Letter Writing

This is a topic that I know I have harped on in previous entries, but it is something that keeps coming back to me in a variety of forms. Technology has considerable sway over the manner in which we accomplish tasks that previously took months and sometimes even years to achieve. 200 years ago getting a letter in the mail was pretty much the fastest way to get word to someone in a hurry. The invention of the telephone made it possible to get in touch with someone almost instantly if they were around their phone. The telegraph was a way to send a message to someone who did not have a telephone, and even in its heyday that took hours depending on how fast the message was delivered or how long it took the receiver to wonder into a Western Union office. In the 1980s the telegraph was all but dead once telephone infrastructure caught up and everyone had phones in their houses. However, the mail was still the most efficient way to send a message that couldn’t be expressed over the phone. That was until the 1990s when email started to rock mail’s foundation, and nowadays with smart phones and mobile Internet information, emails, phone calls exist in the palm of your hand. It is no shock that the US Postal service is bankrupt when anyone in the world with a signal can send a message to anyone else who has a signal at the touch of a button.

Being born in 1988 I still remember life without email and instant access to information. I remember learning how to write letters, how the postal system worked, and what a phone with a cord looks like. However, as I grew up and those systems of communication began to be replaced by faster and more efficient methods like email I think I lost the significance that a sentimental letter has on a person simply because I never received a ton of letters. I still got birthday cards, the occasional thank you card, and other things of that nature throughout my childhood, but the long handwritten letter was lost on me. Mail wasn’t the only form of written communication. Computers made people type faster, email hastened the need for quick response thus eliminating many of the formalities associated with writing a good letter. Going to elementary school in the 1990s I distinctly remember computer classes and the emphasis on learning how to type. Spell check, the clarity of typed documents, and later grammar check caused me to pay little mind to how neat my hand writing was or how to spell something correctly. I figured if technology can do it for me why is it important for me to learn how to do these skills that are primarily associated with outdated technology? Granted this is a contemporary realization, and not something I was thinking about when I was 8, but I think it holds true. My handwriting leaves something to be desired, and when I write something by hand I do it in print not in cursive. I still constantly misspell words because I know that spell check will get them. I guess my point in saying all this is that getting a long, heartfelt hand written letter is never something I received growing up. For me, getting a long email from friends of family is what gets me excited because I can respond quickly, and don’t have to wait weeks for a reply. Times changed, and while I lament my inability to hold a letter in my hand and carry it around it is not something I was ever used to growing up, so I am void the regret that letters haven’t found themselves a firm place in our modern society.

The reason for this outpour on writing letters is because I sent some today. It cost me 56,000 Guarani’s to send them to America that’s about $12 and the worst part is that it is 1,000 Guarani’s more than I spend on my monthly Internet plan. 56,000 Gs. Is a lot of money for me down here, and while I am totally on board with the concept of sending and receiving letters in that moment when I was forking over the cash I came to the realization that I am participating a dying concept. Now both Paraguay and the United States will have a mail system for a while. Institutions such as those don’t die so easily, but when it costs me as much as it did to mail said letter when I could have sent an email to literally everyone I know dozens of times it makes one stop and think is it worth it?. Personally, I figured that writing letters would be a significant method of communication for me. There is something about romanticized idea of joining the Peace Corps, and writing letters back home while waiting for months for a response that attracted me. In reality that is not how it works. Every country has Internet, and there are probably only a hand full of places left where it is easier for one to sent a letter than an email. I think people have an innate desire to maintain consistent contact with loved ones, and when I can call America for $0.01 a minute or send an email whenever I want it makes it tough to justify spending $2.50 each time I want to send a letter. I guess I should have made that realization earlier than 6 months into my time here, but it wasn’t until I handed the lady at the post office that money that it hit me.

The thing I struggle with is do I care? Do I personally need to receive a hand written letter when I have the ability to maintain constant contact with someone? Is an email good enough? As to that I do not know. I only received one letter of significant length since I have been here, and it was typed. I have received some notes and post card from a few people as well, but several of those were given to me before I left or arrived shortly after I landed in Paraguay. I do carry those messages with me wherever I go, and I tend to look those letters and notes when I am down. So, I guess what I am saying is that I do have an emotional pull to them, but I have not had enough of those letters in my life to feel the full range of emotions that previous generations had. I think in today’s society that because of rigorous demands and time commitments of the work place make some who takes the time to write a long email in many ways the modern equivalent to someone who wrote a the hand written letter 50 years ago. It is slowly becoming lost are, and while I will do my best in the future to continue to write letters, and encourage my peers to do the same I am not sure if I can consciously justify writing a letter over an email in any context other than I have a lot of spare time and a lot of spare money.

