Serafini

Home sweet home for the next two years will be in the district of Caaguazu. My nearest significant cities are San Jose de los Arroyos and Valenzuela. Serafini is an agricultural community of about 50 houses or 250 people with a lot of sugar cane planted for sale. The majority of the community is subsistance farmers with mandioc (casava), peanuts, and corn planted as the main consumption crops. Soil conservation and planting home gardens are the main resons they asked for a volunteer and there is interest in reforestation, as well.

There is a super guapo or hardworking family that is my contact and has said that I can live with them for the first couple of months in site, if I want. This family is one the few with a home garden and also has an orchard with native Paraguayan fruit trees!

My site has electricity (only one of the 41 people in my group doesn´t) but no running water. My town is only about 5 km from paved road and I should be able to get into Asuncion in about 2 and a half hours! So I will be pretty hooked up while still living the ¨campo¨life.

I´ll get to actually visit my site next week and meet my contact that is from the hardworking family. Then I´ll be back in my training community for two more weeks before swearing in on December 15 and heading out to my site a few days after as a volunteer. More information when I actually visit my site.