A Paraguayan Bean Harvest

The rainy afternoon had kept me closed up in my house all afternoon reading about Frank McCourts challenges as an Irish American immigrant. I was beginning to feel restless. Somehow our journeys seemed similar, entering an unfamiliar land all alone and trying to adapt. When the rain finally stopped I walked over to my neighbors house for a visit. Na Flora invited me in as she always does and I was given a chair. We chatted about the weather and her pollitos. She asked about my recently planted beans. Then she asked if I wanted to go harvest some beans with her in her kokue (fields). "Ko´aga", now? "Si!" She said. "Jaha" Lets go!
So she grabbed her harvest bag and I followed her. She, barefeet, me in my chaco flip flops. We reached the gate and I knew this wouldnt work. The red dirt had turned to mud and I knew the instant I crossed the gate I would sink into the mud or slip and fall. I kicked off my sandals and passed through the gate into the kokue. We walked through cow poop, grass, and tall weeds. I was nervous that I would get pikay, step on a prickly weed, or encounter a snake. Na Flora continued on and I followed, my feet squishing in the mud, as we passed the old Bitter orange trees, sugar cane, and Mandioca. We arrived at the bean field. It was like an ocean covered with mature bean plants. It reminded me of my days picking beans on ploughshare farm. Na Flora showed me which ones to pick. "The yellow ones" which yellow ones? I was lost. This was new territory for me. I thought Paraguayans only harvested the dry ones. As I followed Na Flora trying to pick out the yellow ones she pointed to another group of beans to pick, but these were purple. Then she kept pointing to others that were ready but I couldnt seem to follow her finger. I was frustrated by my lack of knowledge, like the first time I picked beans on Garys farm, except that Na Flora didnt scream and shame me for my lack of knowledge and experience. She patiently pointed out the ready ones. All the while my bare feet sinking into the mud, becoming caked in soil.
Once we finished we headed back to the house with a full bag of beans in hand, although I am sure most of the picking was done by Na Flora. I asked what you can use them for. She told me they were for me. I have no idea what to cook with them, but she told me that my host mom will be able to cook something.
I bid farewell, jajatopata! and carried my back of beans home, satisfied with my visit and excited about trying a new type of bean.

Casamiento Hape

It seems that every culture has some sort of ceremony that unites a male and female. While it is celebrated different in different cultures, it exists still the same. I was able to experience a Paraguayan wedding for the first time this month.
Of course there is the preperation that comes before the wedding. The clothes, the food, the venue...
The mother of the groom is a seamstress and was making the dress for the bride. She spent days handsewing the pearls while we drank Terere in her front yard.
The day before the wedding I went over to her house to witness the pig slaughter. It was an event. First we stood around waiting. Water needed to boiled, rope needed to bought. And then there was movement. The pig was being drug to a post and there was screeching coming from the pig and grunting coming from the 5 women that were trying tie the pig to the fence post. The mother of the groom yelled "mujeres adelantando" as the 18year old girl "clave'ed" or nailed, (which is basically the knife going into the neck and letting the blood drain out)the pig.
The day of the wedding I went back the mother of the groom's house to witness Sopa Paraguaya being made to serve all of the guests. It was prepared in a canoe looking think and mixed by hand until all the cheese, eggs, milk, and oil were thoroughly mixed, and then carried to neighboring tatakua, or brick ovens, to cook.
Around 7:00pm we waited for the bus to come through the community to pick us up and take us to the Church in a community some kilometers away. We boarded the bus with a large portion of the community that didn't have cars and of course the teenage to 20something girls dressed up in their gowns that could be worn to a homecoming dance.
The church was a beautiful church and it was a traditional catholic ceremony with prayers, songs, exchanging of rings and vows, and communion. Instead of a bridal party there are children that assist in carrying the train down the aisle. The parents of the "novios" sit in front during the ceremony.

Afterwards we boarded the bus again. The ride back was full of giggles for myself, my host sister, her friend, and my host mom. There was Paraguayan dust flying around the bus and we sat up high in the back. We were covered from head to toe in red dust. My black top turned brown and my white skirt...well...it is no longer that clean white color it came with.
We arrived at the Bride's home where it was beautifully decorated with tables, chairs, and lights. We waited while friends of the family carried out coca-cola, beer, then sopa paraguaya, then the meal of grilled meat and salads with more Sopa Paraguaya.
Afterwards there was dancing, which for Paraguayans means dancing in lines across from your partner. I danced a little, since for a month the conversation surrounding the wedding was "jajerokyta" or "we are going to dance!" Then I walked with my host family back home where I crashed long after the stroke of midnight!

