Counting Down

Whether I intend to or not, I have found myself counting throughout the whole Peace Corps process. At the beginning it was a countdown full of excitement and anticipation - I was counting the days until I heard from placement. Then I had to count down 6 months until I left for Paraguay, 10 weeks until I swore-in as a volunteer, 10 months until I passed a year in country, and most recently, I passed the one-year as a volunteer mark. So what does that mean? It means that rather than counting up, I am now counting down. I have passed the biggest time hurdles the Peace Corps job comes with, and now am on the downward slope. It means that the countdown has changed from excitement to a ticking bomb, moving fast towards the inevitable… I officially have less than a year left here in Paraguay. But, rather than be depressing by talking about all I have left to do and see, I am going to share with you some great moments from the past few months. Moments that make this job worthwhile. Moments that makes the timeline of the Peace Corps not so daunting after all. 

Some of G38 at Ahendu

Sean Paul/Taio Cruz concert in Asuncion!

My pooch

I now take guitar classes...

Best friends :)

Semana Santa

Last week was Semana Santa here, or Holy Week. The celebration begins Wednesday, and then continues throughout the weekend. While I celebrated it last year with my host family in training, I enjoyed this year much more. I visited the families I know the best, and it was a really great week.


On Wednesday, I visited with Na Sixta and her family for the ever-important chipa making! Families all over Paraguay get together this day to make obscene amounts of chipa. Chipa is a bread made of corn flour, cheese, milk, salt, and a little oil. While the women were preparing the dough, the men were prepping the tatakua (wood burning oven) for cooking.

Lili prepping the dough

Tata Kua (or is it one word? not sure...)

My beautiful chipa :)

The finished products!

Also, eating pig is a huge part of Semana Santa. I woke up Wednesday morning to the sounds of pigs dying all over. Literally. Just when I thought it was finished, another neighbor killed their pig. When I got to Sixta’s house, the pig had already been killed (phew), but they were prepping it for eating. That means I got to help cut up pig fat into small cubes and watch them shave the hair off the skin to later be prepped for dinner. Yummy? I did try the pig fat (which is served fried and coated in corn flour), but chose to leave before the main course of pig skin stuffed with meat… I just couldn’t do it… haha

Next year's piggy!

Thursday, I was running all over, visiting 4 families in total. I started the day at 7am back at Sixta’s to drink mate, make more chipa and sopa, and chat with the family. Then I ate lunch with my landlord and her family (where i was sent home with both cow AND sheep meat! lucky me), stopped for a beer stop at Na Albina’s, and then relaxed in the afternoon at Na Esperanza’s. Busy and exhausting day, but fun!

The rest of the week was also lots of fun. It included a relaxing day with my neighboring volunteer, tereré sessions with new friends, Easter party in site, visiting more families, and of course, eating more chipa. Overall, definitely a successful Semana Santa!

Party in site!

My bestie in site, Silvia

On a different note, happy opening day!!! So glad us Cubs fans got to sing today! Go Cubs Go!

Getting Tech Savvy

Project update! The start of March also brought a new project for me – computer classes at the muni in site! The inauguration was a big deal. The mayor came, people applauded, and on March 6th we officially had our first class!

The classes are Monday-Thursday (same people go M/W and T/R), 1 hour long, and then there are 4 different sessions each day. In total, we are currently teaching 32 people basic computer skills. I only go twice a week since I have other commitments, and my counterpart who works at the muni is the main lady in charge. She leads the class, while I help monitor and answer questions. Look at that sustainability!

So far it has been going well. The students have to turn on and off the computer at the start and end of every session, and then we have a typing program that they are working their way through. Once they are all more comfortable with the keyboard and mouse (I forgot how weird a mouse can be if you have never seen one before. I saw one lady pick it up and place it on the screen not knowing how to use it), we will move on to applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The mayor also said we will get our internet fixed (I’ll believe it when I see it…), so we will teach Google searches (can I get paid from Google for exclusively promoting their search engine? That would be awesome), how to work e-mail, and even the much anticipated Facebook. Don’t worry, I will teach Facebook etiquette as well (since I had to learn that too… woops), so hopefully I won’t be seeing too many revealing poses of the females modeling…

I also started a photography class, which is lots of fun! Will post on that later! (And sorry for the excessive use of parentheses’ in this post.)