House Building and Street Grilling

My New House

The Well and Front Lawn

For those of you who have ever been apart of a housing contract negotiation or remodeling project will know from experience that is isn’t a walk in the park. Now I admit that I personally have never been apart of any of type of negotiation in America, so I cannot attest to the rigors associated with building codes and construction costs, but I can say I now know a thing or 2 about the process in Paraguay. For the better part of the last month I have been frantically looking for alternative housing options that better suit my lifestyle as a 23-year-old American bachelor in the developing world. Needless to say this is an envious position for most men, and the desire to find independent housing definitely accentuates that particular lifestyle choice. That is not to say that I don’t love living with my current family, on the contrary I think living with a family dramatically improves language ability, familiarity with the community, and helps serves as a vehicle for me to be introduced to a plethora of people. However, after close to 4 months with the same family through the incessant 6:30 am scream cries from Damian and the new house keepers daughter Jessica Marisol, the kids constantly asking me to borrow my bike or for some chewing gum, and the wide variety of foods that most recently included stuffed armadillo, at least that is what I think it was, I feel as though my time has been well spent, and I am eager to move into my first single domicile.

Bathroom

            I have no idea what living alone will be like. To be honest it is a bit overwhelming to think about. The house that I am planning on moving into isn’t the ugliest building I have seen in Paraguay, nor is it the prettiest, but it is functional and at this point functionality is crucial. The only thing the 2-room abode came with was pretty shoddy electrical wiring, 4 walls, and 2 windows. That’s about it to be perfectly honest. To date, I have added a modern bathroom, cleaned the well, and improved the electrical inputs. Now when I say I have done this I mean I took the moving in allowance that Peace Corps provided me 4 months ago and, thanks in large part to my host dad Julio, paid some guys to get the building up to snuff. Does the bathroom look nice? The answer is definitely not, but again it isn’t about how it looks its about how it about how it functions, and as soon as we get the motor set up to pump water from the well into the holding tank above my house I would venture to say that I will be living in the lap of a Paraguayan luxury home. My goal is to move in by the end of next week, but seeing how long and slow the process was to get to this point I think a more realistic expectation will be the first week of April when my finances have reached their limit and when I am forced to eat nothing except for what I find dead on the side of the road or what is growing on the trees. In all seriousness though, it is a big initial investment, but what I put in now goes towards what I will have to pay in rent in the future, so at the end of the day it is looking like I will come out on top fiscally.

Street Grilling

            I am pretty excited about the house, so today I decided to go to an asado (BBQ) with Mike and his next-door neighbors who own a salon. Mike and I meticulously prepared a marinade for pork chops and ribs while the señora made a rice salad. When it came time to cook the meat I was under the impression that it would be done in the back yard of this lady’s house. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Now I am not familiar with what the law say in America, but I am pretty confident in saying that you cannot cook meat in a public street without some kind of permit. For all I know that is a law here as well, but that takes us back to the struggles of law enforcement, which is a whole other can of worms that I would rather not get into again in this entry. What we ended up doing was grabbing 2 pieces of sheet metal in the middle of the median, put the charcoal on top, grabbed a couple of plastic empty yogurt cups to start the fire and give the air that classic plastic smell everyone is looking for when grilling, and cooked right there and then with chair set up around to watch the meat. We also had the pleasure of having one of the 2 town drunks join us for the meal. Thankfully this one was the nice unassuming drunk who simply sat next to us on the street drinking a large plastic bottle of green Tres Liones Caña (this is easily the grossest, cheapest (retail price $1 for a liter bottle), and arguably the worst tasting booze ever made). The family we were eating with gave him a plate of food with the justification being he is the quiet unassuming drunk who doesn’t ask for anything and is just wasted all the time. To be honest, I had to agree with that decision because all he did was sit there on the curb quietly without pestering us too much. Got to admire the guy’s dedication, but it was still pretty sad watching him sitting there drinking his bottle alone with nothing but his thoughts. Thankfully we had a ton of food extra food, so we indulged him.

