Random Life Photos

Volunteers hanging out in the Peace Corps office.

Agro-Shopping, an Indoors farmers market that takes place in a mall in Asuncion on Tuesdays.

Enjoying Agro shopping produce.

His head is about 1 inch from this bus's ceiling.

A street in Asuncion.

Typical house in my community.

Recently killed chicken being prepped to cook. His friend on the ground there doesnt notice.

Still possibly the cutest kid I have ever met.

Yup.

My largest room that serves as a workout spot and study spot. The greenish netting in that door is to prevent mosquitoes from passing through.

My kitchen. I cook on two gas burners next to the sink.

My bathroom. The toilet is to the right of the photo.

My front room. the door to the left leads outside. This is my main table. And there is a rice cooker on the ground.

The acting president of my fogon commission eating her lunch.  Mandioca is in her mouth .

Most of my fogon commission was present at this meeting.

More commission.

My bedroom with yellow mosquito net over bed

Jenny again.

She wants to give me the ball.

One of my host dads chopping wood. He is awesome and jolly. 

Host mom making Chipa.

Chipa is yummy.

She is super fuerte.

Prepping the oven for baking the chipa. 

Ahendu Weekend

First pre Ahendu poker night (hopefully the start of a tradition)

Yes he got iced.

Some of my favorite people who sadly finished their service last week.

Ahendu

Yes, they are rapping... Yes they are good at it.

Flash street concert courtesy of Peace Corps outside of Ahendu.

Dinner together at a hostel.

Aobut 50 volunteers from different training groups came together to eat .

It was Korean food. Not bad.

Dudes from my training group.

Yellows and greens, kinda cool huh?

RiSo goes to Ahendu, Mediocrity Ensues

"We are all gunna go hard tomorrow night after Ahendu. Every one is going to Hollywood. It's gunna be crazy." It was the common word being passed around between the 100 or so volunteers that had come in for Ahendu and various other required Peace Corps tasks.

To understand this message you need to know several things:

First, Ahendu means "to listen" in Guarani, the indigenous language that is far more common than Spanish here. It is also a music event organized by Peace Corps to raise funding for various Peace Corps causes. Ahendu is like THE event to go to as a Peace Corps Paraguay volunteer. Produced once every 3 months, the concert is a mish mash of musical performances put on by Peace Corps volunteers, Paraguayans and KOICA volunteers (Korean Peace Corps). Performers sign up and practice their pieces in the months upcoming to the concert. A venue is chosen and Peace Corps volunteers from all around the country come into the capital to do bits of Peace Corps office work, hang out, drink and be merry.

Second, Ahendu night is notorious for being Legendary (There are about 200 volunteers constantly serving in Paraguay. Ahendu often draws about half of them. That means an influx of 100 city deprived, lonely, energetic and mischievous Nortes meeting together in one place at one time. Thus, the best stories come out of Ahendu nights.)

Third, Hollywood. For the past couple Ahendu's Hollywood has been the primary location for the after party/ dance party. Hollywood is a large, well known dance club in Asuncion. It is particularly suited to volunteers because of its: large space (Ware-housish with lights and smoke), music (Plays a mix of house, pop and hip hop which few other clubs do), and because it is primarily gay clientele (female volunteers are harassed far less).

So when Saturday came I was understandably excited.

Ahendu was pretty fun but I was really looking forward to the high energy fun that would follow. Yet for whatever the reason, Hollywood was never reached. Instead, most of the volunteers dispersed, heading to other venues and chiller places. I was disappointed. sigh.

No great stories.

Going Crazy

To be honest, for a week or so I thought I might snap. In late March I was realizing I had been here for a year and accomplished very little. I still didn't know if the funding promised to us by the local government was ever going to come (my main project of 16 fogons), my soap making group had all but ceased to exist, my youth business group kept postponing their supposedly weekly food making and selling, and I still did not know if my chicken raising project would work out.

the above depiction describes my sentiments

 At the same time I was beginning to sorely miss the close connections I had with people back at home. My closest friends and my brothers of course. I have never really been close to my parents but I saw the support parents gave to other volunteers and I just simply did not have that. I wouldn't have that even if I did talk to my parents. Thus was the circumstances in which I began to think that real progress was impossible. Luckily, things have turned around since then. Yesterday the money came from the local government and was exchanged for materials that we brought to the community. We did not receive all of what was asked for but it is a huge step. Furthermore, families have been recuperating the money borrowed for their chicken raising projects in a steady flow and I am planning to organize a second round. My youth group successfully sold double the quantity of food we usually cook and all on their own without my help. We also reconvened the soap making group and successfully made shampoo and softner for washing clothes. I still need to figure out a way to sell the product to recuperate costs but I already have an idea for that. So things are much better and I have gotten a second wind that will hopefully continue.