Hope all is well!

February

Hello! Sorry for the long delay in posts… I sorta broke my computer at the beginning of February and have had very little internet, so it has been difficult to update.

So, what was I up to in February, you ask? Well, on February 9, I hit my one-year mark in country! Luckily, I was able to celebrate it with a lot of my G38 friends in Asuncion. I think we are all amazed at how fast the time has flown, as well as proud that all 28 of us who arrived a year ago are still here today. This also means that the new group of health volunteers is here! So, welcome to our sister G, G41!


With the library, I hit a bit of a wall. I really didn’t enjoy going there anymore. But then Valentine’s Day came along; I came up with a craft activity, and was rejuvenated. The kids LOVED the crafts! I’m not very artsy, which is why I never tried it before. I realized, though, that the simplest things are great for the kids, in which case my level of art is perfect! So last month we made valentines, drew our family trees, and made a welcome sign for a trainee visit I had at the end of the month. Also, I think we may have found a librarian!! Once I get more details I will post, but this is very exciting news!!!


I also started a reading club at the library. The first week failed. Only 2 kids came, and no one wanted to read. Week 2 brought 3 kids and we read two Curios George books in a circle, and played some checkers. Week three I came up with a plan: Read The Little Mermaid, create a word of the week based on the book (this week’s word was dreams), and then a writing activity based on the book/word. Smashing success! So now I will have that same layout weekly.


The last week of February I had a trainee, Meagan, come and visit me in site. I was super excited about it! When I went on my PCV visit a year ago, it made me so excited about my service, and so I hoped to do the same with this volunteer. We worked at the library, visited the health post, wrote a pedido for a new project to the government, visited with families, played pool and drank beers, and she even killed a chicken just like I did last year!! I had a great time, and of course hope that she enjoyed it as well!


What else… OH! I booked my flight in May to visit my cousins in Chile!!! It will just be a long weekend since they are busy with jobs and a kid and I am busy here, but I am SO EXCITED!!! I haven’t seen these guys since their wedding 5 years ago, so it will be a great chance to catch up and just hang out.

While a short month, I managed to cram a lot into it. As always, thanks for reading and hope you are well!

Busy Month!

I am about to wrap up a 3-week summer camp with some of my best friends here in Paraguay! It has been a lot of work and a little stressful at times, but worked out amazingly in the end! We did 4 days of health related activities at each person’s site, focusing on dental health, nutrition, parasite prevention, and exercise. I was really impressed by how many people came to each site. It was also interesting/challenging to see the different dynamics of the kids. We would have to change our schedule and activities based on how the camps went on a daily basis, which kept us on our toes throughout the 3 weeks. My personal favorite moments of the camps were the partner brush, parasite skits, exercise day in general, and the epic water balloon fight! Here are some photos from the one that was led in my community:

Sandra after making her book

Arturo brushing my teeth

Water balloon fight!

Learning fun!

Celebrating the last day of camp!

Other January Happenings:
-Carnaval is happening right now! While most famous in Brazil, Encarnacion has the second largest celebration for it in the world. One of my volunteer friends, Yihana, actually danced in one of the troops! We went last weekend to support her and to have some fun, and it was a blast! Hilarious costumes, fun music, and dancing ‘til sunrise… Not much better!

-The first week of January was my best week of integrating yet. In 7 days I visited 8 different families’ houses, attended 3 birthday parties (including my first quice!), and had tons of kids come over to my house to play checkers and do puzzles. At the end of the week I was exhausted, but felt amazing.

Helping out with the asado prep

-I recently had my first experience with Paraguayan medical care. I rolled my ankle pretty bad one night, and so the next morning I went to make sure nothing was broken. Everything went fine, thankfully. Although I did find it interesting that I had to ring a doorbell and wait 5 minutes until someone answered at the ER door. Uh, what if it was an emergency??

