Christmas 2008

So, after over a week of 100+ degree weather I was thinking it might be a little hard to summon any ¨Christmas Spirit¨. Well, thanks to some rain that broke the heat last night and a quick trip to the Onion´s Cheap Toy Roundup (http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/cheap_toy_roundup_2008) I´m feeling a lot more festive. I´m in San Jose right now to pick up a fellow volunteer who´s going to spend Christmas with me and buy tons of fruit to make ¨clerico¨ aka really good whop that is the traditional Christmas drink. We´ll stay up until midnight tonight and celebrate Christ´s birth at the earliest possible hour in this time zone. Tomorrow, since we´re both vegetarians, we´ll avoid the Paraguayan tradition of eating tons of meat (something I´m not quite as down with as the alcoholic fruit salad). Merry Christmas to all!

Trindidad

Día de Acción de Gracias

I recently went to a hotel in southern Paraguay (near Encarnacion) to celebrate Thanksgiving with over a hundred other Peace Corps volunteers. We stayed at the beautiful Hotel Tirol, a German run establishment nestled in forested hills, where we swam, ate, and talked English. The hotel is located only a few miles from the Jesuit ruin site Trinidad and I took the opportunity to check out the site with a group of friends one morning. If you haven´t yet seen the movie The Mission check it out and watch it. In the early 1700s the Jesuits organized the Guaraní people to build large reductions where they had shelter, were educated in Catholocism and were protected from the rampant slave traders. The use of native labor under a concentrated leadership actually proved to be an economically successful model that allowed 4000 people to live at the site called Trinidad. Jesuits were expelled from the Americas in 1767 and the reductions have since been deteriorating into their current state. Trindidad is actually a UNESCO World Heratige site; the grounds were remarkably well kept and we hired a very knowledgable guide to tell us about the site.

One thousand Guraranies are currently worth about 22 cents and can buy you all kinds of fun things here in Paraguay. I spent part of a morning recently in the biggest almacen (neighborhood store) in my site photo documenting what can be purchased there for this amount. Enjoy.

A G Gs (1000 Guaranies)

Let´s start off with a little caña and coke- on the rocks! That´s right, you can buy a fifth of hard alcohol for a 1 mil Guarani coin here, it´s really only a little more expensive per volume than soda. The ice trade here is Paraguay is pretty lucrative with the heat. Five big bags of ice will set you back our price tag of 1000 Gs.

That´s right, folks- a pack of cigarettes for 22 cents. Follow up the taste of barely filtered, cheap tobacco with gum, cough drops- I mean candies, or mints.
Anyone need a quarter kilo of rice, sugar, flour or some anis or cumin? Of course you do!
I think this shot speaks for itself. . .

Finding Balance

The heat is back!! Summer is pretty much upon us, with oppressive temperatures of 35 deg C regularly. I have been advancing nicely with my new radio program and working a lot with a woman´s group near my community. Work in the school is wrapping up as the end of the year approaches and my community is preoccupied with the harvest of sugar cane. I have been finding a nice balance lately between hanging out with Peace Corps friends and also making time for my non-PCV friends, be they Paraguayan, Argentinean, or other Americans.

After assisting with training of the next round of agroforestry volunteers on Monday I met up with some of my friends in Asuncion who took me to a nice Irish Pub that had a smooth jazz live act with a great vocalist. The next morning I got some work done in the office and headed back to site in time to facilitate a Participative Rural Assessment with some members of the woman´s group. I love being in my site but it´s important for me to realign myself with my more progressive friends so that I can feel like myself again.

Wall of Fame Additions

A special shout out to Elin Götmark and Darla Frobenius for their recent letters!!! Thanks so much!

On the Air

It´s morning here in San José and I just finished my second radio program! Masako, Porfilio (a Paraguayan friend of ours) and I have begun a weekly radio program the touches on cultural themes and in which we hope to share technical information on our projects, as well. The first week we introduced ourselves, our projects, and JICA and Peace Corps. This week we talked about basic data about the United States and Japan (population, area, etc) and also discussed how to talk to foreigners. I am tired of having Hello German yelled at me and Masako is refered to by whatever Asian nationality comes to people´s minds first. Next week we are going to talk about fruit producation and ways to use fruit. I´ll talk about grafting and Masako will give a recipe for making jam. Every week we have a phrase that we teach in both English and Japanese and also play music in both languages (so far I´ve put on some bluegrass and VanMorrison). We´ve been talking almost exclusively Spanish but I plan to include more Guaraní in technical programs. This week went surprizingly smoothly.

