Pig Farmer Tom

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  Caaguazu, Paraguay
Monday, October 20, 2008

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.

Building my house

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.

House Completed

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.

More building

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.

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My Pig at 4 months	The Banana Plantation	The Desk	The Families Pig at 4 months
The Kitchen	The Sleeping Area	Vicki

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