Reforesting Paraguay

I just finished a book about the Dust Bowl and people who stayed at their farms. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. A really good read that seems to give a very good summary of the agricultural side of the Great Depression by presenting the factual information about the event woven into the narratives of people who lived through it.

It does make me worry about Paraguay. The dirt here is a fine, powdery red sand. We are in the center of South America, so there is no good reason for the dust that would be prized on a ocean-front. The only explaination I can think of is erosion. This is a sub-tropical climate that has been reduced to farmland. I’m living in the center of a green desert with rolling acres of almost nothing but wheat, sunflowers, and soy. While walking on the dirt road behind the ruta I can’t shake the feeling that I’m in small farming community somewhere in the north east, layering rolling hills of crops to the horizon. Its beautiful…and extremely destructive. I’ve heard there is a law that 10% of farmland has to be left as forests, but it is clearly not being enforced. During training I got to see terrifying maps that showed the ever dwindling forests that are being replaced by cropland. Soy is the most important commodity in a poor country; they aren’t going to cut back. There is a factoid that states that this part of south America has the highest amount of different bird species. I’ve usually heard it stated in the present tense, but I highly doubt that it is true anymore. Where are all of these supposed birds living? Not in the treeless fields.

And the removal of the forests has had other negative impacts. Hotter summers, longer winters, droughts, more variability in the climate as a whole. Generally forests function like giant climate moderators, softening the extremes. Now the forests are quickly disappearing. Ask any older Paraguayan and they will tell you that something is off. The seasons just aren’t right.

Unlike the arid grass lands of the great plains of the US, whose soil and rainfall was never meant to sustain anything beyond a thick carpet of hardy grass [and wouldn’t be able to do so today if it wasn’t for people taping into the Ogalla Aquifer] sub tropical soils are not as nutrient rich. If you remember back in grade school, in tropical rain forests, all of the nutrients are at the surface of the soil and above, in the dense plant mass itself. That is why tropical forests make such poor crop land, you can slash and burn for a short period of time, but without the dense biomass system there to recharge the nutrients, the soil is quickly exhausted. While I’d guess this effect is a little more moderate in sub-tropical climates, over long periods of times, the final result is probably the same. Modern fertilizers make up for some of the difference for those who can afford it, but that has its own risks.

I just worry that someday the droughts will come and the crops won’t grow and the normally rich eastern portion of the country will look more and more like its scrub-land brother in the west. I’m afraid that what happen during the dust bowl will happen here, but there won’t be a government with the resources and organization to prop the system back up again like the US did with the New Deal. This is an economy based on agriculture, the smallest, most sensitive populations here are those who work the land in small plots. They will be the ones hardest hit by the mismanagement of the mega farms.

There is a small effort to ‘reforest’ Paraguay, but this doesn’t actually consist of turning farmland back into forest. The program mostly just plants trees in parks and school and other urban areas. Not that that is a bad thing, the more people learn about the importance of trees and how to take care of them the better. However, it is a huge misnomer to say that planting trees in a plaza is ‘reforestation’.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/willie_smits_restores_a_rainforest.html

Parasols and Paraguas

After 10 years of using Retin-A, I’ve finally decided I need to heed the ‘Avoid Direct Sunlight’ warning on the box. Even though I use 85spf sunscreen on my face and neck every day, I’m still getting red and I have freckles on my face. I may even, oh goodness, I can’t even say it… I may even have a tan. There, I said it.

To stop the slow advancement of the tan and freckles, I try to observe the siesta and stay indoors from about 12:30-2ish, sometimes even 3 if is a really hot day, when the sun’s ray are the strongest. In the mornings and afternoons I have started carrying an umbrella to keep my face shaded. It is my own little personal cloud. *cue Winne the Pooh’s ‘I’m just a little black rain cloud’

Fun fact
Umbrella in Spanish is ‘paragua’ from the words: parar= to stop; agua = water. Lit = stop water
Parasol/ an umbrella used to keep out the sun is called a ‘sombrilla’. ‘Sombra’ is the Spanish word for ‘shadow’.
If you look at the word ‘parasol’ itself which I would guess comes from the French words for
‘stop’ and ‘sun’
I also find quite entertaining that on a clear day my umbrella is a ‘sombrilla’ and the same umbrella is a ‘paragua’ on a cloudy day. Such a dynamic little item. Actually I have two umbrellas, a large black one for rain, and a smaller silver one for the sun.