Christmas - PY Style

So Christmas this year was less than exciting. Being away from family and friends for the first time made it challenging, along with all of the cultural adjustments I am going through during my first two weeks in site.
All that to say, for as unexciting as Paraguayan Christmas is, the simplicity to it was something that isn't present in Christmas in the U.S. The advent spirit was something that I was also missing, not being able to be amongst a community of believers to encourage this and draw this out in my. So let me tell you about Christmas in PY.
During the weeks leading up to Christmas there are prayer meetings every night. They are called something like "reso de la familia" or a family prayer service. The community (the attendees change each night) meet at a different house each night around sunset, say their normal prayers, read a passage from the bible, and discuss the passage in relation to a topic. I appreciated being amongst people who desired to discuss the word of God, even if I couldn't get much out of the conversation because of language difference. There is a final closing prayer service at the prayer chapel in the village a couple of days before Christmas.
Christmas Eve is a day of preparation. The pig is cooked, Sopa Paraguaya is made, fruit is cut for the Clerico, and the Pecebro (or Creche) is set up. Then comes the waiting, until midnight of Christmas eve, but once it comes there is a celebration, and families visit eachother and kisses are passed around and Clerico is drunk.
While this is about all that happens on Christmas, I appreciated the imagery of waiting, which is what Advent really means. But it is waiting with expectation and preparation amidst the wait.


This is the Pecebro, or the Creche that was made in preparation

To celebrate in a little more of a manner more comfortable to my cultural norms on Christmas morning I walked 20 minutes to the volunteer closest to me's house and we shared a pancake breakfast and a pizza lunch together!
Merry Christmas to all!

An official volunteer...What?

Ladies and gentleman, my training is over, but my life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay has just begun. On Thursday of this week I said farewell to my host family in my training community and boarded a van full of other trainees dressed in their best clothes and headed to the United States Embassy to swear-in as Peace Corp volunteers. I dressed in my new Aopo'i shirt, a typical shirt that is made to be "fresco." Paraguayans love ceremony, and this was a great Paraguayan ceremony with the Minister of Tourism and the Director of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) attending and speaking at the ceremony, as well as the ceremony being completely in Spanish for the first time.
Afterwards was a time of celebration. We ate a delicious cake that volunteers get when they swear-in and when at close of service. Mmmmm, it was delicious. We then took the walk from the U.S. embassy back to the Peace Corps office, which was a walk that, to me, signified the change that I had just gone through. No longer will I be driven around Paraguay in 4x4 vehicles. No longer will my schedule be made for me. No longer will my housing be automatically arranged for me. In some ways it is scary, but I appreciate the freedom as well.
Swear-in weekend is a fun weekend for the new volunteers to hang out and meet the "seasoned" volunteers. We also spend time getting to know Asuncion. This morning we swam in the pool at the embassy.
On Tuesday I will journey out to my site. It sits about 3 hours directly East of Asuncion about 3K from the main road. My emotions are a mixture of excitement and fear, and a lot of unknowns. My life will completely change...again!

Thanksgiving in Paraguay

Happy Thanksgiving...a couple of days late. As you may have guessed, Paraguay doesn´t celebrate Thanksgiving. It was business as usual. The nice part is that I work for the U.S. government, which celebrates all U.S. and Paraguayan holidays, so I had a holiday. The director of Peace Corps Paraguay invited all of us trainees over to his house for a Thanksgiving potluck. I decided to bring a sweet potato dish that I ate last year at Thanksgiving and absolutely love. Instead of yams I used Batatas...actual sweet potatoes and instead of brown sugar I used molasses. I had a lot of fun making them and learning how to find food in Paraguay and manage a Paraguayan kitchen. There is a supermarket in the training town where I got sugars and flour. I got butter at a corner supermarket in another town, and the rest of the ingrediens: nuts, sweet potatoes, milk, at the mercado. I bought an egg from my neighbor as well, and then used a little of my host mom´s molasses. A large majority of the lower class Paraguayans have gas ovens and stoves, so I learned how to use a gas oven for the first time. The dish turned out a success and everyone at Thanksgiving loved it and I am passing around the recipe to friends here.

