Anyhow, here it is from the beginning!

Travel:
I went by plane on this trip – it wasn’t terribly expensive and definitely worth the time I saved by not going on a bus (28 hours from Asuncion to Santiago by bus).  My travels were almost stopped even before they started, thanks to the wonderful folks at the Asuncion airport who look to make a quick buck off a blond they think has money (ha!  I fooled them, right?).  It didn’t help that I was late getting to the airport.  I got there 45 minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off, then had to wait in long lines to check in.  As I went through migrations, the official at my booth tried to convince me that although my visa says its valid until 2011 and although it says it’s good for multiple entries into Paraguay, it wasn’t valid indeed because it didn’t say anywhere that I had permission for multiple exits from Paraguay.  I pointed out as nicely as I could that it’s hard to enter Paraguay without leaving it first.  The fact that my “in country” ID card had expired in December didn’t help either.  That WASN’T my fault.  (Okay, a few missing exit stamps were my fault, but he wasn’t concerned with that.)  Back in September, I brought up with the staff here that my ID card needed to be renewed, but it required approval for extending my service for a year from Washington, D.C.  The request for that approval was submitted in September but approval didn’t arrive until March.  Once approved was received the Peace Corps THEN had to submit a request for a new ID card from the Paraguayan government.  I just got it today (April 16), so that final process took a full month.  The conversation with the migrations agent then took an annoying turn – he asked me if I could speak Guarani.  When I told him yes, he then wanted me to say something in Guarani, so I angrily said “Che ahava’era ko’anga por que ohoma che avion! (I need to go right now because my plane is about to leave).  He replied with a laugh and “ipora, ipora, ipora”.  Then he made me promise that I’d teach English while I’m in Paraguay.  Right.  Not going to happen.  He did let me go then to my flight, and I had to run to get there and ended up about 2nd to last to board the flight.  But I made it.

Note to future travelers to and from Paraguay: KNOW what documents are needed, KNOW what they mean, and if the migrations officials start to give you a load of BS (like telling you a valid visa isn’t actually valid), it probably is a ploy to get you to open your wallet.  NEVER NEVER NEVER give a migrations official ANY money.  Even if they have a legitimate reason to fine you, the migrations officials are NOT cashiers.  If they do not refer you to a cashier, then the fee is BS and they are just lining their pockets with YOUR money.  Lastly: stick to your guns!  If they make you miss your flight for a BS “fee”, THEY are accountable for their corruption.

Arrival in Chile:
I arrived in Santiago just after lunch time.  The flight got there just fine, but I had another near disaster.  Before leaving Paraguay, I took out some money, but in Guaranies, and didn’t have a chance to change any to Chilean Pesos before leaving.  I soon realized that Chileans don’t really like Guaranies, since they won’t change them at the airport.  Bummer.  I didn’t have a single peso on me.  Luckily there were ATM machines.  The first one worked, but didn’t have any money.  The second didn’t work.  Panic started to set in.  A “nice” taxi driver took me to a different part of the airport where there was another ATM.  Luckily, it worked!  And now I had pesos. I then had to get in that taxi driver’s taxi.  He charged me $30 (US equiv) to take me downtown. I quickly realized I had been ripped off.

Santiago:
I went directly to my hostel, then decided to explore a bit.  I stayed right downtown, near the Museo de Bellas Artes.  It also is near a “forest” which really looks like a long plaza.  I was surprised.  The Mapocho River seemed more like a glorified creek.  It turns out that Chile is also having some drought conditions.  It is also early fall and most of the snowpack from the Andes has already melted off.  Speaking of the Andes, I couldn’t really see them due to the smog, but what I could see wasn’t that impressive since they were brown and bare.  I’m sure that they’re beautiful during winter and early spring because I’ve seen photos.  Otherwise, Santiago resembled some sort of city in Southern California.  I won’t say LA because LA is much bigger, metropolitan, and modern.  Santiago felt very colonial and compact.  The vegetation was similar to Southern California: dry, brown hills with low-growing vegetation and lots of non-native eucalyptus trees.

I spent the afternoon walking around and getting oriented.  There are a couple of pedestrian walkways like most big cities, but there wasn’t anything particularly special to be seen or bought there.  It was definitely not like Av. Florida in Buenos Aires.  I ended up having my first dinner in the Bellavista neighborhood on the north side of the Mapocho river.  I ate shrimp and mushrooms in a wine sauce, a Pisco Sour (traditional Chilean beverage with Pisco mix, lemon juice, egg whites, and sugar), and to top it off, some homemade flan.  It was good.  It cooled down quite a bit and was actually kind of chilly in Chile (ha!) so I headed back to the Hostel to read and call it a night.  I’m boring, I know, but it gets dark early and I don’t like walking around alone after dark in cities that I don’t know.

The next day I walked around, hit up the artesan market, got some coffee, and read.  I spent a lot of time just wandering and reading, which is kind of what I had set out to do anyway.  I did go on a walking tour – from my Lonely Planet guide book.  I wasn’t terribly impressed with the restaurants, but with a little searching I did find what I was looking for.  Tuesday evening I sat at a table by myself, pulled out my book, and read while eating parmesan scallops.  They were delicious.  I already terribly miss scallops again.  I managed to find a few souvenirs, some Lapis Lazuli jewelry, a few post cards and some artwork.  I even found a Starbucks, and yes, I did go in, but only because I needed a travel mug for the various hot beverages I drink here in Paraguay during the winter.

On Wednesday, I took my time getting up (I slept on average 9.5 hours a night while on vacation!  And it was worth it!), got some coffee, packed up, and by 10am headed to the bus terminal to go to Valparaiso.  The 2-hour bus ride meandered through the central valley, the neighboring vineyard-covered hills and through the costal range.  There was something very comforting about being in a valley again – with big mountains to the east, and a coast range to the west,  The vegetation was different but the geography reminded me a lot of the Willamette valley back home.  It was beautiful, sunny, and warm the whole time in Santiago and all the way to the coast range,  It was an added bonus that it was cool at night, something I hadn’t had for weeks in Paraguay.

Valparaiso:
The bus wandered through the costal mountain range and down into Valparaiso, a hilly, colorful city.  It was cloudy and quite cool, almost like fog due to the marine layer which, having lived landlocked for the last two years, I had almost forgotten.  It was cool but so refreshing.  My hopes of lying on the beach were all but dashed.  I’d just have to carry on in jeans and a sweater instead of in my bikini.  Mom and Dad are probably okay with that one anyway.

At first Valparaiso almost seems like some sort of cruel joke because the houses are built precariously on the 45 or so hills that comprise of the city and the area has a geological history of lots of earthquakes.  It turns out that the wood and adobe materials used for building most houses are slightly flexible and are usually able to withstand earthquakes. Still, the city does have a history of being destroyed by bigger tremors from time to time.  The houses are painted various colors – pink, yellow, green, purple, red, anything.  Valparaiso was bigger than I thought it would be.  It turns out that there’s more than a quarter of a million people living there.

I had my first view ever of the Pacific Ocean from south of the Equator at the punta de vista.  It was the first time I’d seen the Pacific in probably three or four years.  Valparaiso is a port town, so there weren’t any beach-going opportunities quite yet, but that was okay, because where there’s ports, there’s seafood!  I had some wonderful food there – good fresh raspberry pastries, coffee, and all sorts of creatures from the sea.  For dinner the first day, I had an empanada, which was giant, and it had a variety of seafood and was delicious.  Along with the empanada, I had paila marina, which is seafood soup.  It had clams, mussels, fish, shrimp, scallops, some sort of animal with tentacles (I assume squid), and it was steaming hot.  I sat for 3 hours reading and eating my soup which was just what I needed to warm me up in the cool, coastal climate.

My hostel in Valparaiso was situated on top of Cerro Bellavista, near the house of Pablo Neruda, the  Nobel prize-winning poet and politician. Dummy me – I didn’t actually go to his house.  But my hostel did have some great views of the port below, surrounded precariously by the city.  I made sure to put myself in front of a computer to catch up on the Zag’s game in the NCAA tournament, the first chance I’ve had to see any of it since I was still AT Gonzaga.  The evenings were downright cold, but the hostel had huge, comfortable comforters.  All the more reason to sleep in, right?

Day 2 in Valparaiso meant sweater shopping.  I was slowly becoming jealous of all the beautiful sweaters I’d been seeing, and after all, I was a stone’s throw from the Andes, and animals that grow nice fur to turn into sweaters.  So, I bought one.  It was made in China and didn’t actually have any Alpaca hair.  Hey, I tried.  At least it’s cute, comfortable, and keeps me warm.  I also spent copious amounts of money on coffee, so by the second night, I decided to “eat in”.  I went to a supermarket, bought myself some fresh, red grapefruits (we mostly have the stupid yellow ones here in Paraguay), plain yogurt, and some bread.  That was my dinner.  Don’t worry, I didn’t go hungry, because for LUNCH that day I had pastel de paiva, which was a huge crock filled with creamy, hot crab meat topped with a crust of parmesan cheese.  God I miss it so much already.  It was delicious, and was accompanied by another Pisco Sour.  Chileans definitely know how to do seafood.  I spent the second night in Valpo chatting with other travelers who wanted to know what Peace Corps was like.

On Friday, I parted with my fellow travelers and headed the 15km or so up to Viña del Mar.  It did have beach, and I did get to sit on it — in jeans and wrapped up in my new sweater.  I stayed at a house that’s kind of set up like a hostel and spent lots of time conversing with the family.  I spent the afternoon wandering along the beach, then I went to the local mall to get out of the cold. I got bored with the mall pretty quickly so I left.  That afternoon, I met a couple who are med school students in New Mexico.  I spent much of the next two days hanging out with them, sitting on the beach and finding out about medical school.  I actually didn’t eat out at all in Viña del Mar.  It was more expensive, and I was content eating fresh blackberries and pink grapefruit, things I don’t normally get in Paraguay.

On Saturday I woke up to a breakfast of waffles AND crepes (2 of my favorites), coffee, fruit, yogurt, cheese, and ham.  It was delicious!  I chatted with the couple and until we we decided to head with a couple of beers and some cookies to the beach where we sat, related stories about our various experiences, and watched the waves.  In the afternoon, the marine layer burned off a bit and revealed the beauty of the city.  It has wide, maintained sidewalks (imagine!) with flowers and grass everywhere.  That afternoon, we went to the botanical gardens in Viña del Mar.  We walked around, hung out, and just talked.  It was good to get the perspective of people who have experience in doing what I hope to do.  It was motivating.  Sometimes I have to get away from Paraguay to remember where I’m really from, because it’s too easy to get caught up in the drama of life here.