I don’t know if the Paraguayan’s realized that black umbrellas will actually generate a substantial amount of heat by themselves in the direct sunlight because of the dark color absorbing the sun’s rays.

Harry Houdini has been reborn as a rabbit

Harry Houdini has been reborn as a rabbit. Lila has an uncanny ability to thwart all of my carefully planned attempts to keep her in her own space, preferring to run free all over my room, which usually includes a potty break on my bed.

First she learned to circumvent the various pens I made from the footboard of my bed and my luggage by knocking over pieces of the make-shift wall, squeezing through small holes I missed, etc. Then she learned use the small table that serves as a roof for her eating and sleeping area as a stepping stool to jump over the cage wall. Once outside of her normal cage area, she learned to use my carry-on sized luggage as a step to my tallest piece of luggage. Sometimes these pieces are about a foot away, but evidently she is willing to make the jump anyway.

Several times I step into my room only to find my little furball standing next to me on the tallest piece of luggage right next to my hand. After coming back from a week at Carly’s house, I was dismayed to find she had finally grown big enough and strong enough to jump on my bed, so that also wouldn’t work as an obstacle anymore. Fortunately last week the carpenter finished the pieces of her cage, so that gave me a new weapon in the fight against my jackrabbit at heart.

Lila’s new ‘cage’ is four independent pieces, 2 squares just under 2.5 feet in length, and 2 rectangles around 5 feet long and just under 2.5 feet high. I didn’t want them connected because I can arrange them in a variety of ways to give her a variety of pens, including one with a top. Very snazzy.

Sometimes Lila jumps onto the chicken wire with all four feet. My little Spiderman in the making hasn’t learned how to actually climb the chicken wire yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she figures it out eventually.

Today I arranged three of the cage pieces in a stretched out ‘Z’ formation so she could run around half of my room, without being able to get on the bed or near the dresser. I came home to find little poo balls on my bed, my jar of peanut butter on the floor [thank fully unopened], the measuring cup that I use to progressively dole out Lila’s daily allotment of oatmeal, and a few other items on the floor.

You see, after using the spokes of the front wheel of my bike to climb over the barrier, she jumped on my bed, and then onto my dresser, to get to the oatmeal. When she was done with the oatmeal, she probably jumped back onto my bed, and hopped back over the barrier to her allotted side of the room where I found her pleasantly munching grass in her litter box.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, but Lila is an oatmeal monster. She is almost as bad as Inigo was with his food at first, but she doesn’t bite. When I try to pour the oatmeal into her bowl, instead of waiting for what falls, she goes straight to the source, putting her head directly into the measuring cup. If I try to pull away, she uses her head, front paws, and sometimes her teeth to grab onto the cup to keep it from floating away back to the dresser.

Evidently she decided today that she would to cut out the middle man, me, and opt for the self-serve early dinner option.

I’m very tempted to give her a little more of that oatmeal that she craves so much to put a little junk in her bunny trunk and weigh that load down a bit.

At Home

I spend the last week at Carly’s house while she was on vacation in Brazil with Stephen. She wanted me to look after her things as well as Luna. For the first time since I arrived in Paraguay, I finally felt at home.

I was well-hydrated and well-fed. I could come and go as I pleased. It was amazing. I visited Marcia’s house a few times to get supplies and it was nice to see her again and be welcomed by the family though Nati was overwhelming sometimes after being alone in the house.

