TravelStream™ news feed for member tomwonderlich on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tomwonderlich en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 24 May 2009 20:10:30 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1243000380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1243000380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1243000380/tpod.html Sun, 24 May 2009 20:10:30 -0400 Peace Corps Pargauy and other related stories

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Caaguazu, Paraguay

Well I haven't been keeping up very well and the explanation is that I didn't want to put up an entry without pictures. My memory card fried, my parents brought me a new one, and then it fried again before I got a chance to upload any pictures.

Recent doings include castrating my piglet and practicing injections on them, harvesting honey, butchering a bull, making a horn trumpet, and sowing my thumb back together.

A couple weeks ago I went out with a group of dudes to bring back 4 pigs to use as breeders. One boar about 450 lbs a gilt 250lbs and two piglets which in total sold for $500 which seems pretty cheap to me. A guy working in Spain just came back with a little cash in his pocket and wanted to start a pig farm, so we drove about 2 hours on backcountry roads to the pig raising section of our department. The farm was the property of a religion "city of God", supposedly originating in Italy. It's a combination fish farm pig farm with the pig poo supplying the fertilizer for the 7 fish ponds. There were only tilapia and carp in the ponds. I caught 2 tilapia and then the german went out and netted the rest of the fish we wanted to take home. The carp was pretty good, a different type than the trash fish I used to pull out of the snake river in twin falls. We had a fish cookout when we got back.

Vicky will be going to her boyfriend this week to get pregnant. We're going to use the big boar that came from the farm as her boyfriend. At the pig farm the caretaker told me that the Vicky has to mate after the first two months of having her first heat or she will lose the ability. I had never heard this before and began to be worried that Vicky might not be able to get pregnant if I didn't take her soon, because a month and a half had already passed since she had her first heat. So we decided to haul Vicky at the same time as the other pigs to save on fleet. So at 1030 at night we drove the truck up to my house and parked right in front of the neighbors. Everybody was asleep in the house. So we picked up Vicky kicking and squealing and threw her in the back of the truck and drove off. The next morning my neighbors said that they heard the pig squealing and thought somebody was stealing it, and they were scared and didn't want to come out of the house. Good security I've got down here.

I decided to get my veterinary kit the other day and then to go out and castrate my pigs. I bought some sirenges, some medicines- antibiotic, iron supplement, and anti-parasite, and I had the vet explain the process of castration. Its basically cutting a slit through the skin where the testical shows, then cutting another slit through the membrane covering the testical. Then the testical will pop out, then you cut the white cord close to the inside of the pig, and then you cut the blood vessel, and then you rub in some iodine and that's it. The piggies were a bit squeamish, but it seemed like they forgot about it after a minute or two and started eating their food again.


The owner of the truck that we used to haul the pigs is a horticulturist that mainly grows tomatoes. I spend a lot of time with his family, and this last Monday we harvested honey from his bee boxes. It got to put on the suit, blow some smoke at the bees, and he took out the honey panels. My bee suit wasn't very effective. A hole opened up near the waist and the bees got in. I got stung 9 times all around my face, my ears and head. I went running trying to tear off the bee suit to keep the rest from stinging me. Back at the house we feasted on honey fresh from the comb. Tuesday we went out again and brought back 8 boxes. We centrifuged the honey in a hand crank and filtered it. We worked until about 11. I guess you have to do it all at night because the bees will be coming back at 5am to their cases and they will be angry, and then you will have problems. As we were dipping our fingers in to test the honey the horticulturist turned to me and said "its sweet like the mouth of your sister" and then I punched him.