That night we bought food together and made delicious chicken soft tacos along with a couple of bottles of wine!  We started watching the movie Che, about Che Guevara, but I had to go to bed before before it finished because I was exhausted.  The next morning we had the same delicious breakfast but, unfortunately, it was time for me to go!  I headed back to Santiago by bus and arrived there in the late afternoon.  For my last dinner in Chile, I had pizza (which wasn’t very good) and ice-cream with fruit (which was very good).  I read until I was tired and went to sleep.

On Monday, one week from setting out, I had to head back.  This time I took the subway out as far as I could towards the airport, and THEN took a taxi and only paid $10.  Much better than last time.  I got back into Paraguay with no problems, but returned to hot and humid weather again. I can’t wait for fall in Paraguay, and I can’t wait to go home for my home leave in August so maybe I can have MORE seafood!

That was the end of my latest adventure.  It was great to visit Chili and sad to go back to work, but vacations would get boring if that was all we did.  The work is kind of necessary to pay for the vacations in the first place, although being in Peace Corps doesn’t really help in the cause of paying for anything.  I sincerely hope that someday I can go back to Chile, maybe see a little more mountains, try a little more wine!  I highly recommend visiting there.

That’s all for now!

Hasta Luego,

Robyn

The last couple of weeks have flown by and work has been plentiful and interesting .  The last time I blogged, I was scheduled to go to Tava’i for a site presentation.  Holly and I were planning to spend one night in Tava’i then head back to visit another new volunteer at her summer camp.  We got about half way, 2.5 hours down the road, to Villarica when it started to dump rain from the ugliest black sky I’ve seen in a long time.  By the time that the storm reached us it had been already dumped in the Tava’i area. After our adventures the last time in the area we decided we would not be traveling on wet dirt roads.  We stopped in Yataity to buy some traditional “ao po’i” clothing then headed back to Asuncion.  That trip used up most of the day, but I won’t complain because I got to be out of the office and do a little shopping.  We had to reschedule our site presentation for our new Agroforestry volunteer outside of Tava’i for the 3rd time.  We have scheduled for the end of March.

Later that week we visited a volunteer closer to Asuncion who had invited us to observe her summer camp.  I’ve posted photos on Facebook.  We were confined to the office the remainder of the week because our country director took a job with USAID and our PTO (vice director) was at a conference in Costa Rica.  Holly, the 3rd in line, was acting director for the week (the acting director must be an American).  There must ALWAYS be an acting director in the office, regardless of whether the real director is in town, on home leave, vacation, or whatever.  It kind of sucks being trapped in the office but it turned out all right because I have tons of reorganizing and restructuring projects going on at the moment.  We have resource materials that volunteers can use for information –an online shared network called “sharepoint”, a real (i.e. with books) library, a sector library run by the coordinator (that’s me!), workshops on large butcher paper, etc., and it all has to be organized.  Some of these resources haven’t been touched in years as evidenced by the amount of dust collected on all of them. Holly is new and highly motivated, so we decided to completely reorganize.  This entails taking inventory so that we can know what resources we have that we can offer to the volunteers.  This is important because the volunteers have limited time in the city and don’t have the time to dig for resources. We greatly improve the volunteers efficiency when we can get resources directly to them. That is one of this years major goals for the Environmental Sector. Boring, I know.

The following week Holly and I headed south to Itapua, the department that was directly to our south and a frequent travel spot.  It was nice to be down that way.  It wasn’t my site but it sure felt like being “home” again.  We visited an environmental education volunteer in Hohenau, a German community.  Many of them came from Brazil. There were tall, skinny, blond people speaking German all over the place.  They do speak Spanish, but our volunteer here didn’t have to take Guarani lessons because that is definitely not used in the community.  Holly and I stayed in nearby Obligado at a spa.  Sounds fancy, and it kind of was, but it kind of wasn’t.  It wasn’t terribly expensive but the food was a little lacking.  Dinner consisted of a lettuce salad and squash puree.  Good but not very filling.  The next morning it was absolutely pouring rain.  We were a little concerned because our next two volunteers lived off the dirt road.  While waiting out the rain we each had a massage.  It felt great but was pretty basic.  Massages in Paraguay are for the sake of the massage and no more.  There’s no sense of a connection between massage and natural medicine like there is at home.  I’m used to a little more interaction with my massage therapist.  But I can’t complain though because, after all, I am in the Peace Corps in Paraguay.

We left the spa and headed to the interior of Itapua to visit another environmental education volunteer.  We did get stuck in some mud once, but Holly managed to get us out.  Our visit went well.  They fed us some mbeju and delicious pollo casero.   We spent the night at that volunteer’s house (that’s how we justify staying at the spa the night before – we’re not wasting federal dollars after all!).  It was gloriously chilly that night.  The next morning we sat in the sun to warm up while drinking mate.  THOSE are the mornings that I miss terribly.  It’s never chilly in Asuncion.  I can only drink mate if I’m sitting in front of an air conditioner.  We took the volunteer with us to visit an Agroforestry volunteer on the very edge of the San Rafael Reserve.  I remembered why I have such fond feelings for that area: it’s beautiful. The surrounding monoculture agriculture is not beautiful, but the remnant of the Atlantic Forest is.  When arrived at this site we met with a “state” government representative from the office of development who had come to bring shade structure and tree seedlings to the volunteer.  It’s great when volunteers find ways of working with more sustainable resources like the state government agencies.  That afternoon we headed to the San Rafael Reserve and met with a Swiss couple who are the owners of PROCOSARA.  They moved to Paraguay 30 years ago to get away from it all.  The rest of the world is now catching up to them as they watch the forest being cut down incessantly.  Their goal is to protect the remaining 75,000 hectares.  It was really great getting to visit there.  I’d been there early in my service and it was great to take Holly.  We ate with the Swiss couple and stayed the night in their cabinas.  They had delicious food and the weather was PERFECT – sunny during the day and not too hot, and quite cool that night.  I even used blankets.  As I sit here sweltering in Asuncion, I realize I have forgotten what it feels like to feel cold.  We drank mate that morning and rested under the forest.  It’s one of the most beautiful areas I’ve been to.  It reminds me of the rainforests in Costa Rica, except there are far fewer people visiting this forest so it feels like the way the earth is supposed to be.  The breakfast we ate with them was the best I’ve had in ages – homemade yogurt (not the crappy runny stuff they sell here), homemade jellies and jams, bread, cheese, bacon, eggs, coffee, juice; it was fantastic and there weren’t even any waffles.

That morning Holly and I headed back toward Asuncion.  We went north along the reserve until we got to Tava’i where we ate lunch with Nilsa. We got to Asuncion pretty late but it sure was nice to be out of the office for so long.  The next morning I actually headed BACK to Tava’i since we had a 3-day weekend.  I stayed with Nilsa.  Her stomach keeps getting bigger and bigger.  She giggles every time the baby kicks, and grabs my hand to put it over the spot where the baby is moving.  I saw one of my piglets, Pricilla, who is huge and more dog than pig.  She follows everyone around and lies at their feet as she doesn’t like to be left alone.  She even sleeps on a rug inside the house and lets herself out during the night to pee.  Pigs are quite intelligent.  I went back to Asuncion early Tuesday morning and went straight to the office.  It makes for a long day but I get to stay longer in Tava’i by doing it that way.

I was in the office most of the following week, working on the stuff I’m organizing.  I also planned my vacation.  I’ve bought a plane ticket to Santiago, Chile, for the middle of March.  I will be going for a week.  I plan to stay near Santiago, maybe visit Valparaiso and Viña del Mar.  I want to read, relax, and eat lots of seafood.  That was the clincher for Chile over Uruguay; the people in Uruguay eat lots of beef and not lots of seafood.

This last week was incredibly busy.  Monday and Tuesday we held the annual budgeting and planning seminar at the USAID office.  We will be getting our new Country Director in the next week or so and many of our plans will depend on him, but individual projects are up to the project director.  We are preparing for the possibility of having new projects and/or more volunteers as President Obama has pledged to double Peace Corps by 2011.  We talked about growth possibilities for almost a whole day.

Wednesday we were back on the road.  Holly and I left early for Caaguazu and did a site presentation for an environmental education volunteer in Yhu (which I will never be able to pronounce correctly).  We stayed that night in Yhu and had rain off and on all afternoon and night.  Fortunately, the people of Yhu are serious about having a volunteer and came out in spite of the rain.  The next morning we visited a couple of sites where we might be able to place volunteers in the future.  We then headed back toward Coronel Oviedo and had a double site presentation with the Agricultural director and coordinator, because we have 2 volunteers (a married couple) in the pueblo Jukyty.  We had lunch with them, gave the presentation, and headed north to Santani (actually San Estanislao but Paraguayans shortened it a bit).  We stayed the night, then went on to visit an Agforestry volunteer who has been in her site a year.  We attempted to do the site presentation for her nearest neighbor, one of our new environmental education volunteers, but due to the weather and other factors beyond our control, only 4 people showed up.  Holly decided we’d come back some other time to do his site presentation.

We hit the road again, back to Asuncion and I got to drive this time. I even got pulled over by the road control cops.  They let me go after checking my license since I wasn’t doing anything wrong and they saw my diplomatic plates.  Most main roads have police checkpoints set up.  The cops get to pick and choose who they pull over.  They ask to see a license and have to let the drivers go, but not without harassment.  Oftentimes the police illegally “detain” drivers and only let them go after the driver pays a bribe.  This is corruption at its most basic and a real pain in the ass because you can’t argue with the cops here.  However, they do get their butts kicked if they are caught harassing diplomats.  That’s why after realizing that my plates were black (denoting diplomatic plates) they let me go on my way.  I even navigated us through the city in rush hour with relatively few problems.  It was good to get behind the wheel again….

This weekend I’m just hanging out, reading, relaxing, and doing some laundry.   Tomorrow Holly and I are back on the road.  We’re really hoping for no rain because we’re trying to get four site presentations done this week!  Wish us luck!

My room is at the front of the apartment.  I love it because it has a high ceiling, a ceiling fan that works and a huge window.  It has a door that goes out onto the patio as well as a door that goes into the main part of the apartment so I get a nice cross draft and lots of natural light.  Carin’s room is in the back and also has a big window and fan.  We share a bathroom between the bedrooms that is quite big and the shower actually works and hasn’t electrocuted me yet.  We have a bidet but we use it for storage rather than for the cleaning of certain body parts.