My Son?

            I had the strange honor of being called “papa” by the kid you see in the picture to the left. When I asked him why he thought I was his father he couldn’t come up with a response. I sort of get the impression that men in this country don’t really show physical affection towards their sons. I never see men of any age hug, kiss, or simple goof off together. I rarely see father and son do anything together except eat, work, or watch TV. I don’t frequently see them kicking a soccer ball around or riding bikes together either. Maybe those types of father son activities are more rooted in American culture where fathers tend to spend more time working away from the household for significant hours, and activities such as playing catch are ways to make up for the lost time. I have to admit that while I don’t notice blatant physical interactions between male members of society I must admit that they do seem to spend more time in each other’s presence whether that is working out in the fields or tending to the animals. All rationale aside though, the father-son relationship is far different from what I experienced growing up with a father who, like it often times is here, was physically around me for a significant part of my childhood. This extends not just to this particular situation with this 5-year-old kid calling me “papa”, but is something I have noticed for quite some time. I cannot figure out what the cultural rationale for this is, and I won’t go as far as to say that it is a universal phenomenon, but it is palpable from my own personal observations. Kids love to mess around by wrestling or simply goofing off, and I am happy to indulge them. It helps me get to know the kids better when I go play soccer with them at the school or do something as simple as give them a high 5. It seems to work for me and has allowed me to get to know a number of students at my school a lot better while having a lot of fun at the same time.

            This outlook in some cases extends to the mother daughter relationship as well, but I get the impression that being a male excludes me from those particular insights and details, so I can honestly declare that I do not have the same insights as I would for the father son relationships. I get along with woman and younger girls at the schools just fine, but I always seem to get the distinct impression that whenever I talk to a member of the opposite gender my conversations and the depth seems to be conspicuously different. Men who I have never met will make dirty jokes, talk about partying, discuss their girlfriends or my lack there of without thinking twice. With women, at least the ones who are willing to see me as a professional working in the community and not a threat to themselves or their daughters, I tend to find the initial questions to be more along the lines of my family, religion, and what I am doing here. They seem more interested in understanding my upbringing and my rationale for being here rather than my relationship status. It causes me to develop multiple personas when working with different genders and age groups. So far, it seems to be going okay, but I will admit it is challenging working with both genders simultaneously. I guess time will tell how effective I am at balancing those different types of relationships, but 

Completing the World Map and Being Tranquilo

            This past Friday we put the finishing touches on our world map project at the local elementary school. They kids genuinely seemed to get a kick out of the project, and having the map itself on the wall is one of those things where the kids learn whether or not they are trying to. Most of the students can read, but there were still a few that really struggled with the names of countries that surround Paraguay. For example, many students didn’t know where Argentina was even though it shares a huge boarder with Paraguay and had its name written within the boundaries. For the most part the kids had a general idea where Latin America was, but they often confused places like the United States and Canada even with their names written in. Strangely, many of them knew of Panama, but I am inclined to believe that was because Paraguay recently had a soccer match against Panama. I guess it just goes to show you the grasp television and media have even in place as small as Paraguay.

 Drawing and painting the map were the easy parts. The hard part was drawing the detailed grid onto the wall itself, so we could draw the boundaries. Managing the kids while they painted the countries the right colors was also a challenge especially making sure they painted the correct color without going over the boarders. We only had 1 major mishap when someone spilled yellow paint after slipping off his chair all over the Indian Ocean that subsequently covered a large portion of Antarctica. Thankfully, the kids jumped right up and cleaned the mess in no time, and the consequence were no more than a repainting of he ocean and a portion of Antarctica.

            I got to give the Paraguayan schools credit on 3 things. First, they keep the schools really clean and the students are on the ball completing those tasks. Second, they all really do have great handwriting. I guess the house of rigorous drilling of the letters and how to draw them perfectly has paid off even though it can take a long time for them to write a sentence because of the attention to such detail, it is still really tidy. Last but not least they are great and keeping within the lines. We had pretty much no trouble with the kids painting over the lines in a way that was detrimental. They worked meticulously at every country they were assigned, and for the most part painted them with the precision of a well-oiled machine. There were a few smaller countries particularly in the Balkans that required more attention and were thus completed by Michael or I, but other than that the kids did most of the actual painting.

