Ameriguyan Birthday

I turned 26 on October 6th and I wasn't sure if I wanted to have a big party or not.  My neighbor's birthday was on the 5th so we talked about celebrating together.  In the end I decided to have what I thought was going to be a small party at my house.  As I started inviting people I thought of more people who I thought would be upset if I didn't invite them.  About 25 people ended up coming.  A friend of mine made a cake and two other volunteers came over and helped cook.  I call it an "Ameriguyan" birthday because I made pizza, which they eat here, but I made Hawaiian pizza and pizza with sausage and green peppers which they don't do here, and fruit skewers. The Paraguayan part were the empanadas and sopa Paraguaya which is kind of like corn bread.  In total we made 8 pizza, 50 empanadas, and 25 fruit skewers.  My neighbors gave me a dish of sopa Paraguaya.  Everybody thought it was very strange that I put pineapple on the pizza, but they ate it and liked it.  

Preparing for the party.

Pizza and all the guests.

Cake and presents.  It isn't uncommon here to get underwear.

Now that I am almost half way through my service it means that there is a new group of environmental volunteers who are in training now in Guarambare, just like I was a year ago.  The trainers asked me to come and talk to the trainees about doing recycled art and show them a few things they can make.  It was a lot of fun to teach them and meet the new volunteers.  It was interesting as well to be "on the other side" in the sense that I have already gone through training and been a volunteer for almost a year.  While I was back for trainig I visited my old host family and my friend Lorena and her daughter Monce came over to see me as well.

My host mom, Carolina, and Lorena, Monce and me and my host sister Lujan with Monce.

Another part of training is visiting a volunteer in order see what their life is like. Last week I had two girls come stay with me for four days.  I showed them around Morinigo and they came with me to teach the 7th graders to make recycled paper.  I showed them how to make bread, banana bread, and cinnamon rolls as well.  The last full day they were here we took a little trip to Pindoyu, which is the little community where my friend Brook lives.  It is about 10 kilometers from Morinigo.  We took the bus the first 5 kilometers and then we had to walk to rest of the way.  Pindoyu is very different from Morinigo because it is a very small community and the girls wanted to see what it is like.  Brook and her visitor came with us back to my house to spend the night so they wouldn't have to walk out in the morning and also so her visitor could see Morinigo.  

Here in Paraguay all of the schools have Olimpiadas (Olympics). All the grades compete against each other in soccer, volleyball and a few other games.  They even have an opening ceremony with a torch.  Also each grade has a queen.  During the opening ceremony each queen presented themselves and then each grade did a little routine.  It didn't start until almost 9:00pm.  By 11:00pm they were only to fourth grade, it went up to 9th grade, and I was tired so I headed home.  

Opening ceremony

Presentation of the classes and their queens

As environmental volunteers we are encouraged to have gardens.  Mine was never very big or good, and then it frosted and killed my biggest tomato plants and my huge basil plant so I kind of gave up.  But recently my broccoli plant produced some nice heads and my little string bean plants have a few beans.  The tomato plants that survived even have a couple little green tomatoes.  The other day I planted 12 watermelon plants so I'm excited to see if those do well.  

I'm doing my last few classes in the school because in November they will have final exams so I won't teach.  I'm still having book club when I'm in town and there are rumors that I will be teaching English.  I'm not super excited about doing it, but I might do a short course over the summer. We'll see.

Teaching the parts of a plant

Book club

Recently there were a bunch of kinds who got confirmed in the Catholic Church.  I didn't go to the ceremony but one of my friends invited me over for a BBQ.

Pantanal

One year ago today I arrived in Paraguay.  Most of the time I I can't believe it has been a year already.  I have heard from fellow volunteers that the second year goes by even faster.   I am now a mentor to a girl who is back into the states getting ready to come to Paraguay.  It is crazy that I'm supposed to be giving her advice about serving in the Peace Corps when I feel like I'm still trying to figure things out myself.