In the front we have a nice big living room with French doors, another door out onto the porch and a huge window like the ones in our bedrooms – with glass panes and wooden shutters.  With everything open it’s quite airy and gets a nice breeze.  We’re on the second floor, which is much cooler than a 3rd floor apartment and actually gets more breeze than the 1st floor apartments, so it’s perfect.  My room is about 4 x 4 meters, maybe a little bigger, which is as big as most volunteer’s HOUSES.  My house was in Tava’I was only 4 x 7 meters.  In my room I have a desk, a twin size bed with a nice mattress, a bookshelf that I bought, a trunk, and a “ropero” (basically a movable closet).

We have a small storage room in back with a small patio and 2 extra sinks.  A previous volunteer bought a clothes washer so we wash most of our clothes at home but have to rinse everything by hand because clothes washers here wash but don’t rinse or semi-dry.  The front porch is my favorite spot because we have some nice lounge-ish chairs, plenty of space and plants and the porch runs the entire length of the apartment.  We have a narrow portion of the porch in front of the living room and a wide open porch in front of my room.  It’s great because we have a place to sit outside when it rains and we can really open the apartment up so it cools down.  And, we have room to entertain.

The best part is that I pay 250,000 Guaranies a month (about $50 USD), which is the same that I paid for my house out in Tava’i.  Volunteers have been renting this apartment for about 8 years straight so it’s kind of an establishment; it’s 2 blocks from one of the biggest supermarkets in Asuncion and the supermarket has a movie theater.  Aside from some noisy Brazilian neighbors and all of the neighborhood kids playing on our staircase, it’s a nice neighborhood.  If I ever want to go to Bolivia, the Bolivian consulate lives just around the corner.

Another benefit of the apartment is that we have a television, Carin’s DVD player and quite a large movie collection (thanks to more than 6 previous coordinators),  so we get to watch movies all the time. I actually find myself yearning to sit and the porch and read more than I yearn to watch movies, but they are there if desired, along with a couple of local TV stations for news updates and bad Jean Claude Van Dam movies. I’ve purchased a few amenities such as a hand mixer, a waffle iron, and soon a new blender because the blades just broke off of our old one. It’s quite comfortable, and I wish I actually got to spend more time here than I do!  But those holidays will come around eventually!

I promise I’ll get photos of the apartment posted before too long.

I also travel quite a bit.  Each of our 16 new volunteers gets a visit from the APCD and me within their first four months they are on site.  We do a site presentation, which (as I described in my last blog entry) includes a brief history of how Peace Corps started, what Peace Corps is, how long it’s been in country, what are our current projects, as well as the specifics of that particular volunteer’s project.  We also try to get their housing situation settled and agreed upon at that time, and discuss any challenges they’ve faced or problems they’ve encountered.  It’s a great opportunity get to know our volunteers.  I still haven’t met all the new volunteers in my sector yet!

I live and work out of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay.  I work at the Peace Corps office and have my own desk and share a computer with the other coordinators. The air-conditioning blows right on me.  It’s great!  Peace Corps has 10 or so government vehicles.  Their black license plates designate them as government or diplomatic vehicles, which allows us to pass through police checkpoints without having to stop.  We have a couple of huge SUV’s that I haven’t yet driven, smaller Toyota Pradas and a truck.  For some reason they are all dark blue.  I get to drive these vehicles, which has been a learning experience for me since I had never driven a stick shift in the states.  I’ve learned here and I even had the opportunity to do some city driving last week.  The vehicles are for work purposes only; I don’t get to drive one to my apartment; I don’t get to drive one to pick up my mail.  I have to take the bus like everybody else.  I’m actually not supposed to drive them without my APCD present.  For now that’s okay because I’m still learning to drive and to find my way around the city.  One-way streets didn’t mean anything to me when I had to walk everywhere!

What else do I do?  I answer volunteers’ questions and phone calls from all sectors.  Well, at least I try to answer their questions.  I’m getting good at funneling people off to other volunteers or resources.  This might sound lazy, but it’s really a time saver when you send a volunteer to the person who knows the answer rather than fake it or spend forever looking for an answer that somebody else already knows.  In the office, we actually work under that premise; I frequently take questions from volunteers and coordinators in other sectors about my projects and I often refer some of my volunteers to other coordinators or other staff in the office, so it works both ways.

There are about 30 people in the office.  We have our Country Director (CD) and his administrative assistant, our Programming and Training Officer (PTO– really #2 in the line) and his assistant.  We have 5 APCD’s, one to head up each project: Environment, Agriculture, Health, Education, and Economic Development.  There are 2 Program Assistants that support the 5 projects.  We have 2 doctors and soon a medical administrative assistant, 4 administrative assistants who deal with money: paying volunteer’s cell phones, making sure all their money goes into their bank accounts, etc.  We have an assistant who does photocopying and landscape management and as his assistant, 3 employees who deal with the cars, bikes for volunteers, and driving people around, an IT specialist, a general administrative secretary, a librarian, and various janitorial staff.  Right now we have 3 coordinators (normally there are 5), an additional HIV/AIDS coordinator, and an ICT coordinator.  The ICT coordinator was cut out of the latest budget.  When fully staffed there are 33 people working in the office to support 170 volunteers and about 40 trainees.  The company contracted to help with training have their own staff.

Whew, that’s over.  I also am responsible for helping my APCD with organization, project management and with developing and administering the project plan.  We are required to “re-look” at our project plan each year to see if we’re serving Paraguayan communities to the best of our abilities.  This is where I get to think about Sustainable Development, Project Management (very complex as it turns out), Rural Analysis Tools, and Development Theory in general.  To be honest it sometimes makes me giddy.

Other important roles I perform are packing the car with whatever the volunteers need when we go out to visit them, such as their bikes, helmets, any personal bags they want brought out to them, mail, etc.  It isn’t as straightforward as you might think because communication problems always come up and many volunteers just assume we know what they want.  With requests from 36 people to look after, things are forgotten from time to time.

I hope this gives everyone an idea as to what I do.  If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them. I plan on writing more stories (hopefully more interesting than this blog entry) about what’s going to give a better snapshot of what I do on a day-to-day basis.

One of my jobs as a coordinator is to help with volunteer support.  One of the first things we do for new volunteers is to visit their sites for a site presentation.  The site presentation consists of a brief introduction to how Peace Corps started (a dream of John F. Kennedy’s), a brief introduction to the three missions of Peace Corps:

1.    Provide technical assistance to the local community
2.    Cultural exchange to help Host Country Nationals (HCN) have a better    understanding of what Americans are like
3.    For volunteers to share their knowledge of the culture of our Host Country with Americans back home.

We talk about our sectors in Paraguay:

Rural Health and Sanitation
Environment
Agriculture
Education
Rural Economic Development

We describe the individual projects

rural health
agroforestry
environmental education
crop extension
beekeeping
early elementary education
urban youth development
municipal services development
cooperative development.

Since I work in the environmental sector, we talk in-depth at the site presentations about agroforestry and environmental education projects.  Because of this I’ve had the opportunity to see and become interested in what the agroforestry volunteers do because we talk with community members about trees, about their fields and about building agroforestry systems, as well as such things as green manures, contoured farming, and so forth.  We also talk about the rules of Peace Corps and what things volunteers cannot do such as riding motorcycles and doing drugs.  Every new first year volunteer has this presentation within the first few months of arriving in their sites.

Holly and I have 16 new volunteers this year.  We try to do their sites by region so that if we have to stay overnight somewhere we can visit all the volunteers in that particular area.  We spent the night in Concepcion but couldn’t do the site presentation for that volunteer because it rained all day.  When we arrived at the volunteer’s house, no one in her community showed up.  This is typical for Paraguay.  If you saw the roads, you wouldn’t leave your house when it rains either, especially because most Paraguayans travel yvyrupi (by foot) or on motos.  We have done a couple of other site presentations that were just day trips. This week we headed out to the San Juan Nepomuceno area, which is where Holly and I were both volunteers.  We were excited to get back to our stomping grounds.

Our plan was to stay at Holly’s old site for two nights with her people.  We spent Tuesday afternoon hanging out, eating Mbeju, taking a bucket bath and then sleeping overnight.  The weather was quite cloudy and threatening to rain, but it held off.  The next morning we woke to clear skies.  After eating more Mbeju we headed out to see an applied agroforestry system where her people had converted the field to a secondary forest.  It was nice to see since Holly remembered it as just a field when she had been there as a volunteer.  It was then time to head out to visit a volunteer who lives 15 kilometers away off a very sketchy dirt road.  On our way there we noticed that it was quickly starting to get cloudier.  Along the way we saw a big rain cloud ahead and decided to wait it out to see if it would just skirt past us or if we would be heading back early to Holly’s site without doing the site presentation.  The cloud did skirt past us so we headed on to the volunteer’s site where we ate lunch, then took him to the school for his presentation.  As the afternoon progressed, another very ugly black cloud formed over us.  This time it looked like it would be a direct hit so Holly and I rushed through his presentation and got it done just as it started to rain.  We hit the road quickly but carefully.  Unfortunately it kept raining very hard and was slow going.  Coming down a hill, the car (in 4-wheel drive) slid off to the side of the road to where the water drains off into a ditch of sorts.  We managed to slide the car down the hill carefully but couldn’t get over the lip of the ditch.  We were headed for some deeper mud in front of us.  We were stuck.  And it kept raining.

Holly and I removed our shoes and headed out into the mud to assess the situation.  We tried to get traction with wood, leaves, anything, but it just wasn’t going to happen.  It was starting to get late.  We walked to a nearby house and borrowed a hoe and a shovel but couldn’t dig ourselves out.  With the pending rain and the 10km that still lay before us to get back to Holly’s house, we decided to ask the people in the house where we got the shovel if they could lend us a place to sleep for the night.  They were very nice.  They gave us water to clean our muddy feet, some clean, dry t-shirts and dinner.  Around dusk the rain stopped.

The next morning we slept in until 7am, drank a little mate with the family, and headed to the car to assess the situation. The road was slick clay-based mud.  We could barely walk upright without falling.  A man who lived nearby had helped us assess the situation the day before.  He now came to the car with a pair of oxen to help pull us out of the mud.  Oxen are pretty stupid animals.  They could not coordinate their actions enough to pull the car out.  Holly and I didn’t want to watch their owners continue to beat them.  The man then decided to try with his horse which was much more successful. With a little steering by Holly and pushing by me, we were able to get the car out and back onto the road again.  The car was a disaster since we had been climbing in and out with very muddy feet.

