New Sites and Sorting Hats

So my friends my fate has been sealed. I will be heading to the Caaguazu department of Paraguay for the next two years. I’m pretty close to the capital of Caaguazu, Colonel Oviedo and about 3ish hours from the capital of Paraguay, Asuncion.

It was a very anxiety ridden day. First off in the morning we had a “Cultural Viaje” (excursion) where we went to Asuncion and got to wander around for a while. Then we went back to the training center and had a session on Paraguayan Music and Dance, which was super cool, but, at this point I did not feel like waiting any longer.

After that we finally started. They had a hat with all our names on it and a huge map of Paraguay with all the possible sites marked off. 

I´m pretty much smack dab in the middle of those names

They then picked a name out of the hat, (Harry Potter - Sorting Hat style) that person received their folder full of their site information and then put their little picture on the map where their site was and then chose the next name out of the hat.

It was so stressful and nerve-racking. But, right now after reading all my site info I’m super excited about my site. There is a colegio (highschool) and a puesto de salud (health post) for me to work with, which were both things I asked for.  I also have a women’s commission of about 30 that want to work with me. There are about 130 families - 650 people that live in my site. I am 6k from Oviedo a much bigger city, but there are no buses so I was told to get my biking legs ready. 

I’m super eager for my site visit that starts Thursday when I’ll get to see my site for the first time. I’ll know more after my site visit too, but, if have any questions about my site feel free to ask!

Another super awesome thing is that one of my best friends here so far is only 2 hours away by bus! Some of my other friends are a little farther away, but, we’ll still each other a bunch. I’m going to miss seeing them every day, but, I’ll get to meet a bunch of new awesome people.

At Site Presentation

There are still 3 weeks left of training so I’m definitely going to make the most of it. Also in other news … it is officially Otoño (fall) here! The past few days have actually been a little chilly. It’s been fantastic, however, I don’t think it will last. It’s supposed to get warm again, but, winter is coming and for those who don’t know it does get cold here!

Long Field Practice and More !

Last week we had our “Long Field Practice,” which basically means in your language groups you go visit another volunteer for 4 days. I visited a volunteer (a fellow Marylander) in “FulgencioYegros” (hope that is spelled right) about 2ish hours from Guarambare.

She is super guapa (hard working in PY) and super organized it was a great Long Field. I stayed with a host family; it was actually one of her host families when she came to site. They were an awesome family, 2 youngerish parents in their late 20’s early 30’s Ethel and Jorge and they had two kids Ingrid (8) and Jorgito (4).  I’m almost a little jealous she gets to spend so much time with them because they are awesome. Jorge the father joked that I was SUPER shy but it was really because it was SO difficult to understand, he mumbles so much. Ethel said that it is hard for Paraguayans to understand him though so I didn’t feel bad.

I was on a radio show! My volunteer and some other volunteers in the area to a radio show weekly. We helped with their show about High Blood Pressure, a huge problem in PY. We prepared ahead of time and I basically read straight from my notebook which was nice because I was super nervous. But, radio is easier than TV because you only have to worry about your speaking not your facial expressions and all that.

Maddie (another trainee in my group) and I also gave a charla (talk) about “Manejo de la Basura” (Trash Management) to a group of 3^rd and 4^th graders. I was a little nervous before hand but I think we did a good job and it helped a little that my host sister Ingrid was in my class. I wassurprised at howgood I was at thinking on the fly in Spanish.

As we were leaving heading back to Guarambaré we went to this place “I can’t remember the name of” that has these historical boats from The War of Triple Alliance (a very “interesting war” – you should look it up … basically PY tried to fight Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay all at one time). You could walk up on top of these boats – which was definitely “I’m in PY moment” because I was like this would never happen in the US because where you walk on top of the boat was super old and no one was watching you or in charge or anything, and at one point in the walk-way there was a decent sized  hole you just kind of stepped over. But, it was super cool and then we went swimming in the river.

When we got home from Long Field I got my first PY sickness. I got a fever and was throwing up and couldn’t really eat anything at all. My host mom and sister were so cute though they took super good care of me at one point they were both just standing there watching me as I was trying to sleep. It was really only like a 12 hour bug because I felt a lot better the next morning. But, in my feverish delirium I dreamt that I had Dengue Fever – a sickness that isn’t usually fatal really only if you don’t go to the doctor and leave it unchecked, but it’s nicknamed “Bone Break Fever” because it hurts so bad it feels like all the bones in your body are breaking. That morning I had helped build a fogon and was super sore and so because my body hurt I dreamt that I had Dengue, it was a very realistic dream but, I’m lucky it was that, only a dream.