After being here almost a year I decided it was time to take a vacation.  I, along with five other volunteers, went to a region in northern Paraguay called the Pantanal.  I will apologize right now for not having any pictures in this blog.  Unfortunately due to a SD card malfunction I don't have any pictures.  I am in the process of gathering some from other volunteers which I will post later.

After a long trip we finally arrived in a town called Bahia Negra.  Shortly after arriving we met Saul, one of the men who works at the research station Tres Gigantes, which is where we would be staying.   Because there were six of us, all of our stuff Saul and all of his stuff we didn't all fit into one boat.  My friend Cara and I waited with Saul for the second trip and I'm glad we did because we got the sunset ride with all the birds coming to the water.  The trip from Bahia Negra to Tres Gigantes took about an hour.

We brought all of our food with us for the eighth days.  There is a women at the research station who will cook for you, but it was really expensive.  We didn't bring any meat with us because we didn't have coolers and also none of us are as crazy about meat as Paraguyans are.  I am going on a week and a half without red meat, I have had chicken, which is the longest time I have gone without eating red meat in a year.  Paraguayans don't consider the food a meal unless it has meat.

Tres Gigantes is located in the Rio Negro National Park which is just under 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres).  The research they do involves camera traps and recording the number and species of animals they see and also capturing bats and study them.  The US Forest Service donated all of the equipment they use for capturing bats.  The research station itself consists of one main building.  Up stairs there are three bunk rooms each with a private bathroom.  Off the front there is a big screened in porch which was extremely nice because there are a lot of mosquitoes.  I had heard horror stories about the mosquitos, but we got lucky and they weren't too bad.  Only at sunset were they really bad.  Down stairs there is a large dining room and a little kitchen.  We shared the kitchen with the staff, but they have their own bunk house.  We stayed half the week in the the house and the other half we camped, but we could still use the kitchen and the bathroom in the house so we weren't really roughing it. All the electricity is solar and all the water is pumped directly from the river.  They use aluminum sulfate to clean the water but it is a pretty strong chemical so they just drink straight river water sometimes.  We had a filtration pump and I brought my UV light water purifier so we used those.

We didn't waste any time getting to explore the reserve.  The first night, after dinner, two of the workers took us on a night hike.  Unfortunately we didn't see any wildlife, but no worries because we still had a full week ahead of us.  We spent the week walking the trails looking for wild life, canoeing, relaxing, swimming in piranha and caiman infested waters.  Also we visited Bolivia.  The Rio Negro acts as the border between the two countries so we canoed over there and got out.  Now I can say I have been to Bolivia!  

There are two trails that go along the river in either direction and the day before we left the finished a third trail that went back into the forest.  This time of year the water level of the river is going down and because we are going into summer things are drying out which forces the animals closer to the river.  There were tons of birds.  We also saw quite a few monkeys, caiman, a river otter, foxes and an ocelot, which is a big cat, but not as big as a jaguar.  The ocelot sighting was the most exciting for two reasons, one because it is pretty rare and also because of what happened when we saw it.  Lydia, another volunteer, and I were walking down the trail early in the morning and I spotted the ocelot.  We stopped to watch it and it looked up and I'm pretty sure it saw us.  Then it came trotting towards us, looking right at us.  We were both frozen in shock.  It is about the size of an average dog but could probably do quite a bit of damage.  When it was about 100ft away it stopped and ran into the bushes.  Unfortunately we didn't see and jaguars or capybaras, but we saw a lot of footprints.  The last night we were there we had a bonfire and thanks to another volunteer we even had marshmallows to roast.  They weren't like marshmallows in the states, but they worked.  The staff enjoyed roasting them as well.  We also did some improv skits which were entertaining.  The fire didn't last very long because we were all getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.  

We were lucky we left the reserve when we did.  The first 8 hours of the bus ride from Bahia Negra are on dirt roads.  If it rains the bus doesn't run until the roads dry up and there were some dark, ominous clouds building on the horizon.  Just a few hours after we made it to paved roads it started raining.  Twenty one hours and two buses later I finally made it back to Moriningo.  All I wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed after the dusty trip but there was no water.  It didn't come back on for two days which isn't a shock to me anymore, just annoying.