On to more interesting things.

I got a new camera so I will hopefully be posting more of everyday stuff so you can see what my life is like hurray!

It got really cold really fast here. My normal attire went from t shirt and shorts (often minus the t shirt) to 2 sweatshirts, jeans and long johns underneath (yes they look silly and sound funny but so glad I brought those).

With the clod weather, social activities change too. Before it was volleyball late into the night with spirited drinking or terrere drinking and loud music booming into the night. Now the volleyball had begun to subside in favor of soccer but short sessions until it gets to chilly and people retreat to their homes to sit by fogon fires with ten layers of clothing on and drink mate. The change is sudden and drastic.

Meeting Christina... How I Met Your Mother Style

Kids, there is an old cliché saying that you cant go looking for love, it finds you. And although it wasn't love at that point, by the March of 2012 I was counting the days till my vacation back home so I could finally be with Christina, a girl who, by all measurable means, seemed to match me perfectly. But first lets back up a few months.

You see in the Spring of 2012 I was in the midst of the well known 1 yr lull in Peace Corps. The time you realize your attempt at saving the world has culminated in a trash pit at some random house and an overgrown, dilapidated school garden. When you realize you left all the comforts of home for a noble cause and achieved.. pretty much nothing. To top that all off, I was also realizing the discomforting and depressing fact that girls I had been with seemed to be in picturesque relationships with the guys they dated right after me. Jennifer, Rebecca, Grace and Tian. I was like some unfortunate love curse, tolerate me and the next guy will  be your soul mate. Plus it had been hard to hear that my last ex, my most serious and promising relationship, was very happy with her new boyfriend. Then when it seemed like the universe was giving me the giant celestial finger, I got a message from an acquaintance of mine, Christina Pham.

Now to be clear I had never dated Christina. She actually hadn't even been a close friend of mine. I knew her from some of the community work I was doing pre Peace Corps and that was it. Well, except  for that one time at Dave and Busters, but that's another story. Anyway we were  both dating other people at the time so nothing happened. She was just that sorta cute girl, who I kinda knew from those couple of times over those couple of weeks. By the time I got her message it had been over a year since I had seen Christina and all she was doing was commenting on the blog I kept during my Peace Corps experience. But after that we started talking...


...and that turned into more talking and a three hour video chat session that used up a months worth of my internet credit. By April 1st we had been talking for at least 3hrs a day everyday and it felt strange to not hear from her. We had gone from acquaintances to virtual boyfriend and girlfriend using babe and hon and sending good morning and sweet dream messages every day. It was disgustingly corny, romantic and storybookish. Yet even with all that aside, the truth was, she was everything I knew I wanted in a girl and I seemed to be everything she wanted in a guy.

So was it love? Did love find me? I don't know and cliches are stupid. But I do remember when I thought losing Tian was the biggest mistake of my life. So maybe there is something to be said about some doors closing to let others open and just in case, I am seeing Christina first thing when I get back because cliches exist for a reason and as far as we can tell, us together will be awesome.

Pants Jacked

So when you move into your house in Paraguay you are always told not to leave things outside of your house. This primarily refers to gardening tools such as shovels and hoses but also chairs. Yes people might jack your chairs at night if you leave them outside. Literally pick them up in their hands and take off running.

Here is a list of things that volunteers left outside and got jacked:

Shoes

plates

cups

chairs

shovels

hoses

hammocks

and... pants

2 days ago someone stole my pants. Right off my drying line. Given, I had left them there for about 3 days but jacked none the less. 1/6^th of my pants were stolen, yes that's 1 pair of the 6 I have in total.