I helped butcher a bull about 2 weeks ago. I didn't do too much, just watching and then I cut a little of the rawhide off. They butcher differently here. I guess it's a minimal butchering. They don't cut out any of the bones. All the meat has bones in it except for the quarter, and there you can get a few cuts without bone, but the rest all has bone. The whole process takes about an hour and a half. None of the beef is grained finished. Its all grass and a little manioc depending on the season, from birth to death. Its about 2-3 years to reach slaughter weight which is about 700 pounds. From one of these bulls I made a little trumpet by finding an old horn and cutting off the tip. In the old days they used to blow these horns to advertise that there was meat for sale. One of the sons of the horticulturist is the one who butchers the meat. His name is Juancito, and he also is the Paraguayan boyfriend of my sister Katie. They hit it off pretty well when she came down to visit.

Last Saturday we had a barbecue at a professor's whose name is Blas who happens to be the son of the horticulturist. We made duck with an orange juice marinade. Anyway while cutting an orange I gashed my thumb with the knife. The cut was deep and long in the form of an L all the way from one side of the thumb to the other and it looked like it needed stitches. There is a nurse in the community, but I don't have much faith in her and no buses run on Sunday so I wouldn't be getting into the city and I was going to have to wait till Monday which would be too late. Now my granddad told me a story about how he got a cut one time and stitched himself up. I thought that if he could do it then I could do it too. So I boiled my thread and needle and I tell you it hurt, and now we'll just cross our fingers hoping it doesn't get an infection, but I'll keep an eye on it and take it into the city if it looks like it needs it.

As far as work goes we started up and agricultural committee about a month ago. It was pretty rough going at the start. The people here are used to working separately, but now days with the industrialized farming small producers have to work together in order to market their products and get the technical assistance they need. Right now we are working for recognition from the municipality and the department of Agriculture. After recognition the first project will be recuperation of our soil. I'm also working with a women's group teaching recipes like banana bread and a little about nutrition and making sanitation stuff like detergent and fabric softener from kits.

School has started up again and this year I will be working in 3 communities with a total of 2 high schools and 3 grade schools. I'll have 4 school gardens going. I'm in the process of writing up dental health lectures. I'll be working one school per week, but having one lecture everyday of the week on a given subject such as dental health. Each lecture will be about 15min so the students don't lose focus. I'll rotate through the communities, one week in one community and the next week in the next. The plan is to teach dental health, parasite prevention, nutrition, and HIV- AIDS with STDS over the next 4 or so months. Also I hope to be teaching some environmental education with the son of the horticulturist who is a professor at one of the high schools.

The pics you're seeing are from my garden, featuring 5 types of tomatoes peppers, swiss chard, and sorgum. Recently I planted my spinach, rucula, carrots, eggplant, more tomatoes, strawberries, and cilantro. The pig that you see belongs to my neighbor and I'm going to buy one of the piglets. Then there's a few pictures of friends at my house eating barbecue.
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Caaguazu, Paraguay

Well its been a long time. The pig farming is going a little slow right now. I brought the first piglet "Pig" from a community near by and it cost about 12 dollars. The community was a bit far so I had to go on bicycle. On the ride back I carried the pig in my back pack which was slightly unzipped to give a little air. Half way back the pig managed to squeam out of the back pack and landed on the dirt road scampering away. I had to through my bike down and chase it about 300 feet before I could manage to grab it again. The neighbors surely got a kick out of this. It did well for about a week, then it died in a tragic choking accident, never did find out what it choked on but I did the hiemlic manuever on it as my host mother held it upside down. But it really did bum me out when it died, though I butchered it afterwards having heard that suckling pig is delicious. Didn't end up eating it though cause the neighbors said it wasn't safe since I wasn't sure what it died of. Pig #2 named "Pig" again lasted a bit longer until my host mother talked me into giving it a remedy for the parasites it might have, assuring me that nothing bad would happen to it. It died the following day because according to the vet she gave it too much medicine and the dose was toxic. This one was sadder than the first and made me depressed. Pig #3 named "Vicki" after my grandma, luckily is still alive. A professor brought it to me from the city and this one was good sized already. She made a lot of noise at first, almost complained as much as grandma, but now is pretty tame, though she tries to bite me sometimes when I clean her pen, love nips I call them. I feed her wheat bran, sugar cane, mandioca, and all sorts of vegtable leaves from the garden (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower), and I think it likes these the most. I built a pen for it from salvage lumber and clean the pen once a day. Im going to have her have babys in a couple months, bringing her a boyfriend to get married.

