Presidential Elections

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 presidential election ballot

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.

My first host family, reunited once again.

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.

1st and 2nd graders making the seed beds.

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

Teacher Tirtza

My newest project is a book club. I have had three meeting and each time it has become more popular. The first Saturday I had eight kids between the ages of 4 and 13, the next Saturday there were 9 and this past Saturday 18 kids came. We do activities like make puppets of the monsters from the book "Where the Wild Things Are" or make Curious George masks and then we read the book. Although the library isn't open on the weekends, the mayor gave me permission to use it and now I even have my own key. I am hoping that I can get some members of the youth group to help me because there will probably be some Saturdays when I won't be able to make it and also with 18 or more kids it would be nice to have some help. At first the parents, and some of the kids, thought I was going to grade their work. Now I think that they realize it is just for fun, but many of the kids at still call me "profesora".

Last week I taught my first classes in the school. The school is putting in a school garden and I said I would help with it. My first class was about the ecosystem of a garden. When I first talked to the school they said 4th, 5th and 6th graders would be the ones working the most with the garden. The three grades were small enough that we decided we could combine them. When I showed up last Wednesday things were a little different. In Paraguay the kids only go to school for half the day. Either in the morning from 7-11 or in the afternoon from 1-5 with a half hour break in the middle. There was some rearranging in the school and many of the kids who were in the afternoon changed to the morning so the classes were a lot bigger. I ended up doing the activity three times in the morning and twice in the afternoon. Also, they told me that 1st, 2nd and 3rd grader will be working in the garden too and the preschool and kindergarten kids will probably want to be involved as well. I don't want to spend all day every day in the school so I'm not sure how I will work things out. I'm wishing now that the teachers and other people involved with the school worked at the small school. On Thursday I taught my first recycled art class with my host mom's 9th grace class. The plan right now is to teach recycled art once a month. For my first class we made wallets out of milk cartons. All the school kids here get free milk and cookies everyday so there are a lot of one liter milk cartons.

Here in Paraguay pretty much everyone is Catholic so Holy Week is a national holiday. They only had classes Monday and Tuesday and any official offices closed on Wednesday as well. A big tradition for Holy Week is to make chipa. The closest thing to chipa I think is a large soft pretzel, but chipa is made from corn and cassava flour. The dough is dry and crumbly at first so you have to knead it a lot until it becomes soft and you are able to shape it. They spend Wednesday making tons of chipa and eat it for the next few days. I helped my neighbor make some. She had prepared 10kilos (22lbs) of dough. We literally made hundreds of chipa. They cook the chipa in a brick oven called a tatakua. They build a fire inside and when it gets hot they sweep out all the ashes and it stays hot enough to cook the chipa. Some people cook chipa on banana leaves which gives them a different flavor than if they are just cooked in a pan. Over the next few days everyone I visited gave me chipa. There was no way I could eat it all so I used it as a snack at my book club the Saturday of Holy Week. In stead of having Easter mass on Sunday morning they have it on Saturday night. They also have a service on Sunday morning, but my neighbor said it is mostly for people who didn't go to the service the night before.

I forgot to mention in my last post, but the same day I moved into my new house I also got a bike. It belonged to my host mom's father. It hadn't been used in a long time and she said if I wanted to fix it up I could use it for the next two years. The first question a few people asked me was weather or not it had breaks. I thought it was kind of a funny question until I started looking at many of the bikes around town and most of them don't have breaks. Fortunately my bike has breaks. Some of the stone roads are a little bumpy, but after a few times I have learned where the smooth parts of the roads are. I took it out for its first long trip a few weeks ago. I headed to Brook's house for her birthday. Brook is the volunteer who lives about 10 kilometer away. When I arrived they were just bringing home the pig she bought for the birthday BBQ which wouldn't be until the fallowing evening. I ate some of the freshest pork I have ever had. Within a few hours of slaughtering it we were eating a stew like meal made from the liver, the heart, and maybe the lungs. I didn't ask too many questions I just ate it.

I recently made a book shelf for my house. It is made from 100% recycled materials. I used wooden crates used to ship fruit and I made string out of plastic bags which I used to lash together to boxes.

Photos: 1) My first book club with Where the Wild Things Are puppets 2) Me reading Where the Wild Things Are 3) Me kneading chips dough 4) My neighbor and the 10 kilos of chipa dough 5) My neighbors putting the chipa in the tatakua 6) Chipa cooking on banana leaves 7) My bike 8) My shelf

Home Sweet Home

I apologize for the lack of pictures in the last few posts, but this one should make up for that.