We managed to stretch out the process over the course of a week. 1 day to draw the 3x 1.5m boundaries and grid of the map, one day to draw the map in pencil, one day to paint in the countries, 1 day to outline the boarders in sharpie, 1 day to label the countries, and 1 day to paint the boarder and do the finishing touches. I think it was a good project to begin my relationship with the kids at the school in terms of going forward. To this point, it has been a struggle keeping the mind occupied. There are plenty of people that I can work with, but many of the projects in questions are long term that require a lot more time, and a lot more patience. The map project on the other hand was great because it is something tangible that doesn’t take too much time to complete, and involves a good number of people. I am glad it is finished though because it is tough explaining hundreds of times where certain countries that the kids have heard of on the radio or television are on the map without wanting to scream.

This weekend I pretty much did nothing. I have put a down payment on a small, 2-room house to have a bathroom installed. That process has actually begun much to my surprise. I went over their yesterday with my community contact, who I currently live with, and saw that he had build the entire bathroom minus the instillation of the toilet and necessary piping. I have offered on several occasions to help with the construction, so I was really caught off guard when he had essentially completed the bathroom without telling me. That kind of ties into one of the biggest frustrations I have with living here. If I don’t know how to do something like building a bathroom or cooking a certain dish then instead of teaching me I find that it is done for me. It is really exasperating when I am trying to do something and it is taken away from me before I have the chance to learn. In many respects I feel like a child. Living with families inhibits my ability to try things in many ways I have spare time and want to try new things, but they way things are demonstrated is more of a watch me do it so you can do it in the future rather than ill show you and you repeat the process or you do it and I’ll coach you. If the map project proves anything it should show that I know how to do something that I have never done before and do it well. Hopefully that will help me moving forward, but for the time being I think I am just going to hang back from starting any more major projects at the school until I move into my actual house.

The construction of my house, and the process that it took for me to get it underway has provided me with an interesting perspective on stress and stress management even if I haven’t had a chance to do the physical hands on part. When I was back home, even when I didn’t have a lot on my plate, I always felt as though I had a pile of things on my plate that never seemed to subside. Taking care of the car, looking for job, involvement in college organizations, school itself, relationships, money ect. Granted my lifestyle here is not nearly as stressful as it was back home, but that is not to say that there is no reason for it. Learning 2 languages simultaneously, meeting people in the community who are interested in working with you, explaining to people who you are and why you are here, doing projects themselves, conducting or participating in meetings, finding a place to live, money, ect. I would say that the number of things that cause stress are likely equal, but for some profound reason that I cannot seem to figure out why I don’t feel the stress as a burden that is constantly weighing down on me? Take my housing situation as an example. I have no idea how to build a bathroom or part of a house; if I did I would have no idea who to contact to do the project, where to buy the materials, how to transport them, and how much it should cost. That is a lot to have on ones plate especially when a lot of the communication is in a 3^rd language. However, my attitude to this point in my service has been to just go with the flow. I have mentioned this several times in the past, and will continue to live by that code until something necessitates a change.

O’Leary has a lot of empty houses, and most are not for rent. It has been a challenge for volunteers to find independent housing here, and the same problem existed for me as well. Instead of stressing out over it though I made several inquiries with my family and few other people in the community about places to live. Most people couldn’t help me, but my hose Dad and community contact Julio pulled through huge for me by finding a house. Don’t get me wrong its no mansion, but it is nice enough to live in and only needs a few modest additions and repairs to get it in living shape. The cost of the house? Stull undetermined, but the money I invest now will go towards future months rent. I would be lying to everyone if I said that I was cool as a cucumber during the house hunting. In fact, I wasn’t at all, but things for whatever reason just seem to happen in their own time here. The weirdest part about that statement is that I was talking to my friend Jimmy about my housing situation when I made that comment about things kind of just happening all of a sudden, and later that same day Julio, informed me that he had found a house. The same thing happened with the bathroom that is being built. I gave the money to have it built and before I knew it the whole thing was almost finished.

