Reconnect

For our first ‘Reconnect’ lasted for three days. My entire group went back to our training community in Guarambare to see how everyone is doing, have a medical session with Medical Mary and Dr. Luis, talk with the PC directors, listened to a few charlas to give us some project ideas... The week also heavily focused on language classes, which I was not happy about. CHP’s language training style and I have never gotten along very well. One the first day we were divided into small preselected Spanish and Guarani groups. The first two hours were helpful, but after lunch the teacher decided that we were going to play games with the new words. While I do understand that games help some people learn, I am not one of them. I find them to be painful and generally embarrassing if they take place right after we’ve learned new material and I haven’t had time to process it yet. So I decided I didn’t want to play games, I wanted to go and study the material by myself.

During training I would have learned a lot more material if I had spent less time in class. I should have just excused myself everyday after about 2 hours of class to go study the material alone. However I felt like I was a bad volunteer if I didn’t stay in class the whole time. I stayed, was miserable, and completely lost my desire to learn Guarani.

Once I left training I remembered that my responsibility was to learn the language, in whatever way was best for me. After that, I decided that I wasn’t going to waste my time with language exercises that weren’t useful for my learning style.

It took about two months for me to regain my desire to learn Guarani, and I didn’t want to lose that, which I why I was so insistent about being allowed to study on my own.

Rough translation of the actual conversation I had with my language teacher on the first day:

Lyn to the teacher after seeing the game board: ‘Hi, I’m going to go study the material from this morning by myself. Games don’t just work for me.’

Teacher: *Gives me a hard stare like he doesn’t understand what I’m saying
‘Oh then we’ll do something else…’
*Reaches to collect the boards from the causing the other students, who do indeed want to play the game, to protest and hold onto their game papers.

Lyn: ‘No no, they can play if it works for them, it just doesn’t work for me, so I’m going to go study by myself outside.’

Teacher: *Hard stare
‘I don’t think you’re allowed to do that’

Lyn: *Hard stare, slight, set smile
‘I’m going to go study by myself’

Teacher: *slightly exasperated expression that in an indirect culture probably means ‘Get your behind into a seat now…please’
‘Well I’m going to have to tell such and such that you didn’t come to class.’

Lyn: *Not from an indirect culture blows off said warning, smiles, and probably rolls my eyes.
‘That’s fine’
*Goes to a bench outside and studies

Reconnect Day 2 and 3

The next day our little group had the pleasure of breaking in a new teacher. And by pleasure I mean that for the next two days we treated her like a bunch of fourteen year olds torturing a first time substitute.

Case and point:
After doing activity with flash cards that we generally decided was not helpful, we then had to use the guarani words from the flash cards in a sentence. To spice things up we started using the word for ‘to dance,’ [ajeroky], since we had all had a hard time remembering it even though we’d learned it in class, in all of our examples. Every single one of them. Even after the poor woman started shaking her head and saying, ‘use a new verb guys, new verb’ we persisted because we had to do something to pass the time.

One day three I just completely skipped out on the second half of class because it was so dull that I was losing my mind. Jenna and I just sat under a tree and chatted while everyone was in class. Evidently while I was gone Miguel took over the class, went over to the board, and started reviewing the dirty words and phrases we had learned during training.

In our defense, she was a pretty bad teacher and as such we were not able to get her to answer the questions we did have. We would ask her a question and if we didn’t understand her response we would ask her again in a different way, trying to get a different response to clear up the confusion. But she would just point at the board and repeat her response from before. She also couldn’t put things into the following structure:
I
You
He/She/It
Us-Inclusive
Us-Exclusive
Them

…which is the format that all of our language training is been in.

To give her credit, she was a good sport about it. It is hard to be mad at Carlos and Miguel; they are quite funny, even with they are being terrible students.

In an effort to get out of language class, Jenna and I decided that we wanted time to get together and discuss what everyone was working on, which is what we thought Reconnect was about in the first place. People could still go to language if they wanted, some people were genuinely finding their classes to be very helpful, or they could come to the alternate session and discuss projects. The male professor I’d had a staring contest with was the one who controlled the schedule, so I figured it would be best to ask my program director, Elisa, to request the extra meeting time. I don’t think he is my biggest fan. The next morning the teacher went to Jenna to inform her that our alternate session had been approved 

Host Family:
Oh yea, and I decided not to stay with my old host family during reconnect. Living with Teresa was just too stressful. I probably won’t go back and visit them. I do have 2 of the sister’s emails. I’ve been talking to one of them, she never asked if I was going to come and stay with them, so I didn’t have to find a polite way to say ‘Your mother is a pill and it stresses me out.’ I am sad that I probably won’t see them again, especially little Nati, such a sweetheart.