I have moved into my own house! The first few days I spent cleaning and organizing the furniture. It is a wooden house so it makes it very easy to put nails into the walls wherever I want to hang something up. The house, to put it eloquently, is well ventilated, but that also means water can get in too. The first night I spent in my house it was raining very hard and I watched as the wall got wetter and wetter. I have talked to the owner about replacing some of the boards on that wall. Fortunately the roof doesn't leak. I have also done a lot is sweeping. The floor is brick so you could sweep forever and still gather dirt. Along the edges of the room, and sometimes in the middle of the flood, there are the beginnings of ant hills. It is amazing how quickly the appear. Over night there can be a circle of dirt a couple of inches in diameter around their hole. I think that I am going to be a typical Paraguayan women and sweep my entire house a lot.

The man who came to do the inspection was talking to my neighbor and asking if the neighborhood is safe and making small talk. He asked her how many kids she had and she said "now with Tirtza I have three." She has taken me under her wing and helped me out a lot. She doesn't so much as invite me over for meals as tell me they were ready and to come over and eat before the food gets cold. I was joking with her saying I don't know why I spent money on a stove. The other big appliance I bought was a refrigerator. Another volunteer who lived in my region just finished his service has sold it to me. It is still practically new. The house came furnished with two beds, a wardrobe, and a cupboard for dishes and things. The cupboard was missing a couple of shelves so I went to the carpenter around the corner to see if he could cut some pieces of wood. After seeing it he took it and said he would fix it up, the were a few other parts that were old. I didn't think it was that bad, but I guess since I will be storing food and dishes in it, it is better to be sure there aren't bugs living in the wood.

The last things I moved from my host families house were my pets. I must have been a funny site to see. It was raining so I put my cat inside my rain coat with just her head sticking out and the dog was on a leash, but he doesn't know how to be on a leash so we kept getting tangled up. The dog was my host sisters, but her parents don't like it so I said I would take him to be my bodyguard. Things didn't quite go as planned. After almost killing the neighbors chickens I decided he couldn't stay here and I took him back to my host family, but the next morning I was making breakfast and he showed up. It turns out that there are some other neighbors a few houses down who want him. They have a fenced yard, but he is really good at getting out of fences. He may just end up living between the two houses.

Next to my house there is a small field where the neighbors grow, corn, cassava, squash and the are a few citrus trees. Pretty soon I will be able to pick mandarin oranges and lemons from my back yard. I am also welcome to as much squash as I can eat.

Most towns here have their own patron saint. The patron saint of Gral. Morinigo is San Jose and his day is March 19th. Because the 19th fell on a Tuesday they had all the festivities the weekend before. Friday night was the cultural festival. There were 16 different groups who preformed typical Paraguayan dances and played music and sang. After all of the performances there is a dance. I didn't make it the dance. They started at 9:30pm and by 1:30am I was pretty tiered so I headed home. On Saturday night and Sunday morning, after mass, there were bull fights. To finish it all off on Sunday afternoon was is a horse show. The show consisted of anywhere between 4 and 6 horses at a time running around randomly in circles while a live band played Paraguayan music. Each group of horses was from a different club from one of the surrounding communities. This went on for about 3 hours. There was also a big raffle, but unfortunately I didn't win anything.

Worms on a Bus

After a lightening trip to Asunción I was able to bring some worms back with me. The main reason I went to Asunción was for a planning meeting for the Paraguay Verde camp. Once I decided to go my list of things to get done there got longer and longer and I only wanted to stay one night. In order to make to most of the trip I took a bus that left my town at 1am and got to the city around 5:30am. It made for a very long day, but it was ver productive. In a way you could say I was in three countries in one day. I met with the people at the US Embassy who donated the books to the library here. I also went to the Argentinian Embassy to put in a request for a book donation.
While I was in Asunción we were informed that there might be a bus strike the next day. Fortunately it was suspended. Apparently the bus companies strike a couple times a year. The city buses are subsidized by the government, but the government is threatening to take away the money because many of the buses aren't being maintained properly. They aren't safe for the riders and often break down. The bus ride home from Asunción I had lots of company; all of my worms as well and another volunteer who was returning from vacation. I hadn't seen her in a month so it was nice to catch up and made the bus ride go by very fast. The morning after I got back from Asunción I woke up freezing. I found out that it was only 62 degrees Fahrenheit. I think I have finally adjusted to living in a hot climate and now we are going into fall. In the past week we have had mostly overcast and rainy days. It is nice to have the break, but it makes it hard to do things like wash clothes, no dryers here, and leave the house.
The older of my two host sisters, Ybanna, moved to a town called Villarica. This year will be her last year and she has class six days a week so it makes more seance to rent a room there rather than take to bus an hour each way every day. She left her daughter here with us. It is pretty common here that kids are raised by their grandparents, especially in smaller town where there aren't many jobs or universities. I also learned that Paraguay has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in South America.
My other host sister, Soledad, turned 17 on the 12th. She asked me to make her a banana bread cake. I made it in a bunt pan and I frosted to with dulce de leche and colored sprinkles. I thought it looked like a giant doughnut.
Although I have been here three months now I am still meeting new people. I met a girl who is part of a volunteer group in town. They are planning a tree planting project and I met another man who is part of an agriculture group. He invited me to one of their meetings. I was intimidated when I walked up to the house where they were having a meeting because there were 15 men I didn't know. Once I started talking to them I wasn't so intimidated. They are interested in green manures. I don't know too much about them so I defiantly have my work cut out for me doing research and talking to other volunteers and my bosses in Asunción.