In other news, I currently have a trainee visiting me! Nikita just got to Paraguay a little over two weeks ago and already made her way to my site. She´s staying with me a couple of days to get a feel for my life and work as a volunteer and got woken up at 4:15 this morning to tag along to my radio show. When Nikita got off the bus near my community where we planned to meet we both just about died because we actually had had classes together in Madison!! Nikita studied both Recreation Resources Management and Forestry at Madison only a year behind me!!! It´s been a fun weekend of comparing stories on Madison and Wisconsin.

Y

The guaraní word for water is y. The y´in guaraní is a close central, unrounded vowel and I still can´t pronounce it correctly (though I try really hard to do so, much to the amusement of anyone around me at the time).

It´s supposedly almost Spring here but the leaves are falling (without the prelude of beautiful colors) and there weather seems to bode of cold to come (though I know that´s probably just wishful thinking). In any event, we are experiencing a drought across Paraguay right now. It has been over two months since the last substantial rain. This affects people in different ways. For example, in the communities neighboring mine (all of which have running water) people haven´t curbed their water usage too much yet. however, in good old Serafini, wells are going dry. This means that there are currently 5 households sharing the well in my yard. Lucky for me, the good, deep well is in my yard and I don´t have to carry water for home use any farther than normal. Unluckily for my garden, the added pressures on my well mean that taking water from it to water my garden could mean no drinking water for the houses surrounding mine. Accordingly, I have been watching my garden dry up as I visit it every other day to pick veggies or water with what little brown water I generate from bathing or washing clothes.

Plans of action? I have been talking to my neighbors about digging their wells deeper (obviously not a popular alternative) and will be looking into water cachement systems for trapping rain water in times of abundance to be used for things like watering gardens! Oh yeah, and I´ve been doing a lot of rain dances (though those have a double purpose of passing the long, lonely campo nights!)

Back from Brazil

I´m back in Paraguay after a two week trip to Brazil at the end of August. I met my friend Anna and we headed up to the Pantanal (the world´s largest wetland located in Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia) for some awesome wildlife watching, pirhana fishing, and horseback riding. We met up with three other Paraguay-PCVs there. Some of the coolest things we saw were

• giant river otters



• jaibru storks



• capybaras (the world´s largest rodent)



• howler monkeys



• black and spekled caimans



• hyacinth macaws



• 5 other kinds of parrot and parkeet



• spoonbilled roseates



• toucans



• coatimundis



• armadillos



• bush deer



• white collared pecarys



• and TONS more birds

After our Pantanal adventure I bussed it down to Curitiba with Anna. We enjoyed the greenspace and city planning that the city is famous for before heading out to the coast by train the following morning. Thick fog only increased the feeling of unrevealed mystery still contained in the beautiful forests we passed through. We got to the coast and hung out in a beautiful town until we could get a boat to Ilha do Mel (Honey Island). On the island we explored the beautiful beaches as virtually the only tourists and enjoyed walks to a beautiful lighthouse, restored fort, and surfing beaches. We spent two nights on the island and then made our way back to Curitiba, from where I went back to Paraguay, and Anna took a bus to Sao Paolo to catch her flight.

Kaitlin´s Bored to Tears Mad-Libs

OK, pull out your paper and pencil and write down the following parts of speech:

1. weather adjective
2. time of day
3. place
4. modern convenience
5. aggressive verb
6. noun
7. noun
8. musical group
9. verb ending in ¨-ing¨
10. previously used weather adjective minus ¨-y¨
11. verb ending in ¨-ing¨
12. number
13. time unit
14. longer time unit
15. verb
16. emotion-related noun
17. conjunction
18. verb
19. foreign language
20. foreign language
21. foreign language
22. adverb
23. animal
24. past tense verb

Mad-libs

It´s a (1.) (2.) in (3.) which means the (4.) doesn´t work. In order to (5.) the (6.) and (7.) I´m listening to (8.) and (9.). The (10.) has prevented me from (11.) (12.) (13.) in the last (14.). It makes we want to (15.) with (16.) (17.) I´ll (18.) (19.) and (20.) (and not (21.)) (22.).

