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.