Stress is something we all carry with us. How we deal with it is entirely different from person to person, but if I can say one thing about Paraguayans is that if they are stressed they sure don’t act like it. The word tranquilo is a phrase that is often said to express ones feelings. The translation is literally quiet, tranquil, or calm. It is not a word that American’s, or at least any American’s I know, say when someone asks how are you doing? But here it is a term I say several times a day not just because it is a common saying, but it is genuinely how I feel and how people around me feel. It is almost the opposite of saying stressed out, a phrase I would say often back home, but a phrase I never use here. That’s not to say there aren’t days where I am not tranquilo far from it in fact but that general feeling of calm that is almost inexplicable supernatural aura has a transcendent effect on your truly to the point where the stuff that would cause me hours of stress back home rarely cause me a second thought here and from my perspective it is a whole of a lot happier way to live life.

World Map Project

            Peace Corps has a world wide initiative to paint world maps in schools to help achieve a better understanding of a country’s relative size in the scale of the entire world. Personally, I have always loved maps and geography, and when this was mentioned as a project that was promoted by all sectors all over the world I was really eager to do one. As luck would have it, the school that requested me to work with them doesn’t have a world map, so when I was mulling over ideas of ways I could do something at the school that was fast and would demonstrate that I have the capacity to do something with a tangible outcome I thought that a map project would be perfect. I remembered from training the brief 30-minute presentation that explained the world map project in general, and how to go about introducing it to the school. The volunteer giving the presentation had done 3 map projects at 3 different schools in his community during his time as a volunteer, so he had a lot of practice with pitching the concept to the teachers. One of the ideas that stood out to me was going into the classroom and asking the kids in the class to draw a world map free hand without looking at a map. Needless to say this is a difficult task for anyone, and the maps that I drew during that day of training and the subsequent days leading up to my implementation of this activity were less than stellar. The most difficult part is the scale for sure, so my Australia turned out as big as my Africa, and I greatly exaggerated the size of the Iberian Peninsula. I therefore came to the conclusion that education aside its damn hard to freehand a world map and hedged my expectations accordingly.

            I managed to solicit Mike’s help in finding some reusable paper, and thanks to the Peace Corps packing list I am rolling in art materials including but not limited to a variety of markers, colored pencils, and stickers. I went to the school in advance to pitch the idea, and was amazed how on board all the teachers were with project. I didn’t really even need to explain they kind of just said sounds good go for it. I had planned on doing the activity with every class from 2^nd grade up through 6^th, but it didn’t end up working that way. My contact and host mother, Iris, is the Directora (Principal) of the school and also teaches 5^th and 6^th grades one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It was decided when school started early at 7:30, only a half an hour late, that I would do the activity with her class of 6^th graders. Today’s turn out for grades 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 6^th grades was whopping 28 students of which 6 are in the 6^th grade. I have been to the school on 4 separate occasions since I have arrived, so I am a not total stranger but this was the first time any of the students actually saw me in a teaching capacity.

 I think that had to have been intimidating to them, but it was difficult for me as well. I did a brief introduction to the 4 boys in the class first because the 2 girls were outside mopping the floors. Gender role stereotypes aside though, I actually knew 2 of the boys from working with Kristin during her library days, and from walking around the neighborhood. I handed them all a piece of paper and marker, and explained that we were going to be doing a world map project next week. I asked them to try and draw a map of the world to which I received blank stares as if I had asked them to take the SAT or some other daunting standardized test. I got the impression that using purely Spanish was the problem and after 5 minutes where the only thing that I got them to accomplish was writing their names, to which they all busted out their rulers and meticulously wrote them in a perfect line, none of them had any idea what to do. Their immediate reaction was to grab a book with a map of the world to copy down, and seeing how that is a major component of the learning system here I could not blame them for the attempt. It quickly got to the point where I had to do something, so I demonstrated in freehand a map of North and South America that looked horrific. After that demonstration of artistic ineptitude a few of the students started to draw, but not all. Even after Iris explained the activity in Guaraní they were still stumped. I then conceded to Iris’s who mentioned that they had yet to study the world map, but they had all studied North and South America and the boarders of Paraguay. Instead of drawing a world map, which only 1 kid attempted to do in its entirety, I received 6 maps of North America, South America, and Paraguay. The girls, who finished cleaning, came in and took a good deal of time outlining the map with the butt end of the marker before tracing it with the colored end. What resulted was a figure 8 looking thing that weirdly looked like the America’s.