Paraguay Verde Camp

There are many different camps that are organized and run by Peace Corps volunteers. The environmental and agriculture sectors run a camp called Paraguay Verde (Green Paraguay). The aim of the camp is "connecting and empowering Paraguayan youth who are engaged in the preservation of the natural resources of this biologically diverse country." The hope is that each participant is only responsible for their travel to the camp site, but once they arrive all expenses are covered for the three day camp. In order for this to be possible, the planning committee is asking for donations. This is where you all come in. Although the value of the dollar is rapidly falling a little will still go a long way to help make the camp a reality. They are using a fundraising website. Here is the link. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paraguay-verde-camp On the site you can see pictures and a video from the previous camp.

Although I have not been directly involved in the planning of this camp because of the timing of my arrival here in Paraguay I am hoping to be involved in the planning of the next camp. The Paraguay Verde camp that will be held in June this year will be the third camp since the idea of Paraguay Verde started. We are hoping to continue the tradition.

Anything that you are willing to donate will be greatly appreciated by the planning committee and more importantly the youth of Paraguay! Thanks.

Visible Progress

I am nearing the three month mark of my service, which means shortly I will be able to live in my own house. After looking at a wide variety of houses, some without modern bathrooms (only an outhouse), some with only half a roof, one about three kilometers out of town, I had settled on one that I liked more than the others. The owner said I could put in a bathroom instead of paying rent for one year. The next day a friend called me and said that the owner of the little house across the street from her was willing to rent it to me. It has a modern bathroom and a place to build a garden! I was excited and relieved to get the call because I wasn't looking forward to the hassle of putting in a bathroom. I knew somewhere in this town there had to be a house for rent with a bathroom. There are only two rooms, but it will just be me and my cat so I don't need a lot of space. In order to move into our own house someone from the office has to come and do an inspection to make sure the house is safe to live in. We have to have bars on the windows, make sure all the locks are strong, have neighbors close by and a few other requirements. I have just started the process of getting it inspected, but hopefully I will be able to move in in a couple of weeks. My host family has been great and helped me become familiar with the community and meet people but I'm ready to have my own space and cook my own food that includes more veggies and isn't deep fried.

I have finally made some visible progress with my first real project! I met with the group of women who have the road side stand and we made a compost which we will use as food for our worms. I was hoping to be able to bring back worms when I was in Asunción, but the worm bin at the office didn't have any worms. I may have to make another trip there to pick them up if I can't have someone bring them to me when they come to do my house inspection.

School starts here in a couple of weeks so I have been talking to the teachers to see if they are interested in working with me and also what projects they want to be involved in. There seems to be a lot of interest in making a school garden so I'm excited about helping with that. Also my host mom, who is a teacher, is very interested in doing recycled art projects with her class.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to get out and see some of the countryside where many people in my town have their farms. A friend of a friend offered to take me out to see his nearly 300 hectare, which is about 740 acres, eucalyptus plantation. It is broken up into four or five different parts. Eucalyptus is not native here, but many people plant it because it grows very fast and they can sell it quickly to make money. They cut all of the lower branches off the trees once a year so they grow taller. In some places they use the leaves to make eucalyptus oil, but there are no factories near Gral. Morinigo so the branches just go to wast on the ground. All of the cutting is done by hand. The owner said he has 10 men working for him. It is amazing the amount of work that is done by hand not only on the tree plantation, but in other fields as well. People can't afford tractors so they go out every day with their hoe and work.

Talking to Strangers

Sorry for the long delay.  I had some technical difficulties with the iPad, but I'm back up and running.

Now that the holidays are over, I'm getting settled into life here and establishing a routine, sort of.  I spend most of my days talking to strangers.  In the mornings I usually leave my house around nine and start walking around my community until I find a house where people are sitting outside.  People don't really have door bells and most people have fences, so to get the attention of the people in the house you clap. If they aren't outside I don't usually bother clapping because it probably means that they are busy and don't have time to talk and probably won't invite me to have terere. I usually return to my host family for lunch and then in late afternoon, when it cools down, slightly, I make my rounds again.  I have found that afternoons are better for meeting people because the mornings are usually for cleaning and cooking, but the afternoon is when people rest and drink terere.  When I talk with multiple families in one afternoon I have to be careful and gauge how much terere I drink.  It is so hot and it is such a nice refreshing drink and with out noticing you can drink liters and liters and before you know it you are about ready to explode.  There have been many families who give me food from their gardens such as pumpkins, peanuts, pears, chile peppers.  I made some dulce de calabaza (candied pumpkin), and I toasted the peanuts, although it is common to just eat them raw.  