Planting Season

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

Terere break

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

Happenings in Gral. Morinigo

  Well, the week and a half of winter in Paraguay has ended.  School has finally started back up and life goes on.

For about a week and a half I had the joy of waking up to the sound of chain saws and hammers every morning.  Behind my house, only about 50ft, was another house.  It was pretty old and partially falling down.  The owner of my house, with a little encouragement from my neighbor, decided to tear it down and salvage some of the wood that was still good and build a new house in the same spot.  Eventually, the idea is to rent it out.  At first I was a little nervous that I would have some really close neighbors, but I don't think I will have to worry about that for a while.  The house still needs a floor, doors and a bathroom but construction has been put on hold because the owner doesn't have money right now. Construction has been suspended for a month, but I wouldn't be surprised it turns into two or three.  

Taking off the roof of the old house.

Loading the roof onto the cart.

Demolition complete.

Constrction.

The new house.

Although the chain saw and hammers were pretty unpleasant for a while, a few good things did come out of it.  Now I have a nicer house to look out of my back door and I made some new friends and Guaraní tutors.  They are two eight year old girls and a three year old boy.  The two girls, Karin and Yanina, speak more spanish with me, but occasionally they slip back into Guaraní.  The little boy, Nico, only speaks Guaraní, although I think he understands some spanish.  It is great to talk to him because he will keep repeating things in Guaraní until I figure out what he is saying.  Most people, if I don't understand the first time they say it in Guaraní just say it in Spanish.  The three kids are all cousins and their uncle was one of the guys working on the new house.  They came over to watch him build and being curious kids they poked their heads into my house.  I offered them paper and markers to color.  After that they started coming over almost every day.  I borrowed some books from the library to read to them.  We also made newspaper paper boats.  Two other neighbor girls, Noelia and Ana, came over as well.  They had a blast playing with the boats in the little creek by my house.  It was really great to see them having so much fun with something so simple and free.

Karin, me and Yanina

Nico and me

The clan

Nico, Ana and Noelia playing with the boats in a mud puddle

Ana, Nico, Karin and Noelia with their boats in the creek

Before winter vacation ended I decided to go back to Tacuruty, the community where I lived during training, and visit my first host family.  They had been asking when I was coming so I though it would be a good time before school started up again.   I only spent two nights there but it was nice to see them again and relax a bit before I get busy with school.  I helped milk the cows, they now have four cows they milk, and for the first liter I was able to keep up with my host sister.  After that I slowed down because my hands got tired and also it is harder to milk when they udders are less full.  They also now have a goat and 10 days before I arrived it had two kids.  They are very cute.  They don't milk the mom goat yet, but when the kids get a little bit older they will.  They let me try to milk her just for fun.

Typical goat...eating my clothes

Trying to milk the goat

I was recently invited to the ordination ceremony of a new priest.  It was interesting to see.  About 10 priests from surrounding areas came as well as about 10 men who have been studying with he priest to be ordained. They have to study for 8 years.  After the ceremony there was a big lunch to which I was also invited.

All of the priests touched his head and gave him their blessing

The new priest receiving his new robes

The new priest

This week was my first time at the school in about a month.  I wasn't sure what the garden would look like, but I was very pleased to see that the plants are looking great and many of them are ready for harvest.  My host mom still wants to continue with recycled art in her class which is good because it is something I really enjoy.  My book club is still going well although it has morphed a little into a literacy club.  I have been doing some spelling relay races and working with the alphabet.  

Winter Break Activities

I think I mis titled my last post.  I thought I was cold then, but it is very apparent now I didn't know what lay ahead.  This morning I woke up to frost.  That's right FROST!   

The average daytime temperature has been about 45 degrees Fahrenheit for the past week.  I know you are all probably thinking Tirtza, you are from north Idaho, it gets much colder there.  The difference here is they don't have heat in their houses so there's no break form the cold.  Fortunately the sun has come back out so that helps take the edge off.  I recently went to a 15th birthday party and needless to say it as a very cold event, but we still had a good time.