That’s what I got from the 6^th graders. To be fair I don’t remember studying the world map extensively myself before Geography in 6^th grade, but I did remember having a whole class period just on Geography several times a week throughout elementary and early middle school. However, I do distinctly remember learning about those topics in detail. The kids genuinely seemed afraid to do the project itself regardless of the fact that they likely had no idea what the world looks like. When your education and grades are based a lot on how neatly organized your work is copied from the board it is no wonder that when asked to do something that was intended for them to think creatively it caused them to struggle. It was like they didn’t even grasp the concept let alone do the activity in a manner that was correct. No matter how much I emphasized that it wasn’t a test, it was purely what you thought, and it was meant to be fun the students still stared up on my with looks of confusion that mirrored someone who is speaking a completely foreign language that they have never heard before.

I decided that if the oldest group of kids in the school struggled that mightily with the project that I shouldn’t attempt to go much younger than them. As a benchmark I rode my bike home and sat down with Mathias, who is in 5^th grade at that school, to see if he could do it. I figured that because he knew me better, and speaks good Spanish that he would have a bit more confidence, but like the other kids he immediately shied away from the activity saying he didn’t know. I demonstrated that even I didn’t know how to do it exactly right by drawing my own map to the best of my ability. From that I got him to draw a map of Paraguay, but even still he wouldn’t do it unless I did it first. The 5^th graders don’t have class today because Iris has to go get materials for the garden project, so I will have to wait and see how that turns out on Monday.

What I gathered from this whole experience was 2 things in particular. First, how difficult it was for the students to understand what I was asking them to do. I think that the standardization of the education system with huge emphasis on memorization and writing verbatim every word the teachers put on the board has a lot to do with it. The schools seems to lack a lot of creativity and free thinking in the curriculum that will prove to be challenging for me after having been educated my whole life in a liberal arts context. Second, the activity itself showed that these kids have no idea how big the world is outside of Paraguay relatively speaking of course. It goes back to the blog entry I wrote a few weeks ago about scale. There is Paraguay and the rest of the world in the minds of a lot of Paraguayans especially those that live outside of major cities. The problem being that these students have no idea what the rest of the world looks like, and I feel like this is a perfect opportunity for me to help them learn about it by doing a world map project that will hopefully give them context about where their country is in relation to the rest of the world. The pictures show the process from start to finish. I will add pictures of the competed map in the next entry.

The Circus and Coming Months

            Last week I had the opportunity to go to the circus for the first time it what seems like forever. The Osvaldo Terry traveling circus has been making its way across Paraguay since the 1950s and the technology doesn’t look like it has change much since those early days to say the least. All jokes aside though, I never thought that my first experience petting a baby tiger would be in Juan E. O’Leary Paraguay with the Peace Corps, but it was. The cost of admission was 20,000 Guaraní's ($5.50), which is actually a rather substantial amount of money for most families myself included. I mustered up the courage to pet the baby tigers despite the circulating rumors pertaining to these same tigers biting the arm off a child earlier that day. To no ones shock that rumor was later revealed to be a slight exaggeration, but all the same it was amazing how quickly word traveled, and the genuine concern people expressed in going to the circus thereafter. Another rumor that might have a bit more substance than that of the child eating tiger was the circus folk driving around the community offering 30,000 Guaraní’s ($6.50) to purchase dogs that would be fed to the lions and tigers. Side note these were the laziest lion and tigers I have ever seen, so I question their ability to effectively stand up let alone kill a dog, but I digress. A rumor about the circus buying up dogs had added validity when it had been backed up in a short article in ABC Color that reported similar offers for local k9’s all over Asuncion when the circus was there a few weeks earlier. What amazed me more than the stories themselves was how ardently people around town believed both stories in their most ostentatious form of embellishment. The rumors were spread through hearsay more than any other form of media, and were taken as fact in the minds of most people that I talked too.