As we headed slowly down the road we encountered a couple of very slick hilly spots where we had to get out and assess the situation before we proceeded.  One hill was very steep and covered with the aforementioned slick clay, but Holly managed to get down it  with the help of a friendly passer-by who helped me push the passenger side of the car to prevent it from slipping off to the right.  That’s when I took a dive while running.  Being the woman I am, I popped right back up, laughed it off, and kept running, my knee muddied but okay.

The next tricky spot was where there was a huge mud puddle in the road that Holly had driven through before on other trips out to the area.  It was not to be this time.  We got halfway through the puddle but we could go no further forward.  Or back.  The water was up to the axle, the tires deep in very sandy mud.  As we were digging our way out with our bare hands, feet, and sticks, the same man who helped us at the hill found us again.  He and his son headed to his house to bring us back some tools – a machete, a shovel, and a hoe.  I created a channel to drain off some of the water, which was pretty ingenious if I do say so myself.  We got a lot of water drained away, which gave us two tires to work with as opposed to just the one that was getting traction before.  We were there for quite some time digging away as much sand and mud as we could and using leaves, branches, and whatever we could to get some traction in the knee deep mud.  Then another volunteer in the area showed up.  We offered him a free ride if he’d help dig us out.  Eventually, with the help of the Paraguayan man and his kid, we were able to push the car just enough for Holly to navigate out of the water.

As we proceeded, we checked out the rough spots beforehand by wading into puddles to see how deep they were and whether a vehicle could possibly drive through.  The other volunteer and I got out to push if needed when we were going down hills while Holly kept it straight on the road.  At one point, we encountered a log truck that had slid off the road into the mud at a very narrow point where a motorcycle could barely get through.  The workers were unloading the wood into the road and a truck in front was pulling it to no avail.  They had been stuck since the day before.  We drank terere and watched for about a half hour before we asked the neighbors if we could drive through their yuyo fields to get around the truck.  They told us that three other cars had already done so that day so we finally got out.  We made it to Holly’s site just after lunchtime, covered in mud, tired, and hungry.  We had a great lunch of pasta with meat and more mbeju.  Dessert consisted of me getting to bathe myself (bucket bath!).  By then it was 2:30 in the afternoon.  We decided not to push on to Tava’i because we were exhausted and the car was a mess.  It would have involved a couple more hours of driving on anther dirt road so we headed to San Juan.  When we got to San Juan it was my turn to drive.  I was paved road of course, so I managed to get us back to Asuncion safe and sound and thus drove for the very first time with a stick shift in traffic!  Successfully at that!  That ended one more of my adventures here in Paraguay….

The several morals of this story are:

1.    It helps to have a good sense of humor when traveling.
2.    Paraguayans amaze me at every turn – can you name many Americans who would allow complete strangers to stay in their house?  Let alone complete strangers who show up all muddy and dirty and ask to eat your food, drink your water, and wear your clothes?
3.    When considering getting an SUV with 4-wheel drive to be used for dirt road travel, don’t get tires with an urban tread.  Get something that’ll actually give you some traction.  We don’t have the choice.  We just have to drive what the government gives us.  Blame your senators folks.
4.    Lastly – we will not be going to volunteers sites like that ever again even if it just looks like it’s going to threaten to rain.  Better to be safe (and dry might I add) than sorry.

Check out the photos on www.facebook.com.

Hasta la Proxima,

Robyn

I was given permission to go back to Tava’i for Christmas and left early on Christmas Eve on the bus.  It was not one of the best bus rides I’ve had.  It was standing room only before we had even left the terminal.  Fortunately I had bought my seat ticket the night before.  The ride took 9.5 hours, much longer than normal, but I did arrive in Tava’i just fine.  I visited with Magda before going to the evening mass in which the kids put on a re-inactment of the birth of Jesus Christ.  Two baptisms followed, but I headed over to Nilsa’s house. Nilsa and I walked with her cousin Karina and the two kids for whom Nilsa is nanny over to the mayor’s house where we passed La Buena Noche, the pinnacle of the Christmas holiday in Paraguay.  It entails eating Chorizo, pig meat, cow meat, lamb meat, etc., BBQed Paraguayan style (salted down on a BBQ rack over a pile of hot coals), Chipa Guasu, potato salad, bean salad, and Clericó which is a spiked fruit salad.  Alicia, Hernan and their kids also came over which was very nice because I didn’t get to say goodbye to them when I left Tava’i.  We started eating around 11pm, and at midnight toasted with Sidra (hard apple cider) followed by cake and more Clericó.  You could hear people throughout the community setting off fireworks.  After that we talked, joked and shared stories until everyone got tired around 2am and went to sleep.

Everyone slept in on Christmas day.  There was a fiesta at the municipal community center but very few people went.  I spent the day between Nilsa’s and visiting Magda and her family.  At mid-day Nilsa, Karina, the kids and I went back to the mayor’s house for a lunch of leftovers.  It was very anti-climactic as was my first year in the Peace Corps, but this year I was much more content because I was able to talk to my family in Portland; there was no cell phone service in Tava’i when I first got there.  I also have friends and “families” in Tava’i now so I didn’t feel lonely, isolated, and completely unable to communicate as I had that first year.  My Christmas was absolutely great – very low key.  I wouldn’t have had it any other way because I was with my friends.  Staying in Asuncion wasn’t even an option because I would have been alone and very bored.

I stayed for the rest of the weekend, mostly hanging out with Nilsa.  She and I had plans to go to San Juan for her to get her first sonogram of her baby, but unsurprisingly she decided she didn’t want to go and was too tired.  We hung out, ate good food, and Sunday I headed back to Asuncion. I had to be back in the office on Monday.  I spent much of Monday looking up the news online.  I was quite disappointed to see that I was missing the most snow on Christmas ever in Portland.  I would have had a difficult time getting home had I chosen to take my month of home-leave during the holidays.  I spent time doing the necessary paperwork for being a coordinator and I even got my Paraguayan drivers license!  I had yet ANOTHER blood test (I think the 4th in 2 weeks) because Paraguayan drivers are required to have their blood type printed on their license.  Unfortunately I got the license first, so to play it safe I indicated I was O-, but the blood test showed that I’m A+.  Oh well, I got my license.  Paraguayans are not required to take any sort of road test or driving test to get their drivers license.  The only requirement is providing your blood test.  What does that mean?  1) Drivers in Paraguay are crappy drivers and 2) they let ME loose on the road.  I had never driven a standard manual transmission before and all the Peace Corps vehicles have standard transmissions, so I got to start driving right away, but on a straight, cobblestone road out in the campo that has absolutely no change in elevation.  It was good practice; I’m not as bad as I thought.

Other than getting my license my two days in the office between the holidays were pretty useless, so I headed back out to Tava’i again for New Years.  This time I met up with Cathy, the volunteer who served in Tava’i for the 2 years before me.  We got into Tava’i on New Years Eve at about 7pm.  I went to Nilsa’s house to eat and share there.  After eating at midnight I headed back to Magda’s to spend some time with her and to sleep.  The next morning we had breakfast and I hung out with Nilsa until going with Madga to a “party” at a nearby creek.  There were very few people there and the weather was a little cloudy and cool, so we just went back to her sister’s house to meet her niece who lives in Asuncion.  New Years passed pretty tranquilly and uneventfully.

On Friday after New Years, I went with Cathy, the prior volunteer, and Nilsa to San Juan Nepomuceno to accompany Nilsa for her first sonogram.  The health care system in Paraguay sucks.  It’s supposed to be free routine health care for pregnant women and children under 5. They told us at the hospital that they do not do blood tests; we would have to go to a private clinic.  And therefore pay for it. I helped Nilsa out because she definitely didn’t have the money to pay for blood tests.  We did beg and plead to get the doctor to give us just a few minutes to do Nilsa’s first sonogram.  We saw Nilsa’s baby for the first time, saw it’s heart beat, and found out that she will be having a boy around the first week of May si dios quiere.  This was the first time I’ve ever seen a sonogram administered.  Since it is Nilsa’s first child, we were all pretty emotional.  Now I know what color clothes I need to be knitting!  We barely made it back to Tava’i that afternoon before it started to rain – and didn’t stop for 2 days!  But all is well that ends well…

The rest of the New Year’s weekend was spent visiting, making chipa, eating honey from the jate’i bee.  The honey is even sweeter than regular honey.  The bees are tiny and don’t sting! When we found a hive, we were able to open it right up, take a little bit out, and not worry about wearing any sort of protective equipment.  That honey is a delicacy as it comes from the only tiny native bee species in Paraguay.  Their hives are pretty small so they don’t produce much.  I also learned (kind of) how to play truco, the Paraguayan version of poker.  It is very complicated and involved, but once I started to understand what was going on it was so much fun.  I could play for hours and hour.  Now I have to find people in Asuncion that know how to play so that I can get some practice.

I returned to Asuncion the following Monday and that’s when the “real” work started…..

The next blog entry will cover the start of my job/responsibilities here in the office!  Stay tuned, I PROMISE I’ll write that next blog entry in the next few days, I just didn’t want to inundate you all with a very long blog entry.

Chao,

Robyn

Finishing up in Tava’I Oct – Dec
My last blog entry related to my vacation to Buenos Aires, please see my rather belated photos on facebook.  Some are self-head shots, it’s difficult to take self photos without creating that weird double-chin effect.  I admittedly was too paranoid to hand my camera off to a stranger to snap a photo for me since I’d heard stories of people doing the same thing only to have the would-be-photographer turn out to be a thief who runs away with the person’s camera.  I also have posted some photos of my last few weeks in Tava’i, again check them out on facebook.

Now the good part – the happenings.  I got back from vacation and the very next weekend a Peace Corps Trainee, Jennifer, came out to visit, so she got to meet the kids I work with and see a little bit of what it’s like to be a Peace Corps volunteer.  Jennifer started her training in September and finished just recently having been sworn in as a volunteer – just as I had done 2 (gasp!) years ago.  Our training “company” set her up to come and visit me out in Tava’i.  On the first full day of her visit we went up to the Cerro (roughly translates to “hill” in English) with Nilsa and another Paraguayan woman named Angela to hike up to the virgin statue.  Upon arriving and taking in the fantastic view, someone came up with the not-so-fantastic idea of climbing to the very top of the cerro, above the virgin statue, which required basically rock climbing, with no gear, up a sheer rock face.  Climbing up was possible, with some difficulty, but getting back down was definitely out of the question given that we were already on a narrow ledge when we climbed up in the first place.

