Almost a month in....

Mba’eichapa!

Sorry for the long wait and the lack of communication….it is very easy to just avoid internet and communication in order to not have to spend the time writing etc…not to say that y’all are not important or deem writing, which of course you do!

As you can see “mba’eichapa” is the first word I learned in Guarani. The loose translation is “How is it going?” but literally I think it just means “how.” It is accompanied with a nice strong handshake even from the women…not of that limp fishy type of shake I got in Uganda but not like the power grab in the US. If you are greeting women, then they go to air kiss both your cheeks and comment ‘Que linda…” etc…or some comment on if you look fat (happy) today and for me basically talk about my blue eyes. If you are so lucky to get two kisses from a guy but that is generally reserved for good friends…not necessarily boyfriends etc… Though I have had the occasion where a unknown guy, mostly my brother’s high school friends, zoom in for the cheek kiss and manage to lay nice sloppy wet ones on my cheeks. That as we learned is a sign in Paraguayan culture for a sign of interest… My grandmother on the other hand coordinates the kissing with a couple of squeezes to my thighs. We have yet to figure out the actual intent but Nina (another trainee and also granddaughter) think that it is checking out my childbearing abilities as we have never seen her do this to guys. It might also have something to do with her lack of fat, I think she is about 90 and though is quite spritely; her thighs might be the diameter of my lower calf.

My grandmother happens to live on the corner between the main street, Calle Ybate, and my house so I often walk through her open-air house, rooms off of an open walk-way, to get to mine. At the beginning of my time I didn’t know any other way so all of the other trainees who came to visit had to awkwardly meet and greet my grandmother, aguela (yes, sort of like Spanish) as well, thigh squeezing and all.

Ill try to give you guys just a few more details of my life (I am actually using another girl’s computer to write this ahead of time…) So as I mentioned the last time I have class all day and once a week go into the big town, Guarambare for group class. Training is sort of going back to school, something I should have expected but also so much information in such a short time – back to HS or elementary with a 8-5 schedule. It is also increasingly compact because they are now fitting 12 weeks of training into 10 weeks because of budget cuts…note: y’all should write you congressman to complain about PC budget cuts…seriously they don’t need to give PC that much money for it not to go a long way in these developing countries. Its the third week and I am actually starting to click with the language though I am still in the basic sort of sentences. In the afternoons we have tech training, mostly focused on bees but some agriculture stuff because we are truly crop extension volunteers just with a more specialized sector.

The bees: I am actually really enjoying it, I like bees. They are the sort of animals that are real organized and I get so much satisfaction from just the basic ‘lets reorganize the hive and clean it and make it all lindo and everything…’ the ocd-ness of the operation is great. We do work with Africanized bees so they are more aggressive then the ones in the US. They initially had Italian bees here but in the 50’s someone brought some African ones to Brazil to experiment and of course because you can’t really control bees, they got out and their genes started to dominate the Italian population. It is still spring so they aren’t that angry but as the people with beekeeping experience have mentioned much more aggressive. You would never consider going into a hive without smoke and full body cover…I have only been stung a couple of times and have had varying reactions from a welt the size my fist on my knee to not even having a reaction when I got stung right below my eye. That was a relief, and really really hurt, my eyes watered A LOT but I cant even find the sting now. That was on my volunteer visit, which the highlights were working bees, getting lost and chauffeured by the Paraguayan military and then getting sick….topped off by a 10 hour bus ride which I couldn’t eat anything on because I was sick.

I just found an English radio station but probably will spend all night at the internet cafe on Nov 4th....

Lots of love,

Marcy

A Week In...

Well, here is a bit of a taste of my life right now....I get up every morning at around 6.30 and get ready for school (school on days that I am only with beekeeping). I have a small breakfast of tea, its like nescafe with lots of milk really, and some little bread things. I walk down the road to CHP´i, the subcontracted organization which trains PC Paraguay. I have language class until noon where I go back home for a bit of lunch, a lot of lunch because its the largest meal. Then return to school for technical training till 5 or so. Home - hang around go visit people play soccer until dinner around 8 or so take a cold shower and go to bed. I realize that this is brief - I am also pressed for time...sorry I will elaborate more once my little sister isnt waiting on me at the internet cafe. On other days we have to go into town for training with the big group - which means we leave our site at 6.30...yeah! Oh, we met the bees for the first time and it was really cool - they are africanized I wrote down the species but forgot to bring it today....

Have fun with life in the US!
Marcy