PS. A(n) (23.) just (24.) into my room.

My Mad-libs answers

1. rainy
2. evening
3. Paraguay
4. electricity (the only one I ever have)
5. combat
6. boredom
7. silence
8. The Velvet Underground
9. cooking
10. rain
11. working
12. 3
13. days
14. week
15. scream
16. frustration
17. but
18. study
19. Japanese
20. Spanish
21. Guaraní
22. instead
23. frog
24. jumped
    

The Wall of Fame

This is a shameless ploy to get the people who know they should mail me things (you know who you are) to actually send me letters!!! Letters are more desirable than packages because getting packages is a pain and people steal stuff out of them all the time. Letters, on the other hand, make my room beautiful (see above), give me something to read on long, lonely campo nights and tell me about your life. I want to congratulate the following members of the Wall of Fame have my undying gratitute (look how easy I am to please, you too could join the elite ranks by weilding a pen and buying a 94 cent stamp):
MOM (the greatest pen-pal in the world)
Dad
Will
Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Ed
Grandma Alyce
Great Grandma Sheldon
Amy Sheldon
Libbey Sheldon
Kay Kromm
Caroline Hammargren
Kjerstin Moody

Letters can be sent to either of the following addresses (also found on the side bar of my blog) but packages only to the Peace Corps Office (though they don´t actually end up there, urgh):

Kaitlin Schott
San José de los Arroyos
Departamento Caaguasu
Paraguay
South America

Kaitlin Schott, PCV
Cuerpo de Paz 116
162 Chaco Boreal c/Mcal. López
Asunción 1580, Paraguay
South America

You guys all rock and support me a ton already, but I´ve never been too shameless about asking for what I want!

Add aspiring vet and electrician to my resume

I would like to add another bullet to the list of reasons I do not want children:

• the potential of a prolapsed uterus

This week I was visiting a friend in a neighboring community when her uncle came running in talking about a cow being sick. She had just given birth about an hour and a half earlier and the birth seemed to proceed normally but it was the cow´s fourth calf. I went with all of the people going to see the cow and found it in immense pain with what appeared to me to be a prolapsed uterus. I called Mom to get a quick step by step about what to do (really quick, we were only on the phone for about 2 min) and did my best to help out. The local vet was out of town so I knew that the information I had gathered from my mom plus the experience of the farmers was what we would have to go on.

I hadn´t realized it before, but a cow´s uterus is really big and heavy so we got the cow down on the ground so she wouldn´t move as much and so we could work with the uterus better. At Mom´s direction, we spread two kilos of sugar over the uterus to shrink it by osmosis, making it easier to work back in. After the sugar had absorbed as much water as it could we washed off the uterus with water, ¨scrubbed in¨as much as we could, and started forcing the uterus back in. I had the longest arms of anyone there so I was the one actually pushing in the last parts until it was in place. We took shifts that night watching the cow to make sure she didn´t prolapse again and everything went fine. It has been several days now and both the cow and the mother appear to be healthy. As a result of the incident I was able to talk the family into buying balanced cow feed and will be getting some free milk!!! Cows here serve more or less as campesino´s banks and I was very pleased that I could do anything to help them with this unfortunate event.

On a less dramatic note, another accomplishment of mine this week was replacing an electrical outlet by myself. When my family was visiting one of my (two) outlets got fried from plugging too many things into it. I had asked several electricians to come to my house and replace it for me when I finally gave up and bought the outlet myself. Looking at the back of the outlet I figure I would be able to figure out how to wire it if I saw how the old one was wired. I bought a multimeter so I could make sure my electricity actually switched off when I flipped the switch on my box and called my neighbor over so that he could call the ambulance if I messed up. The hardest part of the whole process was that two of the screws on the old outlet were threaded backwards and it took me a couple of minutes to figure that out!

I had an actual agroforestry related meeting scheduled this week (to talk about starting tree nurseries) but that got put off due to rain! Regardless it was still a productive week!

I frame, you frame, we all frame with A-frames!