So training is already half way over!!! This week I have language interviews to see how my Spanish is improving and Site interviews where they ask us questions about what we want in our future site, AND next week we find out our future sites and then we go visit them!! Ahh!

Professional at Awkward

The Peace Corps staff often tells us how we are going to experience so many awkward situations over the next 2 years and to prepare ourselves. They say we will be so good at dealing with awkward situations that we will be able to put it on our resume. I’ve been here a little over a month now and have experienced or my friends have experienced quite a few awkward and hilarious situations.

These are situations either I or other volunteers have experienced:

·         Jumping rope while your family pulls up chairs to sit and watch you huff and puff and sweat profusely like you’re the television

·         Coming home to have your next door neighbor waiting for you to tell you that this is his favorite time of day because his pretty American neighbor walks by and proceeds to ask for your cellphone # - luckily I could honestly say I don’t have one

·         Explaining to someone you don’t eat meat and them saying they don’t understand how that’s possible because you are a little bit fat

·         Asking for “Polvo de Hornear” (Baking Powder) at the Dispensa (little store in someone’s house) but, actually saying “Polvo de Orinar” (verb Orinar – to urinate) so basically asking for “Pee Powder”

·         Saying you are working out so you can look like Shakira and them telling you that would take a long time because you are lacking a lot to look like her

·         Asking your host sister if she has a tattoo – using the word “tattoo” because you think it the same in Spanish when in reality it means Vagina in Paraguay.

·         Trying to figure out a culturally appropriate way of getting out of eating a … mysteriously crunchy hot dog, cow stomach lining, liver … etc.  (I have already eaten crocodile and carpincho—don’t know if that is spelled right but look them up … they are ROUS’*)

·         Sitting in a room with a bunch of people speaking super-fast Spanish you can’t understand … or worse Guarani – even better is when you can tell they are talking about you.

Also the funniest part of all of these awkward situations is that there is no actual word for awkward in Spanish. There are a bunch of different words for weird … but awkward is just a word of its own with so much more meaning than just weird.

* “The Princess Bride” reference 

Volunteer Visit

Last week I went to visit a volunteer in her site to get more experience and to see what being a volunteer is really like.

I went to a town near Caazapa about a 4-5 hour bus(es) ride from my house in Nueva Esperanza. It was also good experience for us traveling around on our own on the buses here. I traveled with Emily and Liz because all of the volunteers we were going to visit lived super close to each other.

I had a great time. It was nice to see what life in the campo is like. The town I went to visit had about 80ish houses that were spread out over the countryside. There were some incredible views, the campo really is gorgeous. I took a walk with my volunteer and some of the views were so amazing pictures do not do them justice.

While I was there I also go to see some of the projects she works on. I built a fogon (a brick built wood burning stove that is better for respiratory health than for example cooking over an open flame on the ground). It was super hard work, I was pretty sore after and I got super sweaty and super dirty. But, it was neat to see the finished product.

I also went with her to visit her health post that she works with and met and ate lunch with all the people that work there. I also drank tereré (something I will attempt to explain in another blog post, but feel free to look it up in the mean time because it is definitely a part of my daily life here in Paraguay) with the director of the school. I couldn’t really sit in on any classes because even though school started about 2 weeks ago there really aren’t that many students going right now. My volunteer said that more will start coming after Semana Santa (Holy Week). School attendance is a big issue  here.

I also am FAMOUS! I was on Paraguay television. My volunteer does a TV show with 4 other volunteers in her VAC (don’t know exact meaning, but it basically means her “group” of volunteers that are close to her). Two of them are Rural Health volunteers as well; one was an Agriculture volunteer and the other a Community & Economic Development volunteer. That specific episode they just were talking about what is Peace Corps, what they are doing here in Paraguay and specifically what the Health, Ag, and CED sectors are doing. At one point they introduced Liz, Emily and I and there really was no room for us to sit or stand so for the rest of the program we were sitting on the floor. You could kind of see Emily’s head and you could see the back of Liz’s head, but, of course my face was perfectly visible in the bottom right corner of the TV. Towards the end of the program the interviewer was asking questions that people were texting him on his phone and one was something like “What is the name of the girl sitting under the table?” Aka me. So then the camera zooms in on me for what felt like 10 minutes and all I said was My name is Kelley and Hola. But, then when the camera went over to Liz she was so nervous to be on TV she crawled under a table to get away from the TV. It overall was a great and hilarious experience and now Liz, Emily and I can say we’ve been on TV.

Overall I had a great visit. I think it is awesome that Peace Corps does trips like these because it gets us trainees out of the classroom and gives us first-hand experience of being a volunteer in site.