Hey there folks, long time no talk. In other news, I'm still alive and I'm still in Paraguay.

I didn't write for the longest time, because frankly, I didn't have much going on and I didn't want to use my blog as a forum for public whining. When they estimate that it will take about a year to establish your footing as a Peace Corps Volunteer, it sounds like an exaggeration, but having now lived through it, I'd echo it as truth. Not only does the community have to warm up to you, it takes time to identify what they need, you would enjoy focusing on, and is within your realm of possibility, all while going through a huge personal growth, basically alone. I moved into my first house the end of July and for a few months the reality really had to seep in of where I was and the decision that I'd made to be here, literally in the middle of nowhere, so I was kind of down and it inhibited my work. I threw myself into teaching in the schools before I was really ready, but aside from that had nothing to focus on. Now I'm working in one of my two schools Monday-Friday and I've found my niche. It's awesome walking up to the school and the students start buzzing “Stephanie (or the Americana) is here!” with minor celebrity status. My Spanish has advanced so much within the past year, that I'm at ease and don't have to write out scripts before teaching, but can lecture more off the cuff. I also floundered with the loose guidelines of expectations for our work, though in the past 3-4 months, I've embraced it and have been flourishing. Since March I am or have taught:
Environmental Education, with 7,8, and 9 grade. I petitioned for 300 baby trees from the local government and after planting some in both schools (also with 4 grade in the farther school) I went around house to house planting, always trying to include children when possible. Another favorite activity was a recycled art project for Mother's Day, where we cut drinking glasses from discarded wine bottles, sanded the edges and then painted them. It was a hit with the students.
Photography, again with 7,8,9. I received a kit of 5 Canon digital cameras from PC for 2 months and taught twice weekly classes on the aspects of photography, then optional Saturdays, signing them out to practice on the weekend. I really put a lot of time into my lessons as photography is dear to my heart, so it was kind of disappointing the difficult time I had with the school not really respecting the class, and then the parents not allowing their kids to participate Saturdays (they were expected to do chores) or kids just not embracing anything optional from school (the idea of extracurricular activities doesn't exist outside of soccer practice for boys.) A few kids stood out though and I hope they had some fun.
Dental Health and now Nutrition, with 4,5,and 6 grade. This is in the farther school and is the first time I'd starting working with them as the school and high school's directors seemed indifferent to my presence. However, the three young teachers there for morning session are all very dedicated (they basically run the school as the director is only there afternoons) and have allowed me to do a 6-week dental series and like I said with 4 grade, plant 35 trees on school grounds. Now I'm three weeks into nutrition with them. Last Wednesday we made fruit smoothies with vanilla yogurt, papaya, banana, and passion fruit (it's not all bad living like a pauper in South America, as some of the most expensive import fruits in Publix, my neighbors give me for free, though I later struck up a deal with them. Once every two weeks, a little girl delivers two overflowing bags of passion fruit and papaya, since her family just sweeps them up and tosses them as they don't like them and I pay her 5 mil, a little more than a dollar, to keep me swimming in smoothie ingredients.) In an effort to teach them a way to take advantage of the local fruits at their dispense and impress the idea of healthy snacks, instead of Alfahors and Yippos, our equivalent of Moon Pies and Cheetos, that they get at the general stores every day. Every kid asked for a second cup. Success! Finally at this same school, just yesterday I started painting a large world map mural in the hall with the 6 grade class. I hope to have it finished within the month. I slowly and deliberately have been sketching it all out over the course of a year. I drew the border of EVERY country. I should be very good at geography by now.
English with 9 grade.
A twice monthly cooking and health series women's discussion group in 3ra (the farther community.) We've met 7 times now and I always have between 10-20 attendees. We've made banana bread, vegetarian chili, deviled eggs, oatmeal raisin molasses cookies, quiche (and I tried homemade yogurt various times to teach, but with limited success.) Themes touched on have ranged from High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Breat Cancer, Diarrhea prevention and treatment and the dangers of burning trash. This next Thursday we're making homemade detergent to sell and starting First Aid. After 6 classes, I printed them out little booklets with all the recipes and health info thus far. I always look forward to my classes with them.


