Thursday, July 29, 2010

Site Assignment: Departamento Caazapa

It´s official: I am one very big step closer now to swearing in and becoming a volunteer. I now know where I am going to be living for the next 2 years!!! Tomorrow, I head to the Encuentro organized by our APCD to meet my site contact.  The next day, I´m off on my first visit to Departamento Caazapa and my new hometown.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Visita Larga

This week I traveled to another part of the Districto Central for my Long Field Visit, a week´s worth of ¨field practice¨ in a potential volunteer site before we take the plunge in August. The town I visited was only a half hour away from my training community, but it felt like I could have been several hours outside of Asuncion. The mix of campo and ciudad in Paraguay is quite staggering, once you leave the ruta another world opens up. This town very much felt like the campo, comprised of 6 city blocks in all directions with only one sector of empedradas (cobblestones), no supermercado, heavy on the chisme (gossip). That being said, it had all the amenities that any nice Paraguayan town should have- even water, electricity, and internet (granted they say much of this is left over from Stroessner years of privileged treatment... a story for another day).

During my stay in this town, I had a very packed schedule including a visit to Municipalidad (local government), Cruz Roja (Red Cross), Centro de Salud (health center), Comité de Niñez (youth group/government), a yogurt factory, and much much more.

In each of these locals, we completed an interview asking questions ranging from how they got started to projects we may be able to work on together. It was clear over the 5 days that there was a lot a volunteer could do. Additionally, we helped out at a local technical school teaching computer classes and helping students practice writing CVs and interviewing skills. In the past, the students had left the school with computer skills but were unsuccessful in the job market... we are hoping to see a turn-around with a bit more focus on marketing the self in these classes.

While it was an exhausting week, I certainly learned a lot from the experience. On the one hand, I need a whole lot more Spanish before I can teach anything to the level necessary. Practice needed! On the other hand, I feel like I can totally do this. I definitely see the challenges ahead, especially for these first several months of getting to know people and working on my language, but it´s possible.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Che Ro'y

Che Ro'y is Guarani for ¨I'm cold.¨ Ro'y is simply ¨It's cold.¨ There you go, the first lesson in highly useful Guarani next to Mba'eichapa, and all that I seem to be talking about these days. I know that this is a topic typically reserved for small talk, but given that this winter has brought some record low temperatures to Paraguay I think a good discussion about weather is warranted.

To start, I should say that weather has a much greater impact on the lives of Paraguayan´s than in many of the other countries I have lived due to the fact that life here is pretty much lived outside. Yes, we have houses constructed of the same materials (más or menos) as everywhere else in the world such as brick and wood, but we lack some very important additions. AKA: Insulation and Heat.  As such, when it gets to be around zero degrees Celsius down here or when it starts to snow in the southern parts of the country... there is no escaping the weather other than staying in bed... and that´s not even that warm.

The extremely low temperatures and even the occasional snow this season have caused an innumerable amount of problems for the country. The the most notable have been illness and death (only the poorest without any means of keeping warm) which have taken a toll on our population, loss of agricultural goods through freezing crops and dying animals, and a shortage of gas to fuel our stoves or carbon to put in our grills. I, for one, have been sick with some crazy respiratory thing for weeks causing loss of voice, runny nose, and the lot every time the temperature drops, but many others have come into much worse. Each night I watch on TV as both the human and animal death count rises. School winter vacation has even been extended an extra week because the government does not want all the kids back in classes while sick. Finally, although I´ve been lucky enough to have a carbon fueled grill set up in our living room (which by the way means we have to open a window to let out the fumes... so it´s a bit counterproductive), we did have a hard time getting gas for our stove this last week.

Lesson here? In the developing world, weather makes a big difference. So when we are all cozied up by the fire or chilling by the forced-air vent, remember how very lucky we are. When contributing to global warming in all the ways we do everyday, also remember the impact it has on others less fortunate.

P.S. That last line is for you all Peace Studies- if you ever need a case study, I got one in Paraguay. Haha!

Monday, July 12, 2010

El Sueño

Although I have been here for well over a month at this point, I finally found a couple of hours to hide out in my room and consider all that has happened and is happening in my life right now. For the first time since I arrived in Paraguay, I finally realized: I live in South America, and I am in the Peace Corps!

I know it probably seems silly to many of you, but I think that it is a little hard to believe for anyone after 10 years of dreaming about the achievement of a particular goal when s/he´s actually living it. Ten years ago I started thinking about the Peace Corps, and now I've achieved a large part of that goal. I am here and doing it. That's big stuff for me. I know I've done a lot in my life, but most things don't take 10 years to come to fruition. Heck, nothing has ever taken that long- except growing up. ;-P I really feel young having said that now. Whew! Back to the point, I had a goal that was this pie in the sky when I was kid... and now here I am. There are those things you do because you "had" to do it, but this time I'm doing something that I "want" to do. I hope that everyone can say that they have lived like that at least once in their lives, if not always.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Campamento de Liderazgo

