!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

Mba´eichapa!

So I am just writing a quick post to tell everyone I have gotten here safely. Internet is real expensive here and also I dont really have a lot of time to get to the internet etc... The PC Group that enters in September 2008 (G28) is all agriculture and environmental volunteers; crop extension, beekeeping, agroforestry and environmental education. There are 28 volunteers in total, we all met in Miami and had some basic training....got on the plane on...Wed night? Im not totally sure, dates and days dont pass in a normal way. We stopped off in the Sao Paulo airport and then got to Paraguay on Friday morning, amazingly we arrived on the same plane as the president, Fernando Lugo, who had just been in NYC for the UN. It was pretty amazing because everyone on the plane was really excited and there was military and bodyguards everywhere. We arrived and it was a whirlwind ... I live in a small community the furthest out from the main training site with a family that has had several volunteers in previous years. I have a brother, Ariel 17 and sister, Alice 7 and of course mother and father and A LOT of family around me. The primary language is Guarani which is an interesting adventure along with all the other trainings that we get... I´ll write more soon! Have a fun winter...its going to get very hot here soon...
Marcy

The Last Best Place

It is 11.15 pm the night before I leave Missoula...I have many feelings running through my mind but those are mostly clouded by denial of stress and the current cold virus that decided to pop up my last couple days in Montana. Leaving for two years plus is a bit stressful, exciting and unimaginable, in many ways it exactly like what many of my friends are experiencing, the first day of school or new jobs etc...but there is that two years in a hut that is possibly the major difference.

I might say that I know very little about Paraguay - I might add that it might not entail me to spend two years in a hut like PC Africa has to look forward too. It definitely will be different from domestic life in Montana or DC but I believe that I certainly will have power and maybe even running water (fingers-crossed for at least a tap). Paraguay is an unknown country to most people and also to the Missoula Public Library -so what I know is from either Wikipedia or the 20-page packet that was sent to me upon my PC invitation. A brief summary of my knowledge:

1. the largest export is hydro-electric power (why I know I will have power)
2. had a very bloody war in 1870 with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, the War of the Triple Alliance, which resulted in a state (department) named after President Rutherford B. Hayes (Presidente Hayes)...go figure
3. there was a dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, from 1954 to 1989, terrible guy - like Nazi war criminals who then was overthrow, yet his political party still retained power until the most recent election.
4. and the new president is a former bishop, a leftist, Fernando Lugo - who knows what he will be up to because he was only inaugurated in August of 2008.


My preparation for this trip, the only part I had definite information on, was my packing list which I won't burden you with but I will offer a little amusement of my packing situation.

Here is picture of what the living room looked like with all the items I intended to fit into my two bags (80 lbs max) and to be honest ALMOST all of it did fit...who knows if I will actually use all of those items but if not they will find a nice home in Paraguay.

As I conclude this post, I have a couple of thoughts, some more important than others.
1. On behalf of my mother's strong emphasis on grammar - I apologize in advance for the glaring grammatical errors which will certainly occur in the future.
2. I promise to do my best on updating this blog - but there will be unavoidable voids on information and voids in time...who knows what sort of sketchy internet service I will find at my site...
3. If you write either email or snail mail - I will do my best to write back but also there might be unavoidable stretches of response time...who knows what sort of mail services...and yes I will be testing the global mail service and reporting back ie. letters to Thailand and even Europe.
4. Last but not least, I am excited to share my experience with all of you and give you maybe a brief look into a different culture and world...and I am thankful for all of your friendship and support on this new adventure that I am taking and happy that none of you tried to convince me otherwise.

I will miss you but I will see you all again...in two and a half years or when you are lucky enough to visit me...!!!

PS. For the next three months (my training I will probably have weekly email access and feel free to share this blog with anyone who seems interested).
PPS. Make sure to subscribe to this...I will eventually stop emailing to tell people I've posted...or if I can figure it out I might automatically put all of you on this