Sigh

Power Outages in Paraguay

So I have talked about this before already but today's Hurricane Pwnage storm reminded me again. So today the rain gods unleashed a wall of water that lasted from about 11 am to 7 pm. It is particularly discouraging as I had just finished digging and seeding my home garden... sigh...., Well have to do that all over. But the focus of this post is to talk about power outages. So with the impending storm I went to unplug all of my electronics just in case there was some sort of surge (common practice here), move my things to avoid getting soaked (water gets in at the windows and certain holes in the roofing and prepare my kerosine lantern for later in the night. It was in this process that I realized how normal it was for me. The storm had not even started, yet I knew for sure the power would go out and probably would not return until late at night or the next day. Each family has its routine for storms and moving belongings or covering them and strategically placing candles are common place.

Thinking about all this I couldn't help but compare power outages here to those in the US. A power outage in the US practically paralysis a US home. We think that we cant do anything. but here where electronics are not common and food is cooked on a wood burning stove a power outage is just a minor inconvenience. Here, when the power goes out people grumble complain and sit around indoors in a circle but that is pretty much what they would be doing with power anyway. For me a power outage is annoying because I cant listen to music on my computer and its hard to see around my house. On the other hand its a good excuse to use my kerosine lantern which is awesome, fun to use and really useful when there is no power. I prepped my dinner by its light tonight.  

Its funny to think in a lot of ways, Paraguayans are far more prepared for true survival than we are. 

Bus Vendors

One of the great things about developing countries is that transportation systems are not super regulated. In Paraguay, this has led to a booming bus vendor culture. When I say bus vendor I mean people who sporadically get on buses selling all sorts of things.

Chipa vendor

Here is a list of what is sold divided by vendor type.

Chipa (super common) Love this bread stuff, I always buy it.

Food - empanadas, sopa (another bread like food), sandwiches, pieces of grilled chicken <---- most awesome (super common) Unfortunately the food is usually cold by the time you buy it.. otherwise I would totally get the chicken

Drinks – soda, water, juice (super common)

Snacks – gum, chocolate, lollipops, crackers (super common)

Fruit – apples, plums, pears. Sometimes I get fruit bec its hard to get in site.

Random shit – small toys, scrunchies, flashlights, batteries, nail clippers, scissors. These guys have the most random stuff.

random clothes – socks, underwear, hats. Yes they sell socks and underwear on the bus.

Then there are the guys who go all out. They get on the bus and stand up and launch into a sales pitch usually about some medicinal herb or a joke book or something else random. They talk for anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 and then go person to person asking if they want to buy. This is surprisingly effective.

Also interesting is that some products are sold in a particular system. Usually the item is small and sold by children. They place the product, (toothbrush, stickers, candy) in your lap as you sit there and go through the entire bus. Then they start back at the front and collect the merchandise and if you want it you just give money back instead. This strategy pulls at your heart strings because you feel bad giving back the piece of candy to this little kid. At least that is how I feel. I don't know about Paraguayans.

The candy sales also reminds me of something interesting I noticed that seems normal to Paraguayans and less so to Americans. A lot of sweets, whether it be in candy form or in cookies form like Oreos or wafers is bought and consumed by Paraguayans of all ages. It is not uncommon to see middle aged men and women with a sucker in their mouth on the bus.  

Semana Santa = Easter Holiday

This week is Semana Santa, the Paraguayan version of the Easter holidays I think. I don't really do anything or know anything about this holiday in the US but here, there are a bunch of customs but for my community it mostly means tons of Chipa. What is Chipa? Chipa is a homemade bread made from corn flour, casava flour, cheese, milk, salt, and butter or animal fat. Traditionally, the Chipa is cooked in a traditional brick oven called a Tataqua. 

(Igloo made of brick and mud

The wood is burned inside for 45 minutes or so and then all the coals and wood is taken out and the pieces of dough, formed into hand size ovals or doughnuts, are placed on leaves and slid inside. The result is a wood oven baked deliciousness that is crunchy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. It is awesome and probably one of the foods I'll miss most when I leave. During Semana Santa, a family is likely to make 150 pieces, an enterprise that usually involves the whole family and in the case of the family I visited, making the dough in what was pretty much a giant animal watering trough 12 feet long. When its not Semana Santa Chipa is made sporadically usually on Sundays. It is also sold daily in towns at places called Chiperias. It is also the most common bus vendor food (In Paraguay, vendors bring food to sell onto buses, they dont pay the bus fare and walk down the aisle peddling the food and get off after 2 or 3 stops. Its pretty awesome).