I had been up the mountain the year before, but with guides, machetes, water, and way more equipment, plus there had been trails where trees and logs had recently been removed from the mountain.  This time was different.  It looked as though no one had been up to the top in a year, and in the sub-tropics, that means that the trails were quickly overtaken and undistinguishable from the rest of the ground cover.  Unfortunately for us, much of that ground cover included very thorny plants, and unfortunately for me, I was reluctantly chosen to be the leader and so my arms took the brunt of the thorns.  I still have some scars left over.  To make a long story short – we got seriously lost.  We called the police, they laughed at us.  I called my host mom, she called them back, and yelled and threatened them.  So they came out to look for us, but they played absolutely no role in us getting back down the mountain again.  We wandered around for hours, fighting over which direction to go.  I knew that we needed to basically go north-east, but to appease the ever-changing minds of the Paraguayans, we ended up going in circles for a while; mostly to prove to them that we could not get down a 100m sheer cliff.  My instincts proved correct and we eventually found the road at the base of the mountain that I had been looking for all along.  I knew that while the eastern side was quite steep it at least wasn’t a sheer cliff.  We made our way down, falling on our rear ends numerous times, getting more scrapes and bruises, etc.  Once I saw the road I knew we would be fine.  We stopped at the first house we found since we had long since run out of water, but the house was abandoned,  There was no rope or bucket going down the well and, better yet, there was a live snake swimming around in the well’s dirty waters.  Check that, I think I’ll go thirsty thank you very much.

All’s well that ends well, and this ended well.  Jennifer and I made it back to my house safe, hungry and thirsty.  We were then able to indulge all of our water drinking and so’o apu’a (meatballs made of pig meat and cornmeal, very very delicious) eating fantasies.  She eventually made it back to Asuncion with a great story to tell.  It turned out that one of her assignments was to go on a nature walk.  I take my work seriously, so I GAVE her a nature walk.

After Jennifer’s visit, the kids had to start studying for their final exams, so the spring cleaning project (“spring” as in water source, not the season) got put on hold.  Of course that means it’s on hold until next year, after the end of my service, so I wasn’t be able to see it to its completion but the teacher promised to finish it next year.  With the kids studying and school basically out, most of my work was done, so I decided to enjoy the last few weeks of my service and hang out with all the people that I’ve enjoyed getting to know and work with over the last 2 years.

Unfortunately, life had another plan.  At least as the enjoyment part goes.  Since July, I’ve been plagued by various infections, 3 times with strep throat, various colds, etc.  I got sick right before my birthday, had a fever, body aches.  I had planned on staying in Tava’i for my birthday (trust me, much more fun then spending it alone and feverish in a hotel room in Asuncion) but due to the weather report of rain, my feeling like complete crap, and being invited to facilitate a training session, I decided to go into Asuncion.  It turned out to be the right choice because although I was alone, feverish and quite sick, I got even sicker in the city.  And it had rained in Tava’i.  I can’t imagine what it would have felt like if I had stayed in Tava’i without medications and trapped because of the rain.  That trip in Asuncion stretched to over a week and ended with the 3rd case of strep throat.  By the time I got back to Tava’i, my agenda was pretty much just to rest so I got caught up on a lot of reading.

November went pretty smoothly. I hung out, dabbled with exercise again, spent my days drinking terere and mate with Magda and family and with Nilsa.  I didn’t do much work since I just kept getting sick.  On a somewhat bittersweet note, Margaret Thatcher had babies!  I’ll be damned if that pig didn’t give birth to 10 whole, live baby pigs.  The first one that died was one that Margaret stepped on – okay, so Margaret Thatcher needed a little practice on her parenting skills.  Unfortunately, most of the whole flock got sick and they started popping off like flies.  Seven died; one more fell victim to Margaret herself – poor little Don Quixote de la Mancha couldn’t get out of the way of her hooves.  Three remain and are quite healthy little critters, especially in the lungs as they yell like the dickens when I pick them up.  Two girls and a boy survived: Pricilla, Lolita, and Giovanni.  You can see their pics on facebook.  I am also happy to announce that they no longer look like naked mole-rats.  They are quite cute actually, dare I say it.

At the end of the month I headed down to Encarnacion for Thanksgiving.  It was a blast this year and the weather couldn’t have been better.  It was warm during the day, and cool at night, just the way I like it.  We ate some awesome turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, etc.  The last night I stayed in Encarnacion itself and enjoyed the town for a bit.  The only lamentable thing is that Thanksgiving was close to my COS (close of service) date so I had very little time between that trip and leaving Tava’i.

Upon returning to Tava’i, I had to pack, which I actually kind of didn’t do until about the day before moving (old habits die hard).  I visited many of my old friends, Ña Maria and Ismeal, Ña Elena and her kids, Ña Dina and Lic. Jose, and of course Magda and Nilsa.  I spent a lot of time in particular with Nilsa since we just found out that she is unexpectedly pregnant.  Unfortunately, the “responsible” party isn’t really being responsible.  He denies that it is his.  Let’s just face it: the guy is an ass and that is the hard realization for Nilsa.  I feel especially bad because she’s already taking care of 2 kids that aren’t even hers by herself; her own mother passed away when she was just 2 years old so her support network is a little shaky.  Everyone in the community is pulling for her and vowed to help her, especially because everyone despises the father, so she’ll have plenty of help.  But as she says, it’s just not the same since her mom isn’t around.  Anyhow, Nilsa is resilient, she’s already a great substitute mom for the kids she’s caring for and she’ll be a great mom to her own baby.  She even allowed me to call her fetus “frijole” as long as it’s not yet born.

On the Saturday before my move to Asuncion I decided that it was time to kill Fatty Lumpkins.  Margaret is biologically useful since she still has nursing babies and will be able to have more.  Fatty, on the other hand, is a eunuch and therefore good only for eating.  So he had to go.  Actually it was very hard for me.  I had to run inside and mix myself a rum and coke (at 8:30 in the morning) to get through it all, while laughing hysterically like a crazy lady as Fatty screamed.  It was a terrible sound.  I’ll skip the gory details.  Let’s just say that Fatty was delicious.  His meat was well marbled, not too fatty, and not too stringy.  Cleaned, the parts we used (which was almost everything!) weighed about 60 kilos (132 lbs).  While not huge, that’s still a damn lotta meat.  I actually felt very proud (and sad).  I think I did a good job; he lived a good life, I know exactly what food went into him, he was treated well, and he tasted really good.  The heartbreaking part is that as we were taking him to Magda’s house to butcher him he started heading towards my former house where I lived alone for 10 months.  Pigs are smart animals.  He knew where his home was.  To get him to follow me I called his name, to which he responded — straight to his death.  It was sad.

On Sunday, Magda and I cooked all sorts of pork goodies and prepared the meat for the BBQ.  In the evening we headed to Nilsa’s house to start cooking the meat. Her cousin Karina, with whom I had lived during that first 2 months in Tava’i, came home from college for the weekend to visit and stay for my farewell party.  I was so glad she came because Karina, Nilsa and I always have a lot of fun together.  With Magda’s family, Nilsa’s family, some other friends and neighbors, we ate some delicious pig meat asado and had some nice cold beer until the wee hours of the morning.

Last Monday, Day of the Immaculate Conception and also Day of the Virgin of Caacupe, a soccer tournament was held and I was to play with some other women and girls from Tava’i against some Brazilian women from a nearby colony.  I woke up that morning with severe cotton mouth and the runs, but started chugging water.  Turned out that day would be a cooker – up to 104 degrees.  And I’ll be darned if I didn’t still step out onto that soccer pitch and score one for the team!  Many people told me that my goal was the best of the day – even better than any of the goals that the men scored!  I still ended up quite dehydrated, despite chugging water all day – it was quite hot, and drinking beer the night before (I didn’t even drink excessively, it just goes to show that a little bit of beer during hot weather can dehydrate you faster than you think).  I was pretty proud of my goal though.  Afterwards we all went to the creek and played in the water.  Then I spent the evening packing.  Nilsa came over to watch and just spend time hanging out. I woke up early rhe next morning and kept packing.  At 1:30, Nick, the current Environment Sector Coordinator, showed up to take me in to Asuncion.  By 1:45 I’d said my goodbyes and we hit the road.  To be continued….

Moving To The City and Close Of Service
At 6:00pm on Tuesday I arrived in the city.  Right now I’m staying on an extra mattress on the living room floor of the current Environment and Agriculture Coordinators apartment until the end of this week.  Eventually I’ll be moving back into this apartment, but the way things are set up by the Peace Corps, we overlap our Coordinatorship for a month so we can get some training before the current coordinator leaves, so that apartment won’t be available until mid-January.  I have another apartment where I can live until then, but I can’t move into that apartment until the current Urban Youth coordinator moves, which is at the end of this next week.

On Wednesday, I spent the day running around getting all of my COS medical physical done, running to the lab to get blood drawn, having my physical at the Peace Corps office, getting my teeth cleaned (no new cavities!  Woo hoo!), etc.

Thursday I was sent by my APCD (my boss) to a conference put on by UNESCO on Water and Education.  The minister of the environment was there.  A relatively famous musical group provided opening ceremony entertainment.  It was a high profile event and I felt like I had been plucked straight out of the campo.  I had to fight urges like picking my nose in public, wiping my face on the tablecloth instead of on the napkins and sitting with my knees apart like a man, or better yet, crossed but like a man.  It was rough.  It was even rougher on my guts.  The conference was a full two days, and I was assigned to go to the first complete day, starting at 8am and ending after 6pm.  At 5:45 I gave up.  I know, not a good way to start, but I had good reason.  Though I didn’t think of it at the time, I was quite thirsty that day, and what do you think they serve as beverages at a water conference?  In Paraguay, it’d be soda pop.  Yup, so to quench my thirst, I drank 3 cokes. By about 3:30, I was not feeling well at all and by 5:30, I was nauseous, so when the session ended at 5:45 I high-tailed it out.

The next morning I woke up not feeling much better. Upon arriving to the Peace Corps office I headed up to the doctor. They did some lab workups and found out I’ve been harboring a nasty urinary tract infection that had spread to the kidneys resulting in high fever and back pain.

