More than Halfway There.

So I am now officially in my 2nd year as a Peace Corps volunteer (as of April). At this point I have about 10 months left, and there are two ways that volunteers in my group (G-38) are looking at the rest of our service.  For some its "Oh my god I STILL have 10 months left," and for others its "Oh my god I ONLY have 10 months left." And in all honestly that can change daily. There are some days where you want to start planning for the future past Peace Corps, like Grad school applications, job applications and travel plans. There are other days where the thought of leaving my friends and family that I have made here make me want to cry.

Its also the point in a lot of people's service, mine included, that you want to try and figure out how you can make the last year the most productive it can be, to make that mark before you leave. Its a lot of pressure and can stress even the most guapo (hard-working) volunteers out.

I've recently been approached by some of my community members about working with them on a fogon project. (To refresh your memory a fogon is a brick, wood-burning oven/stove) Many of the families in my community still cook on an open flame on the ground, which can cause so many health problems, including lung disease. This is still in the very beginning stage of being a project but I really hope that I can make this happen because I've actually been trying to start a fogon project for a few months and have been having trouble getting people mobilized. But now that I have a seriously interested group of people hopefully that will change.

Building a fogon during Training.

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!

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.