Work is going well and I have been very busy. Right now I've got 5 projects going, teaching english in a near by community, tree planting with my school, parasite talks with parents and children, fogones still, and a big community garden. I'm teaching english now with the english teacher at the highschool and will start my own course in the summer vacation which starts at the end of november. I'm also thinking of starting one for the adults who don't know any english. I'm working on reforestation talks with the school and we just started raising trees in the school garden to transplant around the school and at the kids houses. I have a parasite talk with the mothers of one community this week and hopefully for another community before the end of the month. The parasite prevention talks are more for information for the parents so they can take better care of their children, and now is a good time to talk about this because the principal and I solicited doctors to come out and treat the kids for parasites and they have committed to come before the end of the month. So hopefully we can wipe the slate clean and start preventing the parasites. Still doing fogones though they kill my back, the last one took 2 and a half days because the chimney had to be extra large to function with this particular one, and I'm contracted for another within the next 2 weeks. I'm excited about these english classes. There will be a lot of people more my age, 18, 19, and 20, and I really enjoy working with this other community. I can also incorporate health related topics. The big community garden is my main project right now. We solicited the funds from the city hall and we have pay 30% of the whole project while they will pay the rest. We have to raise the funds by the end of November. The garden will include an automatic watering system and artificial shade because a few plants like bell peppers and lettuce can survive without it becuase of the heat.

The family life is good and the garden and field are growing well. I almost cut my toe off hoeing the field with my sandals on. The paraguayans do it with sandals on, but I think I'll have to wear shoes from now on.
I gashed out a chunk of nail on 2 toes and on one of the toes I cut out the half moon and now the nail is growing back in kind of funky. I've now planted lots of corn, sugar cane, lima beans, pinto beans, garbonzo beans, squash, melon, and watermelon in the field, and in the garden I've got peppers, peas, grean beans, cauliflower, brocolli, cabbage, beats, garlic, onions, lettuce, rucula, tomatoes, and the only things that are not ready to eat yet are the onions, garlic, eggplant, and a few varieties of the peppers.

Peculiarities.
Got in a bus crash about 2 months ago. I jumped on a bus headed for asuncion. There were not seats left available and I had to stand, this happens all the time. anyway after about ten minutes in the bus somehow the bus hit another car smashing the windshield and tearing off the door. I was okay. We stopped to look for the door, but it was dark already and we couldn't find it. So back on the bus and about another ten minutes later, the bus tried to pass a van at an inoportune time, and to avoid crashing with an oncoming truck, smashed into the van it was trying to pass driving it off the road. The funny part is it didn't even stop to see if the van was okay and it just kept driving. So at the next bus station I got off as fast as a could to find another bus. The front of the bus looked destroyed, and I can still picture the bus driver sitting there with his head in his arms. I guess bus crashes in paraguay are pretty common. other peculiarities, truck drivers here make only slightly less money than doctors, about 6,000 dollars a year, and docors about 8,000, and teachers make about half as much money as doctors while field workers make about half as much money as teachers.

Enjoy the pics.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1217342580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1217342580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1217342580/tpod.html Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:07:15 -0400 Peace Corps Pargauy and other related stories

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Caaguazu, Paraguay

We have finally finished my house. Last Monday we put in the water, which was the last thing I need before I could live on my own. The construction of the house is a little mediocre, but it works and I´m satisfied with it. I´ve been working on buying all the things that I will need to cook and clean and be self-sufficient. Finally I will be eating my own food, and will no longer eat the grease drenched carb-protein diet that is universal in Paraguay. My family is better than many with their diet, but not great. The other thing is they only have about 6 or 7 dishes that they cook so it can get pretty boring.