Last week I attended an Agroforestry training workshop put on by Peace Corps as a part of ongoing training. All of the agroforestry extension volunteers in Paraguay that I went through training with were in attendence along with a member of their community. We used participatory tools to encourage the Paraguayans in attendence to think about and plan their farms and visited an exemplary farm in which agroforestry systems were established eight years ago and are now old enough to understand well. We discussed and practiced citrus grafting, planting and managing green manures- plants used to fertalize fields by producing biomass and fixing Nitrogen, proper pruning of trees, and building contour lines in sloped fields to prevent erosion (as pictured above). The picture shows our Paraguayan guide to the agroforesty system farm demonstrating how to use an A-frame to make a contour line in a field. Every one in attendence got to practice doing so in order to better understand the process. Overall it was a wonderful experience for both volunteers and Paraguayans! Listening to a Paraguayan explain technical info in Guaraní gave me some of the vocabulary necessary to repeat the information and communicate better to the people in my site and the community contact I brought has promised to work to spread what he learned in my site, too!

The fourth and fifth

I´m in Asuncion after celebrating the fourth of July at the embassy and my birthday all over town.

On Friday it was a sunny, 85 degree day so it felt pretty normal for fourth of July! The US embassy puts on a yearly Independence Day celebration and as a Peace Corps Volunteer I was able to go. They grilled burgers and hot dogs and had baked beans, potato salad, mac and cheese, brownies and chocolate chip cookies! I got to meet a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers I didn´t know previously and see others I hadn´t seen in a while. Later that night there was an open mic night at a cafe here in Asuncion as a goodbye party for a group that is finishing their service here. There was a lot of good acoustic guitar playing as well as a great performance by the bluegrass band that is composed of PCVs.

My birthday was a blast and I spent the afternoon at Expo Paraguay which had sketchy carnival rides, fried food, and cows- pretty much the Wisconsin state fair! I went out with a buch of friends after that to go bowling and play pool and then to an ex-pat bar called Pub Brittania. Twenty three's starting out to be a pretty good year! Thanks to everyone back home for birthday wishes.

San Juan

The festivals of San Juan have been going on here in Paraguay since the beginning of the month but the actual day of Saint John is coming up on the 24th. Like usual, I haven´t really gotten the religious significance behind this celebration, but, in honor of San Juan pretty much every community organization (every school, church group, etc) puts on a party some time in the month of June. The parties usually include traditional Paraguayan dance, games, and food. I went to my first San Juan party last Friday at the grade school where I work every week in the school garden.

I went with a local family and when we got there there were a few games set up and a lot of traditional Paraguayan food- chipa (mandioca flour bread), grilled meat, empanadas, and cakes. The games included a greased bamboo pole with rum and chipa put on top to tempt people to climb it,and an effigy of a person stuffed with straw and fireworks and set on fire.

I have some pictures uploaded on Flickr but am having problems uploading them today to share, sorry.

Iguasu Falls

OK, I´ve been a bad blogger and I´m not going to make up for it today. My family just came for a week visit and in addition to going to my site and killing my pig we went to see Iguasu Falls in Brazil and Argentina. They are AMAZING. Pictures can not do them justice as there are over 100 different falls. OK, more later, I promise!

Cerro Kavaju (Horse Hill)

This excursion started with a text from a fellow volunteer asking me if I wanted to go rock climbing. Since I haven´t been into Asunción in a while I naturally thought I was hallucinating when I read her text and immediately fired back a bunch of questions in attempt to validate my sanity. Well, I read right and because of this text met several fellow volunteers in the Cordillera Gobernacion building last Friday. We set out for the hill with four young Paraguayan guides and six volunteers. We wanted to see what the trip was like before potentially bringing youth from nearby communities there as a form of nature appreciation and self-esteem building. We took a beautiful hike up through forest up the hill and wound around until we came to the 150 plus face we descended. Since there were quite a few of us we didn´t have time to all climb the face but everyone rappelled down it! The view was beautiful, the rock was great, and the Paraguayans accompanying us were super- overall an awesome experience! Now I just have to figure out how to get people from my community out there!