This weekend, I attended an inspirational and completely outstanding Youth Leadership Camp (Part II- the second encounter) on the border between Argentina and Paraguay outside of Aeolas. Part I of the Youth Leadership Camp took place last January, during which the youth participated in sessions on leadership, management, and entrepreneurship with various business leaders from around Paraguay (and volunteers of course). This camp involved youth and Peace Corps volunteers from numerous parts of the country coming together to facilitate training sessions on leadership/team building skills as well as to present projects they´ve been working on in their communities for the last six months. Albeit, the local of this follow-up camp was a bit sketch (we stayed in these abandoned dormitories which once served as the housing for construction workers on the Yacyretá dam... big pile of broken down cars in the back and a very creepy and rundown industrial kitchen BUT free). Yet, the results: OUTSTANDING! The facilitated sessions were extremely well organized and presented with the utmost enthusiasm.The projects ranged from planting trees to creating community centers and teaching technology classes. By the end of the camp, I realized two things:

1) The jovenes (so called ¨youth¨ ranging from ages 18-30) facilitated in 2 days basically all of the trainee facilitated sessions we´re doing in our tech training over a period of 2 months.
2) If this is what the future of Paraguay looks like, things are looking great!

All this in mind, I left camp feeling a bit torn on my role in the whole scheme of Community Economic Development in Paraguay. Am I really needed here? Heck, they already know it all! However, the ride home gave me an opportunity to think my part over. Behind every one of the youth I saw this weekend, there was a strong and dedicated volunteer there encouraging, teaching, and often hidden in the mix. While it´s clear that the youth of Paraguay have got it going on (no doubt), Peace Corps has certainly been there all along to help those shooting stars shine that much brighter. They say that the best development workers are those that are hardly mentioned after they leave because the community takes all the credit- ¨we did it!¨ And that is exactly how it should be. I am excited to see what more us G33 volunteers can do with these youth and to expand the program to other cities and a greater number of youth in the future.  Go PCPY team!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

La Cupa Mundial





¡VIVA PARAGUAY!






THE WORLD CUP is a HUGE deal in Latin America. In addition to having many of the best teams worldwide, South America is simply futbol (soccer) crazy. On days when Paraguay is playing, everything literally shuts down or at least slows down so that we can watch the game. I originally started this post on 06-24-10, which was the last of the games in Group F. Paraguay played New Zealand for a tie 0-0, and Slovakia played Italy for a win 3-2. Our cities were wild with horn honking and bombas celebrating Paraguay's top rank in Group F. Congrats Paraguay for a stellar job thus far! *As you will note, from the picture attached, by this time I had gotten quite into all the fun- decked out with my Paraguay camisa y bandera.

The next round, we were up against Japan. What excitement that was! My family was all poised in our kitchen/living room practically gnawing our nails off as we went through first quarter, second quarter, overtime and then on into the shoot-off. Indeed we finally pulled it off by what I would call a big fluke when one of the Japanese shooters accidentally aimed a little too high for the goal. Pobrecito! How embarrassing... ¿Que no? With such a close call in the game against Japan, I was not all that hopeful for the future. One can hardly complain, however, when class is cancelled to watch TV- so, I´m not complaining!

As such, we moved on to the next round- one of the last 8 teams and only a few more games away from taking the cup. This time around we were up against Spain, and I can safely say that we played a whole lot better than I had anticipated given that last game. We really had Spain going for a while and even scored a goal at one stage, although the ref made what I will always believe to be a poor call and took that point away. So, although Paraguay gave it a stellar shot- we finally lost to the that would eventually will the World Cup at 0-1.

Cheers to Spain for a job well done this year! Sorry to my friends from every other country, so many of you got so close... see you again in 2014.

Not to worry, however, you soccer fans. There is plenty more futbol to be had in Paraguay yet. Our two big teams Cerro y Olimpia are still going strong. Games with Guarani and all the other national teams are still underway.

**Please also note, although I tried my hardest to get into the World Cup with everyone else, I want to apologize for my poor knowledge of the terminology associated with the outstanding sport that is futbol. I hope you all will continue to be my friends despite this horrid rendition of games due to my naivety. Lol.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Dia de Practica: Mi Primer Proyecto

As I mentioned previously, Peace Corps training has a large practical component in addition to language lessons and classroom technical sessions. In addition to the volunteer visit in the interior, we also have what are called "Dias de Practica" encouraging us to get out into the community to learn more about our training pueblo and try to find managable small projects for our time in site. After a very educational but not particularly work intensive Dia de Practica last week, my fellow trainee and I were feeling in a bit of a rut on the technology theme we had choosen to work on. Having decided that prehaps computer technology and lessons was not a felt need of this community, we decided to visit the colegio and the municipalidad today to learn about educational gaps and felt needs concerning youth. Cha-ching! Suddenly, we now have 2 classes or 40 kids each for a Como Planear mi Vida session starting the first week after the students get back from winter vacation.

Como Planear mi Vida is a program designed to aid youth and young adults (jovenes, the Spanish word for youth, actually includes everyone 30 years and younger here) in developing self-esteem, life goals, and a plan to acheive their dreams. Utilizing non-formal education techniques, our aim is to get the kids participating in games and discussions surrounding those big questions central to our lives: 1) Who am I? 2)What do I want to do? 3) How am I going to get there? We´re not talking the small stuff either- the directora, principal, has asked us to get these kids dreaming big by expanding their world view and broadening horizons. While it may not be possible to do all that in one day, we´re certainly going to take a stab at it.