That afternoon, still feeling crappy and given that it was still freaking hot, I talked a couple of volunteers into taking a cab with me to our farewell party which was held in San Bernadino, an hour or so out of Asuncion.  A cab was just much quicker and more comfortable.  When we got there we headed straight for the swimming pool.  I bought an inflatable mattress that is actually quite sweet, and so I paddled around for a while, but felt like hell, went home and to bed. By mid-day the next day I was feeling better.  My farewell party didn’t exactly go as I had wanted it to, but I survived so that’s a plus.

So, I have completed my two years of service as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Tomorrow I start my first day of “training” as a coordinator!  Look for more frequent blog updates as well given my proximity to Internet access!

Day 2 (Sept 27, Saturday) – Katy and I slept until 7:30am.  We’re used to Paraguayan time – getting up early, and going to bed early, so it felt like we’d slept in forever. It was clear and sunny, perfect weather for visiting the falls.  We both needed a backpack, and Katy also needed some shoes, so we spent the morning running around shopping.  At 10am we boarded a city bus for the falls.  We arrived at the park entrance about 11am.  The Argentinean side of the falls are the most extensive with a network of trails that include 3 circuits featuring different aspects of the falls.  We only had time to go on two of the circuits.  The first was Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat), the largest fall in the series.  To get there we took a little passenger train then walked out on various sets of catwalks over parts of the river until we finally arrived at the fall.  It was huge, the amount of mist coming off the fall makes it seem like it’s raining even in the sun.  Not only was it a sunny and clear day but it was the perfect temperature, not too hot or too cold.

There were tons of tourists along the trails, but we managed to get past them.  That was the most disappointing part of the falls – there were SOOO many people.  We heard lots of Porteño accents, as well as British, Portuguese, and German.  I don’t know if it was the good weather, or maybe some sort of holiday somewhere but there were lots of tourists, especially old people.

After the Garganta del Diablo we went on the lower circuit.  We had bought tickets in Puerto Iguazu to go on a boat below the San Martin fall.  This is the second largest and most important fall in the series.  It was quite a ride.  There was tons of mist coming off the falls so we got soaked, but it was so much fun.  I only wish I had worn different clothes; I was in jeans and ended up soaking wet and not drying out very quickly.  It was kind of uncomfortable.  By the time we visited some of the “lesser” falls and had gone on the boat ride, it was getting pretty late into the evening so we headed back.  We saw a group of Coatis on the way up; they’re kind of annoying animals related to raccoons.  Back in Puerto Iguazu we cleaned up and headed to a great dinner.  We went to a restaurant that has its own homemade pasta and sauces; I went for my all time favorite of gnocchi’s with a blue cheese sauce.  Katy got an awesome looking steak.  After dinner we went straight to bed.

Day 3 (Sept 28, Sunday) – Early in the morning we headed to the Brazilian side of the falls. Luckily we didn’t have to go through customs at all as we were only going to be in Brazil for the day.  It took a while to get there because the road wound through the forest.  The scenery was like something out of Jurassic Park, lush green forests untouched by humans.  I almost expected dinosaurs to walk out of the forests.  We got to the park entrance and it seemed even more packed with tourists.  There were all sorts of people of different ages from different countries just like the day before.  We even met some American missionaries who wanted to pray for us.  I just hope they’ll pray that I get better at my poker face.

The weather was just as gorgeous and perfect as the day before.  The Brazilian trails are shorter, but the view is quite different.  The Argentinean side takes you below many of the falls; the Brazilian side gives you a panoramic view of the Argentinean side that you just can’t get from that side.  The Brazilian side has a catwalk that puts you within reach of the Garganta del Diablo from below.  The falls are absolutely beautiful and at many points there is water coming down from falls in 3 of 4 directions.  We did not see any Coatis on the Brazilian side, just lots of pushing, yelling and rather obnoxious tourists.  Katy and I felt a little frazzled but we managed to put that aside and enjoy the falls.  We had intended to do some shopping in Foz do Iguazu that afternoon but since it was Sunday, everything was closed so we just headed back to Puerto Iguazu and spent the evening reading and enjoying the warm weather.  We walked to a place where there’s an obelisk and watched the sunset over Paraguay to the west, and Brazil to the north.  This is truly the three borders region.  We had a late dinner at the same restaurant because the food was just that good.

Day 4 (Sept 29, Monday) –Monday morning we woke up to rain.  Not just a sprinkle, but a tropical downpour with thunder, lightening and warm humidity.  The breakfast offered at the hostel was terrible so we went to a little café for breakfast.  We sat and talked for a couple of hours until it was time for Katy to get a bus back to Ciudad del Este and on to Asuncion.  She left around 12:30pm; I had to wait until my bus left at 5 for Buenos Aires.  Since it was raining so much, I just sat at the café drinking coffee and reading.  I did run into Adam and Angela, my nearest Peace Corps neighbors, who were also on vacation in the area.  That made it feel like it is a very small world indeed!  The bus to BA was a double-decker; I sat up top, but unfortunately not in front.  It was actually very nice, with a “cama” (bed) with blankets, pillows, and movies.  And snack service.  The ride to BA took about 17 hours.  It rained almost the entire way which limited the visibility and contributed to my new, mid-life motion sickness.  As a kid I always got motion sickness. I thought I’d grown out of it, but it seems to have made a comeback.  I also wasn’t pleased with the woman who dealt with her crying baby by ignoring it or handling it roughly.  It was an overnight trip so I spent the night sleeping.

Day 5 (Sept 30, Tuesday) – I arrived in BA around 10am with a feeling of absolute panic.  I’d never been there and really had no idea where I was going.  Because it was raining and I was so completely alone, seeing a big city with skyscrapers was overwhelming.  As soon as I got off the bus a representative for a hostel showed me a card about his place.  It looked pretty good, so I took it, especially because the taxi ride was free.  The hostel was located near the south side of the city, just across from the overpass that went into the neighborhood known as the Brooklyn of BA.  I wasn’t too impressed.  There were not separate rooms for males and females and everyone was smoking everywhere.  That was one thing that bothered me: the sheer number of people smoking.  Totally gross.  I don’t want to be inhaling other people’s cigarette smoke.

I got a free map at the hostel and I headed on the Subte (Subway) to Plaza de Mayo and saw the Casa Rosada (presidential palace) where Evita had spoken to the crowds.  The president doesn’t live there anymore; there’s a new residence in the ‘burbs.  The Plaza is in the center of BA.  There were tons of people, but not tourists like up at the falls.  Everyone was dressed in business suits, smoking, talking on cell phones, and walking really fast.  After walking around for a while I headed back to the hostel and spent the evening on the Internet and reading.  I had fruit for dinner.  A Belgian woman and a Brazilian man were traveling together and sharing my room, so I talked with them for a while.  Both had been to BA before, and the Brazilian offered to show me around the next day.  I went to sleep that night pretty early but that was just as well since I hadn’t slept well on the bus.

Day 6 (October 1, Wednesday) – I was up early and wandered the Casa Rosada again and the pedestrian street Av. Florida.  It was overwhelming.  I had never been to a big city like this before. I just spent the morning gawking in all the shops.  I did stop for some coffee at a chain called Havanna, which has some pretty good drinks and food.  Around lunchtime I went back to the hostel where the Brazilian was just waking up.  I read for a while and waited for him to get ready.  We walked to Abasto – a big mall.  We looked for a “parrilla” (grill) for lunch and had some overcooked steak, but it turned out okay.  After that we went to Alto Palermo, another barrio, with more open spaces and plazas.  We went to the botanical gardens, where there were tons of cats.  It reeked of cat poo, and I had to be very careful wherever I walked so as to avoid “cat bombs” that dotted the walkways.  There’s another mall in Alto Palermo, and I managed to find a cute shirt there.  On the way back to the hostel that evening, we found a seafood shop where I had some seafood empanadas (codfish) that were really good.  I decided to go in with them on making dinner, so we found a supermarket, which is cheaper than going to a restaurant for sure.  We had steaks but unfortunatel they were over cooked.  At least we tried.  That evening three more Brazilians, two guys and a woman, came by.  They are currently living in San Lorenzo, a suburb of Asuncion.  They were really nice, not quite as dramatic as the first Brazilian.  The six of us (four Brazilians, the Belgian, and me) decided to go to San Telmo for the night to try to see a Tango show.  Unfortunately, the Brazilian who showed me around told us to carry only a little money for drinks because there are shows that are free.  That ended up not being quite true.  There were hardly any shows going on and they actually cost a lot of money.  So I ended up not seeing any Tango that night.  We wandered around San Telmo and then back to the hostel at 2:00am.  I talked with the three Brazilians from Asuncion until I went to bed at 3:00am.

Day 7 (October 2nd, Thursday) – It finally got a little sunny in BA!  And a little warm!  It had been downright cold and gloomy the first part of the week.  I agreed to go back to Palermo with the first Brazilian to look for shopping outlets.  The outlets sucked.  They were selling stuff all out of season; given that summer is like an inferno in Paraguay, I wasn’t interested in winter clothes.  Despite the sunny weather I wasn’t in a very good mood.  The Brazilian was rather “jopy” as we’d say in Guarani.  We decided to get coffee but he wanted to get it at McDonalds because he wanted it to be cheap Nescafe.  I told him he could skip McDonalds and go straight to Asuncion, because that’s practically the only type of coffee they’ve got in Paraguay.  Then I told him I wasn’t interested in doing cheap for the sake of cheap.  I was in BA and I was going to drink some real coffee.  I told him if I wanted McDonalds I would have just stayed home in the US since we got one down the block.  He then argued that it was great because when he went to Mexico City the burritos at McDonalds were much cheaper than anywhere else…. Yeah, because McDonalds forces all the rest to either raise their prices or go out of business by taking the business of all the people just looking for a good deal.  Side note – I’m currently reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” which makes me hate McDonalds even more.  Talk about mystery meat.

That afternoon I decided to tell my Brazilian company that I would no longer need his guide services.  I wandered around the mall and did some shopping before heading to Puerto Madero to see the “waterfront”.  It was a beautiful part of town but far to expensive for my Peace Corps budget.  I then went to the Plaza de Congresso to get some photos and look around.  I found a little hole in the wall restaurant and had some delicious raviolis.  For me, that’s what traveling is about: good food.  I went back to the hostel, read, and went to sleep thus ending another day of my adventures.

