Zach in Paraguay with the Peace Corps

For one of the last days of training we gave charlas. One was Love: Paraguayan Style, including how to court a woman and popular pick up lines. Of course our resident love professional was the teacher. Fun charla.

Mi prima/compañera with a bunch of stuff she brought with her to Paraguay at the last minute. She doesn´t reveal this stuff until the last week of training confusing me as to why she thought she might need it. She is confused too.

Host tio with our going away gift. On the second to last day of training we all received blood red machetes and tiny pens. There were some metaphors involved and the machetes had relevant key words to our service taped to it. However, all that really mattered is that after 23 years of asking for sharp objects for gifts, I finally received one. I hope it wasn´t a bad idea because seconds after receiving it, I was chopping odd things in the grass.

We also had a little get together with food for all the host families in Villeta to say thank you. Although we don´t live with them anymore, many of us (me of course included) still talk regularly via cell phone and all plan to return to Villeta for special events and other “official” business. Naturally we will crash in their homes. Family for three months, family for life I guess haha.

Our world map project was so wildly successful that they made us a certificate thanking us. Since there are three of us and only one certificate, we took a picture and then donated the certificate to the training center to inspire other trainees. It was likely recycled for paper haha.

On the last day of training we had all sorts of reminicent skits and other such fun stuff which made the three months seem like a sufficient amount of time to get to know everyone… Surprisingly it was. Villeta and Ypane each had skits that were basically just about inside jokes and making fun of other people. The trainers too had multiple skits where one or more trainees would have hypothetical situations and the trainers would reenact how we would react in those situations. They were pretty spot on and very well acted. I was impressed. However, the bastards only did a fourth of the G. I was really hoping for the opportunity to get to enjoy my own wacky antics for once, but they didn´t act me. Oh well haha.

My hot aunt Marta gave me a guampa as a going away gift. Unfortunately I gave her nothing… except my number. BOOM! But seriously, I got my host family a guampa with some Peace Corps doodles on it and a set of glasses with a pitcher because they love to make and drink juice. My host dad tells me that he uses the guampa everyday. We also got Ruben a big bottle of tequila. He always talks about tequila like he is a professional drinker… but he is not, and you cannot get tequila in Villeta. However, when he opened up his gift and saw the bottle, it was like watching 8 year old open up a gift to reveal a PlayStation 3 on Christmas day. I had never seen him so excited and happy. He was crashing all the photos to show off. I really hope that bottle doesn´t get him into trouble.

For a fun little educational excursion we got bussed into Asuncion for some learning and exploring. First stop was congress, where we saw senators complain about stuff while sipping tereré. A block away we saw the presidential work place. Lugo wasn´t there. Traveling or something. There is security but they could care less if you walked around all over the lawn and around the building there. The president lives in a separate house. Then a hop, skip, and a jump over to some history/art museum where they had this massive exhibit with an anti abortion artist. It was distrubing to say the least. More so because this artist had a giant freaking exhibit of suffering pregnant people and broken doll pieces. If it was me, I would have got bored after a few paintings and changed my subject, but I guess I´m no artist. I got to eat at the fancy Bolsi bar, where I ate a Miami cheesesteak… Being from Miami and curious to know what the difference between this and a Philly cheesesteak were, I ordered it. I was less than impressed. That being said, I have had other very pleasureable experiences at this place… just not this time.

Back in Villeta we were celebrating as usually on a Friday or Saturday night drinking beers and eating empanadas when the realization hit one of us, empanadas are not sexy food. I figured latin stuff is usually sexy, so why not the food. I attempted to eat it seductively… I failed. Empanadas are not sexy. But mustaches can be. So everyone got a finger-stache courtesy of your truly.

One of the last days of classes we had to give charlas about anything Paraguayan to practice giving charlas. Haha WE were in charge now! One was on animals. I made the masks and got to be the toucan! Other people got to be armadillos, monkeys, toads, capybaras, and rheas.

Another final project was to execute a project. Mine was the world map project which was retardedly successful. Another one was a youth volleyball tournament. The champions of which got to play us (the norte americanos). It was fun, but we lost… naturally.

Papu´s in Guarambare. Where we drink after a long day of learning.

We finally received our sites. It felt like forever leading up to this point. Training is great, but knowing where you are going to go is better. For some reason, they have a solid idea where people are going to go early on in training, but then don´t tell them until only a few weeks are left. Of course, at the time I am writing this, I am already two months into my service in said site and have been rather busy and unable to write about my experiences until now… so hopefully I remember all the good details and can convey the experiences correctly.

