I have been in my site now for 13 months. Which means I’m getting into year two. A trend for the services of many Peace Corps Volunteers is slow first year, much more active second year. I’d say that’s the same for me. Things are picking up around here.

Glycerin Soap in AMUR

The socias of AMUR have begun making glycerin soap. We had three sessions learning how to do it. The first two were flops: due to the quality of the cow fat (it has to be grasa fea – the ugly fat) and due to the quality of the soda cáustica (not sure of the translation, perhaps lye – it’s the burning part like from Fight Club…).

grasa fea - ugly cow fat for the soap

pouring the soap mixture into the mold

cutting the soap with Ramona and Suni

We got it right on the third try. We cut the large block of soap into 55 pieces to sell. We did a cost analysis to determine the price. We considered the cost of the ingredients, labor, gas (from the stove). In my opinion they set the price low at 2,000 Guaranís each block of soap (about the size of a Dove soap in the States). Our first set of soap was sold to the socias. We did not do any fancy packaging, just simple plastic, clear bags to keep the soap from drying out. On future productions we plan on packaging the soap in better quality plastic with a label to be sold to customers outside of AMUR, perhaps in the larger city on the highway. We’ll have to up the price then for additional costs.

This project goes hand-in-hand with some of the other homemade cleaners the ladies make. Like dishwashing soap. Ña Ede is the professional in that department. We make a lot of money off that product – it’s a big markup, but it’s a great quality, and you get more for your buck that the smaller bottle store-bought brand name detergent.

making detergent

Nikki’s Birthday, Again

nikki's bday, year 2

Another September, another birthday for my neighbor Volunteer, G-mate and friend Nikki. We celebrated at her house, among a small group of Volunteers to shamelessly and freely speak English, eat “weird” food and drink “weird” drinks and listen to our kind of music (no polka at this party).

our chefs david and brett - usa! usa! usa!

David and Brett (I helped with the chopping) prepared samosas. These are the Indian version of empanadas. We had beef turmeric samosas and traditional potato/carrott/onion/pea with curry samosas. Both were delicious and paired “nicely” with the box wine we found.

veggie samosa - yummers!

I’m teaching in 3 schools!

The firm base of a country resides in the education of its youth. - Diogenes Laercio

I’ve waiting a year for this day to come. Patiently, as I needed to get my language skills up to go tête à tête with kids. Plus I needed to liberate myself from some of the duties my initial contact in site had dropped on me.

Mondays – morning and afternoon – I have two classes at Escuela Parque. My neighbor teaches there and helped me get the gig. I initially pitched teaching to the oldest kids. Ages 10-12. But on my first day, they gave me all the kids. About 50 of them. That was tough. I’m doing activities in Leadership, Citizenship, Volunteerism and Self-Esteem. I have a manual written by an awesome former Volunteer, so it makes my lesson planning very easy. The first activity we did was called Manos, Cabeza, Corazón, Hogar – Hands, Head, Heart, Home. Picture a paper divided into quadrants with one of those words in each one. The students were supposed to think about their unique skills and abilities that applied to each area: manual skills, subjects they know a lot about, things they love, important parts of the home and community.

Wednesday mornings I’m teaching basic computer skills to the teachers at Escuela Parque. 

I’ve also started on Thursday afternoons at my host mom’s school in a small country town on the outskirts of Valenzuela, called Piraretá. We’re playing games so far, and working up toward geography mini-lessons, and lessons about cultural diversity in our great big world. The big part of this project is to paint a World Map on a wall at the school. I went out there the other day to present the projects to the kids (ages 10-12). The professors and my principal host mom are all on-board, so enthusiastic and excited to have me there. It’s nice to feel so appreciated.

playing papa caliente (hot potato) with my globe ball; soundtrack: black eyed peas

We’ll use a grid system to blow up a small map, to wall size. We’ll draw the countries, paint them and label them. And learn as we go. We’ll have to implement two fundraisers to accomplish this. First the kids will play BINGO one day at school. Each child will pay 3,000. Then we’ll use that money to purchase a nice gift, and we’ll hold a raffle among all the school’s parents. We should be able to get 200,000 Guaranís that way!

world map classes - oh my gosh they're so awesome...look at them sharing the globe!

future world map location

There’s a new baby cow on the block

my neighbor with the new baby cow on the block

This is good news for me because I love animals, especially baby animals. I didn’t waste any time telling my neighbor this. They think it’s so funny that I ask to pet the baby cow. But they always humor me. Even if it requires chasing the cow around her fenced-in area until they can reach her “leash.” I named her Bessie. Bessie’s mom did not survive Bessie’s birth, so Bessie is bottle-fed.

