The Arroyo

Arroyo means stream in Spanish. When its 100 degrees outside, an ocean, lake, river or even stream could be considered a dream. Paraguay being a land locked country, that rules out oceans. Having a total of zero lakes in my department rules out lakes, all one can hope for is a small river or stream. Amazingly our community happens to have such a stream and equally amazing is the “piscina” which mean pool in spanish. When I first heard of the arroyo and so called piscina I was skeptical. I had seen the stream before and it was shallow and maybe 3 feet across. But by extreme luck or something this one part is for all intensive purposes an all natural pool. The small stream widens to pool width and deepens enough to jump off 10 foot rocky edges and be perfectly safe. The pool comes with plenty on different level jumping points, a nice grassy areas to lay out on and a shallow side for the youngsters. It is truly an amazing place. With this natural treasure available, most of the teenages in my community rush to the stream at about 1:30 and finish at 4ish. It is a greta place to relax, cool off and mess around with friends. Sitting on the grassy knoll overlooking the piscina is quite a site. Young people doing the exact same thing American kids would be doing without all the money it costs to have a pool, without the cute, sexy or hip swim suits or pool toys. Just worn shorts, and old holey volley balls to toss around. Although some of the girls have bikinis, no one seems to shed the shirts they wear for fear of the sun. Its a refreshing site, a pool like no other.

Good News!!! In the words of Professor Farnsworth....

Good news!! my projects seem to be making progress. If you are still following this blog, props, seriously. You could be looking at Cracked, Reddit or a kitten falling asleep but instead you are validating my existence so thank you. To give you all an update, my main project right now is obtaining the materials for fogons (brick stoves that use wood). Our commission was formalized and we have already had one meeting with the Intendente of the municipality, think County Supervisor. He told us that the money would be available at the end of this month and that we should return close to then with an official document asking for and outlining the costs of the materials. Our president and I are going to turn this in in 2 days. Woohoo! In other news it is summer here. Since November it has averaged about 37-9 degrees Celsius here during midday. That is about 100 degrees for us Americans. The heat combined with the humidity makes doing any manual labor, visiting families, playing sports, walking around or moving in general, highly unpleasant. Here in Paraguay, the locals wake up at five and work until about 10. After that, all effective work slows to a crawl or simply stops until about 5. The system totally works for them. At 10 ish they drink terrere, and prepare lunch. After eating lunch there is a 1-2 hour nap time usually lasting till 2 or 3. Then there is more relaxing and any activity that can be done in the shade and sitting down until about 5 when it starts to cool. Then after that there is soccer and volley ball.

Today I woke up at 9 being awakened by clapping (Paraguayan version of door knocking) of a neighbor asking for a minicarga. Which means he wanted to know if I could give him the equal of 75 cents in cell phone credit (enough to send like ____ messages or talk for maybe 3 minutes.) After sweeping my house,which I have to do because of dust and insects that accumulate every night, and other random cleaning, I ate breakfast (some of yesterday's dinner food). Then I headed out of my house around 10 to go work on my garden. As you may recall, I had planned to make my own garden long ago but had been putting it off on the excuse that I didn't have a shovel. Finally, when I went to clear a patch of land for the garden, I worked hard and did a good job clearing the plot when the land lord came and told me not to put it there. Sadness.... Anyway, I told myself id put the garden somewhere sometime and left it at that. I was mentioning my continued desire to start a garden to a local family I hang out with when they told me I could use their space for a garden. They had the fence (halved bamboo sticks stuck into the ground) already in place and all I needed to do was do a little reparation and prepare the seed beds. So today, in the 11 o clock heat, I prepared 4 seed beds with one of my closer Paraguayan youth friends and planted cucumber, broccoli, napa cabbage, cilantro and basil. Now normally im all down to do manual labor but in this case my little friend enthusiastically did most of the soil turning and seed planting. Anyway, in this heat the gardening manual says cucumbers and napa cabbage will grow well but the other stuff might not. F the manual lol. I have to ensure the fence stays well kept and water everything all the time. I hope it all works out. It would be great to have the cilantro, basil, and napa cabbage readily available. Its hard to get those 3 here in Paraguay. Cilantro is available in town but basil and napa cabbage no.

