Update

Things you realize after being in a third world country for a year:

Old friends are truly amazing.

Sometimes your lame brothers will surprise you.

Your hopeful belief that gaming is part of your past is laughable.

Living in a rural place does wonders for keeping healthy.

Living at home makes you fatter.

The divine unrelenting deliciousness that is all Asian food.

Doing nothing with your clone brothers is epically hilarious and enjoyable.

You don't forget how to drive, or miss throwing toilet paper in the garbage.

You marvel at the quality of everything you own.

You dread leaving all the luxury to return to the campo.

Nothing says third world like a stolen lightbulb.

Light bulb missing...

Summary of my life:

Back in Paraguay and ready to work again. I was at home near SF for about 20 days and it was an awesome and recharging trip. Brought back lots of things mostly in the food category and mostly in the Asian category. My house didn't get robbed which is always good news. Except for 1 high powered fluorescent light bulb in my porch light... valued at about 5 dollars.... hilarious. My garden is still surviving in its dumpy state with my cucumber pretty dead-like.

dumpy garden

 I am trying to revive it but that effort may be futile. Couple broccoli plants and cilantro doing great.

Yay Broccoli

Yay Cilantro

Basil = failed (no picture bec no growth) and there is some plant that I think is spinach that I'm afraid to try partially because of the bug holes in it and partially because it looks like a weed.

Spinach?

 Seriously looking at the pron-ness of every other garden here and the seeming ease at which they grow is stupefying and makes me feel derpy.

Officially dating Christina long distance which is cool... though complicated and difficult. We had an amazing week when I was back and things seem great so we will see what happens. Don't know what I will tell the Paraguayan girl I was sorta seeing … hmmm. Hard to explain in English. Even harder in Spanish. I'll let you know how that goes.

On to more random things. Brothers tried Tererre, happiness was absent and my beloved drink was labeled “painfully strong toothpaste water that gives you a headache and leaves leaf bits in your mouth.” I believe the brand new Tererre equipo I brought back to the US will go completely unused until my return... sadness.

Had the chance to film a very poor production of a music video with my brothers and Solomon (awesome Korean popstar (not really but looks like it) friend). Ill be editing that and putting it together.

As for work in Paraguay, I've got lots of ideas and plans. Ill write a more structured boring entry on that later.

Hope this was kinda entertaining and thanks for reading.  

Encarnacion, the Southern Gem.

I had the awesome opportunity to visit 2 of my good friends in Encarnacion this past weekend. They too are volunteers but it was only after I spent a little time here in the city that I really realized how accustomed I had become to rural life. 

The grocery stores were huge with a dozen or more aisles. I was mesmerized and I could have spent an hour there just looking at all the products and thinking about what I could cook.

My grocery store.

Encarn grocery store (not actual photo but you get the idea)

Then there was the pizza. Most pizza in Paraguay is terribly disappointing. Especially in the campo where the crust is prebought and is more like bread and the topping was usually queso paraguayo (homemade very distinct tasting cheese and what amounts to mystery meat bologna) Even in the cities the pizza from restaurants would be laughable if you got it in the states. This excludes Bendo's Pizza  

Pizza Win.

What was even more incredible? That it could be DELIVERED. 

Check out my facebook for night life photos. 

All in all, there was a difference in lifestyle, income, education, sophistication, everything. I spent a part of my last evening walking along a super clean, groomed boardwalk along the beach watching the sunset as couples and families strolled by. There were people biking, running, rollerblading, and skaters in a skate park, it was kinda trippy to me. It was like strolling the Shanghai Bund (not that fancy but you get the idea) or Fisherman's wharf in SF(actually Encarn's boardwalk was nicer) I was so used to my community. The weekend was a blast, got to watch my friend, the Epic Rob Watson do some of his legendary work as well as some legendary bro time that included eating at awesome restaurants, meeting new people and visiting some raging night spots.  There is so much more to say about Encarn but I am way to lazy to do it right now so we will see.  Below are some pics.

Waiting at the bus stop outside my site.

A Chipa vendor on my bus. It was sooo good.

I sell ice cream: like a boss.

Best pizza I have had in PY. Mexican and Italian Garlic were our choices. 

Small rock concert. Good music!

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.