Sofia Isabel

baby sofi doing what she does second best: sleep

My Paraguayan niece Sofi just turned one-month old. I’ve never been around baby babies. This is weird y’all. She’s cute and everything, but she just cries, eats and sleeps. And gets baths, which are very complicated. She’s fun to have around though. She’s been staying with my host family (her mother – my host sister, and her grandmother – my host mom).

happy birthday!

For my host dad’s birthday, we put a ribbon on Sofi’s head (originally from the bottle of wine I gift to him). And Sonia presented baby Sofi to him. He was tinkled baby pink.

Went to a health post inauguration 

the inauguration event - look at the bumpin' sound system

There’s a new health post in a small town outside of Valenzuela, called Ñu Guazu. From funds from the Health Ministry the new local was built. It will serve a number of small towns in the area, and have two nurses and one doctur available daily, and on-call. They will offer care for chronic illnesses (diabetes, high blood pressure), some OBGYN, vaccinations, first aid and ambulance for extreme cases.

I got some awesome packages

check out my loot! tshirt, paper flowers, card, DVD, candy, salted cashews, makeup, sunscreen, soap, hair barrettes,

From Mom and Meg! Thank you! I love it all. This was a great pick-me-up.

Fun activities in AMUR // Cooking with Maureen

I try to share something fun in AMUR every other week or so. I made piñatas with a couple of my English students.

gabi with her piñata

And Maureen came to visit and we make candy bar cookies — like a Chocolate Chip batter, but we don’t have chocolate chips, so we break up a chocolate bar.

cookie class

That’s a pretty lengthy account of what I’ve been up to since my last update. I hope you enjoy! I’m quite happy with the diversity I now have in my Volunteer life schedule and my entertainment. Thanks for reading. Love and Peace,

Emily

the strawberry jam

A couple of weekends ago on that 7-Stop Trip of Paraguay I visited Areguá, home of the annual strawberry festival.

Producers sell fresh strawberries (of varying degrees of sweetness) and hawk their goods out along the ruta. There are strawberry cakes, parfaits with whipped cream, juice, liquor, jams, popsicles, etc. Everything frutilla.

I taste tested some strawberries, found the sweetest ones and bought a kilo. Moving on to another vender, I compliment her on the presentation of her product. It has a nice label, glass jar and that precious checked red and white fabric that denotes homemade.

I think of my parents, real jam lovers. I’ll be seeing them in January. I wonder if the jam will survive a few months unopened?

“Permiso señora. Tiene preservativos la mermalada?”

She looks back aghast. I have made a boo boo. Oh no. I remember. That is a false cognate. Perservativos in fact means condoms.

“Discuplame señora. Queria decir…” – Excuse me ma’am. I meant to say…

She helps me out, chuckling. “Conservante.”

“No, no tiene conservante,” she says. It doesn’t have preservatives.

“Jaja! Nunca me vas a olvidar, verdad?!” Haha! You’ll never forget me, right?!

She laughs. And I buy her jam, that contains neither preservatives nor condoms.

guest bloggers

Maureen’s one of my best friends here in Paraguay. You’ve already heard a lot about her here, especially when it comes to cooking, traveling about, drinking tereré.  She was very lucky to have some visitors come down in the past few months during the North American summer. Her best friend Lee visited as well as her dad. These posts were written by them. I wanted to share them because it’s nice to have an outsider’s perspective of the Peace Corps and Paraguay. Though by the ends of their stays, each was a bit more insider. Plus both of their blogs were special to me because I got to meet them both and very much enjoyed their company and sharing my experience with them as well. I know that both of them now have a better understanding of Peace Corps, of Paraguay and the ins and outs of Volunteer life.