As far as appliances go, the family lent me their 20 year old gas stove, and another family lent me a bed and a table. We brought my refrigerator from the local town, caaguazu, last Monday which cost 250 dollars used (a months pay), and new they are upwards of 500. We came across a neighbor in the town who prefers to ride in the back of trucks which he said was "Brazilian style." He was responsible for making sure that my refrigerator didn´t tip over, which gave me a lot to worry about when I looked back through the window watching it sway as we went around curves. You cannot imagine how inconvenient it is bringing stuff like this into our sites. Practically nobody has cars and the one or two that do want to charge you a lot of money to do the favor even if they are already going town.

I built a fold out shelf and a book shelf from scrap wood and then varnished them. They both turned out well. I inherited 2 chairs, silver-wear, plates, cups, a mattress, and a few other things from the past volunteer. Everything is in order and I still have not spent my first night there. That will have to be this Friday.

Right now I´m in Asuncion again getting ready for a meeting with the health group that came in last year. We are going to discuss things that older group has done so hopefully we, the younger group, don´t have some new ideas, and my not have to jump through the same hoops as the older group. After the meeting my group will go back to our training community again in guarambare for 2 and a half days of language training. I´m not really looking forward to it, but it has to be done. As far as an update on my feet, the skin peeled and now they are like new.

The garden is growing alright. A few issues with cabbage worms and a few things like celery just don't seem to want to grow. I transplanted the tomatoes last week and have 36 plants now. only two varieties because the 3rd died out due to bugs. the peppers are germinating very slowly and just don't seem to get enough water. Everything else is growing well, but harvest is going to be about another month away for most things.

My fields are still waiting to be plowed. I think I will get to them by next Monday. I have been practicing my plowing skills in the hopes that I will plow my own fields. It is not very complicated, but pretty difficult for me make straight lines, and the plow is heavy to lift. You use 2 oxen connected by a wooden collar, chained to the plow. The familie´s oxen are young and still not very strong, so we have to use the neighbors. They are named bello and lindo, in English both these words mean handsome. When you want the oxen to go you say "Hale!", when you want them to stop you say "SSH", when you want them to back up you say "chu, chu" when you want them to turn you say "Vuelta!", call out the name of the ox on the inside of the turn, and gently pull the rope tied to its ear. To manage the plow you have to do something like counter steering. You hold bicycle-like handles attached to the plow along with the ropes, and when you want to straighten up you have to steer the opposite direction of the one you want to go. Ill try to get some pictures in on the next entry.

The fields will be used to make test plots of different green manures that the farmers can be using. Green manures are plants grown with or without the crops that improve the soil, some adding nitrogen and organic matter, and other breaking the hardpan for better access to nutrients and water. A few, my host father included, don´t really practice crop-rotation and don´t use green manures, and the soil in many parts is degraded from poor management and cotton.

The school garden is going well. The kids have been watering it regularly and seem to relish their ownership of garden. In the next couple of weeks I am going to propose a community garden for about half of the community. The governor of the department has offered to give enough money to purchase the equipment needed for the pump, fence, and watering system, but the community has to agree to do there part. We are going to write the petition to the governor soon.

I am going to get serious again with the dental lessons, but this time targeting the mothers, because I know that I probably wouldn't have any teeth if not for my mother. This week I am going to teach the women how to make dish detergent and am going to tie it to the dental talks. The women really want to make this detergent, but really don´t care much for health related talks, so tying the two together will bring a lot more women. I have still been working on rebuilding the brick-oven fogones. Last week I got two more done, and this next week I´ve got at least one on the list. Hopefully I´ll get some more pictures up in the next couple of weeks.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1215182940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1215182940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomwonderlich/1/1215182940/tpod.html Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:21:57 -0400 Peace Corps Pargauy and other related stories

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Caaguazu, Paraguay

Its been such a long, long time. I've had a hell of a time getting a card reader for my camera to upload pictures and I didn't want to updated without the pictures so that should explain some of the wait.