Independence Day

May 14 I went into San José for their Independence Day parade. After helping Masako put on her kimono, a really intersting and elaborate process, we made our way to the town plaza together. There we waited through about an hour of speeches the parade started. To start things off the national police band played a few songs and then came the schools. The parade included nearly every student from every school in the area, some guys who have pretty horses, and the local coop (with whom Masako walked). The whole thing lasted four and a half hours and the heat reminded me of Independence Day in the US. There has been a lot of discussion around my community about which high school´s uniforms were the prettiest and who marched best. There was an appropriately large number of fireworks (just little ones that bang and people use in their houses) set off that night, as well!

A Global Community

This being the 21st century, Serafini and my Peace Corps service do not exist in the cultural bubble that might have been the case 20 years ago. International influences abound, from Paraguayans going abroad (usually to Argentina, Spain or the US) in search of work to the veritable plethora of international development agencies trying to do work here in Paraguay. Pictured above is Masako, a volunteer with JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency or something like that. She lives here in San Jose (the town about 5 km from my site) and is teaching crochet and artisan classes with the local coop. We have become friends and she recently gave her first crochet class in my community. We had it right after my English class so she could learn English and all of my English students stayed for the crochet class. Another example of international influences is the American from Boston who passed through my community a few months before my arrival there talking about developing a sugar cane factory nearby. Of course images of Americans from movies and TV largely shape perceptions about the US and Americans, as well. There are large numbers of Japanese and German settlers here in Paraguay who have been living her for generations. The Mennonite colonies that dominate the Chaco (really dry, hot, inhospitable western region of Paraguay) lead many Paraguayans to initially think I´m German. It all leads for an interesting experience here.

Possums, Pigs, and Plants

It has been a lively few weeks here. One of my recent challenges has been dealing with a new inhabitant of my houe: a possum. It has been living in my roof and made his presence intolerable when he began peeing in my house from the rafters. Tha precipitated me getting the neighbors involved. The first night I brought my neighbors over they poked at my roof with a stick and chased the possum out into a tree where it hung out until they started chopping at it with a machete so it ran off into the grass and we couldn´t find it to kill. The next night four Paraguayans came over and climbed onto my roof to scare it out with machetes and slingshots and scared it out of the roof again. I haven´t seen it again yet so I´m happy with that!

I also just bought a pig. Yes, a pig. It is living at my neighbors house and we will be fattening it up to butcher for my family´s visit in June when we will barbecue it.

My garden is looking pretty good right now. I have little lettuce, basil and strawberry plants already and my raddishes, carots, onions, peppers, dill, and sunflowers have sprouted. I´m going to plant tomatoes, cabbage, and swiss chard this afternoon. Plus I´m busy collecting tree seeds to start a nursery in part a corner.

Visitors!

I am busy planning for a whole crew of Schott-Sheldons to come down to Paraguay and visit. In order to tempt others of you considering a trip to the alternate ¨Down Under¨ I will tell you a bit about what we´re planning to do. After aclamitizing in Asuncion we´ll head to actually spend time in my site! Everyone in my site is really excited and we´re already planning the barbecue and making of ¨chipa¨mandioca and cornmeal bread made in a wood heated oven. Then we´re off to see some of the most impressive waterfalls in the world- Iguasu. To finish the trip up we´re headed in a row boat across a marsh teeming with birdlife to a beautiful island that is home to parrots and howler monkeys! More details and pictures after the fact!

Keep your eyes out for info on the Paraguayan presidential going down Sunday. It should be a BIG deal!

An Update in Bullet points

• you can actually hear tarantulas run they´re so massive


• my neighbors use corn kernels to score the Euchre-like card game Truco


• I found an asymmetrical horse shoe on the street last time I was in Asuncion, I swear it looks almost hand forged


• Not being sure if I even know english with reading coöperate in the New Yorker; when did we start using any kind of accents or umlauts


• I saw a nursing cat drink its own milk


• there is a snack food here called Yes Yes that is ecofoam packing peanuts covered in ¨flavors¨ such as egg and sandwich


• after I bought my broom in pueblo I biked home with it sticking out the back of my bike, very witch-like


• one of my friends lives in a site called Tebicuarymi which translates to Little Anus Liquid


• my straight edge is my machete

Help a Starving Paraguayan Child Information Round-up

Ok, this is the first Help a Starving Paraguayan Child Information Round-up, we´ll see how it goes. Really there is food security here in Paraguay but people are more likely to help me if they think about the starving kids from Adopt a Child tv ads, so I´ll play off stereotypes of the developing world.

