an ident, throw a piece of the stock in, push some dirt on top of it and step on it to pack the dirt down. Luckily I had that opportunity to learn how to plant it because the next day Brook invited me to go with her and her neighbors to plant their big field of cassava. Apparently her neighbors like me a lot more now, not that they didn't like me before, but the last time I was there I said a few things in Guaraní and I complimented the women's cooking. We arrived around 7am, the others had been there for a while, and we planted until around 1pm with a break for terere and then a break for lunch. We ate out in the field.
Tilling and planting
I recently got back from another three day training in what is considered the Chaco. It is the northern part of Paraguay. I brouht a friend named Aurora who is part of the group of women who run the road side vegetable stand. Also, she was the first person to invite me to dinner at her house when I first arrived in Gral. Morinigo. The training was held at an agriculture high school where they also learn hotel management. The students live at the school. All the meat, dairy and vegetables are produced at the school. We ate really well during the three days, but I found out later we got special treatment. Other groups don't eat that well and the students at the school don't eat any of the food they produce. They sell it all and buy food to eat themselves. I thought that seemed very weird and so does the Peace Corps volunteer who is working at the school. She is trying to change that. During the three days we talked about compost and worm farming, green manures, nutrition, grafting, pruning and my group painted a map of the eco-regions in Paraguay.
Building a compost pile
Worm farm
Preparing healthy snacks
Aurora practicing grafting and us with our grafted tree
Eco-regions map
Free time activity
Aurora and me with a horse cart
There were also wild monkeys at the school
A while ago I was on a bus to San Juan Nepomuceno, which is the "big" town where I go to get things that aren't available where I live. As we were driving a saw a huge cloud of black smoke. It smelled horrible and as we passed I realized it was a huge pile of old tires burning. I thought to myself, "there has to be a better use for old tires" and from that started my obsession to build a chair. I found tons of pictures of chairs and benches made form old tires, but unfortunately I couldn't find any tires at the local repair shop because they had all recently been burnt. Just as I was giving up on the idea the soccer players who play on the field near my house brought a bunch of old tires to use for exercises. A few weeks later the team was eliminated from the tournament and stopped practicing. I jumped on the opportunity to take the tires. The clan of local kids showed up so I put them to work gathering up the tires, bringing them to my house and washing them. Mostly we washed them because the kids wanted something to do. A couple weeks later construction started again on the house and one evening Ariel, one of the guys working on the house who has an electric saw, said he would help me build a chair. It isn't totally finished yet. It still needs paint and something to cover the whole in the middle, but the hardest part, which was cutting the tires, is done. Over the next few days a bunch of Ariel's friends stopped by and I think he was pretty excited about the chair because he showed it off to everyone who came by.
The kids washing the tires
Ariel cutting the tires and the almost completed chair
Yesterday was my neighbor's birthday so naturally they had a big BBQ. Also, a couple of weeks ago a woman who lives near me turned 80 and I was invited to her birthday party.
My neighbor's birthday
80th birthday party
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