I stayed with a sweet old woman who had hosted volunteers in the past when her city was used as a training community. It was just a few blocks from the school, and not having to take the bus to CHP was very nice, though I did miss out my morning walk to Jenna’s house to pick her up and then walk to the bus stop.

Only one other person from my group also decided not to stay with her host family, but I think it is because she is going to visit them in a few weeks.

Its Getting Hot In Here

Back when I was living with my parents my mom and I used to watch the weather channel. As summer approached our good ole friend the high pressure system would slowly settle over the lone star state like a hen on her eggs, smothering us all into pathetic human puddles as we jumped from between air conditioned buildings and air-conditioned cars. Mom and I used to wait to see how high the temperature would get before the weather person would finally use the word ‘hot.’ Usually they would usually use the words ‘warm’ or ‘very warm’ until about the high 90’s, though I think I recall a few times when it was around 101 and they still had the audacity to use a diminutive form of ‘hot.’ Though it does feel like your admitting defeat when you finally admit that it is indeed more than just a little toasty outside.

As it stands, I have never been so glad to be from hot-box Texas and so accustomed to wilting heat. Right now it is definitely warm, probably in the high 90’s. I read Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, a supposedly non-fiction travelogue about Paraguay that is much more closely related to a novel with all of the exaggerated and pretentious bs he put into that book. Anyway, the one thing I did find entertaining was the number of people from Texas that he came across while he was in Paraguay. Evidently I’m not the only one who noticed the similarity in climate.

I’m proud to say that while I am sweating constantly, my favorite place in any room is right in front of the fan, and the only a/c I have access to is in the Muni, I do not feel terribly uncomfortable…yet. I get a bit sweaty if I go and walk around between noon-3pm, but as long as I have my umbrella to give me a bit of shade, I’m fine. The only time I have any problems is at night, since my perfect sleeping temperature is around 68 degrees and yesterday evening around 8:30pm the temperature was still about 85-88 degrees.

I do have a friend who recently purchased an a/c window unit for his house for 1 million g. He is moving back to Canada sometime between February and April and I’m hoping that when he leaves I might be able to get him to sell me his a/c at a discount. If it is in February or March, I might even be able to get Carly to chip in if the a/c lives at her house for those months.

At least this is still technically spring, so hopefully on occasion I can look forward to periodic showers that will pull the temperatures back into the 70’s and 80’s for a few days. Although last year they didn’t get any rain for 6 months, the week I arrived here in May was the first rain they had had since December, so who knows.

I actually am surprised that the Paraguayans have already started complaining about the heat since they should be used to it. It is still a dry heat as well, which makes the temperatures even more tolerable. I do have a lot of people who tell me that it didn’t used to be this hot and the climate is changing. Climate change or not, it is far too early in the summer time to start being miserable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that when January rolls around I’ll be crying ‘uncle’ with everyone else. But for now I’m surprisingly content.

Weatherperson Jolley’s current forecast: Very Warm

Lila Growth Update

Lila with a 2 liter bottle


September 26, 2009



October 27, 2009

Stalker Swine

As I have mentioned in the past, I admire how Parguayns don’t let any part of the animals they butcher go to waste. They use every little bit. However I do not like it when I’m feel like I’m being stalked by those every little bits.

Sometimes Marcia accepts payment into the form of something other than cash from her patients. Recently payment came in the form of a pig. I discovered said payment about 2 weeks ago when I opened up the freezer to put a 2liter jug of Tang to cool down.






There he was, all of him, the whole pig, just laying in the freezer. Thankfully I saw the back legs first, instead of the head. I can’t help but wonder which flat surface they used to cut of the head, and if they actually sanitized the surface afterwards. I swear there were two bloody smudges on the edge of the freezer where the handle is.


(Note the bloody handprints that are still at the rim of the freezer on the right hand side *Heeby geebies)
Eventually they cut off the pig’s head so that the body would lay flat, probably so that his slit open stomach wouldn’t be so exposed. The pig sat there for probably a week or so. Unfortunately sometimes they left the freezer top open or didn’t plug it in, so I can’t image the meat was very clean. However one day I opened the freezer and didn’t see the little feet sticking out. I slowly leaned farther into the freezer, just to check and see that it was all gone and they hadn’t left a bloody mess in its place. Op nope not all gone. They left the head in the freezer!

I was told the body when to Anibal’s parents house, but I have no idea why they decided to leave the head behind. Anyway, the decapitated pig head sat in the freezer by itself for a few more days. 3 days ago a huge storm blew through and knocked out power for several hours. When lunch rolled around I went to heat up some left over chili on the gas-powered stove. I couldn’t turn on the lights, but the kitchen has lots of windows, so I didn’t have trouble finding my way around. When I went to get a pot from under the sink, I noticed that there was something sitting there. In the dark it looked like a strange pile of leafy vegetables. Of course as I got closer I realized that, yes, they left the pig head in the sink. I about fell over and took a few steps back. I had quickly gotten used to the body and the head sitting in the freezer, but why do they have to keep surprising me like that. Goodness people, if you are going to leave a head sitting in a sink, why not give the vegetarian a heads up so I don’t have to get light-headed from inhaling so fast. It didn’t help that it smelled funny. Ugg, I made my chili and left the dirty dishes next to the sink since obviously I was not going to hazard trying to clear myself a space.

