Mud Roads and Diarrhea

Mamá and Sister Diana


Mi Casa


Mamá and Me


Belén and Alé


Learning the bottle dance with a jar

The Peace Corps is awesome. I´ll tell you all about it. The morning I was supposed to leave I woke up all excited at 6:30 and held it together perfectly until Laura started getting all emotional and then I completely lost it for the 3 hours going to the airport and boarding the plane, where I seriously questioned what the hell I was thinking, (my Grandma asked me if everyone reacted like that, and I can now tell you that, yes, everyone I talked to did the same thing at some point)but then I was on the plane and felt better. I flew to Miami for staging, which is the little pre-pre-training time so the Peace Corps can get all the paperwork together and give us a tiny bit of information before we go. They´re definitely doing everything on pretty much a need-to-know basis, and it´s all very organized and planned, so that´s comforting.

So the first person I met was on the way to the hotel in the shuttle and he actually recognized me from this blog- I didn´t even know other people read it, so that was cool. There are 18 people in my training group; 10 with me in rural economic development and 8 in Municipal development, which I think is the same thing but for cities and towns. So we had the evening to get settled and the next morning had a sort of class thing where we did activities and they gave us a bunch of info, and then we headed to the airport and took the 8 pm flight to Sao Paolo, Brazil. It went overnight and we were supposed to sleep but I didn´t and was exhausted. Then we took another flight to Asunción and got there at 10 am to be greeted by a group of masked men and women who turned out to be with the Peace Corps (and still taking swine flu precautions). Everyone was SO excited and smiley and happy to see us and a few volunteers remarked how the whole application process was so strict, like they really didn´t want you, but once you start, they´re thrilled. I guess they just don´t want you unless you´re serious, so that makes sense. We took an hour van ride to Guarambaré to the training center, and they just started in right away with pre-training stuff and activities. We were tired (and I was starving since I´d barely had any food since breakfast the day before because it was all bread in all the airports, planes, and the training center) and really wanted to just rest, but having done this before, the PC knew that and had to get it all in while we were still standing.

That evening, we were introduced to our host families. I love my family. My dad Porfidio is in Argentina working in construction, so I haven´t met him yet, but my mom Celia is so sweet. She´s a dressmaker. When we met she said she knew I was her daughter as soon as she saw me and cried and hugged me so hard. I have a sister Diana who is my age and a brother-in-law, Carlos. My 2 nieces, Alé and Belen live with us too, and are 14 and 12. The first night we sat and talked and some of Celia´s friends came to meet me, and then I went to bed at 8. The next day a van picked us up and it was back to the training center for more stuff and we started language training. Mbà'echapa - get a load of that. It means How are you? in Guarani and I will be learning a lot more of it.

So another full day of training and then an evening with the family again. On the map the PC gave us, it looked like a pretty short distance up the street where we all lived, so we decided to walk, and I came home just after dark to my mom crying because she thought I´d be home earlier, poor thing. That night I got my niece Belén, who is in dance classes to teach me the Bottle Dance that is a tradional Paraguayan dance with a wine bottle on your head (I learned with a ceramic vase), and as soon as I can I´ll post those pictures. I also got her to get in both her Bottle Dance costume and her Hip-hop dance costume and show me that dance, which is pretty awesome since the first night neither of the girls would come near me and their grandma said they were so shy. I told her then that they were going to be my friends whether they liked it or not, and it´s true. I can´t understand 90% of what the girls say, but I can understand a lot of what everyone else says when they speak slowly. It´s easy for them, too, because they can talk about me right in front of me in Guaraní and I can´t understand anything. Also, Carlos knows a little English and sometimes he can help translate. I´m going to help him with English while he helps me with Guaraní and we´re excited about that. Then saturday was a half-day at the training center on our street (a realy long muddy and cobblestone street where all the Rural Economic Development (RED) group lives) and we learned all about Maté (yerba tea), which is a huge part of the culture and there's a whole system designed around how it´s served and drunk.

Saturday afternoon a few of us, hosted by another volunteer, Brad´s, brother Augusto, went into the city to pick up a few things, which took a lot longer than we thought it would (another reminder about the whole Paraguayan Time thing, and that´s how it´ll always be, which is fine as long as I remember about it). Also, Paraguayans are not as short as I originally thought and there were actually a lot of tall people in the city. Paraguayans also think nothing of greeting people with really obvious statements of their physical characteristics, like -Oh hello! Have you gained weight because you seem really fat!; but if they´re talking about my height it´s in Guarani because the only thing I´ve understood is Pretty when they greet me, so that´s nice. It´s very sociable here, and we sit around and talk and hang out and drink maté A LOT. The whole time we´ve been here, it´s been raining and cold; not too terribly cold, but the line between inside and outside around here is a lot blurrier than in the US and there´s no heat or anything, so it seems a lot colder. Also, all of our training stuff is in this building that´s just sort of open, so we´ve had to bundle up and it´s not that bad once you just accept that´s how it´ll be. So the streets are super muddy but they won´t always be, and it has been cold, but today was warmer already and the winters aren´t consistent, so at least I´ll get breaks from the cold. This street is kind of suburban rural and although we don´t have any animals (except a dog, Rocky, who stays outside and is supposed to be a guard dog but is so sweet and cute and we aren´t allowed to pet him because he gets people all dirty), but there are all sorts of oxen and cows and pigs and chickens and goats on the street and the milk in the fridge is from the cow down the road.

Everyone caters to me ridiculously and they just drink maté in the morning and at night, so each time I´m eating they just sit and watch me. They won´t let me do anything to clean up or help in any way, which is a little awkward, but it´s new and hopefully that´ll change. I asked, in spanish, -I´m not a guest right? I´m part of the family? -Oh yes, of course you´re part of the family. -Good, then let me help. -Oh, no! haha, don´t be ridiculous. Then they swept away my dishes and that was that.

I really love being here (I´m told that this is the honeymoon phase and the Culture shock phase is next, so I´ll let you know. But for now, my diarrhea is subsiding and I love everyone in my PC group as well as the trainers, and adore my family. I slept late this morning (Sunday) to recover from the big week, and came outside to see the whole family doing laundry by hand to hang on the line because it´s the first sunny day. They fed me peaches and got me a chair, and then the girls walked me here, so I´ll keep you all updated as best I can. Real training starts on Monday.