It is officially winter here now but you wouldn't know it from the temperature today, probably going to peak at about 80. It is, as you all know, the fourth of july and today we have a peacecorp get-together at the embassy were we get to rub elbows with the most important americans in all of paraguay ha ha. I am actually looking forward to the gigantic chocolate cakes that they have at these things, and if you had tasted paraguayan cakes you would know why. They taste just like sugar douced cardboard, I should know cause I have eaten sugar douced carboard, only once about a month ago when the armadillo trap broke and we could catch nothing for dinner. There will also be a bluegrass band playing with banjo, guitar, fiddle, and harmonica. And for those of you that may not know I have feverishly taken up the mandolin. The old man gave it to me for christmas before I left. They lack the mandolin in the group so it looks like I will get to join if I keep practicing and learn my chords.
Other than that it should be a pretty relaxed weekend in Asuncion.

Now about my site. I have been wandering from house to house over the past months, getting to know the people and waking up early to blasting paraguayan music at 6 am that is just as repetitive as our pop music stations except that as much as I can tell the play list hasn't changed over the past 5 months I've been here, and I can't say anything because they can't get enough of it. And they are generous with their music, they play it loud enough so there 5 nearest neighbors can hear it too. But most of their nearest neighbors, which are not very near are already listening to the same station and are returning the favor. needless to say that one cannot sleep past 6am.

But finally I have settle down and found a place, actually the family is building a place for me to stay with salvage lumber from an old school building that just got torn down. It won't be huge, but a bit big for one person paragauyans. We started construction on wednesday and it will be done within 2 weeks. These houses are pretty bare bones, just board walls that one can see through the cracks, not that it bothers me because all standards of privacy have been significantly lowered here. Hopefully they will do it right, though I have some questions about the integrity of paraguayan building as they do almost everything by "feel" rather than using measuring tapes and squares. I also thought about that bible passage that says how foolish a person is who builds his house on sand, cause my house is built on sand. it will surely last two years though. Cross your fingers.

A good part about finally deciding where I was going to live is that I have just been able to start my garden and it is massive, 30ft by 30ft and 100% organic. I have planted tons of seeds already- achicoria, beets, broccoli, carrots, cilantro, spinach, cabbage, rosemary, oregano, 3 varieties of tomatoes, 5 varieties of peppers incuding illegally imported jalepeno and poblano peppers, cayanne, black hungarian, and green peppers, egg plant, lettuce, 2 types of green beans. About everything I can think of has or will be planted. I have loaded I don't know how much cow poo, chicken poo, and clay into wellbarrow and into the garden to improve the soil and still I don't know if it was enough. so you will see pictures of a beautiful garden in two months, or not, we will see.

And now the cultural experience called the feast of San Juan, or saint John. My host mother at the time, introducing me to the subject, told me that Saint John is one of the most powerful and miraculous saints. I agreed with that part. She went on to say that on the 23rd and only the 23rd of June, after the sun has set, one can walk on coals if they are free of sin and say the correct prayers as they walk across. A chosen man must walk first followed by a chosen woman. The coals must be specially prepared by one person and it must be of the wood called kurupa' y. So I took many of these words with a grain of salt.... and then the festivities began. special foods were prepared, meat breads and mandio empanadas. I helped a little but mainly slept because I was kind of sick this day. I woke up at 830 and the party was in full swing, stereo system, lights, looked like a maddona stock type operation for those gonzaga folk who know of this. Then the crazyness started, the Kamba people as they are called put on an act, men dressed as women and women as men, in outrageous clothing. The drama had everything, dancing, guns, a wedding, passion, betrayal, love, heartbreak, anger, joy, everything a proper drama should. Too bad I did not understand a word of it as it was slurred quickly in Guarani, and the actors tried to disguise there voices so nobody would know who they were. The show ended and they then burned a life sized Judas effigy. Then they ran to a pole about 5 people high and climbed it shoulder by shoulder. At the top of the pole was a wreath with candies and treats tied to it that the kamba people threw down to the crowed. and lastley the firewalking began. First the man, then the woman, and then nobody for a while. then slowly people began to go. I then thought to myself, "hey, there must be nothing to this" though the coals were glowing bright red. So what do I do, I throw off the shoes and walk not once, but twice, without any sort of prayer. And the result was sorely burnt feet, foolish tom. but it is a story and that is how the night ended.