                                            

Photo: Colorful raw peanuts.

The biggest news in my life here so far is that we had a visit from the US Embassy.  A representative came to my town with a donation of 214 books.  Another volunteer, Brook, who lives about 10k away, did most of the initial work and then when I got to Gral. Moriningo she handed it over to me.  I made a few phone calls and on January 30th we had the press, the mayor, the youth group and a few members of the municipality came to the library for the ceremony.  I opened the ceremony by thanking everyone for all their help and also giving credit to Brook who was unable to attend.  The president of the youth group, the mayor, and the embassy representative all talked.  The article that was in the paper was pretty short, and of all the pictures the man from the paper took I feel like he picked the worst one, but at least we were in the paper.  Here is the link to the electronic article. http://www.abc.com.py/edicion-impresa/suplementos/centinela/embajada-dona-libros-534098.html. 

Photos: Top left-People who attended the ceremony. Top right-Members of the youth shelving the books. Bottom left-current library Bottom right-Proposed plan

Earlier in January I helped Brook with a summer camp she did in her site.  It was a four day camp in total, two weekends, but I just helped with the first weekend.  We did some activities with the book the Giving Tree and Where the Wild Things Are, we played some games, and made recycled paper.  It was a lot of fun to see another site and get some ideas for running my own camp.  The Monday after the camp I went to my first VAC meeting.  VAC stands for Volunteer Advisory Council and it is basically it is the volunteers who live closest together.  The idea is that we can work together and help each other out.  It was nice to get to know other volunteers in my area. They all reassured me that I shouldn't feel bad about not starting any major projects yet.  The first few months are the time to get to know the community and build trust which is what I have been trying to do.  About a week ago I got my first invitation to have dinner with a family.  I was really excited because they wants to spend more time with me that just drinking terere and also it turns out that the woman is part of a committee in town that sells vegetables at a road side stand.  They were recently told that they need to be growing their own veggies rather than buying them from larger producers and reselling them.  The problem is that their gardens aren't very good and they can't produce quality crops.  I told her I have many resources I can share with them If the group is interested.  Since that dinner I have had other conversations with her and a few other members and they seem excited to have my help.  I haven't gone to a meeting yet to officially present them with the information but I am hoping that will happen soon and I can get a project started.

On the 16th of January I had my site presentation and my bosses came to my site and officially presented me to the community and explained what the Peace Corps is and what my role in the community will be.  The youth group helped me out by making invitations and delivering them to some "important" people in the community while I walked around to the families to invite them in person. I wasn't sure how many people would show up.  I went the day before to the school where it was going to be held and helped my neighbor, who works maintenance at the school, rake up all the leaves in the patio where the presentation was going to be.  My neighbor also repainted the bases of the trees white, which is very popular to do here.  The morning of the presentation I helped set up the chairs and I made some banana bread as refreshments.  The presentation turned out to be really informal which was nice.  About 15 people showed up and about half of them were from the youth group.  I was told that 15 is a pretty good turn out.  A fellow volunteer only had 7 people at hers and I heard of another who only had two people.  My bosses had another presentation to do in the afternoon so I went with them to see another site and to visit another volunteer in my training class.  It was cool to see his community because it is very different from mine.  It is very rural with all dirt roads.  Most of the houses are just on little foot paths off the one main road.

A couple of other little projects I did at my house were making a purse out of soda bottles and a solar fruit drier.  My host  mom makes all different sizes of bags and sells them.  I thought they were really cool and she taught me how to make them.  I had herd of other volunteers making solar driers and I decided to make one to try to conserve some mangos because there were so many.  The season just ended, but when it was at its peak I was probably eating an average of five or more mangos a day.  The drier looks a little rough, but the fruit turned out really tasty although the locals I shared it with weren't so sure about it.

This weekend I am back in Asunción.  I wanted to get some resources from the office and also there are committee meetings as well as a National VAC meeting. The committees are about different topics such as libraries, trash, and the seed bank.  There are others, but these were the ones that interested me.  The committees are made up of volunteers from all sectors and they collaborate and compile resources, plan camps, other general support, or for example the seed bank committee put on a BBQ to raise money for the seed bank.  This weekend is the first time I have been back into the city since I swore in back in December. There are a bunch of other volunteers here including a bunch of others from my training group.  It has been really nice to catch up, meet new volunteers and also take a little break.

Life here is really good right now and it gets better the longer I'm here. I am meeting more people in my community and feeling more comfortable.  Now that I have my iPad is I proper working order I will try to write a little more consistently.