Friday Night Party in Town, Awesomeness does not Ensue

So last Friday I was invited to to attend a “party” in the closest town, San Juan Bautista. I was pretty excited seeing as it was going to be my first party in town since coming to my site (cant leave my village at night because I can't ride motorcycles, no one has cars and there are no buses at night) Plus it turned out that there would be a free bus taking us in and then back out to my site at 2ish. I put on my best outing clothes, ie not the worn dirty t shirt and shorts I usually wear, and went to wait for the bus that was supposed to come at 7:00PM.

Okay so throughout this story I am going to point out some everyday obstacles I encounter in Paraguay to give you a sense of what I have gotten used to.

1. Why would I go to a party at 7:00 PM when parties in Paraguay usually get fun at about midnight Answer: Well that is when the bus comes so its go at 7 or don't go at all.

So I get ready and head out to wait at the corner where the bus is supposed to come. It was 7:00. By 8 the bus still had not come.

2. Timeliness and schedules- Non existent:
   In rural Paraguay, the notion that things will actually occur when someone says they will is questionable at best. For transportation, this means that bus arrival and departure times vary significantly. Sometimes the bus doesn't come at all. When I asked my friend waiting with me whether the bus would come he said, “Maybe, we will see.” It was NORMAL to assume that the bus might not come without explanation and he was not phased the slightest.

Finally the bus came and we headed off to town picking up others on our way. 

This is pretty accurate.

When we got into town I was finally getting excited. There were hundreds of people all crowded into the plaza. Here comes the fun right? WRONG

3. Traditional Paraguayan music is not party friendly:
   Turns out the whole thing is a rally/party for some political party and for the next 4 hours all that plays is traditional Paraguayan music and propaganda.

But there are still a ton of young people drinking, talking and having a good time right? It was a Plaza Party.

4. Plaza Parties:
   Plaza parties are a phenomena I discovered first on my vacation in Peru. Instead of going to a particular venue, say a concert, club or karaoke place etc, young people gather in a town's plaza and simply walk around the plaza... over … and over... and over again.

For the next 4 hours I essentially walked in circles. Now I can actually see why this activity could be fun. You are drinking and chatting with friends, get to see your classmates and potentially meet pretty girls also walking around and best of all there is no cover charge. However, as the only Asian I was stared at constantly. I did not have a ton to talk about with my friends that came from my community and there were no other Peace Corps volunteers. All I could hope for was the switch to reggaeton and proper party music later in the night. Fortunately, there was some fun to be had mostly involving Paraguay's lack of open container law. I went into a supermarket, bought a handle of 16 Mil (4 dollars) vodka, a 1 dollar, 2 liter bottle of Sprite and a 1 dollar glass cup and went back to walking in a circle. It was actually pretty classy. As midnight came and went, I realized my hopes of redeeming the night in some way shape or form were pointless.

5. People dont tell you the truth:
   I was given the impression that when all the political stuff was done the music would switch to clubish music. It didn't.

Then at 1ish two performers came on stage (in the middle of the plaza) who were like comedians/entertainers/ imitators. They were actually pretty entertaining and I couldnt even understand what they were saying but apparently these type of entertainers are pretty popular. They make jokes, imitate famous people and lip sync to popular songs. As the night drew to a close, I did get to eat some awesome street vendor food, which in this case was meat on a stick.

Delicious

The last funny thing to happen was on the bus on the way back to my community. We were still in town about to leave when a man got on the bus and said something in Guarani. 5 to 6 guys got up and left the bus.

6. Things dont work that great in Paraguay:
   Turns out the guys were pushing the bus to start the engine... As the bus started to roll and the engine came to life, the guys quickly jumped back on the bus. I laughed.
   
   

   

   Some assembly required

Thus ended my first party experience in town. Not the best but interesting none the less.