Here´s the idea: I don´t have that much time on the Internet (and when I´m on I selfishly want to communicate with my family and friends) but know that there is useful information out there that could help me with my projects in my community. SO... I am going to ask those of you with virtually unlimited access to technology to do me favors by researching topics and sending me e-mails or posting comments with links with what you find. I think that I will randomly award points for things like most rapid response, most helpful response, etc.

Challenge Number Petei (1):

Solar cook stoves and ovens

I know there have to be plans out there for a way to use solar energy with materials like tin foil and there certainly is enough solar energy here! Please research plans for making solar cooking implements and send them to me!! Bonus points if they´re in Spanish. If you find information in Gurarani I will fly to wherever you are and give you a big hug and a kiss!

Happy Hunting.

Oh yeah, I have been trying to find ways to lessen the pressures on Paraguayan forests and since people in my community largely cook with firewood solar alternatives would result in fewer trees being cut to be burnt!

Insert bad bee pun here!

After living in Serafini for three months I just learned that one community member not only has bee hives but actually manages them for increased honey production! The week after next (next week nothing will get done becuause it´s Semana Santa- Saints´ Week) I am planning to go out to his hives and help him collect honey and next spring he will help me set up a hive of my own near my house!!! I am really excited to learn about beekeeping after the couple of days I spent practicing working bees in training and hope to work to improve Paraguayans´knowledge of apiculture, too.

Che Roga Pyahu (My New House)

I am officially moved into my very own house down here in PY! My community has been very understanding about my desire to live alone and last Saturday I had eight Paraguayans cutting the grass in my yard with machetes! I am living in plain sight of three other houses and LOVE all of my neighbors. I have use of one room for my bedroom, a hallway, and more ¨rustic¨ back room. I have electricity and the house is brick with a tin roof insulated with straw. I share a well with one other family but have my own latrine. People have been great about helping me to get everything that I need for my house and helping me set up; I´m borrowing a bed and mattress, chairs, and a little table and have been given sheets, silverware, a cooking pot, and dish towels. I plan to buy and electric burner here in Asuncion this weekend for cooking and have started the search for a used refridgerator but know that I may not find one in my price range for quite some time (if ever). I feel very safe in my house and have had tons of people visit me there- I finally am starting to feel like a ¨real¨ Peace Corps Volunteer.

Work has actually been keeping me really busy lately! I will be buying seeds later today here in Asuncion for pretty much my whole community and spend a good part of next week distributing them and teaching about planting in seed boxes to transplant later. School will start up here soon and I hope to do some work in the local schools.

I got two months worth of mail when my boss visited last week and want to thank everyone back home for keeping me in touch. As I settle in I promise to work more letter writing into my new schedule!

I had a woman in my community who was super worried because since I spend a lot of time outside my freckles are becoming more obvious. She was convinced it was a disease that was spreading and asked if I had seen a doctor about it. I am the closest I will ever be to tan with all of my freckles congealing! But don´t worry, I am being sun-responsible, I promise since Peace Corps pays for my sunscreen! Thank you to all of you diligent tax paying citizens at home!

Speaking of taxes, I won´t have to pay a cent of income taxes as a Peace Corps volunteer since I´m making less than Paraguay´s minimum wage. Really the minimum wage only applies to Asuncion, but it´s good to know that they really do keep us to a standard of living commensurate with the communities we´re living in. The ranch hand on the cattle ranch across the street makes more than I do monthly!

I´ve taken the first steps to live alone and have been given permission to use one room of a currently vacant house. My decision to move was precipitated by several people telling me they are afraid to visit me in the house I´m currently in because the Senora is too direct and abrasive. It is really important to me that people feel they can talk to me and luckily there is a place available for me. The house is really close to two of my favorite families in my community and they are really excited to have me move by them. I´m working on finding the necessities for living alone, a bed, something to cook on, and stuff to cook with, in addition to a fan. I think that I will be able to borrow almost everything I need from a woman who just remairied and moved in with her new husband, leaving her old house completely furnished! I might be able to get a fridge and gas stove from her!!!!! It will take a lot of work to clean up the house but we have a work party planned for next weekend. I probably won´t move in for another month or two but it´s nice for me to know that I will have my own place.