Guest Blog: Dave Stickel : Words from a proud papa impressed by his daughter’s work, plus his reaction to the Peace Corps concept and why it’s a good one. His a short excerpt:

For me, the equivalent experience would be for me to get off a bus in the poorest poor part of Cincinnati (which actually looks a lot like middle class Paraguay) start walking up to random people and introducing myself, rent myself a small apartment in their midst, try to get them to invite me over for meals and chats, start making suggestions on how they might want to go about improving their neighborhhod or livelihoods, convince them to work with me on a project or two, and work with them to make it successful.  No, there isn’t a local church or charity or organization to sponsor me – I would be doing this totally on my own.  Quite daunting, huh?  Well 230 mainly young people are doing this in Paraguay right at this moment.

Guest Blog by Lee: My Month Long Trip to Paraguay – Greatest Hits Version : Words from another 20-something who lived day-to-day with Maureen for a month. It’s like she got a Peace Corps summer internship. Here is a shorter excerpt:

It was indeed the best month of my life.

Happy reading, readers! I’d love to hear your feedback from Maureen’s blog here. Also, if you visit me, you will write a guest blog, too.

el tajy - from ultima hora

The MC called it the Festival Agosto Tajy – The August Cherry Blossom Festival, essentially. The tajy (Guaraní tah-juh) is Paraguay’s national tree, or in Spanish lapacho. The blossom is similar to the Cherry Blossom, and comes in colors yellow and pink. And it’s their time now. Think of them as prevalent as the southern Crape Myrtle perhaps.

The mass went on forever in the church plaza. And wow. Quite a bit of political and ideological rhetoric coming from the robed man. I like my politics and faith separate, though I believe that much of my politics is influenced by how I was raised in my faith. Needless to say, I didn’t agree with a lot of what the priest was saying. And I couldn’t help to think, if those are the ideas that I’m truly up against, what hope do I has as a Volunteer? But I’m only one person. And I hope that the way that I lead my life and treat others equally is a stronger example than a priests mere words.

So I found a chair and drank mate with my host mom. Once that was over, we had to turn in our white plastic chairs from the church service, only to buy them back for the secular event that followed. Ok. Worth it. I’m a sitter. We also found the cantina  and ordered empanadas and sopa.

The show began with several musical acts. Harps. Guitars. Vocalists. And then dancers. Dancers from this and that town, representing this municipality or this cooperative. Karin’s group performed, and they were fantastic. I only wish they’d had room on the stage with better lighting, but así es.
Here’s the video:

Isn’t the music great, too?!

One of the best parts about going to the festival was the actual travel. You see, my host family just traded out a pickup truck for a two-door VW. Which means we went via auto. In style. Balogs: think of the VW like the silver Honda Shark of Grandaddy’s. That’s what we’re working with.

Santa Elena sits about 10K off the ruta. The entire road is paved with smooth asphalt, painted with double yellow and single white fog lines. There are also reflectors. The road is tree-lined (beautiful!) It’s somewhat curvy, but illuminated better than most.

This is in stark contrast to my road to Valenzuela. And I was glad my host family got to see this. Granted, Valenzuela only recently has asphalt, as opposed to empedrado or rugged stone pavement. But it left them wanting more for their community and drivers’ safety. There have been some fatalities in recent years on that road, motos at night time is my understanding.

When we arrive to Santa Elena, the town is packed. There are motos and cars everywhere. There’s no where to park. We cruise for a bit until host mom asks my host dad to just let us out and meet up with us later. Sounds familiar. He goes to park the car. Time passes and we don’t see him. So we go looking for him and the mate termo in the car. “Amado! Why did you park so far away?! The event is over there! This is too far.” I’m laughing out loud thinking of my Dad parking a mile away to keep the car from getting dinged. I miss you, Dad!

Second part of the funny comes later in the evening. Close to 11 at night we leave Santa Elena. It’s very dark and beginning to drizzle.

We’re cruising home and host mom says something like, “My, how the rain just invites you to sleep.” Host dad driver says, “Huh?! Rain what rain?” The car falls silent until I laugh and point out the giant drops of water on the windshield. “Oh!!!! It is raining!” We almost got host mom to drive, but luckily we were creeping at a very slow horse-and-buggy speed.

It was a truly unforgettable birthday. I’ll give you the play by play.

Here I am at my host family's house beneath the Last Supper. This is where all the important meals happen.