They have a huge map of Paraguay in the training center and as they call out your name and site, they hand you a very official looking folder with the Peace Corps logo with all of your site and project information, then tape your name on your location on the map. My site? San Cosme y Damián! Jawsome! Where is it located? Right on the river. Jawsome! What am I going to work with? Tourism. Jawsome! Where is it located in relation to everyone else? Far the fuck away. Crap! Haha, my site rocks and I really can´t complain, but I find it funny that in all my interviews with my coordinators to figure out which site is best for me, the only thing I had to say is that I would like to be close to other volunteers so that I can coordinate projects with others as well as be able to travel to their sites and help them easily, and the site I get is the farthest and most secluded. Not the hardest to get to, but I am far from a major ruta and it is the most expensive for me to get to Asuncion out of everyone in our group. On the plus side, we do have a couple direct busses to Encarnacion, 2 hours away, since we are the end of the line for those bus lines.

Anyways, about my awesome kick ass site, which probably instills jealousy in all those volunteers who end up in straw shacks in muddy countries. San Cosme y Damián is ripe for a million and one opportunities and even if I don´t personally coordinate them, they will be fufilled eventually. They have one of the few remaining Jesuit ruins in Paraguay and although they are not as impressive as the other two in Trinidad and Jesus, they have been reconstructed and boast other cool features. Although not as architectually impressive as other Jesuit Reductions, they have a solid collection of art and sculptures carved by the Guaranis. Most Jesuit missions shunned the expression of indigenous customs and values because their mission was to help and educate them in their “way,” with their religion and style. As such the Guaranis demonstrated an amazing ability to copy without any real physical visual references and preknown concepts. However, in San Cosme y Damián the Guarani were able to mix a little bit of their own culture into their artistic expression. An example of this is the gate way at the entrance to the reduction which sports a stone bat at the top. The bat symbolizes immortality and power (strangely) in the Guarani culture, yet has no real significance with the Jesuit faith. However, it was allowed to be carved and placed among cherubs and European relgious stylings. They also have a sun dial, which is apparently the most famous sun dial in the world, which may or may not be true, but I don´t know enough about sun dials to contest it. One of the Padres that ran the mission named Buenaventura Suarez was an astronomer and apparently the first one in South America… at least the first who reported his findings to Europe in this region. He specialized mostly in the schedule of the moon (the phases, eclipses, etc) and mapped it out for many years into the future. He also constructed the sun dial. Because of this connection to astronomy, the local government built a planetarium to compliment the Jesuit experience in San Cosme y Damián. 

Although the planetarium is not large, it is more than legit, at least by American standards. They have expensive modern equipment for the three major parts of the facility (the multi media room has a laptop with cool programs, projector, and DVD player, the planetarium has a dome roof and an top line star projector, and the obervatory has a retractable roof with a built in place powerful telescope) not to mention that the place is run rather well, with organized accounting practices, receipts, and opportunities being explored for expansion including a library and office for a local astronomy organization. They also have a small cafeteria and a gift shop showcasing local and indigenous arteseans.

They also have an island made of desert sand in the middle of the river. It is an extremely unique and rare occurence and, from the pictures I saw, very surreal. It is also home to glass made by lightening because it has the right kind of sand to make glass and is uniquely located where it storms a lot. From a hill in the pueblo you can see the island in the distance, but you can only get to it by a 40 minute boat ride. Some people run private tours to the island.

San Cosme y Damián also has plans to construct a beach and a dock. These are great ideas because they are trying to build up their tourist draw as well as support their local fishing economy. However, they have problems with the local dam Yacyreta which is located a hop, skip, and a jump away. It is flooding the river and they say it is going to stop soon, but they have been saying that for a while. The pueblo is in no danger of flooding, but projects involving the river can´t really happen until they can keep it in one place. Also, the river can´t really be used half the year because in winter (when I visited) it is very dirty, cold, and rough making it not only non-pleasureable but dangerous.

My job? My main project is to work with the local portion of SENATUR (Secretaria Nacional de Turismo, the national organization for promotion and coordination of tourism) and try to increase tourism in ways to benefit the local economy. I can also work with local entrepreneurs and arteseans, women´s groups, youth groups, and many more to manifest projects in just about any area I think is most important. I am the first volunteer to serve here in about 30 years. The last couple volunteers taught health classes and helped start potable water projects, so the pueblo has changed drastically since then. I think this site is perfect for me… so much so it is strange and almost unerving to think about when looking back at all my qualifications and interviews starting from before I even was accepted into the Peace Corps. How did they know? Well I guess all that is important now is to actually do the Peace Corps thing and hopefully after two years I will have accomplished some amazing things for my site.

Randomly one night, we had decided that we were not going to stay stuck in our training community. Although we all love Villeta and it will always be our home away from home, our training schedule wasn´t allowing us to escape to Asuncion, which is really close by. So we left! And what for? A cool night on the town and visiting a month long festival called “The Expo.” An expo for what you ask? Everything. It is a kind of surreal feeling to be sent here with the Peace Corps and then, while in the country, witness a an event like this. Just about every major country had an exhibit, every major ONG, and every major information technology comapany. Although I never thought this, the expo proves that the Peace Corps is not the only organization outside of Paraguay helping Paraguay. In fact, in some ways, this expo shows that we might not be needed… but too late now! HAHAHA!