I knew that the defrosting head, though I highly doubt it was frozen in the first place since the freezer was hardly ever plugged in, meant they were probably going to have it for dinner soon. I avoided looking into any of the large pots on the stove or into the oven that afternoon and the next day. However on Saturday evening when I went to prepare my standard popcorn dinner, there was a very gross smell in the kitchen and I could tell Marcia had something in the oven. I didn’t look, but she opened the oven door while I was standing nearby, thus revealing a pig jaw, complete with teeth, and other meats bits and letting out a nice big waft of smelly cooked pig, which does not smell anything like bacon by the way. My shoulders cringed as I turned around and started walking out of the kitchen. Anibal caught my grimace and we both started laughing a bit. Again I knew there was pig bits in the oven, but it shocked me a bit to see the jaw itself on the tray, and the smell didn’t help. Oh goodness, Marcia cooks the meat her patients give her, ugg, the smell is just revolting.



I figured after they had the pig bits for dinner that night, I wouldn’t have to worry about any more startling encounters with the little porker. I was wrong. I opened up the freezer and was welcomed by the leftovers of the pig-head dinner sitting in the freezer. The jaw was still there.

Curse you Pooja!

A fellow volunteer asked to stay with me with me for a night to be able to catch the bus in the morning to her site which is on an island several kilometers off of the main highway that runs through my town. The one night stay turned into a four night marathon when the rains came and didn’t stop. She came in on Thursday evening, on Sunday there was some sun, but the buses and taxis don’t really run on Sundays, so she decided to head out on Monday morning. In the wee hours of Monday, the storms came back. But Pooja was set in her determination to get home after a two week trip to the US, some time in Buenos Aires, a few nights in Asuncion. She hadn’t been home in a month and had an 8-month old puppy waiting for her. We waited until the morning rain was just a drizzle, carried her brick-laden luggage over the mud and empedrado to the concrete shoulder of the highway, walked to the terminal, and put her on a bus that had just pulled in the terminal to O’Leary. At 9am she was in a taxi on the way to the boat, around 2pm she called to let me know that she had finally arrived home.

During her stay she was kind enough to leave me with a host of movies, and Marley and Me. She was reading it during her stay and I picked it up to look at the pictures in the center, then I couldn’t help but reading a few pages after the pictures. Pooja caught me and left me the book, which I didn’t want her to do because I had sworn of reading the bok or seeing the movie. The dog dies, got it, don’t want the details thankyouverymuch. But it’s a book, and I don’t have any on me that I haven’t read, so I couldn’t help myself.

The waterworks started around the time when Marley started having difficulty with getting up, going up with stairs, controlling his bowels etc.

Dot, our 15-year-old Doberman/Boxer mix, who was around 80lbs of pure affection at her peak had the same slow decline. Towards the end we had to physically pick up her backside for her because she couldn’t maneuver her hind legs into position or get them to extend. Once she was up she was stiff, but she moved more or less fine. Fortunately she was generally just content to hang out on the floor in a deaf bliss on the living room floor, so we didn’t have to elevate her by hand too often. But when the bowels start to go, that is the line in the sand for my parents. I was on spring break at a leadership camp in 2005 during my freshman year at UT when I got the news.

So far our pure-bred dogs, Gizmo and Buckwheat have died around 10-years old. Dot, the mutt, lasted until about 15. Brinkley, my parents tank of a white boxer, must be around 6, maybe 7, or so and she has a heart murmur. When my mom took her into the vet for her first check-up, the vet told her to take her back, because of her heart condition. At which point my mom started to cry; we are all already head-over heals for our little Valentine’s Day/Mom’s birthday snow baby. She is white, and when we presented her to mom, it snowed.

After reading the book I started thinking about Brinks, and Lila, and about the silly, stupid, puppy love that we have for our animals. The make our lives a living hell sometimes, peeing on all absorbent and non-absorbent surfaces, gnawing on furniture and clothing. I’ve already got ridiculously invested in my 3 month old rambunctious, impish little rabbit whose little rabbit feet must really be lucky because they are still attached and are being cared tenderly, generally patiently, by me, the one person in this city, other than Carly, who isn’t tempted to turn her into bunny chururu or bunny stew. Chururu means fried. Even now, I’m kind of hoping the Carly doesn’t go to Thanksgiving so that I can drop Lila off with her.
I can’t help but think about the email or call that I’ll get someday saying that my parents had put Brinkley down like the call I got with Dot or the text that went to my cousin Brad’s blackberry when they had to put Gizmo to sleep the day I arrived in Mexico to spend my end of high school vacation. Ugg, I don’t want to even think about it.