At Carly’s house I loved being able to:
• Going to the bathroom every 3 minutes for the 30 minutes following a quickly chugged glass of water [my bladder is the size of a thimble] without worrying the host family will think I am sick.
• Getting up at 6 or 6:30am naturally because I had a good night sleep so I don’t need to sleep until 8 to make up for the tossing and turning in my hard little bed with the roosters outside.
• Not having to worry about Nati banging at my door for no real reason to wake me up at 7am when I don’t want to deal with people yet.
• Being able to get up early in the morning and not be locked out of the kitchen because Nati isn’t awake yet and for some reason she seems to be the primary keeper of the kitchen key
• Having the muni and Cristo Rey[school] about a block away, so that going to work is quick and easy.
• Take up the entire refrigerator without worrying if I’m imposing on the family’s space
• Not having to get completely dressed in the bathroom after a shower
• Coming and going as I pleased without having to worry about the front gate being locked when I get home or worrying that the gate won’t get locked at all and
• Not having Nati constantly in my ear chatting mindlessly touching all of my stuff
• Having a shower head that actually has a good stream of water, the hot water doesn’t last, but in the summer who cares.
• Cuddling up every night to Phantom of the Opera, Miss Potter, Brokeback Mountain etc, that Carly had on her Ipod.
• Making a delicious batch of meatballs and bean stew
• Carly’s bed. It is big and soft. When I woke up this morning after sleeping in fits on my normal bed, I think I bruised my hip. Seriously, there is a sore spot. It could be from my backpack, but I didn’t put the waist belt very tight and the pain is only on one side.

Luna Highlights:
• Luna running away from off-leash area back towards they highway
• Luna digging a moat around Carly’s house
• Luna finally learning to eat all of her breakfast, lunch and dinner which consists of ground beef, dog food, an egg, and mashed potatoes and carrots.
• Luna tried to eat the food I was keeping on the kitchen table, but the first two things she got a hold of were spicy pepper flakes and lemonade flavored Tang. She seems to have stopped after that.
• Luna broke the small tree that her long-leash is tied to, getting out of her collar, and welcoming me as I opened the front door to let her inside the house as if nothing had happened.
• Luna destroyed some of Carly’s tupperware in her quest for shredded coconut.


I brought Lila with me to Carly’s house for the week because I didn’t trust Nati to be able to take care of her and I didn’t want to walk back and for twice a day between the houses. Fortunately her cage was completed on Saturday, so keeping her at Carly’s house was easy. Lila had to stay in the cage most of the time because I couldn’t rabbit proof Carly’s house and Luna is too rough to be trusted with her. We had a good week, but I wasn’t able to take her out and give her as much attention as normal.

Lila was quite happy to get back to my room at Marcia’s house and her normal freedoms. When I left Carly’s house on Friday evening I was a bit tired after making three trips to Marcia’s house to bring my stuff back, a trip to the grocery, and three walks with Luna, cooking, cleaning, and doing some basic unpacking. Remember, I walk everywhere I go.

That evening I just sat on the floor with Lila, she crawled into my arms and I held her and petted her for what seemed like 20 minutes. She put her head right under my chin for a while so I could nuzzle her and give her little kisses. Then she relaxed into the crook of my arm, eyes half closed, fighting sleep like a little kid in the back seat of a car with their head lazily rolling back and forth. Putty Mode Activated. My head was starting to droop too and my eye lids were heavy, but she had been so deprived of attention for the week, I just couldn’t stand to put her away. Eventually she regained consciousness and hopped out of my arms. I put her into her cage for the night and went to bed.


Back at Marcia’s house…

There were some nice things about being back at Marcia’s.
• Doing laundry is much easier.
• My room actually cools down, unlike Carly’s sauna of a house that is always hotter than the temperature outside. We’ve started looking for a new house for her to rent.
• I like the company of Marcia and Anibal.
• The smooth cement floor in my room almost felt slippery when I tried to sweep it after dealing with Carly’s very rough cement floor. I think it used to be a workshop of some sort.
• Being able to play with Lila and let her run around. I realized that she has gotten big enough to jump on my bed again and thus I am quite thankful that I got her little pen made in time because the bed won’t keep my possessions safe anymore.
• Cooking is easier because Marcia’s house has the gas stove and more pots, pans, and dishes, so I don’t feel like I’m constantly using and rewashing the same thing over and over and over.