-My friend, Karen, has a latrine at her house. One day, I shut the door a little TOO tightly and managed to lock myself in. As fate would have it, the lawnmowers were working, so my friends couldn't hear me call their name. Thankfully I finally got their attention, but not before this flashed before my eyes: Latrine Dive

-I PLANNED MY TRIP TO CHILE TO VISIT PETER, SANDRA AND MICHAEL!!!! The last time I saw them was 5 years ago for their wedding, so I am sooooo excited to hang out with them again! I’ll be buying the tickets this week, and will be hitting up Santiago May 23-26.

Holiday Vacation!

Hello! Well, I am back in hot hot Paraguay after an amazing 2-week vacation! The trip was great, but not gonna lie, I am happy to be back! Here is a summary of the trip:

Montevideo, Uruguay: Absolutely beautiful coastal city. Was only there for a couple of nights, but it was long enough to realize what a cool place it is. Highlight of that part of the trip was when Karen, Alex and I rented bikes and cruised along the coast for the afternoon. The weather was perfect, the water refreshing, and we stopped for an amazing lunch of fresh seafood!

Punta Del Diablo, Uruguay: Small, hippie beach town on the southeastern shore of Uruguay. I rented a house there with 3 of my best friends for the week, and there were 2 other houses of Peace Corps Paraguay Volunteers as well. Days were spent relaxing along the beach, while nights were passed with friends at the beach bars. Usually a week on the beach is too much relaxing for me, but this time it was exactly what the doctor ordered. We also had a huge Christmas dinner with the volunteers there, and that was the highlight of the trip for me!

Buenos Aires, Argentina: Not going to lie, going from tranquilo beach culture to huge city was a little rough for me. Is it possible to be exhausted from vacation? Because I think I was a little. I loved the city, but hopefully I make it back before I leave the continent to explore it more. The city is full of adorable little neighborhoods and nooks and crannies that I still have to see! Highlights include hitting up Boca (photo below) and watching a Tango show during lunch, the Buenos Aires Pub Crawl at night, and of course daily stops at Starbucks.

Overall an awesome trip with friends! Now that I am back in Paraguay, I am spending the month of January doing summer camps. With 3 other friends, we are doing a week at each person’s site. It will be health related (talking about hand washing, teeth brushing, parasite avoiding, and exercise), but will also have lots of fun games for the kids to play!

Hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season!

New Years Resolutions

Tomorrow 2013 begins! Thus, it’s that time of year when we all join gyms and buy all natural food, hoping that this year is going to be the year you finally make those changes you have been saying you will for years now. And while I don’t have gyms to join, I still made up a couple of resolutions that I am hoping I continue for longer than just the month of January.

1) 52 books in 52 weeks. I am aiming for a book a week, although if I end up skipping a week and then reading 2 later on down the road, I am okay with that. If you have any recommendations for me, let me know! I don’t have a kindle and am thus limited to what is floating around the Peace Corps library, but suggestions are always welcome! And you can check out my Book List to see how the progress is going!

2) Learn to enjoy running. Okay, I know probably 5 of you literally laughed out loud reading this. This is ME we are talking about! But, what better time to actually give this goal a go than in the Peace Corps. I am going to wait to start until March or April once temps cool down a bit, but this is something I am really hoping I can achieve. I am not looking to run marathons or anything, just to be able to go for a 30-60 minute run without wanting to jump in front of a passing moto…

3) Meet more families in my community. Over the course of the past 8+ months in site, I have grown very comfortable. I have my friends and my families I visit, and that’s about it. And while I am happy, I know I should meet (or at least attempt) all the families in my community. I know most of the kids through the school and the library, but not the parents. So I am going to aim to visit 2 new families a month.

What are you all aiming to achieve this year?

If I remember to, I will try to post again around June to give you all an update. Although if I failing miserably at them, don’t expect to hear from me… Hope you all have a fabulous and safe NYE! I am ringing in the new year in Buenos Aires with some friends. Should be great!