The quinceiera, Mirian (my neighbor) and me.

Mima(my neighbor) and ma at the 15th birthday party.

Mirian and me also at the party.

This week the kids were supposed to go back to school after winter break, but because it is so cold they extended break for another week.  My host mom, who is a teacher, was telling me that most years they extend the break.  I'm not sure why they don't just start the break a week later.  By the time the kids go back to they will have been out of school for a month because the week before winter break there was a national teacher strike.  Some of the schools still had class, for example one of the elementary schools in my town because they were preparing for the San Juan Festival.  Every school had their own festival, but I only went to one.  Basically it seemed like a good excuse to play with fire.  There are people dressed in rags and masks called Kamba.  Throughout the evening they lit large bunches of grass on fire and chased each other around, then they brought out a bull replica with flaming horns and took turns chasing each other.  Then they played a soccer game with flaming balls.  The one game that didn't involve fire was claiming a greased pole to get a bag of money.  After a few failed attempts the Kamba pulled to pole over and got the money.  To finish off the night they lit a fire-cracker filled scar-a-crow on fire.

The fallowing day, after the festival, I headed off the Asunción for more meetings.  One was a planning meeting for the Paraguay Verde camp and the other was the NVAC(National Volunteer Advocacy Counsel) meeting.  I am now my area's representative which means I get my way payed to go to the meetings in Asuncion and then I am in charge of organizing and running a meeting in my area to inform the volunteers of what is going on nationally in Peace Corps Paraguay.  I am also the emergency contact person so if there is an emergency I am in charge of contacting all the volunteers in my area and reporting back to the main Peace Corps office.

After returning from Asuncion I had a day to do the final preparations for my recycled art day camp.  I wasn't sure how many kids to expect because the week in was going to go to the elementary school to invite the kids was the week of the strike so I only went to one school.  The first day there were about 18 kids which was a nice number.  I'm sure they all went home and told their friends because for the next three days there were 30 kids.  My friend Brook helped out one day and another volunteer, Jordan, helped out for two days.  I'm not sure what I would have done on my own with 30 kids between the ages of 4 and 14.  The recycled art projects we did were bracelets made from plastic bags, home made paper using old news paper, flower vases from 2 liter soda bottles and CDs and flowers from toilet paper tubes.  We also did some coloring and relay races with eggs and balloons. And of course snack. I went all out and made banana bread one day and carrot cake another.  One afternoon after we finished the first day of camp in my town Brook and I went to her community and I helped her with her day camp.  We talked about snakes in Paraguay.

Kids coloring at camp.

Me helping the kids rip up newspaper to make recycled paper.

Making paper.

Egg relay races.

Girls with their recycled art projects.

During the second week of winter break, which wasn't feeling very wintery, Brook invited me to go camping with her and her neighbors.  We hiked the tallest mountain in Paraguay.  It is called Tres Kandu and towers at 842 meters.  We took a 25 minute bus ride to the neighboring town of Garay and walked about 3 kilometers to the base and the entrance to the Yvytyrusu reserve  There was a little visitors center with and a simple map, rules and bathrooms.  To the top, where we camped, was only about 5 kilometers, but the second half of the trail went basically straight up the mountain.  On the way back down there were multiple places where I went down backwards it was so steep.  There used to be a military station at the top so there is an old house up there.  There is a well and a hand crank pump, but unfortunately it doesn't work any more.  There is a creek that is only a 10 minute walk from the top so we didn't have to carry a lot of water.  We had one tent, which was a large one man tent.  The three boys, Brook's neighbors, slept in the tent and Brook and I slept under the stars.  My legs were soar for a few days afterward and I had some pretty nasty blisters, but it was a nice get away.  

Heading to the base of Tres Kandu.

Entrance to the reserve.

Some of the less steep trail.

Highest point in Paraguay, which oddly enough the end of the trail.

View from the top.

The group.

The house at the top.

Having some dinner of ham and cheese on rolls and enjoying warm drinks.