So the director of Peace Corps Paraguay has a really incredible house in the capital of Asuncion. It reminded of some of the houses that I visited in East Memphis. We swam in the pool and lounged in the yard, along with eating an incredible amount of delicious food...including vegetables (vegetables have become a luxury in my Paraguayan diet.) I enjoyed visiting with other trainees that I don´t get to see very often and relax by the pool. The cold water of the pool was refreshing in the Paraguayan heat!

Training is quickly wrapping up. We have two weeks before swear in. Last weekend I visited my future site. It is in a beautiful location only 2.5 hours from Asuncion and 3K from the nearest paved road, which is pretty nice. I have it better than a lot of my friends that have a two hour walk to the bus stop. My bus is only 1K away. Although I think I would have enjoyed a more remote community, I think I am going to like my site! One of my contacts has a kitten that she is going to let me have so I am reading up on how to care for a cat!

Ciao for now friends!
Jajatopata!

5 weeks down

I have been living in Paraguay exactly 5 weeks. I was thinking earlier this week that this is starting to feel familiar, natural, & almost comfortable. Of course there have been days when I wish I was back home in the states and would rather be drinking a latte at Dunn Brothers than being here in Paraguay, but I wouldn´t trade this for anything, not even a steaming hot shower (although I do have these for now...).
I am still in training. I have 5 weeks to go. I am fairly impressed with the training program that the Peace Corps has. They are very strategic about what they do to help us become integrated into Paraguay culture and life. Their approach is that the individual is responsible for their own learning. Every time I am doing something new I realize that a previous activity is helping me to realize the current activity. So it is very cumulative and experiential. It is also rigorous and I have a hard time keeping up. We normally have language in the morning and technical areas (mostly agricluture related things) in the afternoon.
Sometimes we will go to town and meet with our entire group of 47 for common areas (health, safety, development, policies, working with youth.) The technical areas are pretty interesting. We built a bio-intensive garden and learned how to build a compost pile. We created a demo plot of common cash crops in paraguay and experimented with fertilizers and mulch. We learned about vermiculture, soilds, and green manures. I taught about tree planting, and last week we learned how to do some beekeeping. I only got stung once. We also have talked about methodology in a Paraguayan context. Oh, and we are raising chickens!
Something cool we got to do was go alone into the campo and stay with a volunteer for 4 days. This was helpful to see exactly what being a volunteer is like. This upcoming week we will go in groups of 4 for a week of living and working in a current volunteer´s community.
Something neat that they are working into training is a ¨day of practice¨ where we go and work with a contact in our community and use methods that we are being taught in training. I am working with a very guapa (hard-working...BA) woman that has 70 chickens, 2 pigs, and 5 cows. She also makes her own cheese and sells eggs.
I am enjoying my family stay as well. My family is very sweet. I live with a Mother, a father, their 2 year old daughter and their 5 year old niece. Sometimes the girls get on my nerves, but I lock my door if they do. Sometimes I get antsy to be done with training and be in my site and living alone, but we will find out in less than 2 weeks where our sites will be!!

Aqui Estoy en Paraguay

Mba´eichapa? I made it to Paraguay! What a journey it was to get down here. We had a 15hour layover is Brazil and we finally made it. Sometimes I walk down the street in the town I am staying in and I have to remind myself that I am in Paraguay. It has been easy to pick up my Spanish again. Luckily my family here speaks Castellano (what they call Spanish) but I have started to learn Guarani already. It is a pretty easily constructed langauge but it is hard to remember all these new words.
My life really consists of days filled with taking in new (and some old) information and theories. I moved in with a host family in a small village outside of the capital. The dad is a farmer of mostly vegetables that he sells to the supermarkets. They have 2 young daughters (5 and 2) who are mostly sweet and sometimes annoying when I just want to be alone in my room and even when I close the door they open it without knocking! Talk about different definitions of privacy! But it is fun to have them around. Earlier this week we had a huge storm and the night before the storm the power went out and the water shut off...for different reasons. My house is pretty modern (running water inside, hot showers, electricity, washing machines), so it was definately preparation for the campo.
The training sessions are fairly interactive and I appreciate the Peace Corps training staff. We have gotten to have volunteers come in and do training sessions with us and it has been so helpful to hear about their experiences and imagine what my life might be like in the campo (country). Today we planted out garden. It was fun to learn new things and hear about what other trainees know! We planted beets, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, and onions. We also learned how to make compost! I really like the agricultural society and drinking Terere/Mate. This place is tranquilopa.