alright. So its been a busy past week with field trips, language/tech training, site placement, multiple visits to the cantena for libations and of course a very american thanksgiving paraguayan style. Here´s the rundown:
We´d been getting ready for thanksgiving for about the last 2 weeks or so, collecting money and researching the turkey procurement problem that is oh-so-pervasive in paraguay. We decided to go with spinny-chickens (the kind that you buy on the street that are spinning in metal cases) and about 7 kilos of potatoes. In total we got 12 full chickens. The full spread included:
chicken (of course)
standard mashed potatoes with chives, margerine, and milk from a tetra pack.
sweet-potato mashed potatoes (my favorite)
mac and cheese
stuffed peppers
SOFT whole wheat bread, not cocito "dog biscuit" ring style
deviled eggs
obscene amounts of salad and veggies
HOT salsa and crackers (there are NO tortilla chips here)
tons of fresh fruit salad
apple pie and apple crisp
rice and bean salad
bannana and peanutbutter empanadas (my favorite desert)
Im sure there was more too, but this is the stuf that sticks out. I got there at about 7:30 to start working on the mashed potatoes and experimented with different mashing methods including a blender, spatula, cheese grater, soup ladel and standard fork. It was a good time hangin out with my fellow aspirantes (trainees) and not have the spector of impending homework doom hanging over us.
After getting sufficiently fat, we went and played a game of american football on the local kancha for about 2 hours, and ended with a few beers at the cantena. All in all a really good day.
OH! So site placement - yeah i got mine (drumroll). Im going to be the follow up volunteer for the Enviro Ed. volunteer we visited in ensenada! See last post for the description. Im REALLY excited, this town is a-mazing and pretty progressive in terms of working to improve and conserve environmental resources. And they´re all liberales which is a nice bonus. FYI, there are two major parties in Paraguay, the colorados and the liberales. Strossner´s (paraguay´s dictatory for 30ish years) old party was the colorados so i´m feelin pretty good to be living around people not down with the same old game. I´ll try to post some pictures of everything soon, the internet is so frikin slow here its really impossible to get anything large up on flickr.
Mom - I have been receiving all your letters and packages, do not fret. I got the new yorker arts issue (people were jealous) about 3 days ago, but havn´t seen anything else since then. Yay mail!
Margot - Hey! Yes, my address will change but i´ll update my infomation on this page when it does. The confiscation thing is due to import restriction placed on certain items coming into the country. Dunno why exactly, but i can certainly can see someone out there in this corrupt litle country squirling away a huge pile of plastic toys, sock and bateries (to name a few). Letters are just fine but take about a month to get here, so id say have the kids hold off for a bit till I know my new address.
Dad - how goes the new job? The name of the professor in charge of my project at Cal Poly is Bill MacElroy in the landscape architecture department, and he does have hard and digital copies of all my work. However, because the state of the project was in pieces rather than a coherent whole at the time that I finished, Im not so sure that its going to be very easy to fit it into whatever format the planning awards require. Tell me more about the competition and I´ll let you know what I think about the potential of my stuff to fit the criterea.
Az - I hope you are very very well! Im miss you lots and am very glad your house didn´t get torched. It was hard to get information here, and I was quite worried for a few days. How goes the job? I can´t complain over here ;)
Here are a few more books that im adding to my list, but havn´t really had time to research yet:
Seed to Seed - by Suzanne Ashworth and Kent Whealy
Breed your own Vegetable Varieties - by Carol Deppe
Smallholders, Householders: farm families and the ecology of intensive sustainable agriculture - by Rober Netting
To everyone else, amazing family and friends, I miss you all very much! I´m going to be setting up skype here (an online internet phone service) so I should be able to give everyone a call sometime soon! Yay!
I visit ensenada again next week for more meet/greet and t-ray (yerba). Ill do my darndest to get some pics up! Till then, Ciao!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hi Lindsey - Did you receive the "sports equipment" ultimate frisbee and the mushroom book? Both sent separately. I sent them over a week ago, and the golf frisbee, sent a couple of weeks aqo definitely should have reached you by now. So maybe they are not making it to you afterall... I have my fingers crossed that things will get to you before you leave for your assignment.
I contacted the Dept chair about your Trona work and will call MacElroy next. If not this year then next year...there is a three year time period following preparation of the project during which a related nomination is valid. So I will continue this on your behalf until I hit a brick wall.
Congratulations!!! on your assignment Linds, that is so great! You will do great there and it's so good that this is a progressive area of the country.
Your Thanksgiving sounded wonderful.Libations? Cantina? I knew you would find your way eventually!
The business is in its infancy still. I sent introductory letters out to Cities last week and have begun to discuss joining with other planners who have different but complementary skills. I have two private clients and if I can get a public (city) client that would probably make my budget, with room to spare. My other two potential clients, an attorney with overflow clients and an estate homes developer that needs design review services are still pending but look solid at this point, and I should find out for sure this next week.
About Christmas, is there something that I can send you, or is it the books that you would like? If I send you jam do you think it will get there in one piece?
Love, Dad
Post a Comment