My Projects and other Updates

House:

I have some pictures of my house when I first moved in but I have not had the chance to take better pictures since I got settled in. I will try to take some with my computer camera but I do not have a digital camera anymore. I live in what is considered a pretty nice house in my community minus the ant problem. I live in a 4 room home. The house is made of bricks and a mortar made of cement, sand and dirt. The rooms in blue have a floor of the same mix of cement sand and dirt. The ovals are tables. The small rectangles are doors and the hollow rectangles are windows. The middle, blue, top room is my bedroom with a bed and dresser. The left bottom room is my kitchen with a fridge, two portable gas burners and a sink below the burners. The bottom middle room is my all purpose room with a table as well in the corner. The small room to the right is my bathroom with a flushing toilet(small oval), a shower (diamond), a mirror and sink (circle touching rectangle). The non blue room is a large back room that was once a kitchen. It has the remains of an old brick stove in the bottom corner. And the ground is dirt. The arrow points to the front of my house that faces the street but I have a yard in front as well as a patio that provides shade in the front of my house (lines).

I do not have air conditioning of course or even a fan which I should buy bec it is sooooo hot. All furniture is made of wood at local carpenter's house. I have one electrical outlit in each room and one long florescent light bulb in each room. My bad has a mosquito net over it too.

My garden was officially pwned by the Paraguayan heat. Its scorched, barren mounds the only evidence of its former potential. I will retry in the next month following a rainy day.House details

Projects:

I am doing a whole bunch of things with varying degrees of success:

English teaching

Hip Hop teaching

Chicken coop project

Fogon project

Youth Business group project

Soap and detergent group project

English:

I originally offered to teach English every day of the week except Saturday and Sunday at about 7 pm.

I started with about 5 students. Within two weeks it was 2 students, then 1 and now none. My one student who was coming consistanly was awesome and we were making good progress. He was speaking to me in basic English, could tell me about his day and write basic sentences. Most of all he was motivated and responsible. Unfortunately he is starting college in the nearby town and only comes back for the weekends. Thus for now English class is a bust.

Hip Hop/Break Dance:

I started this group kinda on the fly when a couple kids asked me to teach them a bit of break dance. I sometimes do the little that I know at Paraguayan fiestas and the Paraguayans love it. The group grew to about 8 and I was teaching it a couple days a week in my house, using my big room as a dance studio. It was fun to teach although difficult. It took a lot of time for the kids to learn even the most basic steps but we were definitely making progress. The other big problem is that all the kids except my best student were always embarrassed to practice the moves even if it was only in front of the other kids in the class. The classes stayed consistant for about 2 weeks as well and then dropped to 1 kid. Hes okay now and knows the steps but they look awkward when he does them and these days nobody comes. I want to restart the class and I think that is possible.

Chicken Coop:

I wanted to do a secondary project that would increase disposable income in my community. I choose to do a chicken coop project. I chose 7 families I trusted most in the community and each family received 163 Mil, the equal of about 40 bucks but its is a large amount here. The money was used to buy10 chicks (which cost about 80 cents each) and the food to raise the chicks up for 45 days, the period to get to sale age. Last week the food and chicks were delivered to the community and the community has 4 months to return the money at no interest.

Fogons:

This is my primary project. A fogon is a brick and mortar brick stove and oven. There are 15 families in my commission and we are currently waiting for money from the local government to be issued to use to buy materials. We will combine that money with money we have been raising through raffles and community events to fund the construction of the fogons.

Youth Business Group:

There is not that much to do in rural Paraguay except work in the home or fields, play soccer or volleyball and hang around. Thinking about this and the idleness of many youth, I decided to teach business principles and find a way for Paraguayan youth to make a little money for themselves. After a couple meetings, I have formed a group of 3 youths who come together once a week to cook and them sell a small batch of food house to house. There are no restaurants or places to buy premade food so there is a lot of opportunity. Its slow going and nobody has a lot of money to buy a lot of food or more expensive products but it is working.

Soap and Detergent Women's Group:

This is a women's group I formed to make home made bar soap ad other hygenic products. Many of the more complex products I buy in chemical kit form at a special shop in the capital. You combine the chemicals in a certain way and add water to make the final product whether it is dish washing soap, softner, liquid hand soap, or shampoo. We sold the finished product to recuperate the cost of the kits. Recently we have a surplus of softener and detergent so we have not made any new product.