Text messages begin as the morning sunlight is barely entering my room. I hear from community members, Volunteers. My host family calls. Santiago’s family calls and sings to me. I had been quiet in my community about my birthday, not wanting too much attention. But at the day’s leather goods class, I got big hugs and kisses. They made me feel very special indeed.

My parents called and we chatted for a good while. I told them about how my birthday party came about.

Originally for my birthday I was going to cook dinner with some friends at my house. But my host family was very concerned that I spend the day with them on my special day. I wasn’t going to argue! So we joined forces and had a double party.

So for the evening time…a couple of my Volunteer friends arrived and we prepared the goodies for our half of the dinner: tequila lime chicken tacos including lettuce, cheese, sour cream, pico de gallo and olives. Plus a bottle of wine. And my host family served pizza, soda and a delicious cake. We shared the grub and had a very international (and filling) dinner. I lost track of just what all I ate it was so good.

It was a thrill to have my friends visit and get to know my host family. And I could tell just how proud my host family was of me and to show that care to my friends. I felt truly blessed.

me and karin, with icing on my face

Karin made my birthday cake. We sang Happy Birthday in three languages (Spanish, English, Guaraní). Though I have been at a birthday party recently where we sang it in five languages (throw in Korean and Japanese). Wowsers!

H.B. Emi!

The birthday dinner was a hoot. There was lots of fun conversation and storytelling about how I was when I first arrived in Valenzuela. The evening had a very reminiscent feel. Nikki reminded my host mom that I was somewhat scared of her after our first meeting. That’s so funny to think of now. But then again, they probably thought I was mute.

Also, our get-together was unique on account of Nikki’s little sister from the States coming along. She was able to talk my little host sister! They used Google Translator (and a very slow internet connection to talk to one another) and Karin was able to speak the English that I had taught her! They also watched Nickelodeon and bonded over thinking that the same boys are cute. Let’s hear it for cultural exchange!

my tereré equipo / extension of my arm

Here’s one of my super lindo birthday presents! A leather termo and matching guampa. Everyone say, “OOoooooh. Que lindo!” The day after the party, you can bet that a big tereré circle was necessary for rehydrating.

feet up on my porch, valenzuela // the argentine boots

Once upon a time there was a Peace Corps Volunteer named Emily. She lived far, far away in a small pueblo in Paraguay. However, when she left her native land The United States of America, she did not leave behind her love of shoes or fashion. She brought those loves with her in a suitcase and in her heart.

Meanwhile, there was another Peace Corps Volunteer named Courtney. She too lived in Paraguay and loved fashion. And she was going to visit a new land: the land of leather, carne, sexy accents and beautiful people. That place is called Argentina!

While in Argentina, Courtney fell in love. With a pair of beautiful, black leather boots. No heel. Flats. Very sensible and tasteful; a classic beauty. She acquired the boots, but unfortunately had only a brief affair with them. After walking around Buenos Aires for a bit, she realized they were just too small.

So she sold them to Emily upon her return to Paraguay. Emily was budgeting for the month, and paid half upfront, and would pay for the second boot a month later.

And Emily and her Argentine boots lived happily ever after. Almost.

Some time passes. The air is crisp and cold. It’s boot weather.

Emily is invited to a birthday party in The Big City: Asunción.  As she packs her bag, she selects a darling outfit that inclues black tights and the black Argentine boots. You know, city clothes! She places them in her tote bag, deciding to change out of her bus clothes when she gets there. She takes an evening bus out of town, and in 3 hours arrives at her destination.

With one boot.

Dios mio!  Distraught by her lost Argentine, unpaid-for boot mate, she attends the party less fashionably.

Upon returning to her pueblo she visits the bus terminal to inquire about her boot. No hay caso, they say. There’s no use. She tells her host family and community members. She makes jokes about walking crooked. And she visits the terminal periodically for some time after. Their muted laughs and head shakes accompany her dwidling hope.

Until one glorious day. Isidrio, the bus driver, beckons her over to his house while she passes by one day.

“Are you the girl that lost the boot?”

“Yes! YES I AM!” Emily said.

“Stay here.” He walks inside. And brings out the Argentine boot. In perfect condition. Just as she had left it on the bus.

And Emily rejoiced, for she had already paid for that second boot while it was missing!

And thus she learned The Paradigm of Radio So’o.

