December 12, 2007
ADDED PHOTOS! Click on the FlickR link under image hosting on the right to see some shots of paraguay, fellow volunteers and a number of domesticated animals. I think im in there too. We swear in on this friday, lookin forward to it, but not to having to relenquish my norte security net. And of course not everyone has the same phone carrier so its going to be expensive to get ahold of all my favorite people! WIll update more later! Ciao!
December 9, 2007
phew, its been a while since i updated and ive got a lot to get on here. First off I am back from the future site visit, sitting in an air conditioned room. Very nice. We met at a retreat center outside of guarambare to get on board with our contact from our future sites. I had no idea who mine was going to be, as it wasnt listed on my info form. I finnaly found my contact after some searching - hes a teacher at one of the local schools, in his mid thirties and is a pretty funny guy. We did a bunch of get to know you type activities, watched some traditional dancing that included dancers with vases on their heads and ate a load of good food. One of the days we were all our playin around with the frisbee and i pulled my quad. Ouch. Its almost better now, but it was a pain (literally) for a good week and a half. A good number of people´s contacts decided not to show up for whatever reason, so some people were still wondering what was instore for them by the time we were leaving. I was still feelin pretty nervous, attempting to talk to cornelio while only understanding half of what he would say in return.
After saying goodbye to the fellow trainees we all hopped on our respective buses. After having a t-ray session at the local market cornelio flagged down one of his friends witha truck and I jumped on and tok of for site. This whole time i was feelin pretty good because I assumed id recognise where i was going. Nope. I have no idea how I got to site (i do now) as we took all the back roads and such. I walked over to a school nearby and made some small talk with a teacher that was there, met up with cornelio about an hour later and took off for his house. At this point i was still a gimp, walking with a stiff left leg, so getting around was of course sheer joy. On the way to cornelios house i got caught in a spider web. I walked right into it. But this web happened to be about 20 feet across and filled with at least a hundred spiders. Needless to say I freaked out and ran around swiping the little buggers off my person while cornelio looked on, laughing. It was pretty funny.
Met up with willie (the present PCV) on the second day and we hoofed it all over talkin to various people. Im pretty sure we walked around 15k that day, and holy god it it hot outside in the afternoon. My living arangements with conrnelio and his 5 kids was interesting as I would often find two of them sitting on my be3d simply watching me write in my journal as if its the most interesting thing theyd seen since the last colectivo (bus) rolled through. One of them kep asking me if there3 was this and that in the united states, for example: are there fish in the united states? Are there tigers? Are there rivers? Is there snow? Are there mountains? Are there japanese people? Is there sopa paraguaya? Endless streams of questioning. I passed the crap out on my rock hard bed under the rapidly spinning fan, while listening to the sound of bugs incinerating themselves on the light bulbs outside. Not too bad.
The next morning I went with george (cornelios son) to help make ladrillos (bricks) near their house. We fliped the semi solid bricks over three at a time and then steped in between the fliped ones to get at the next row. It was pretty challengin for me given that ive got big feet compared to a 12 year old. Had sporadic conversation with the other workers, while attemping to hydrate my rapidly sweating self. I seriously think i sweat way more here than i did in the states. Even in the desert, no way would i get this wet. There´s a certain meditative quality about making the bricks - the slap slap of mud going into the mold, the scrape of a level, the flip, flip, step of turning the freshly made bricks to catch the sun. It was a good time.
The next day I went with willie to one of the other schools nearby to help with a world map project, and also to meet some of the other teachers. There are so many people that I have to get to know in so many different communities (6 to be exact) that I do feel a bit overwhelmed. The deal is that im going to be centered in one of the communities while bikin myself to work in the others. I do get to ride through the forest, open rangeland and some nice kokuekuera (farmer fields), but man if im not sweating bullets the whole time. I had to rest on the side of the road in the shade at one point for a about a half hour after I started to get dizzy while riding up a half k hill. That evening connelio said he was going to introduce me to the parents and teachers at the school in some kind of formal event. I wrote out a little speakch in guarani to read and cornelio approved it. There were about 45 people there plus the teachers, but at this point im not so nervous about making a fool of myself so it wasnt any big deal. Got up, said my bit, they claped, i sat down. Opa.
That night george and i went fishing at the local aroyo for tilapia. I enjoyed the view way more than the fishing, and took a good long while to think about my potential future in this place. It seems like a place that I could feel at home in, with bueys along the road, the light breezes and dense clumps of forest. In a way it reminds me of california if im off by myself, watching the clouds pass by from the shade of a lapacho tree. I can´t complain. I´ve got it pretty good.
Ive got alot more about the long field visit to add but my time on the internet is running low, so ill hit everything thats going to be going down in the future. We swear in this coming friday in asuncion, meaning we swear to defend the constitution of the united states, blaa blaa blaa, so help me god. After that they feel us cake and we hop on the colectivo to go to our swear in party (the theme is pirates and stoplights) and I will of course be wearing green. We´ve also got hotel reservations in asuncion for 3 nights after, so its going to be an awesome club going, futbol watching, dirty market shoppin good time. Then i go to site and then next adventure begins. I WILL have access to internet in tobati (about 15 k away) so ill still be able to update the blog and check the email, although I cant say with what frequency. HOWEVER, I will have a cell phone courtesy of peace corps that people in the states can call, SO you can always contact me that way if anyone so desires. Ill email people the number when I get it.