What am I doing now. lots of work in the garden, flouride treatments at school and drinking a lot of mate, and still I am pretty busy. I'm starting a garden with the students that meets saturdays and I have been doing a peace corp required census of all the community members.

Congratuluations to the Gonzaga folk out there that just graduated. I missed out on seeing you guys graduate and wish I could have been there because you guys were kind of my class as well. Best of luck finding real jobs out there, fishing and camping all summer don't count (Ryan and John). Should have some good info up again within the month.
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Caaguazu, Paraguay

Hello folks, the election went well, no riots or trouble. The liberal party candidate Lugo won. The Colorados payed bus fare for paraguayans living in argentina and brazil to come to the election, and since their candidate lost they refused to pay their fare back, so there were a lot of people stuck here for a while. The new president won't take office till august.

The swearing in ceremony was okay. The best part about it was the gigantic cake that we had afterwards that was very tasty. I saw "no country for old men" in the theatres, had coffee at the coffee shop, and now I'm headed to site today. The stay in asuncion was good. The hotel had real breakfasts with lots of coffee, fresh fruit and yogurt. I have not had a real breakfast since I got here. A paraguayan breakfast at best is two small, dry rolls and hot milk, so this was great. I didn't do any site seeing and went out to eat a lot. It is really cheap here. I am ready now to get out into the field and start doing what I came here for.

Its raining today and I will have to walk the six kilometers into my site with all my 4 bags hangning from my shoulders. It will be muddy and sandy and it will rain as I walk in. I'm coming back to the US the end of may for my sisters wedding so I will see you guys soon and will then tell you everything.
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Guarambare, Paraguay

Paraguay´s presidential elections will happen this sunday and its a pretty big deal. The same political party, "The Colorados" have been in power for over 60 years beginning with the Stroessner dictatorship that lasted till 1989. The corruption is unbelievable here. Last election people were voting that had been dead for years and they just can´t shake this party. The main reason is that anybody that is employed by the state must vote with this party or they will lose their job, that is about 20% of the population straight off. My host dad for example had to teach for 5 years without pay because he refused to vote with the party. He had to wait 5 years until a paid position opened up that there wasn´t a colorado to fill. So basically he didn´t get paid a nickle for five years and now he gets $300 US a month which still isn´t enough to support the family on and that is why my host mom goes to Spain. There was a yellow fever scare this summer and in certain places in the countryside all the colorados got the vaccine first and the rest didn´t get the vaccine until a few weeks afterwards. A ex volunteer that married a paraguayan told this story because his family was one that didn´t get the vaccine. One volunteer, on her future site visit, was with here host family when a truck of colorados pulled up offering to pay any medical expenses they had if they voted colorado.

The party will pay you to put up signs in your yard to vote for there candidate. In this election they are going to give out cellphones and when you go into the box and vote you have to take a picture of your ballot, and if you have shown that you voted for the "correct" candidate you get to keep it. The people in the party get rich and thus can afford to hand out cellphones to keep there party in power. The two main candidates are Blanca Ovelar, the colorado candidate and a woman, and Federico Lugo, the liberal candidate who was a bishop and has renounced the title. He is ahead in the polls by quite a bit, my dad told me 18 points higher than the rest, but sometimes the facts get confused with what people would like to believe. One of the lines in a liberal propoganda song says "If you elect Lugo, then money will rain down from the sky". There will be huge protests if the colorados win and my dad says rioting as well, it could get serious, but nobody can really say. The colorados control all aspects of the goverment and our Peace Corps historian believes they will all get cleaned out if Lugo takes power. Due to the tense climate Peace Corps has ordered that we "Hold Fast" which means we can´t leave our training site until they lift it. It starts tomorrow, but we don´t really need to start worrying until next week when the results come in.