Never abandon hope, and never be ashamed to tell your story. People will listen, and then will remember you. Even if they laugh about you. To your face. They’ll laugh about you with their friends, too. But eventually that chisme or radio so’o (radio meat) –both meaning gossip—will work in your favor. You just have to work the system.

how to survive the paraguayan winter: mate // thanks for the nail polish, MOM!

Día de la amistad : Friendship Day

This would be my most recent success. This is an important holiday here in Paraguay. All sectors of life seem to throw a party and celebrate frienship: the schools, the teacher’s association and my women’s group – AMUR.

Our little party has been in the works for the past month. My contact Ña Inma put me charge saying something like, “A journalist should be able to do this.” Ha. Was that a challenge?! I don’t even know what that means. Anyway.

But I put my public relations know-how to work and recruited all the right people to help out.

Here was our program:

1. Welcome – Ña Inma
2. Creo en ti amiga / I believe in you friend : Poem reading and discussion about what is friendship. The ladies contributed some thoughtful ideas about supporting one another and being a friend through the ups and downs and changes that come throughout one’s life. – Me and socias
3. Charlita – A short talk about care for the environment and how we can better care for our environment in how we dispose of trash in our homes. For example: composting, separating materials, bury trash rather than burn it, and possibilities for petitioning the municipality to start trash collection. – This was led by a local engineer who studied environmental science in University.
4. Presentations by work groups: I invited representatives from each of the work groups to give a brief update or presentation on what we’re doing at AMUR. For example, Ña Ede talked about the leather class, Ña Suni talked about the bag-making class and I presented my photography class and my student Ruth spoke (very eloquently I might add for a 14-year-old!)
5. Momemto artistico – Artistic moment. Host mom came through and invited her daughter and her daughter’s friend to perform a Paraguayan dance for the group. And YOURS TRULY sang two songs. This is my level of commitment. I put myself on the line here. But my socia friend Ña Ede had been my teacher. One song was a solo, and the second we sang together in two parts (me melody, she harmony). Here are the lyrics for the second song (Spanish and a teenie bit of Guaraní)

Con profundo amor…esta canción guaraní
Te canta mi corazon…que sueña ser panambi
Y a tu boca en flor…llegar en vuelo gentil
Libarle su miel de amor…y así yo podré vivir 

Tus ojos cuando me miran dicen te quiero ndeve añoite
Pero tus labios responden siempre maerapa reicuassé
Así yo vivo esperando por tí soñando che mborayjhu
Ese venturoso día que tu me brindes tu cunu’u.

And the translation:

With deep love … this Guaraní song
My heart sings … dreaming of becoming a butterfly
And your mouth blooming … comes in gentle flight
Free your honey love … that’s how I can live

Your eyes when they look at me saying I love you only
But your lips always respond, “why do you want to know”
So I live waiting and dreaming my love
For the happy day I’m your love.  

6. Brindis – aka Snack Time. The ladies served bocaditos – little bites of empanada, sopa paraguaya,  croqueto and beef milanesa. I walked around with the brownies that I had brought. And those things disappeared. Fast.
7. Games: We did a raffle drawing for the Ahecha bag that I had designed. I donated the bag to the group, and suggested a raffle. The ladies ran with that idea and used the money raised to cover the cost of the food. That bag was won by socia Ña Antoli. Then we played Amigos Invisibles. This is sort of like Secret Santa. Everyone brought a small gift to exchange.

the bag that was raffled (i designed it!)

8. Fabric sale: We sold some donated fabrics to raise some money.
9. Ahecha Exhibition: The photos taken by my photography class were on display throughout the day, throughout the AMUR house. People stopped to study them, and seemed to really enjoy the story they told of life in Valenzuela.

exhibit poster, valenzuela

Sad note: I don’t have picutres of much of this because I accidently erased my camera. Doh. Host mom made me feel better and said, “Emi those are just photos, the event stays.”

Happy note: Here is a link to flickr where I have uploaded all 40-some photos from my photography students’ exhibition. Hooray! 

San Juan Fiesta

cooking mandioca at out women's center

This happened back in June as a fundraiser for AMUR. San Juan is a period of partying in early winter that involved typical games (most involving FIRE!) and typical foods (most involving FRYING!) We had a feria de comidas  - or food fair at AMUR. We sold primarily to the high school students across the street, to ourselves, and passersby. We also had a presale – for unfried empanadas (to be friend at home) and a postsale – for ingredients and cooked foods that were leftover. Though there was not much.