I received lots of packages: the frisbees came, as did the gaia´s garden book, hillary´s bday package (thanks!) and the letter with the dagoba chocolate bar (send me more...mmm). No evidence of any molskine journals or the mushroom book. Jam would be a bad idea, as it would probably break and get all disgusting like in the box. I´ve got a few small things i could use for christmas so Ill make an update about them later, and try try TRY to get some awesome photos up this coming week. Till then, Ciao!
After saying goodbye to the fellow trainees we all hopped on our respective buses. After having a t-ray session at the local market cornelio flagged down one of his friends witha truck and I jumped on and tok of for site. This whole time i was feelin pretty good because I assumed id recognise where i was going. Nope. I have no idea how I got to site (i do now) as we took all the back roads and such. I walked over to a school nearby and made some small talk with a teacher that was there, met up with cornelio about an hour later and took off for his house. At this point i was still a gimp, walking with a stiff left leg, so getting around was of course sheer joy. On the way to cornelios house i got caught in a spider web. I walked right into it. But this web happened to be about 20 feet across and filled with at least a hundred spiders. Needless to say I freaked out and ran around swiping the little buggers off my person while cornelio looked on, laughing. It was pretty funny.
Met up with willie (the present PCV) on the second day and we hoofed it all over talkin to various people. Im pretty sure we walked around 15k that day, and holy god it it hot outside in the afternoon. My living arangements with conrnelio and his 5 kids was interesting as I would often find two of them sitting on my be3d simply watching me write in my journal as if its the most interesting thing theyd seen since the last colectivo (bus) rolled through. One of them kep asking me if there3 was this and that in the united states, for example: are there fish in the united states? Are there tigers? Are there rivers? Is there snow? Are there mountains? Are there japanese people? Is there sopa paraguaya? Endless streams of questioning. I passed the crap out on my rock hard bed under the rapidly spinning fan, while listening to the sound of bugs incinerating themselves on the light bulbs outside. Not too bad.
The next morning I went with george (cornelios son) to help make ladrillos (bricks) near their house. We fliped the semi solid bricks over three at a time and then steped in between the fliped ones to get at the next row. It was pretty challengin for me given that ive got big feet compared to a 12 year old. Had sporadic conversation with the other workers, while attemping to hydrate my rapidly sweating self. I seriously think i sweat way more here than i did in the states. Even in the desert, no way would i get this wet. There´s a certain meditative quality about making the bricks - the slap slap of mud going into the mold, the scrape of a level, the flip, flip, step of turning the freshly made bricks to catch the sun. It was a good time.
The next day I went with willie to one of the other schools nearby to help with a world map project, and also to meet some of the other teachers. There are so many people that I have to get to know in so many different communities (6 to be exact) that I do feel a bit overwhelmed. The deal is that im going to be centered in one of the communities while bikin myself to work in the others. I do get to ride through the forest, open rangeland and some nice kokuekuera (farmer fields), but man if im not sweating bullets the whole time. I had to rest on the side of the road in the shade at one point for a about a half hour after I started to get dizzy while riding up a half k hill. That evening connelio said he was going to introduce me to the parents and teachers at the school in some kind of formal event. I wrote out a little speakch in guarani to read and cornelio approved it. There were about 45 people there plus the teachers, but at this point im not so nervous about making a fool of myself so it wasnt any big deal. Got up, said my bit, they claped, i sat down. Opa.
That night george and i went fishing at the local aroyo for tilapia. I enjoyed the view way more than the fishing, and took a good long while to think about my potential future in this place. It seems like a place that I could feel at home in, with bueys along the road, the light breezes and dense clumps of forest. In a way it reminds me of california if im off by myself, watching the clouds pass by from the shade of a lapacho tree. I can´t complain. I´ve got it pretty good.
Ive got alot more about the long field visit to add but my time on the internet is running low, so ill hit everything thats going to be going down in the future. We swear in this coming friday in asuncion, meaning we swear to defend the constitution of the united states, blaa blaa blaa, so help me god. After that they feel us cake and we hop on the colectivo to go to our swear in party (the theme is pirates and stoplights) and I will of course be wearing green. We´ve also got hotel reservations in asuncion for 3 nights after, so its going to be an awesome club going, futbol watching, dirty market shoppin good time. Then i go to site and then next adventure begins. I WILL have access to internet in tobati (about 15 k away) so ill still be able to update the blog and check the email, although I cant say with what frequency. HOWEVER, I will have a cell phone courtesy of peace corps that people in the states can call, SO you can always contact me that way if anyone so desires. Ill email people the number when I get it.
I received lots of packages: the frisbees came, as did the gaia´s garden book, hillary´s bday package (thanks!) and the letter with the dagoba chocolate bar (send me more...mmm). No evidence of any molskine journals or the mushroom book. Jam would be a bad idea, as it would probably break and get all disgusting like in the box. I´ve got a few small things i could use for christmas so Ill make an update about them later, and try try TRY to get some awesome photos up this coming week. Till then, Ciao!
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