Swearing In...take 2

I just wrote a whole post and then lost it....sad.


A brief description of swearing in - I am now officially a Peace Corp Volunteer, as of December 5th. We had the ceremony at the US Embassy in Asuncion and like all of the US Embassies I have seen it was manicured to perfection - also has a pool that as a Volunteer I can use! The ambassador could not attend due to a meeting in DC apparently but we had a replacement - I am not actually sure of his title. He and our country director spoke both of which were bland and forgettable but a message of, 'this is a great oppurtunity and a great place to be.' Both of which are true but not going to keep us awake in the summer heat. We also had voted for one of the other volunteers to speak, who did keep us awake and amused (Steve is a farmer boy from Ohio with a booming voice.) Then we were let free, not really because we had to get bank cards and phones for PC as well as other errands - but this weekend was the first oppurtunity to really get to know Asuncion. My phone number...country code 595 and then my domestic number 0982600006 - I dont know if you leave the first 0 or take it off when calling but once I find out Ill be sure to tell you...skype you can call me for about 6 cents a minute. 01159598260006 - correct number 0- that is what you need to dial...


We had an article in the local Asuncion paper as well - http://www.abc.com.py/2008-12-06/articulos/476047/nuevos-voluntarios-en-el-cuerp- and make sure to check out the related articles b/c they interviewed two of the beekeepers (yes all in spanish, sorry)


Here is also a picture of the bees - bottom left to right - Lara, Nina, Adam, Mitra and I - top l to r - Justin and our trainer, Jonathan.



I leave for site tomorrow so I am excited for that and ready to get to work or get to start trying to ackwardly socialize and drink terere with hundreds of people.



Merry Christmas - Marcy

Another way to say ´Hello!´

As Justin (one of the bees) always says the Guarani language is really deep - the example is their combinations of words that then later mean another thing. For example - nothing - mba´ve - when broken down means -mba - things - ve - more, so nothing literally means more things. The other words - no where - moo´ve - moo - where + ve ie - more where - and the last example no one - mava´ve - more who...the ancient Guaranis must have been very philosphical. I think it strikes a chord in the PC where having nothing might be very similar to have more. My final language class and interview approach on Wed, and I am amazed at the speed of my language comprehension. I definitely, with a month or two, will speak better Guarani then Spanish, though I will have to improve my Spanish as well. There are very few people in Paraguay that do not understand or speak Guarani. In Asunción, Spanish is more prevalent but since most of the population has moved there from the campo they understand Guarani. In the campo, generally Guarani is spoken but Spanish is widely understood either from school or more likely watching TV. I actually have to at least improve my Spanish as well because one of the beekeepers in my site only speaks Spanish.

Like many languages Guarani is not a written language and has taken many advanced and modern words from Spanish. The ease that Paraguayans can transition between the languages is amazing. At a meeting for example, the conversation is conducted in Guarani but the minutes are written in Spanish without hesitation or thought - in the end with all of my classes - I will write better Guarani then most of the population. Note - I will never speak pure Guarani, since my site is pretty large and semi-urban - my language will be Jópara- the mix of Spanish and Guarani.

I will try to get out an email about my site but I am running out of time right now.

MISS YOU ALL!!!
Marcy

!MY HOME FOR TWO YEARS!

I got my site - a small town (1000) called Capellania near the larger town of Caraguatay in the province of Cordillera. You definitly can find the larger town on the map - its a new community with very little bees but close to the markets of Asuncion...and they sell lots of fruits and veggies. It sounds like a real chuchi community and I am the closest of my G´s to Asuncion, like 3 hours. I wont be ruffing it either, since my community has running water and electricity. Im off to visit tomorrow and then two more weeks until I am officially a PCV!!

SITES...maybe?

I will try to sum up the past few weeks as I prop my lids open (and probably not accomplish any review of my activities)...I am writing this from my bed, to then enter tomorrow morning maximizing my internet time..., I am under my misquito net listening to the strains of the oh so constant polka music, my family talking and variuos insect noises coming in my window. I was talking to Ariel about the lack of variety in his music tastes and how I dream of cachaca musica and then I wake up and the dream doesn´t end...a cachaca filled nightmare.

Speaking of dreams I had my first one in Guarani...YEAH! Not that it made any sort of sense, I just know Guarani was being spoken. The dream, which occured on our long field practice (a week long visit to a current volunteer, filled with fun and intense...intense is just the word to sum it up, new host families and days filled with Guarani...) Anyway, the dream - included my tech trainer, Jonathan and Danielle, the current volunteer, coming to my host family´s house (the one on long field) in the middle of the night and visiting. I think the Guarani was actually the running commentary in my head about if when they left I would leave the house with them in order to fo to the latrine. It was very much on my mind, I now not that it stemmed from the fact - 1. I had to actually go to the bathroom. 2. I was afraid of to actually leave my room at night because of the guard dogs they have and they might not recognize me. 3. my family had not actually told me the location of the latrine was, I asked earlier where the bathroom was and got a response of ´oh, we dont have one....´ They assumed that I wanted a modern bathroom though that could have been lost in translation...my interest in bathrooms should have jogged them into showing me the latrine because even norteamericanos will eventually have to use the toliet....My inner monologue at one point switched back to English but that could have also occured when I woke up and still had my mind focused on the toliet.

This post has nothing really to do with what I have been up to the last few weeks but one more amusing picture before I sign off - think about what you were doing election day and then visualize me...not having access to news and freaking out...climbing around with my antenna and shortwave trying to pick up even a slight hint of english...I eventually found Voice of America and then BBC, it defintily was BBC Africa and I have even found BBC East Asia but no sign of South America...anyway I got to see part of Obama´s speach on the news in Spanish the next morning

I also have a bunch a pictures and a amazing video what I hope to never see again - you know how I said you would be crazy not to use smoke on Africanized bees well we found someone that crazy and I am very sure that I am not dangerously allergic to bees because I got over 15 stings from that little adventure...

I might write a short message this afternoon with my site!!!

Marcy

Blackberries and Bees....

I am at the PC office in Asuncion today - we got a day off from class today - which is amazing but it was to make up for the extremely long day we had yesterday. It takes about an hour to travel here and two crowded buses, though nothing like Uganda only a little shoving is involved and the likelyhood that you are either getting on or getting off a moving bus. The driver speeds along while blasting his music and drinking his terere...thermos and cup in hand. Terere is the national pasttime here, its mate or a tea but cold with other local medicinal herbs mixed in with ice and poured into a smaller cup and bombilla (a sort of metal straw). The amazing thing is that they don't spill a drop. This will be very important in the future...proper terere'ing because it is the way we are going to integrate with the community. A lot of awkward conversation and overful bladders later...






Yesterday - we visited a former beekeeping training site (one that was in the early 2000s) and a very guapo man (hardworking). He had 8 hives that were in various stages of disrepair, including one that had fallen all the way apart...but this is good practice for what we will see out at site. The hardworking part came from the fact he owned about 14 acres of land and worked it all himself and did a lot of real lindo things like intercropping, rotation and abonos verdes - green manures. Back to the hives - it basically was transfering comb that had been bent and broken to a new hive - trying to avoid killing bees, hurting the brood and totally destroying all their honey. It worked out okay but definitly involved a lot of honey leakage and cutting of comb. I am going to try to upload some pictures - along with one of my sister, an amazing act of acrobatics getting

two people into a bee suit and the cigars that I rolled. The blackberries were the dessert of the day - this farm had a whole hedge of them and just there for the taking - amazing....you'd think that a country that could grow all these amazing fruits and veggies would actually enjoy eating them or somehow make them more available but that is life....








Talk to you soon!

Marcy

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