Other adventures.

One day I semi-lost Carly’s house key. I walked to Marcia’s house and walked back to Carly’s. When I
got there, I didn’t have her house key on my key chain anymore. The other keys were there, but her’s wasn’t. I searched everything I had on me and then walked back to Marcia’s. I was sure that it had not fallen while I was walking, when meant it had to be somewhere at Marcia’s house. Thankfully Nati found it on the kitchen table.

Nati was completely and utterly convinced that Lila was not the same rabbit when I got back to Marcia’s house. She commented that there was more white around her eyes, which is possible, her fur is also getting some black tinges at the end. I explained color change is normal in rabbits, especially when the seasons are changing.

Then she started saying how this Lila was smaller and had smaller feet. While it is possible Lila may have a tiny bit of weight, I can assure you that her feet have not gotten smaller. What actually happened is that Nati got a rabbit that is actually slightly bigger than Lila, and is steadily getting larger because Nati feeds her too much, which thus making Lila appear smaller.

I’ve now decided the two greatest dangers to this new rabbit are obesity, which causes a host of health and digestion issues. Heat is also another potential danger since Nati is prone to keeping her in a cardboard box. She also might run away, because she generally lives in the kitchen and the door is often open. I still think they will probably eat it when Nati gets bored.

Carly and I call the sacrificial bunny ‘Eeyora’ because she is just this dumpy little passive piece of fluff. When you try to pick her up or pet her, she stops moving completely and just sits there. Eeyora even seeks out Inigos attention even though this usually consists of him gnawing on her head.

All in all, I’ll be ready to move out soon. I can’t justify leaving until April when Carly leaves me her stuff, because I’ve got too good of a gig here. Almost no rent, nice family, lots of freedom. But I’ll be ready to go when the time comes.

Lila is Growing Like a Weed

(September 7, 2009)















(September 26, 2009)











(End of August, 2009)


















(September 19, 2009)


























(September 26, 2009)

By decree of Marcia, Lila is officially mine. *Angels sing Hallelujah

In return for me getting Nati’s rabbit, I have to go buy her another one, which, if left to her own devices she will probably kill or maim. Bitter sweet. I get to keep my little gem safe from Nati’s brutal hands, but at least one other rabbit will suffer because if it.

It started all started this morning…

1) I told Nati that Lila couldn’t sleep in her room with her bed.

2) She asked if she could spend the night in her room. I also said no to that as well.

3) Later, she went into my room, took Lila out, put her in the kitchen, and Inigo started attacking her. I told Nati to put her back in my room, when she didn’t, I did it myself.

4) A short while later I snapped at Nati because she ran over to the bushes Inigo was climbing in and forcefully jerked him out by one leg, probably almost breaking it. I yelled at her for grabbing him by one leg so harshly as well as for freaking out every time he tries to climb something.

She had a conniption the other day when he was climbing on the roof of the chicken coop. She tried to send Aldo up onto the roof to get him down. She literally almost strangled him when she took the cord I was using as a leash for Lila and tried to tie it around his neck to keep him from getting back up there. I keep trying to explain to her that his climbing habits are normal, and in all honestly it will just get worse since he is going to be quite the little tomcat since there is almost no chance of him getting neutered. They bought the poor guy a collar today, so I think they’ll start tying him up, but at least Nati isn’t going to asphyxiate him with a homemade noose.

5) Anyway…I’m going to take care of Carly’s dog Luna for about a week when she goes on vacation to Brazil. I’ll be staying at her house and I have every intention of taking Lila with me because I don’t trust Nati with her. Nati told me I couldn’t take Luna with me and that she would take care of her. Personally I have far more confidence in my ability to control Luna than my ability to get Nati to care for Lila appropriately. I told her she didn’t know how to take care of Lila, she didn’t even know how to take care Inigo and he is a far easier creature to take care of, she doesn’t listen to me when I try to teach her how to take care of either of them and I wasn’t willing to leave Lila with her without supervision.