Day 8 (October 3rd, Friday) – I got up and drank maté, my morning ritual thanks to a temporary travel thermos. I ate some fruit for my breakfast.  I then headed the heck out of that hostel.  The Brazilian was getting to pesado (burdensome) for me.  I wasn’t comfortable in that hostel anyway – too many smokers, too much noise, and not enough privacy.  I managed to quietly pack up my belongings.  As I headed out, the Brazilian got all indignant that I was breaking up the crew and venturing out on my own.  I was glad to get out.  I went straight to the Microcenter and check in at a Hostel that had been in my Lonely Planet Guide and that I had passed by in my wanderings.  It was more centrally located.  It was much nicer, people kept their smoking to the outdoor areas and was more private.  I was in a woman’s dorm with a shared but gender specific bathroom.  It was definitely an improvement.  Breakfast was a little more substantial, and it was worth the extra $0.66 a day.  I had to wait to check in so I took the opportunity to wander a bit.  Walking down Av. Florida I stopped by the Galerias Pacifico, another mall.  Inside it is cultural center where I spent a little time looking at various artwork that was on display.  It made me feel intellectual for about 2 seconds.  It took my mind off of feeling so alone.  I found a little bakery that had good coffee and delicious tarts.  I ended up eating there I think three different times, eating everything from strawberry tarts and raspberry tarts to croissants.  I then went to the Retiro bus station to buy my bus ticket back to Paraguay.  I had decided to head directly to Asuncion rather than heading straight back to my site.

I headed back to check into the hostel.  By then I was hungry for lunch, so I checked out one of the Lonely Planet suggestions that was rather expensive but turned out to be very delicious.  It was called Broccolino and served awesome pasta.  I don’t remember what my raviolis were filled with, but it had a tomato and red pepper sauce.  I drank a small bottle of wine alongside.  Since the meal was so big, I literally sat for about 3 hours eating (and drinking it all).  I finished around 4pm.  It was soon going to be dark so I spent the rest of the evening using the internet, reading, and relaxing in the hostel, then went to bed kind of early.

Day 9 (October 4th, Saturday) – I woke up the next morning with solid resolve to finally go to the Recoleta Cemetery, something I’d intended to do since arriving in BA.  It’s world famous; it’s where Evita Duarte de Peron resides for eternity.  She was Argentina’s famous first lady, about whom Madonna made a movie in her name.  She was only 33 when she died.  She helped with the success of social reforms and woman’s suffrage movements.  I got to the Recoleta and bought a map to make things easier.  Some of the mausoleums are absolutely ridiculous, like small churches.  I sure hope someone cares about me that much after I die.  Geez.  Evita’s mausoleum was actually quite modest compared to others.  There were flowers adorning the door and some plaques hanging up but there were no large effigies or extravagant chapels.

In front of the Recoleta there’s a big weekend artisan market where I bought lots of glass earrings.  Really cool colored glass.  It was neat.  If it weren’t for the fact that I’d already bought a maté gourd from another part of BA, I probably would have bought one from there as well.  I spent a long time looking around until I got hungry, then headed off on foot towards Palermo, looking for empanadas and/or pizza.  I found another hole in the wall place that had a mediocre mozzarella pizza but some pretty awesome Roquefort and Celery empanadas as well as some Caprese empanadas (tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil).  All were baked which was the less greasy option I was looking for.  It was pretty darn good.  I then headed back to the hostel again on foot, so I could get ready for my night out.

It turns out that a friend and former soccer teammate from high school, Emily, was living in BA.  We managed to get in touch and agreed to meet for dinner.  I went to her apartment around 9pm, which in American time seems pretty darn late, but BA is a city of nightlife.  We decided on a Mexican restaurant and didn’t even get seated until 11pm.  We didn’t start eating until about midnight.  It gave us lots of time to catch up.  It’s hard to believe that more than 6 years had passed since I had last seen her.  Time flies as you get older.  After eating and catching up it was about 1:30 and time to get back to the hostel.  I walked alone, yes, at 1:30am, from Palermo to the Microcenter.  I got back at the hostel at about 3:30am and was exhausted.  While this sounds exceedingly dumb, many clubs aren’t opening until 2am, and it’s common to see people eating dinner until 4am.  So, it was like daytime traffic, and people walking around everywhere.  I had decided ahead of time that if I felt in any way unsafe I’d just shell out for a taxi.  I never felt unsafe, so I managed to get back to the hostel even though it was so late.  I pretty much crashed into bed.

Day 10 (October 5th, Sunday) – I absolutely slept in, this time until about 10AM.  I had 2 goals for the day: 1 – to see the San Telmo antiques fair that happens every Sunday, and 2 – to eat a steak the size of my head.  First I went to San Telmo.  The center of BA was almost dead it was so quite; all of the business people stay at their homes in the suburbs on Sundays.  Many people don’t even get food outside of their houses on Sundays.  Crazy. Anyhow, San Telmo was quite different.  There were booths set up all along the cobblestone streets with vendors selling everything from antique coins, to silverware, to old-fashion record players (the very first ones, I can’t remember what they’re called).  There were lots of tourists at this event.  I saw some tango dancers, but they were just sitting in chairs resting or something.  Patience hasn’t been a big virtue of mine, so I kept going instead of waiting to see if they would dance.  So, dare I say it – I didn’t actually see any live tango in Buenos Aires.  It’s sad, I know.  All of the restaurants in San Telmo were packed so I walked on towards Puerto Madero.  I had intended to go to La Boca, but ended up not going because I’d heard it can be a rough neighborhood and I didn’t want to risk it since I was alone.  So I walked back towards the center and wandered along Av. Florida for like the 10th time.  I realized I hadn’t walked along LaValle, another pedestrian street that intersects Florida, so I went up that.  And I’ll be darned if I didn’t find some steak places (Parrillas).  I found one that was originally more within my price range, until I saw the option on the menu for a sirloin steak with a creamy blue cheese and mushroom sauce, accompanied by some mashed potatoes and red wine.  It was the size of my head, and worth every peso.  I ate almost the whole thing; it was so good it felt sinful to eat it.  Rare, bloody, and practically still moving on my plate.  Oh the memories…. After this meal I gave up, went back to the hostel and just hung out.

Day 11 (October 6th, Monday) – The day to head back to Paraguay arrived.  I spent the morning getting a last cup of coffee and hanging around.  I ate a blue cheese and ham sandwich at a famous coffee shop, accompanied by an iced coffee mixed with ice cream.  It was a good and calm day; I sat and read for most of it.  In the afternoon I headed to the Retiro station, bought one last baggie of peanuts, and at 7pm boarded my bus bound for Asuncion.  This time, I did get a front seat on the double-decker.  It was a much better view this time.  The downside was that this bus trip took quite a bit longer; I arrived in Asuncion 23 hours later.  I did get through customs without any problem, and I now have 3 entrance stamps into Paraguay but still not a single exit stamp.  My trip ended rather uneventfully and the very next day I made it back to Tava’i.

The Good Stuff –
Okay, so how’s BA different from Paraguay or the US?  Here are some of my observations:
1)    Argentineans are very white and tall.  Guess it’s the more direct European genes (Paraguayans are more “mestizo” (mixed) and therefore darker skinned).  Many Argentineans didn’t even look Latino to me.
2)    The accent was difficult to understand.  Aside from the “shhh” sound for the ll, (i.e. instead of “me llamo” sounding like “me yamo”, it sounds like “me shhhamo”) Argentineans speak in an almost Italian accent.  It’s got a singsong rhythm to it.
3)    Consumer based economy = designer brands and a culture more like American than Paraguayan.
4)    Instead of having people just flat out begging in the streets, most have some “skill” or product that they’re selling.  That said, BA is a very “musical” city since there’s people playing all kinds of instruments on almost every corner.
5)    Argentineans cook their beef much better than Paraguayans.  Sorry Paraguay, but there’s lots of room to catch up.  The beef and pasta in Argentina was “super rico” (tasty).
6)    The food was the best part of the trip hands down.  It doesn’t take much to be better than the options available in rural Paraguay.
7)    I’m definitely not a city girl.  I felt like I was in a cage, everything was pavement and concrete and I felt like I couldn’t get out of it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I went to BA, but I could have gone for fewer days and had virtually the same experience.  It’s probably a place where I won’t ever go again unless I have company or a specific reason.
8)    Compared to US prices it’s supposedly cheap.  Compared to Paraguay prices it’s not, so I didn’t reap the benefit of its “affordability” especially with my Peace Corps salary.
9)    Never take the bus.  Next time it’s on a plane or it’s not happening at all.
10)    The shoes in that city are awesome.  I can’t complain.  There were too many choices, it was hard to choose, but very nice to have CHOICE in the first place.

That’s the play-by-play recap of my trip.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.  I often forget to explain things coherently, so if you’d like an elaboration or clarification, don’t be afraid to ask!

Next time: starting the transition to Asuncion!

Hasta Luego,

Robyn

I worked with the 6th graders almost 3 days a week to get our projects done.  The first week of September I started doing a map project with the 8th graders in the high school but since that first day I haven’t been able to go back and work with them because there have been too many other activities going on.

On September 9th I headed to Asuncion for my work progress and work plan (PTIP) meeting with my new boss, Holly.  I met her in July for my Peace Corps Volunteer Coordinator (PCVC) interview but this was still only my 2nd meeting with her.  My PTIP went well.  Knowing that the national soccer was playing Venezuela, I came prepared with my albirroja (striped red and white Paraguayan national team soccer jersey).  That evening Nick, my fellow G-22 volunteer, and I went to the game together and joined up with other volunteers and our PC doctors, Dr. Luis and Dr. Jorge (the visiting PC doctor from Peru; Dr. Jorge came to help our doc since our doc is new).  They were excited for the game.  We sat with them, other PCVC (coordinators – 3rd year volunteers) and other PCVs.  The game was so much fun.  It was such a high.  We were buzzing afterwards.  I am so glad that I went.  Watching a national soccer game in Latin America is quite an experience.  It was a blast, a sea of albirrojas all around.  We sat in the cheap seats behind one of the goals with all the hooligans.  There was no assigned seating so we were kind of smashed in.  I had MANY men offer up their seats for me.  I took one up on his offer because it was near the other PCV’s.  Paraguay went on to win the game 2-0 and scored both of their goals on the side where we were sitting, so I got to see my favorite Paraguayan players play in person, but also celebrate right in front of where I was sitting!  My two favorite players are Nelson Haedo and Roque Santa Cruz.  After the game I was exhausted.  After hiking on back to my hotel I passed out.