This next friday we are going to finally swear in as Peace Corps volunteers and I will get a cellphone. We have directions to a coffee shop where we can finally get real coffee, because you can only get instant anywhere else. We get to spend the weekend in a sweet hotel down town with a rooftop pool, and get to see some american movies. I´m going to catch the two I missed in the US .. "no country for old men" and "there will be blood" they are all in english with spanish subtitles.

My site visit went well. I don´t have pictures up yet, but I´ll put some up next entry. The area was all rolling hills and really pretty. the place where I want to live is a small white adobe house with a porch in the back for my hammack. In the yard it has giant mango trees, lots of banana trees, 3 grapefruit trees, and a mandarine tree. All the houses have running water and real bathrooms so I will be okay on that front. Many of the volunteers are bathing in streams or using latrines. The boys of the family that I stayed with at the house nearby were the old volunteer lived are all around 10. They are the family of the volunteer that was here before me. They took me on a hike in the fields behind there house where there is a pretty good looking soccer field that they have built, but the goals are makeshift out of sticks. Anyway back in the fields there was a grove of avocado trees and mandarines. On the last day of the visit I helped slaughter a pig. I didn´t actually stick the knife in its throat, but I held it while it happened. It wasn´t as bad as I thought it would be because it died pretty quickly. We then peeled the skin off and cut it open. I got to eat pig liver which was not very tastey at all. Also I had to give three speeches while I was visiting site. During one of them I said "I am very happy to be here", and then I paused because I was going to say that I was excited to start working but I couldn´t think of the words, and then after the pause I figured I better have something to say but the only thing I could think of was what I had already said, so I said again " and I am very happy to be here", and they all laughed.

The first thing I am going to do is start the school garden and start giving charlas on dental health because most of the kids have a few rotten teeth that you can see. There will be lots of those fogones (brick oven looking things) to fix because most in the town are busted up and don´t function.

If you guys have any questions about life here feel free to ask, and if any of you guys want to send me some mail I will be grateful and will respond promptly but it will take a month to reach me and a month for a letter to get back to you.

The address is.

Peace Corps Paraguay
162 Chaco Boreal c/Mcal. Lopez
Asuncion 1580, Paraguay
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Guarambare, Paraguay

We are now coming into citrus season. Grapefruits are ripening and I eat at least one a day. Mandarines are ready as well. I've been stealing them along with the grapefruits from a volunteers house across the street. The avocados have been really good as well, but now there are only five left from our tree and they are sitting on the kitchen counter. Mangos and pineapples are out of season now and there is one tree left in my area that has them so I have been stopping by that house to ask for them all the time. I think they might be getting annoyed.
We ate a tons of food during holy week. It is a pretty big deal here. School gets out wednesday and everybody comes home and makes a bread called chipa. Its really dense and lord of the rings fans can liken it to Lumbas, the elf bread that frodo and sam eat. Sorry I had to get nerdy. Its made of ground corn and pig lard, and if you eat one or two pieces it expands in your stomach and you feel full. Kids make crocodile shapes and such out of it and really get a kick. You have to kneed it a lot first and then you throw it in a brick oven after you scoop the ashes out. We made 15lbs of the stuff and there is still a pan full sitting in the refrigerator two weeks after holy week. They eat this chipa all holy week. Thursday is the last supper so we had a gigantic last supper as is the custom and I may have some pictures on this, we will see. Tons of meat- pork, beef, and sausage. Friday is a somber day and you are not allowed to listen to music, say mean things to your brothers or sisters, or punish your kids if they are bad. You have to wait until saturday to punish them if they deserve it. In the old days you couldn't kick a soccer ball are walk "hard" on the ground, because it would be like you were walking on or kicking Jesus. Saturday is normal and then Sunday you feast again and have mass.