Outside of the community, I attended a library workshop put on by PC and got lots of ideas from some great speakers on how to promote literacy with my kids. I remember and salute my parents for instilling a love of reading in me at an early age (good job mom and dad! :)) and find it tragic these kids have no books outside of a textbook in their school or homes and have never known the joy of story hour. As a first step, I printed out a ream of paper of little booklets from a neat company we have access to called “Reading A-Z,” that also comes in Spanish, in various reading levels. Also, to give these kids an advantage to someday find work outside the community, it's my hope that this will further their Spanish speaking skills, instead of only speaking Guarani. I just started this week, getting them used to the idea, but in the future I hope to do arts and crafts, skits, creating their own stories, etc. They can even be involved in helping me decorate the booklets and then at the end of my service, I'll just leave them with the school.

In March, I traveled for a week conducting interviews with PC volunteers, staff, and PY's involved with PC, in conjunction for a little video put out by the office to celebrate 45 years of continued service here in PY. It was neat getting to tap into my journalism skills again, travel by car and see different areas of the country and hear all the different, but uplifting stories of work and fellowship between PC and PY. The link to the final video can be found here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ3AduLAZzI
I think in the upcoming months, I'm going to take on a self-inspired project just filming with my flip cam in my own community.

Like I said, the last few months have been a whirlwind. I also took two wonderful young women from my area to a youth workshop “Gender and Differences,” in a nature reserve, Tati Yupí, in the very east of the country. Participants came from all over the country, even as far as the Chaco, and for three days we focused on topics like Communication, Self Esteem, Values, Decision Making, etc and got to tour the Itaipu Dam, the largest operating dam in the world.

I'm still chugging along with the bathroom committee, but it is so slow and they don't really have experience mobilizing themselves and working in groups. They are used to just receiving things through petitioning the government and convincing them to realize the project through their own means is an uphill battle. I have been trying to attack the project on two fronts. One, cheaper more earth friendly constuction. I stumbled upon a Paraguayan woman whose research is devoted to this idea and has won many awards. She advocates a process that uses loofah, mixed in the revoque, that covers bamboo planks or terciary wood from the wood manufacturing plant. Between large-scale soy production and construction materials (lumber or the firewood used the cook the bricks, which actually uses more trees than the lumber itself) Paraguay's deforestation is occurring at an alarming rate. If the families opt to use the terciary wood instead of bamboo, they are using trees, but not necessitating more lumber, for their own project as this wood remains from making the lumber anyways and generally isn't utilized. The method also empowers the families because it is so simple that they can do it themselves. I've seen and touched some model buildings and they are solid. The problem is convincing the people to accept non-standard methods, as bricks are the coveted symbol of being well off for a lot of these families “ maybe someday we can live in a brick house.” Secondly, I've been trying to impress upon them the idea of attending a training (free and brought to our village from the capital, through one of the government ministries) on the production of any numerous crops for marketing, then asking Fundacion Paraguaya to give them a micoloan, while simultaneously offering classes in saving, family budgeting, financing a small business. That way they don't even need to petition the govenment and can continue financing whatever project or personal needs that arise in the future, long after I'm gone. They recently expressed interest in taking on a small scale orange production class, (perhaps a sign of good luck for the Florida girl?) but the Ministry requires a minimum of 25 participants to bring the class out here, and I'm anticipating this being difficult. I'm also starting the process of applying for money from the States, which is long and tedious and doesn't really teach them anything, but may be our only option.


Aside from work, I'm also in a good place me-wise. I officially moved into my new house the first of March after being in limbo for 3 months and homeless for about 3 weeks, storing my stuff at a neighbor's and moving back in with one of my loving host families (the girls who attended camp with me.) Where my little wood house used to be is now nothing but an empty lot with a broken brick foundation. One day, I'll write about that ordeal in more detail, but I'd say I handled that nightmare graciously and in the end, am in a much nicer place. I now live in a cute three-room brick house, and in lieu of rent, my dad helped me put in a wonderful, brand-new bathroom (don't tell my bathroom committee.) I make sure and take a hot shower every day. :) I definitely moved up in the world of PC living. Angiru's favorite spot in our new house, is laying in my bedroom window sill, which has a view of a stunning Mango tree. I even bought an old washing machine when I got back from the States in January from a pawnshop. It's still a hassle having to load and unload the water from the machine, and getting the soap out of my clothes, but it sure beats soaking them in a bucket and scrubbing them by hand. (My gift to myself after realizing what I missed most from the States.)

I've gotten into the pace of about three novels a month since April, and most recently finished: The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe, a recommended author from my days in the J-school, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, to try to keep up with pop culture, The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemmingway, which I started from the beginning again after abandoning it close to the end when my attention span wasn't up to par during my adjustment period. I thought I owed Ernest seeing as I've visited his house in Key West several times and just feel we have a kinship holding Spain and The Keys as two of our favorite places in the world. Marley and Me, by John Grogan, another kinship as most of the book takes place in South Florida. I have seen and cried during the movie three times. I thought surely I wouldn't cry knowing what to expect reading the book, but no dice. This week I'm reading Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. I'd seen lots of mention of it by my facebook friends, so when it showed up in the PC office I snatched it.

