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.