Back to my day, then I ate lunch at the house where my garden is. We ate a soup made with beef bones locra and other vegetables. It was awesome and a nice change from my own cooked food. The soups kinda remind me of the chinese soups my mom makes at home which is cool After lunch it was pretty much hang out and digest food time for me and sleep time for the mom and dad of the house. I spent the time chatting with the Paraguayan boy (13) and catching up with some other volunteers on their holidays. At about 4 I headed back to my house to eat a little bit and do a little of what im doing now, journal/blog but on my way I saw a lady shelling beans. (most people eat red colored beans here.-no idea what they are actually called- They grow it in their fields and de-shell them by hand.) It was a perfect way to pass time. I stopped and offered to help. It was a family about 5 houses from my house, but one I did not spend very much time at. I spent the next hour chatting about my horrible guarani and de shelling beans. It was very enjoyable. I will probably go back tomorrow. As usual I was asked if I was American and my racial background. After that there was the question about the weather in the United States with the ever present assumption that all of the US has the same weather. After that I took to my house to relax, eat some food and write this blog entry. I hung out for about 40 minutes until it was nice and cool to go play volley ball. Right now volley ball and soccer are the primary past times for after 6 ish. The house I go to play has a nice dirt court and there are usually at least about 10 teens there. Some of the young kids are ridiculously good at the game. Volley takes me to sun down around 8ish when I teach English usually one on one or one on two with 2 pretty cool students. One is Derlis, this 17 year old dude who can already answer my questions in English and write paragraphs about his day in English. It is awesome. In fact I taught him today. We practiced future tense. Then at about 9:30 or 1o come 3-6 teens who come to learn basic break dancing and use my place as a hangout in the night. Today I had to tell them that I needed some space because they always come every day and mostly stay till midnight. It was cool to teach the dance but I cant handle it being endless.  

Just another entry

Being the Peace Corps has proven to be similar to what we were told. Slow and Steady. There are definitely down periods, when nothing seems to be working and frustration builds up. Then the inevitable thought pops up, “Its so hard to work with people. If they dont want to work why am I even here? Why should I be trying?” I tackled this thought pretty recently and I have to tell you sometimes it takes all your strength to wake up and keep getting out there. Fortunately for me and other volunteers, I hope, this period passes and you are reminded by the super guapa<--- hard working ladies in the community who still come to those meetings and are happy to see you every time you come around. In my case, my conditions were at a seemingly permanent standstill and nothing seemed to be changing that. Now my fogon commission has met with the local government and is on track to continue doing fundraisers. My other commission is due to meet and make some awesome soap and shampoo and I have an ambitious idea about loaning money to start a small chicken business with a family. I have also been teaching English which is particularly interesting because you get to see the skill level, strengths and weaknesses of students of different ages. I have this one 9 year old student whose memory is incredible and a 19 year old student who can complete my tasks after showing her only once. Its a fun activity. Anyway ive been trying to think of posts that would be more creative, funny or interesting but I just cant come up with anything good. Its sad really. I used to consider myself a creative person. Sigh. Until next time, or I come up with something interesting. Adios.   

Meeting My Friend Diana... How i Met Your Mother Style

HIMYM- Diana

“I like Hello Kitty best when she is dressed as a panda.” Diana said.

“Wait so you like it best when one cute cartoon animal is dressed as another cute animal? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the Kitty in Hello Kitty?”

“No, she looks the cutest that way.”

I should explain. Diana was one of the other volunteers in my group and she happened to be one of the only other Asian American volunteers in my training group. We didn't really hang out during training but after, she was placed 40 minutes away from me and we began talking on the phone.

“I'd rather have a black belt than a black Denali” she said. Her ex boyfriend had driven one.

“Thats like a rich black dude's car.” I replied.