            I think what amazes me is that the advent of print, television, radio and electronic media are all corner stones in how Americans share and obtain information, and while many of those outlets exist in Paraguay accessing that information is habitually limited by logistics. If you don’t know it exists, or if you don’t have any way to gain convenient daily access to it your might be liable to take what so and so said about whatever on his trip to wherever as fact. The odds that the TV does a report on it, or that the person being told the fact has available access to a newspaper, if an article was even ran, is slim. I find myself more prone to gossip, and at times join in with the conversations that seem a bit farfetched. Word travels so fast and at time it even feels as though I learn about things in the news or what happened to so and so without even needing to read about it online or in a newspaper. That’s they way it was for a long time before the creation of newspapers and computers, and the weird part is that some days I don’t feel like it is necessary at all to learn about things going on in the community through any form other than hearsay.

            It even goes further than that. I cannot count the number of times people recognize me in the street, and even sometime know my name without me having ever met them. There doesn’t seem to be a great level of privacy in that respect, so more often than not when I meet people they remember seeing me riding my bike, at the store, walking from someone’s house ect. I sort of feel like a rock star in that respect, but I got to say it is a little unnerving to feel like you are being observed under a microscope, and that any move you make might grab the attention of someone for better or for worse. However, for the most part being visible in the community be that riding my bike with that goofy looking helmet ,or walking into a random store to buy something does get people questioning what exactly I am doing here if they don’t know already, and that is okay in my book.           

            In terms of upcoming projects I would say that can be folded into 2 categories: the school and the reforestation project. The school is going to prove to be more challenging to get the ball rolling than I expected. I am still searching for a place to live where I can have actual space to do things, or be productive without having kids hanging around me asking what am I doing incessantly. Last Monday, I went to the school just to kind of see what was going on and how many students would attend the morning secession. The answer was less than 20 in 4 grades. Smaller classes sure, but not enough students to feel confident about sustaining a garden by a long shot. To be fair, kids tend to roll into school over a several week period before the numbers reach the numbers they are supposed too, but with that being said I hope more show up for the sake of the school. The day is supposed to start at 7 am, but it didn’t actually happen until 7:45 because of last minute registration of students, the fact that it was the first full week, and because we hadn’t finished drinking the mate yet. Not going to lie its going to be challenging not to get involved, but to get a sustainable garden going. How do the kids learn punctuality and continuity when the operation of the school itself lacks those things? What I will say is that the teachers that I have met do all really seem to care, and are operating an entire school understaffed with extremely limited resources including the materials I need for the garden itself, so I feel a bit stuck for now and will have to wait and see what happens over the next few weeks before I can make a huge push with the actual construction of a garden.

I have been keeping busy thanks to a joint effort with Mike. We decided to do a big time reforestation project partnering with the municipality to plant an undetermined amount of trees along the main highway at different intervals along the 6 km stretch through the municipal area of O’Leary. Paraguay, particularly the eco-region I live in known as the Bosque Atlántico del Alto Paraná (BAAPA), has had major challenges with deforestation over the past century. Many organizations within the county have as a result taken the initiative to improve this problem through the promotion of grassroots tree planting projects. Through out the country there are reputable viveros (tree nurseries) that utilize the resources of a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) called A Todo Pulmon in obtaining native tree species, in some cases free others discounted, for the purpose of reforesting. Peace Corps Paraguay has a partnership with A Todo Pulmon making it easy for volunteers to obtain trees for said projects. Paraguay has many very stringent laws regarding deforestation that are commendable, but at times are missing the resources to go about massive reforestation projects. It is also a delicate issue because how do you effectively prevent the average person who needs to cut down a stand of trees for the sake clearing land to grow crops to support his family? Needless to say this is not going to be a walk in the park at all, but we have managed to get several schools interested in helping us out by agreeing to take some trees to plant in their own school area, and everyone seems on board with the concept. Selling the idea though is the easy part getting a large group of people to come out and plant the trees is a completely different issue that doesn’t even begin to broach the topic of the other resources we will need, or the educational component of how and why we are planting trees.

            I am looking forward to the challenge and am confidant that we will be able to actually pull this off the question is how long will it take to finish? Only time will tell, and the weather is slowly but surely getting more tolerable, so I am excited and cannot wait to see how it all plays out.