6) And then a little while later I told her to stop feeding Lila the leaves off of some random tree. Nati still doesn’t understand that just because Lila will eat it doesn’t mean that it is good for her. Case and point: Luna loves cow poo and random dead bird carcasses but won’t eat the fabulous, well-balanced meals that Carly makes for her.

7) Then I told Nati to leave Lila under my dresser because Lila is terrified of Nati. Nati took her out, claiming that Lila licked her hands. I accept that Lila may have licked her hand, I do not accept that she came out of her own volition, which means that Nati grabbed her and pulled out. My dresser has about 2-3 inches of space between it and the floor. The fact that Lila is somehow able to squish herself through that space is a miracle in and of itself. Which means that Nati probably came very close to severely hurting Lila as she wrenched the poor little one from her safe space.

8) I scolded Nati for taking Lila out from under the dresser, and then gave her a ‘I don’t believe you for one minute’ scowl after Nati gave me her fish tale about Lila coming out of her own free will.

Yea, all that in one day. We were not getting along to say the least.


Nati started getting really bratty after all of this saying how it was her and Aldo’s rabbit, implying that I couldn’t take Lila with me and that I had to let Nati play with her. I gave her my same, ‘You don’t listen to me when I tell you how to take care of her so I don’t want you around without supervision’ speech.

This is that same child that has never bought a single leaf of food for the rabbit, who only yesterday bought her first bag of cat food for Inigo, who was willing to let Lila starve to death in her own urine and poo in a bucket in the kitchen, still doesn’t understand that you have to support a rabbit’s body, you can’t just pick them up by their arms, who causes Lila to run and hide under my dresser in fear AND who introduced Lila as ‘Lila Jolley’ when my program directors came into town for my site presentation, and has been referring to her as ‘your rabbit’...suddenly she cares that the rabbit is hers.

Unfortunately she is on the spoiled side, so her parents don’t do a thing about it. She went to school; I went to the muni. When I got back Marcia and I talked. She recognizes that I care about Lila or at the very least have put a lot of money into feeding her and building her a cage. We agreed that I would get Nati another bunny and I would keep Lila. When Marcia and I told her that I would buy her a bunny, she was so excited. Personally if the situation had been reversed and they offered to buy me a new rabbit in order to let Nati keep Lila, I would have rejected the offer. Lila is special.

I’m going to keep trying to teach Nati how not to torture the thing, but I’m not touching it, looking at it, or providing any care to it whatsoever, not one dime. It doesn’t get any of Lila’s food, they will not be friends. If I hear it scratching in a bucket in the kitchen, I’m eating outside. If Nati is playing with it, I’m going somewhere else. I will buy it for her per our agreement. After that I don’t want to know it exists. I Will Not Get Attached.

Marcia and I agreed that Nati will probably kill it. Personally I think it is horribly irresponsible for Marcia to just stand by and let Nati treat a living creature so poorly. She and Anibal seem completely oblivious to the presence of the animals in the household. I think Nati could decide to set Inigo on fire and they wouldn’t notice and if they noticed, they wouldn’t correct her.

Now to make matters even worse, Nati had decided that she doesn’t want a baby bunny, she wants a grown rabbit. Marcia has decided that she is going to purchase a rabbit of the opposite gender so they will have babies and she can sell them in the campo. Now instead of having one bunny that Nati is going to kill and hopefully learn a lesson from, Marcia is going to sponsor her cruelty by making it into a business, giving her plenty of little rabbits to smother. At least Marcia might actually somewhat take care of the rabbits. It is still going to bother me how poorly Nati treats them, but they will probably have a semi-decent place to live somewhere in the yard and they will get fed. And a lot of them will probably die in the summer because Marcia doesn’t know how to really take care of them.

If this becomes a rabbit chop-shop, I’m going to have to leave. I might have to leave anyway depending on how poor the living conditions of the rabbits’ are. I already know of a really nice lady who hosted a PC volunteer in the past who was the backup in the event that Marcia didn’t have space.