I had my fill of mbeju, payagua mascada, empanadas de mandioca, sopa, chipa guazu and cocido.

boiled mandioca gets mashed to prepare mandioca empanada disks

finsihed empanadas de mandioca

We made about 350,000 Gs that will go toward an end of the year fieldtrip.

Bag Making at AMUR

As I mentioned regarding the Día de la Amistad festivities, we’ve been making bags at AMUR. Lots of fabric was donated to our group by a priest in the neighboring town. We’ve been using that in sewing lessons.

I obtained the pattern for our Ahecha bags, and we adapted it to include an outside pocket where we could paint an AMUR logo. I designed that bad boy, you know!

painting AMUR bags

Cooking with Maureen

This should become a regular segment. Most recently we tackled pretzels. We kneaded them, we boiled them, we baked them and we ate them. With mustard and beer. A lot of work, but very delicious, I say on account of the chunky salt.

kneading pretzel dough

Tah-Dah!

Ahecha National Exhibition

I have been working with Volunteers Carolina and Zach to organize the national photography exhibition. My students will be eligible to exhibit their photos at the national level next year. They missed this year’s cut-off. Currently the exhibit is at the bus terminal in the capital. It will move around town after that to a shopping mall and other institutions. Here it is at the bus terminal, with Zach.

ahecha exhibit at the terminal - with zachman

Fourth of July Dinner

Peace Corps is all about cultural exchange, so you know I had to share some fourth of July traditions with my host family.

karin and me

I got the goods for hotdogs with chili and slaw. Oh yeah. And it was amazing. The slaw went over well, better than I thought. I imagine because lots of people eat cabbage salad here with mayo, so it wasn’t too foreign. And of course the hots and chili went over well as well. We ate. They even put the American flag that I brought them on the table as centerpiece. And after dinner, and couple glasses of wine, I sang the National Anthem. That’s a long song! And it got my host dad out of bed in the other room where he’d gone to lie down with a food coma! Success.

hot dog dinner

[video 0567]

 Kuat

 This is sort of extra-curricular Peace Corps. The Kuatiañe’e or Kuat is a Volunteer-produced newspaper/magazine. The content is 60% technical and 40% everything else. Content ranches from crafts with plastic bags, how to begin a library project, recipes, Ken-Ken games, travel advice and reviews, creative writing, etc. The Kuat just went through a serious redesign (like, changed from Word documents printed and stapled together, to designed in publishing software!) and I helped out big time. We’re also making the swift to digital to cut down on printing and paper waste. Which means it’s now in color!

I’ve been named the next Chief Editor. Booyah! UNC School of Journalism Class of 2007 doing BIG THINGS. BIG. But I’m looking forward to that very much because the team is fun to work with and it’s nice to see such visible results of hard work when our jobs as Volunteers typically don’t get that kind of immediate feedback. 

some of the kuat staff on a moto // what no-moto policy?

 Fun things 

Here are some photos from Bruno’s birthday party in Asunción. There were homemade piñatas (one traditional, one a boob). Bruno’s mexican, so I think the piñatas were a throwback to his younger years and birthday parties.

piñata uno - traditional

piñata dos - the boob

Baby shower for Sonia at 4D Ice Cream Shop.

baby shower ladies

my gift for baby sofi - chulina!

I’ve also tagged along at a coupld of Santiago’s graffiti gigs. He’s not graffiti-ing, he’s doing documentary filming at the locations.

street art: gen. diaz y chile, asunción (photo by santiago iñaki)

My host sister Karin danced in a recital that was also the thesis presentation for a dance instructor getting certified in her profession. The theme was Ovecha Ragué – pelaje de oveja or sheep fur. The title refers to a folklore festival in San Miguel, Paraguay that celebrates artisenal wool products.

dance recital

Here’s some of the road on the way to my site. My host family recently got a car. I went for a ride with them, and served the mate as we rode along. You’ll get to see some Paraguayan rural landscape. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for some video posts very soon.

i won!

hot cheese bread!

selling ahecha gear at the embassy

You can see some new photos I have uploaded on Flickr. I reached my maximum upload limit for the month. Until next time, check them out here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50451375@N08/

Peace,

Emily