So thanks Pooja for leaving that hilariously funny, torturous book with me. Now I have to find an up-beat movie to watch to get it out of my head.

Workin' in a coal mine, Goin' down down down, Workin' in a coal mine, Whop! about to slip down

Work is finally picking up. Finally. Here is what I’m working on.

• Making a community calendar and putting it in three prominent locations in the city.
• Putting together a brochure about the Muni explaining what it is and what is does.
• Working with Paraguay Vende, a US AID subsidiary, to help local small business get their products into the local supermarkets.
• Developing debate teams. The education here is all based on rote memorization, so I’m trying to introduce a little critical thinking into the mix. I’m also working on a start-up packet for PC volunteers to help them teach debate too. I’d like to have a nation-wide tournament eventually.
• Working with one of the national ministries to help promote a country-wide moto safety program.
• Trying to get PC to send more volunteers to my area. I’d really like to have an environmental education nearby, but and agricultural extension person would be cool too. Both would be even better 
• Giving presentations in schools about the Muni, democracy and civic participation, the environment, and health topics. I’d really like to have a sex-ed course, but that is a delicate topic, especially in a Catholic country, so I’ll build up some better school connections first.
• In November I’d like to start bi-monthly training sessions with the funcionarios.
• I’m going to visit another volunteer this Friday to help her do her hand washing sessions for National Hand Washing Day.
• Marcia told me that two community groups may ask for my advice to improve their organization.
• I’m on the curriculum committee for a Muni focused youth summer camp in January or February.

Not work but still time-consuming
• I’ve started sessions with a Guarani tutor, and I’ve found a former Mennonite who I might be able to get to teach me Low-German. Now I just need a Portuguese tutor.
• Looking for a house for Carly.

I have become the play thing of the biting insect gods

We have about 10 little chicks living in a box in the kitchen. They were payment from one of Marcia’s patients for some medications. We already have 4 hens and 1 rooster and Marcia said their cage is only safe for 10 adults. Personally I think that would be a horribly tight space for 10 chickens, but anyway… I suspect as the little ones get older the family may start having more chicken based meals to help make room for the new ones.

Maybe I’ll get my wish and they’ll finally eat the noisy one. I’ve almost learned to sleep through his racket, but not quite.

While visiting the main education office chatting with some of the workers there, I mentioned about how Lila is in no danger of being eaten by me because I’m a vegetarian; I don’t eat ‘carne’. A woman in the office commented how rabbits are considered white meat. I really don’t understand why they are always trying to get me to eat an animal that I clearly demonstrate a high amount of affection for.

I’ve started making darn good swiss-chard quiches lately and today I made Cincinnati style chili. The flavor was very interesting; it has cloves, cinnamon, coco powder, and ground nuts. Unfortunately it was very light on the vegetable side. The recipe called for just tomato paste, onions, and garlic… boooring. Next time I’ll mix the Texas and Cincinnati recipes by adding actual tomatoes, green peppers, and red beans to the Cincinnati-style spices. Should be mighty tasty.

Anibal tried to fix my roof recently. It still leaks by my bed and along the wall by the door, but the patches over Lila’s cage are holding strong. As long as those stay in place, I don’t mind the other leaks.

It looks like Lila is getting even more of the black in her coat, at the tips of the cream colored section. Interesting fashion choice for summer. Not the most practical selection, but since she won’t be spending hardly any time in the direct sunlight anyway, I guess she can dress herself up however she sees fit.

Lila is losing her winter coat, so she snows on my black pajama pants when I play with her in the morning. In particular she has a little circle of short hair at the base of each one of her ears, I’m assuming this is an area that she scratches a lot, so the winter coat has come out faster here. However the hair on the top of her head is still long. Carly says she looks like she has a toupee.

10/12/09
I have become the play thing of the biting insect gods.

I spilled some juice on my foot this afternoon and forgot to wash it off, punishment = 5 mosquito bites in 15 minutes in a circle about 2.5 inches in diameter. This is in addition to the ant bite already on that food and the 3 other ant/mosquito bites on my other foot. Itchy Itchy.

When I was in Chile, I learned to drink hot tea to help me warm up in the absence of central heating. I developed a particular affection for the Chamomile Honey and Rose Hip and Hibiscus flavors of one brand of tea, Supremo. I went back to the states and forgot all about the tea because I had a heater. However back in Paraguay I am again without any sort of mechanized heating system, so it is back to the tea routine. Amazingly Supremo is sold in one of the supermarkets. Actually I guess it is not that surprising considering it is manufactured in Chile, which is just a hop-skip-and-a-jump away.