I just can’t stand to be with Nati right now. Inigo tried to bit her last night when we were watching tv because she was smothering him. She asked if she could hit him for it; I said ‘no’ and explained he clearly wanted to get of the bed and she wasn’t letting him, so she deserved it. Oh boy do I understand how he feels.

It is really terrible that this is coming between me and the family. Marcia told Nati that she and I are sisters so we can’t fight. Overall they are amazing in so many ways. Marcia and I are getting closer, we joke around and have a friendly cooking competition going. Up until now, I’ve been incredibly happy here. But I have a big heart, my big heart led me to join Peace Corps, and big heart won’t let me stay some place where small little animals are dying slow miserable deaths.

I some ways I feel responsible. If Nati had just killed Lila from neglect maybe we would be done with this mess. Aldo wouldn’t have bought two bunnies of his own, Nati wouldn’t be getting a second one to mistreat, and Marcia wouldn’t be trying to start a bunny business. I feel like by saving one and showing how it can thrive with a little bit of care, I may have caused innumerable others to suffer.

And yet I just love Lila so much. She makes the lonely nights so much easier because if I feel bad I can just cuddle up with her or watch her run around my room in crazy happiness. Every morning I sit up and look over into her makeshift pen at the end of my bed. When she sees I’m awake she looks at me as she sits on her back legs and gives me a ‘Good Morning! Let me out plez, noms plez, cuddle plez? kthanxbi’ look. [Yes, she speaks lol]. Sometimes I let her out and then curl back into bed if it is cold. If I still don’t feel like starting the day a little while later I’ll put my hand over the side of the bed, within seconds Lila comes binking over to give it little bunny kisses. There is no better way to wake up.

I’ve even been in contact with a rabbit rescue organization in North Texas to get advice about how to best care of Lila in such a non-rabbit friendly environment. For example rabbits are supposed to eat large quantities Timothy and Alfalfa hay, but they don’t really sell hay of any sort here. Even the large livestock animals like horses and cows don’t get it. So I’ve been given the okay to stick to fresh grass. I also have been feeding Lila these rabbit food pellets, which have been responsible for her weight gain, but I doubt they are very good for her. Their purpose is to fatten commercial rabbits and it probably has goodness only knows what kinds of random fillers. Amazingly the rabbit people have recommended switching her to rolled oats, and equally amazing is that this is what I eat for breakfast every morning. I’m probably in one of the only places in the entire country where I can easily find quality oatmeal.


*very sad sigh

I just don’t understand how people who have such big hearts for people can have such small hearts for defenseless little animals.

I do not have enough buckets to deal with this !!!

Ahhh shit shit double shit. I’m getting flooded here! There are now at least 5 spots of actively dripping water in Lila’s living area, 2, oh no…let’s make that 3 in the corner by my bed, the 1 by the door is gushing, and now there are 2 leaks around my light bulb, 1 from the actual socket area, 1 a foot away …and…every time I turn around I notice a new leak…and I do not have enough buckets to deal with this! And …the buckets/tupperware I do have doesn’t work well because most of the drips are right along the wall and the lips of the containers and the fact that the containers are slightly rounded or completely circular means I can’t get them close enough to wall to actually catch the water… and the containers are so shallow that the water is splashing out of them… and since they are shallow they are going to need to be emptied during the night or they are going to overflow on the floor…and now I can’t keep my rug from getting wet because there are too many leaks… and it is going to smell to like a rat died in the wall for days because of the moldy, dirty rug….and people are going to think its Lila who is making it smell bad, but it really isn’t because I clean her litter box out every day and… and… wahhhhhh, I want my blankie…….*curls up in the fetal position and prays to the peace corps gods that there are not little drip, drip, drips on my bed tonight.



(Just a few of the buckets in my room)

Forecast tomorrow: More rain, still no running water
Irony = all of the buckets I have to collect clean rainwater outside the house, are being used inside the house to collect dirty roof-filtered water inside.


(And we are now passing the lovely Jolley Falls on your right coming down the wall there and just below you can just see Lake Lyn and Jolley Lake, which is on its way to becoming the Jolley River as it works its way towards the door)