Anyways, they also had a whole mess of exhibits for domestic things such as the two hydroelectric dams, local cell phone companies, arteseans, and of course national livestock competitions. Naturally, out of all the awesome unlikely things we encountered in the expo, I only took the pictures of the cows… well, because they were really big cows and they were fun to look at.

At some point we were wandering through all the artesean stuff and started trying on hats. For some reason this one hat looked really good on one of the girls in our group and we couldn´t explain why. It was a nice hat, made from fine leather and sturdy construction and the price showed. So we haggled, threw in a couple Guarani phrases to through the vendor off guard, and boom, one of us got a cool hat. The hat became a thing… it is her hat, her thing.

A week or so later, my group for Dia de Practica finally finished up the world map project at our school. The map came out fantastic if you can´t tell by the pictures. We labeled and outlined everything (a very tedious task), and because of this it looks ten times better than most examples I have seen of the map. We ran into only one other major problem. We couldn´t seal the map with a sealing layer. To write some of the names of the smaller countries we used a washable marker and the sealent paint made it melt almost instantly. So now we are just gambling hoping that it is protected enough from the elements without the sealent to last a good while.

Our local weekend hangout spot “Yola´s Copetin” where the whole town would be informed that the cringos were drinking tonight. Cute little place though, with really good ham and cheese empanadas and cold beer. We were often joined by Paraguayans and this one pic of me staring at my beer pensievely with my host bro in the background was just luck and good timing.

My compañera/prima was making American style cookes… I forget exactly what for. I think it was someone´s birthday. Anyways, it was stressing her out and I got yelled at for being my goofy self hahaha. The cookies still tasted good. I got a bunch extra because she felt bad for yelling at me haha.

One night, Villeta (which does not have a dance club) decided to rent out the old warehouse thing which is used for events for a reggaeton party (I think sponsored by the local radio station). Anyways, it was the hot spot that night and of course we were there to take part and make face. All sorts of funny debauchery and cultural integration took place that night, but none so impressive as when one of our fellow group mates decided to take teh microphone without permission. The same one who had the awesome recognizeable hat. The only hat at the party actually. When a Lady Gaga song started playing she jumped up and started singing to the DJ´s so they turned on the microphone and let her go. Of course everyone took pictures, and as such, one landed in the local newspaper with a very funny caption I can´t for the life of me remember. Something about “in a spontaneous action of blah blah blah an American took the stage and sang for everyone blah blah blah.” We were already celebrities in our small centro, but we were a bit more recognizeable now haha.

The first picture is a picture of my farming, salt of the earth, campo family, complete with the identical twins. They really look the part and are as nice as could be imagined. When I left them, I was given the twins´numbers so that I could stay in touch when I got my cell phone. If you are thinking that this is romantically charged, stop right there, because first: they are underage, second: they are the only ones in the family that speak good enough spanish for me to communicate with, and third: I tried to leave a good impression as a PC trainee because somebody from our group was going to receive this site in a month. That said, I get made fun of by little girls like white on rice. I dunno what it is, maybe they all have crushes, or I just leave the door open for insults and comical asides, but I take it all in stride and it seems to help with getting to know everyone. My grandma in Villeta calls me stupid because a joke was made at some point. I laugh and play along, but really only because grandma is crazy and most of the family tries to ignore her. Oh grandma…

On  the way out of Lote Mainumby, one of mi compañeras got stuck in the fence to get out of the volunteers house. His house was in a fenced in area, within a fenced in area. The second fenced in area containing many cows. There were also no gates. You had to find specific weak points in the fence to squeeze through.

On our way back home, it was decided by our language professor that we get some Paraguayan experiences and travel a bit. Fuck yeah! First stop was this really old wood carving guy and his shop that is considered as some hidden national cultural icon. His work wasn´t really that impressive, but the framed photos of him in the background of this picture I took sure are. It´s probably hard to tell, but there are photos of him shaking hands with the pope and a whole slew of dignitaries and politicians from other countries. The guy was very nice and the whole experience was kind of surreal… mostly because noone in Villeta knows who he is.

We eventually made our way to Caacupe, which is the religious center of Paraguay. Every year around early December (December 8th?) thousands of people in Paraguay make a pilgrimage on foot to the basilica in Caacupe for religious reasons or party reasons. Caacupe is nesteled in a valley and right in the center is an impressive looking basilica that puts the Ba´hai temple in Chicago to shame. A lot of people come here to party mostly because the walk to Caacupe has become sort of a tourist draw. I admit, I want to partake in the walk and party as well.