My boss from Asuncion will be coming out to my site on Wednesday and I´m busy planning a big meeting for him to explain more about what Peace Corps is and what an agroforestry can be. I will also get a big backlog of mail from the office in Asuncion (almost two months worth!) and my bike! There´s some debate as to if I will get my cell phone, or not, but if I do I will disperse the number and if not I´ll pick it up in Asuncion on Feb 15 when I have a trip in planned.

I´m back on my Regina Spektor kick and have found the first verse of her song On The Radio to be very appropriate for my current situation

This is how it works
It feels a little worse
Moral is down a bit as I start to see some of the deeper problems of soil degradation and general health and sanitation in my community.
Than when we drove our hearse
Right through that screaming crowd
After living in Madison it is kind of a shock to walk here in Paraguay where right of way goes to the biggest thing moving across the street, sidewalk, or lawn.
While laughing up a storm
One thing that I actually can understand here is laughter and luckily the people in my community have great senses of humor!
Until we were just bone
Until it got so warm
That none of us could sleep
I´m feeling the heat induced insomnia this time of year. Luckily I have a fan in my room but I can´t open the window at night because that would indicate that I want the ¨jakare¨ (Guarani word for crocodile used to refer to men who visit women via open windows) to visit me.
And all the styrofoam
Began to melt away
Here styrofoam doesn´t have a chance to melt away before the chickens eat it.
We tried to find some worms
Actually I´m in search of some California reds myself right now ... I want to start using worms to make compost and encouraging Paraguayans to do the same.
To aid in the decay
Compost piles were the focus of the meeting I led this week and next week I´ll be visiting houses to start compost piles with each family that wants one. Luckily for those purposes, things rot amazingly quickly in the heat and humidity we have here.
But none of them were home
Inside their catacomb
A million ancient bees
Apiculture, another project I want to do some work on. There´s one farmer in my community who has a bee hive but he doesn´t have a smoker or mask and claims that the bees are really angry so I´ll hold off on that until I can find the appropriate equipment.
Began to sting our knees
Mosquitos are more the worry as far as stings go. Luckily, I´ve spent time in Manitoba and Alaska so the mosquitos that they have here seem like nothing (and don´t carry malaria, or West Nile for that matter)
While we were on our knees
Something called All Saints Week is coming up or has started, I really need to figure out what that is ...
Praying that disease
Would leave the ones we love
There are some pretty serious health problems in my community and their treatment ranges from medicinal weeds to curiously popular injections. Praying for diseases to leave is also very popular and I have been asked to pray for several sick children.
And never come again

I´m in Caacupe right now waiting for a meeting with the other volunteers in my area of the country. After the meeting I´m going to visit another volunteer´s site to get a feel for her work and community! Work is going well and I actually got out into a farm field yesterday and hoed with a Paraguayan farmer after building a fence with him for a garden!

Unexpected projects

While I have planted some trees so far in my first month as an ¨agroforestry¨ volunteer by far the majority of my time is spent in other endeavors. I have ended up using some skills that I didn´t really anticipate being useful here in Paraguay. For example, bacteriology lessons have come in handy in my recent yogurt making and all of the stained glass work I did in high school helped me last week when I made drinking glasses out of wine bottles. Lately I´ve been knitting a lot and after teaching one of my friends to knit I mentioned that bamboo knitting needles are popular in the states. Her mom overheard this, walked over to a pile of dry bamboo-like plant that they grow here and started paring it down with a machete. Once she had a desirable diameter we used broken pieces of glass from our glass project to shave the needles down and make them even. Now I´m experimenting with knitting plastic bags to make tougher shopping bags for when people come into town to shop.

In the lines of more ¨technical¨work I´ve started a series of meetings to prepare gardens with the families in my community. We´re hoping to buy seeds together to get a better price and next week I´m going to demonstrate how to make compost piles and then start them with every house that wants help. Right now it´s too hot to actually plant vegetables without complicated, expensive shade structures so we´re planning for March when people usually actually get seeds in the ground. I´m also planning a plantation with Don Ramon, the farmer I¨m living with, for wood for his grandkids´houses. The amazing thing is that here in Paraguay you can actually harvest wood for construction from 8 or 10 year old trees!!!!

I´m off to make peanut butter with a family that just harvested a quarter hectare of peanuts! I hope it turns out!