the paraguayan reverie

high time for an update id say. After more than two months of finagling and tweaking my way through projects and into some interesting work, id say im quite content with the way just about everything is progressing. Well, that is to say everything that Im really invested in. As a recap:

I ran my third design workshop using the site planning work and survey information collected in the first and second round. Activities included linkage diagrams for major site elements (soccer pitch, entrance, classrooms, etc) and their supporting elements. People ended up agreeing on a pallate of things that needed to be included for each major elements (for example: shade, water access, seating, etc for soccer area) and diagramed it out. Then using a packet of proposals i drew out for each of the areas, the groups came to concensus on their favorite drawing and modified it to fit their interests. We then voted collectivly as a whole workshop for which proposals to go ahead with. This has left me with a pretty clear direction for my final proposal drawings which i hope to have completed by december. My work contacts are already getting some milage out of the drawings, having shown them to people at the ministry of education to get funding. Seems to have worked. Guess those five years at Poly did teach me something? haha.

The school now has electricity hooked up, all the desks and furniture, and a promise from a local NGO to build the next classroom in the following year. I hope they follow our proposal! Regardless, being where i am now its a load off my mind, thats for sure.

On a lighter note, im still beating my head against the apathy of certain teachers at the highschool, and have honestly given up on changing their points of view. Im just focusing on what i can do with the students at this point. The seniors will be presenting their investigations on natural resource use and conservation this Wendsday to prep us for community projects to finish out the year.

The school tree nursery now has about 400 seedlings in bags growing and ready to be transplanted at the end of the year. At least helping them run the project and providing the tech knowlege has produced some tangible results. And the frost didnt kill the trees, which is always nice.

Leadership traning and workshops at the other highschool are going well, with the students set to interview the community at large this week with a form we created at the last teacher meeting. I bet about half of them do it, haha, we shall see.

Biggest news for me by far is that ive made a formal work proposal to an NGO that runs reforestation projects here in Paraguay for the comming year. All signs look good from Peace Corps and the NGO that ill get the go ahead, so Im super stoked. Itd mean another full year working on developing their environmental educaiton program, working with highschools across the southern half of the country to implement arborization projects and the like. And i get to live in a town. And have running water every day, and buses that run without fail at all times of the day. Id like that. As part of the program ill get to come home for a month on quasi-paid leave and then return for my year of service. Thanks taxpayers.

With the end of my second year fast approaching, i find myself sitting sometimes and considering where Ive come to after all this time spent fumbling along. I wish somethings had been different, but on the whole ive accoplished most of what id originally set out to do. I think. I certainly dont care so much anymore about whether what ive done and am doing would be considered succesful by other people, just so long as I feel satisfied with the effort i put into it.

Take last week for example. There was an impromptu teacher assembly and the director asked me to run something with the students for about an hour and a half. Luckily id done some leadership stuff and and an activity with the other colegio in the morning so I repeaterd it, the major difference being the 45 or so 15 to 19 year olds with no teacher supervision (except me) as opposed to the 25 in the morning with two teachers assisting. So i ran my stuff, and the activity bombed. Everyone gave up and just stoped doing what they were supposed to be doing and started yelling at each other. The topic was about conflict resolution and compromise, but none of that actually happened, so instead of talking about how well the activity went we just talked about why it failed and what was missing. So still a success, kinda, even though it really didnt work out like it was supposed to.

And so its getting dark and ive got a half hour bike ride back home so Id better get on with it. Till next time!