My cooking class has inspired me to keep at it with my own cooking experiments. I found a small grocery in Caaguazu with different ingredients and finally found some coconut milk last week after searching my whole service, making soy meat Thai curry. Tomato Basil quiche and the vegetarian chili have become staples in my house. In the PC and the health sector we have lots of access to interesting recipes and after going so long without the foods I desire (as I write this my mind is shouting “Land o Lakes sharp cheddar cheese!”) that I become inspired to try at home. I actually think I'm going to try to make cheese this afternoon. Living without temptation and access of American food, having to walk/bike on sand to the farther school and occassionally jogging for some sense of normalcy, I was -20 pounds at my one-year check up in April from my starting PC weight, so I successfully beat and am continuing to beat the stereotype of females packing on pounds in their service, and it's nothing to do with intestinal parasites, hurray!

Angiru is a constant companion and I'm so grateful for her. I never thought I'd be one of those lunatics who is obsessed with their pet, until I found myself living in an isolated area of a foreign country. At 6 months, I decided it was time to get her spayed before I had to suffer to the sound of tom cats screeching outside my house at night. (That happened at one of the houses I lived in last year and let me tell you that racket is nuts.). I took Angiru to one of the only vets that I could locate who offers to spay cats. Most people either just let them have kittens or get them a generally ineffective injection every six months. Lots of my neighbors acted appalled that I was fine taking home a female kitten. I bit the bullet and got her all the way to Caaguazu. It was nothing short of a nightmare. First, I had to walk 15 minutes to catch the bus, followed by another 40 minutes of her howling and biting as the bus that runs in my community is loud and rickety and surely very scary for her. Then, I dropped her off at the vet. I had budgeted exactly enough money to pay for her surgery that month, but when I got to the bank, the ATM deducted the money, without spitting anything out of the machine. I had to file a claims report, which said it wouldn't be available until the following day, so very graciously my close friend and fellow volunteer lent me a 100 mil GS to reclaim Angiru. However, the vet took too long, finishing at 4:30, missing our bus at 3:30 and not leaving enough time to catch another bus and just walk in before being dark at 5, so Angiru and I also had to crash at my friend's house. Finally got Angiru home and five days later, either she jumped into her spot in the window and put stress on her stitches or the vet just did a sloppy job, but in no time all her stitches came undone. I'm crying and bitter for trying to do the responsible thing and instead just harming my best friend. I end of having to take her back to Caaguazu through the whole process and the vet tells me stitching up a old wound is dangerous and the only thing I can do is spray her wound with what I assume is the Paraguayan equivalent of Bactine, cover it with gauze and wrap an ankle brace around her tummy to keep her from licking it so it will scab over finally. After about 10 days of wandering around with a bandage, I'm happy to say she barely even has a noticeable scar, but the ordeal undoubtedly cemented the neighbor's opinions that the American is crazy. Luckily, the same day of her surgery, I got a care package from my dad with lots of spices for me and cat treats for her.


Since starting my service the only vacation time that I've taken was to go home last year for Christmas, but saving my days is soon going to pay off. While I'll have to spend my first Christmas apart from my family, my parents are looking into coming down in November to see everything I do and love in Paraguay and then spend some time in Buenos Aires (the first time I'll get to venture across the Paraguayan border and see what else South America has to offer.) Plus, if you know anything about me, you know that I am obsessed with the musical Evita, and that this obsession comes from my dad, so I am very excited to get to go see the Casa Rosada and do the Evita tour with him. I also want to see if BA could be the next place for me after PC, so I hope to get a good feel for the city and maybe tour the Universidad de Buenos Aires (surprise!) I have fallen in love with South America and with speaking Spanish and while knowing I will ultimately settle back in the good old US of A, I feel like there's more for me to explore in this hemisphere before heading north for good.

Anyways, that about wraps it up for me down here. Know that aside from occassional frustrations at how difficult life can be or getting lonely, I'm pretty well adjusted and doing great things. I would also love to hear from people back home. I know we all get wrapped up in our own lives, but sometimes I feel forgotten and an email from family and old friends to keep me up to date would be a perfect remedy.


Abrazos y Besos de Paraguay,

Stephanie