Saturday, October 25, 2008

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.


Monday, October 13, 2008

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.