The host family is great. My host mom is leaving in a week to go to Spain for a year and work. It is the only way that they can afford the house they have built and their living. The kids are really nice I especially like my younger brother and sister because they are always happy to see me and the brother says that I am his best brother, better than his older brother who is still pretty nice but beats up on him.

Today I got my site assignment. I will be in the department will be called Caaguazu. I'm not entirely happy with the description because it sounds like I will be doing little construction of fogones, that I would have preferred. I will be doing more education related stuff - parasite prevention, dental health, HIV stuff, etc. It seems to be more rolling hills which will be nice. We will see. I'll leave for a visit to the site next thursday. In 3 weeks training will be completed and I will start my actual service in my own site. I didn't talk about it much, but these first three months we have just been training. We are not actually Peace Corps volunteers, rather they say we are aspiring to be PC volunteers. We will have an official swearing-in ceremony in Asuncion and we will be able to hang out there three days and hit the town. Today I met some new zealanders vacationing here. They said that they would recommend vacationing in paraguay to all their friends, so come on down.
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So now I´ve been in Paraguay about a month. The rashes have cleared and I´m happy about that. Never did figure out what it was. The host family life has been pretty good. I have two brothers and a sister. The younger brother, Jose, was in the hospital 3 days last week with lung and kidney problems. He´s doing better now, but will be in treatment for 2 months. The grandma and grandpa live across the field from our house, and the rest of the aunts and unlces are not much further. I think my family must be related to half the town.One of the uncles, Olvaldo, lives with the grandparents and is 23.When I go over to the grandparents house he tries to get me to translate bad 80s music into spanish and then he has me try on a few pairs of his Puma shoes and look in his full-size mirror ( even small mirrors are rare in country in Paraguay). He tells me how cool they look on me and how one of the pairs cost $100 US which is really expensive here. A few days ago he crashed his motorcycle. "How?", you ask. He hit a horse and totalled the front. he´s okay though. I don´t know how and I couldn´t really understand when he explained it to me. He also says that we look like brothers and that we both look like David Beckham, and he was serious.

I´ve been playing soccer with the old men on saturdays. They have a league going on amongst 4 teams with uniforms. My dad got me on to the team, but I don´t get to play until the second half because I´m not good enough. The old men are acutally really good and very serious. In the game before ours a guy got upset with a call and started pushing the ref. The other thing about playing with them is that I never really know where I´m supposed to be playing because there system is a little different, and most of their spanish I can´t understand. After the game we went to a benefit dinner for a guy who was sick in the hospital and had bills to pay. There was one piece of chicken, one piece of mandioca, and probably two bottles of beer for every guy there, and these are the 1 liter size bottles which is the only size they sell in the country. The men don´t really drink water during the soccer games etiher before or after to rehydrate, instead they drink a little beer or pop before, during, and after the game. Life is good.
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Guarambare, Paraguay

Hello hello,
I have rashes. Paraguay is interesting, nice in its own ways. Fruit grows everywhere, but the locals don´t eat it. I eat it all for them and now I´m sorry for it. I have weird rashes, 3 unique types, and the medicos don´t know what it is, any of them, maybe food allergies. I eat mangos for breakfast and lunch and dinner. Didnt work out so well with my skin. The people are very nice here. I live with a family of 5. I have 2 brothers and a sister they are all around 10 years old. They refuse to eat the fruit in the morning because they say their stomachs can´t handle it, but then my mom eats 20 mangos at exactly two o´clock. I´m not making this up. these ones are actually about peach size, but it is still a ton. They drink a tea called terrere many times daily which is not like out tea.. check it out on the internet if you are curious, but they are crazy about it. the people I´m working with are really cool and they are waiting on me now so I´ll update soon.
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