The next day I went to San Bernadino with my fellow G-22 volunteers to El Pueblo Hotel for our Completion of Service (COS) conference.  It is hard to believe that we’re already at this point in our service!  The conference went really well.  We talked about everything from cultural readjustment, health insurance, resumes, job interviews, and more.  We also gave suggestions for the next training cycle.  Then Holly and Gloria announced next year’s PCVCs.  And I’ll be damned if I didn’t get the job for the Environmental sector!  So, it’s official.  I’ll be saying in Paraguay for another year.  I’ll be living in Asuncion until January of 2010.  I am very excited to be staying and a little bit nervous as I am when I start anything new.  I am also relieved that I get to stay because I feel like I have left the job half done.  The end of the COS conference was actually kind of a downer because we realized that the last 3 months will fly by.  This would be our last time together until the despedida in December!   But the accommodations and food at COS conference were WONDERFUL.  I gorged myself on chocolate pudding, ice-cream, flan, and strawberries.

Because of the COS conference, I unfortunately missed the preparation for exhibition and Olympics put on by the high school in Tava’i every year.  The 8th graders had asked me to be their coach again this year but I was gone the entire week of practice and preparation.  After the conference I met up with my friend Fidel in Oviedo and we rode back to Tava’i on the bus together.  Fidel is the sub-chief at the police station in Tava’i.  After meeting up with Nilsa that evening, Fidel, Nilsa, myself and Nilsa’s date Ever (and Fidel’s co-worker) went to the Rember party together.

The following week, the high school students held their exhibition in the tinglado one evening.  Even though I wasn’t able to participate as their coach, I helped the junior class get the Jaku turkey costume from NGO, Guyra Paraguay.  The kids were doing an environmental themed exhibition.  Unfortunately they got 3rd and last place in their group.  My 8th graders got 1st place in their group, so I was proud of them for that.

That week, preparation for the September 24th fiesta patronal started with 9 days of mass and recitation of the rosary.  I didn’t go to the first few days because I was very busy but I went later in the week and it was fun; another new experience.  I also went to committee meetings to help with planning and what not.

The week finished with the Olympics competition for the high schoolers, then a day of celebrating the competition and, finally, a day off of school for working so hard.  All told, the kids missed a week of classes to prepare for the Olympics, then another week to actually do the Olympics.  Rough life.  The fiesta patronal parties were planned for the weekend but, of course, it rained and got bloody cold again, so everything was cancelled Saturday and Sunday.  On Monday, the kids finally went back to having real class, but I couldn’t go to help because my supervisor came to Tava’i.  She came to conduct interviews and prepare for my follow-up volunteer.  I was nervous about that but it actually went very well.  It looks like a guy will follow me in Tava’i because of the safety concerns.

Tuesday night I went to the first round of “running of the bulls”, or bullfighting (torin).  There were 3 matadors and 1 clown, but it was pretty sedate because they started 2 hours late (thanks to hora paraguaya) so it started at 10 PM and ended at 12 midnight.  Additionally, the bulls were really just steers, so they weren’t particularly aggressive.  It was more like “ambling of the steers”.  Wednesday the 24th was the day of the patron saint, the virgin of the Mercedes.  I went to the morning mass while Holly, my supervisor, went to Katy’s site to the south.  EVERYONE went to mass.  The whole town was closed and quiet and the church was packed.  Nilsa and I went together, and it was standing room only.  There was a procession afterward in which former presidential candidate Luis Castiglioni helped carry the virgin statue.  After the procession, as he was greeting people and shaking hands he came over to me and said “Hello my love” and kissed me on the cheeks (as is custom).  That’s the 2nd Paraguayan presidential candidate I’ve shaken hands with (actually when I met Lugo he was already president-elect).  After the procession there was a small artisan fair and traditional dance, BBQ lunch and the 2nd running of the bulls.

At noon, Holly and Nick, the PCVC, passed through Tava’I but brought Katy along with to drop her off.  At her site, a 17 year old kid got into a drunken fight and was stabbed to death the previous Saturday about 100 meters from Katy’s house.  She was upset and scared so she came to stay with me until our vacation to the falls on Friday.  Adam, Angela and my friend Nilsa came to visit, so the 5 of us ate delicious pig meat, drank too much beer, watched torin (the bull fighting) and then danced afterward.  The festivities ended at sundown.  Katy and I went immediately to bed thanks to beer induced headaches as well as too much sun – the weather had been perfect, very sunny and hot but not scorching.  The fiesta patronal was probably the most fun I’ve had in Tava’i, and definitely was the most appreciated and integrated I’ve felt in the community.  It was a blast.

Thursday after the fiesta patronal was like a Sunday afternoon and the day after Christmas combined.  Everyone was sad it had ended but also recovering from drinking too much, eating too much, and getting too much sun.  I packed my things for vacation and washed laundry and tidied up my room.  In the evening Katy realized that she had forgotten her passport and we started jogging for Castor Cue (11km away) but luckily got picked up in a truck and given a ride the first 7km.  It was pitch dark when we got her passport and started back, but we managed to get a ride back as well.  So all ended well.  At 3am in the pitch dark (thanks to a power outage), Katy and I caught a bus for Ciudad del Este to start our vacation!  My next blog update will feature details and photos of my vacation to Puerto Iguazu and Buenos Aires.

Hasta la proxima,

Robyn

Here is how I spent my August:

Fernando Lugo was sworn in on August 15th as the first non-Colorado president in 60+ years.  The transition went smoothly.  It was a rainy day and school was closed for the inauguration.  People are accepting and hopeful for the future.  There haven’t been any real changes in Tava’i, other than the DA (national police) coming out more frequently to check for vehicle registration and legal documents.  In Paraguay auto insurance is not required but one must have proper registration.  People are able to buy cars relatively cheaply in the 3 borders region – because they are stolen, and therefore come without the legal papers.  Lugo wants to cut down on that so the DA come out and together with the local police set up road blocks and check every vehicle (motorcycles, cars, and big trucks) for proper papers.

The weather has been very screwy for the last 2 months.  It gets blazing hot, then it rains, which lowers the temperature somewhat, and then cold fronts follow from the south, which makes it cold.  For example, one day I visited Katy in Castor Cue walking all 22km there and back in 100 degree heat.  I was exhausted when I got back and went straight to bed.  When I woke up the next morning it was very cloudy and about to rain.  It was still warm but humid.  By 10am it rained with thunder, lightening, and the works.  By the evening the rain and stopped.  As the sun was going down the wind picked up, bringing cold air from the south.  By the next night, the temperature was down to 38 degrees.  In a matter of 48 hours, the temperature ranged from a high of 100 degrees to a low of 38.  Within a day or two it started to warm up again and the whole cycle repeated again as it does about every 7-9 days.  The lack of air conditioning and heating takes a toll on a people.  They get cranky and sick, so there are always colds and flu going around.

In late August I went in to Asuncion and, of course, it rained the days I was supposed to return to Tava’i so I was delayed  a few days getting back.  It was nice to just sit and relax.

Before my trip to Asuncion I spent a lot of time at Magda’s uncle’s house for the one year “rezo” (prayer – recitation of the rosary) for her grandfather’s memorial.  In addition to a memorial held when someone dies they have anniversary prayers at 6 months, one year and two years which entails 9 days of 5 recitations of the rosary.  Family, friends, and neighbors gather at the house at about 4:00 every afternoon in front of a temporary alter that resembles a staircase covered with candles, flowers, pictures and personal effects of the deceased.  From 4:30 to 5:00 the rosary is repeated 5 times after which the family brings out snacks and soda.  More people usually attend on the last day of the rezo.  It starts earlier in the day so that after the recitations they can go to the cemetery to leave candles and flowers at the gravesite, then return for a special lunch hosted by the family.  On subsequent anniversaries they just have a special lunch and recite the rosary on the anniversary day. After participating in Magda’s grandfather’s rezo, I suspect that some people go for the free snack.  I was only able to attend about 4 days.  One day during the rezo was the anniversary of Magda’s mom’s death so we had a lunch around noon followed by a recitation of the rosary for her.  It had been 7 years since her death so her rezo was only celebrated that one day.  After lunch we had to go to the rezo for Magda’s grandfather so it was a busy day full of recitations of the rosary and food.

Living with Magda and her daughter has gone well.  There is always somewhere to be, something to do, or someone visiting us at her house.  Magda and I drink maté together almost every morning. We cook, we visit her family and friends and we do gardening and various projects together around her house.

A new contact for me in the community is the town’s new Pa’i (Catholic priest) who lives across the street from Magda’s house.  I go over and drink maté and tereré with him from time-to-time; he likes to ask me tough questions.  We even get rather philosophical.  A question he frequently asks is “if you have a comfortable life in the USA, and you aren’t wanting for anything, why ever would you come to Paraguay especially if there are people in your own country who need help?”  Good question.  Many Paraguayans just can’t grasp why we would give up what we have and choose something less.  I tried to elicit an understanding from him – after all, as a priest he has taken a vow of poverty. But, relatively speaking, his life is fairly comfortable.

The Pa’i likes good wine so occasionally we share a bottle with some neighbors.  He invited me to help with the committee that organizes the “fiesta patronal”, the annual celebration of the patron saint of the community.  Our patron saint is the Virgin of the Mercedes, or Nuestra Señora de Las Mercedes.  (And no, I do not mean the car).

Work in the school has gone well.  I’m still working with 5th and 6th grade classes.  In the 6th grade we are cleaning up the natural spring near the school.  We went to the spring, about 1/2km from the school, and they gathered up all of the garbage so that the municipality could come and get rid of it.  We plan to raise money to build a fence to keep animals away from the spring as they cause erosion.  We want it to be like a little park so we’d like to raise money to put in a bench as well and do some natural landscaping so that it’s more aesthetically pleasing.

Another activity I did with the 6th graders was to put on a mini-theater.  The kids formed groups and chose skits from one of my books to perform for the other grades.  I was really impressed with how much they got so into it.  They brought clothing for costumes and made props.  We actually did 2 days of theater – one to present to the rest of the school and the other to do for their classmates so that I could get some pictures.

I’ve also been hanging out with Nilsa a lot.  She is my best friend in site.  The day I returned from Asuncion we went to a town fiesta with two guy friends.  A band called Rember came out to play Kachaka music.  It was quite cold that night but very fun.  Magda went with her daughter as well so I got to dance with everyone.  I visit Nilsa almost every day.  We cook together a lot and drink maté, tereré, or coffee.  We’re trying to forget that I have very few months left in Tava’i and just try to enjoy ourselves.