Afterwards, we went to visit Atyra, which is famous for being the most clean city in Paraguay (a feat that would not seem hard to do since many Paraguayan cities have a lot of problems with trash collection), but low and behold, it exceeded my expectations. It had paved roads, sidewalks, and public trashcans with signs everywhere. The signs mentioned about how this town is kept so clean and how everyone needs to throw away their trash in formal trash bins. It was very different from the rest of Paraguay. There was also a cool church in the middle of town on a hill in the plaza and I asked an altar boy to show me how to get up the bell tower. He showed me the rickety, dangerous series of ladders I had to climb and I went up. It was gorgeous and I could see a famous Paraguayan lake from the top, although you might not be able to tell in the picture. The lake is a tourist spot for the Paraguayan rich elite. I called out to people from the top, but got bored since it was just me and the altar boy so I climbed back down. When I looked back up, almost everyone had climbed up without me. I felt cool for being the one that started the trend, but sad because I was left out. Oh well, at least everyone understood how terrifying it was to get up there.

We recently had a week where we got to visit a volunteer in site to gain a sort of “Week in the Life” sort of experience. My group got to go real campo where there are only dirt roads and farms. The compania, located near Arroyos y Esteros, was called Lote Mainumby, which means Hummingbird Land in Guarani. Sadly we did not see any hummingbirds. We did however see a lot of other cool stuff.

The family I got to stay with had a bunch of farm animals a farmland (naturally). They also had two identical twin daughters, whose names were Silva and Silvia (I think). I never once referred to them by their names… it would be impossible to differentiate. I spent most of the time talking to them though because they spoke the best spanish in the whole family, and according to the volunteer in the site, they are also possibly the smartest people in the village. Communicating as a whole was kind of difficult, since this was definitely the type of place where Guarani is the only language used. The girls were very sassy and funny and all of this, along with their spanish knowledge, is probably due to their infatuation with telenovelas. After this week I became a fan of Bella Calamidades and Victorinos, both of which are utterly ridiculous and just what you would expect from a latino telenovela. Good stuff.

At some point we visited a pine apple farm on top of a hill and we could see for miles. It was gorgeous, and it was times like these when I wish I had memorized the Lion King speech where Mufasa tells Simba about how all of this will one day be his. The picture doesn´t do it justice, but the hills in the background were constantly changing because the shadows from the clouds would move over them so swiftly.

I also got to eat a chicken that was alive a few hours before I ate it. One of the daughters was the lucky gal to do the killing. I have video of it I´ll post later. I have to revisit this family because they said the next chicken that is to be killed in my presence, will be killed by me.

The volunteer in site used to be stationed in Arroyos y Esteros before realizing he could do more good out in the campo. One of his first projects was the World Map Project, just like the one I´m completing with my training group now. His is much bigger and was a great success, but due to weather and other such things, it is now falling apart. None the less, a picture was taken.

Also in Arroyos y Esteros was a nun he had worked with at one point who helps troubled or underprivaledged youth. It was a huge coincidence that we just so happened to be passing by her facility during her birthday party, so we got invited in for hot chocloate and cookies. She is a very funny woman, and from stories I have heard, she has very peculiar quirks. My favorite being her complaining about Paraguayan customs… but the customs that don´t really have any influence on anything. For example, Paraguayans eat meals without drinking. They wait until the very end to drink anything. I find this amazing, especially since some of the things they eat are some of the dryest things on the planet. Anyways, she has been cited calling the kids stupid because they don´t drink during their meals, and that her (from spain) and the volunteer (from america) drink during their meals, and THEY are from CIVILIZED and DEVELOPED countries.

We also got on the radio. I didn´t talk much but shared a short laugh. One of my other compañeros, who could speak spanish better, made some very funny jokes about us and what the Peace Corps does. He had mentioned that he was a personal advisor to Barack Obama and he is down here to do research for him about Paraguay… Hopefully noone believed him.

One day we also got to harvest sugar cane, which was pretty fun, AND only one of us was attacked by ants. The chopping and shaving/trimming the cane was easy, but I had to take my time to watch for my fingers. The natives moved like lawnmowers, quick as lightening cutting the stuff. And from what I can tell, they all still had their digits.

My host family one night made a Paraguayan desert called crema. It has eggs, cream, sugar, and even bits of carmelized hard sugar… it is exactly creme bruleé. I then found out that my family doesn´t know what creme bruleé was, so I thought it was cool I could inform them that they were making sophisticated french food all the way in the middle of Paraguay.

There was this neighborhood dog named Pinky who was sweet as could be and extremely playful. So playful, that when he wasn´t getting enough attention, he would chase around the cows. If the cows didn´t want to play he would bark until they were frustrated and started to charge. It looked like the cows were playing, but holy crap was Pinky playing with fire. He would get so damn close to the horns and always dance just out of reach. God speed Pinky.