“No those are Cadillacs” she snapped back.

She was right, but I didn't want to admit defeat. 

“Cadillacs are for the old school rich black dudes. Denalis are more modern.” 

I laughed. You might be thinking that these types of debates are stupid... and they are but hey what else do you talk about for 3 hours. We had been talking about my nonexistent karate skills and how I could pretend to be a master and even teach a class. I had told Dee that my best friend from home had a black belt. But the back story isnt important. The point is this is how I met and got to know your Aunt Dee.

All in all Dee made a pretty good sister. She was easy to talk to didn't get boring and found me entertaining enough to keep the conversation going even after reaching the 10 minute mark.... 30 times. The current record was 5 hrs. You might think this is the part where I tell you about a friendship that blossomed into a picture perfect romance... Yeah right.

“Why am I still telling you this? You never listen anyway. You should listen to your sister more and actually talk to her other than when you need her to do something. That's the only time you call me these days.”

 She had that scolding big sister voice even though I was older than her.

I should explain. Again. Back in the beginning of my service in Peace Corps I was dating this girl named Natasha and needless to say, it had been a chaotic relationship.

“You have broken up and gotten back together like 4 times and you can't keep doing this to her. Its selfish and unfair.” She was right. Solid sisterly advice.

Diana and I had periods of talking a lot and talking not so much, mostly when I was dating a girl. She didn't like that very much. But in the end I always dialed her number and she always picked up. We spoke on the phone and visited each other a lot during our service. It was nice to have a friend close by in the same G as me. The shared Asian heritage didn't hurt. After our service we both ended up in California and as you know, Dee still scolds me today.

Kids, I guess the point of this story is that in the end, we all develop friendships in different ways and Diana and mine was a product of randomness. All I knew during training was that Diana was confident girl with a bit of kick to her. Then in one week we spoke for more than 15 hours. Now shes like a sister. Whether its black belts or Denalis, or some other ridiculous notion you connect over, make those connections and keep them because you never know and if I didn't, your Aunt Dee might have just been another random girl from Peace Corps.

Update on Life

So the other day I was trying to go to sleep and I felt something in my hair. I brushed it away and it dropped into my ear. Have you ever seen the Mummy movie where the scarab things burrow into your skin and kill you in a horrifying and gruesome sort of way? Thats what crossed my mind as I heard the beetle in my ear and felt it crawl deeper into my skull producing what can only be described as shots of terrifying pain as the idea of having a live bug lodged in my ear canal slowly making its way to inevitably gnaw on my brain entered my mind. Fortunately the bug climbed out after about 40 seconds. Gotta love Peace Corps. Anyway, I am spending a little time in a colleague's site helping him with some Peace Corps work and getting a first hand experience at another volunteer's life. It's a good chance to watch him do his work and compare strategies and experiences with his commissions and mine. I will be attending a couple commission meetings as well as essentially shadowing him in his community. His site, like mine, is campo yet in a very hilly and forested area completely different from my flat land filled with ranches and fields. As for work, I still have my 2 commissions going, one for fogons and the other for women doing small projects such as making soap and detergent. We had our first fundraiser for the fogon commission, a bingo mixed with volleyball 2 sundays ago. It was pretty successful with us netting around 260 mil. It takes about 330 mil without labor to build one fogon. so its a good start. There are about 15 people in the commission. In general the idea is to try to raise 20% of the total funds within the community and 80 % from local government help. I also just recently cleared a bit of land for my own garden which im excited to plant. I am hoping to plant vegetables I cannot easy access, broccoli, leafy greens, cucumber as well as spices such as cilantro and basil. My home still needs a lot of work including putting in several doors, a new window, getting a place to put plates and such, fixing some walls with cement and paint if I so choose. All these things will cost money that I do not really have but I will hope to do soon. Even though I am down here relatively in the middle of nowhere its funny, I feel like I dont have that much to say. I dont have internet and it is weird to not be able to google anything I want or need but after a bit you get really used to it. I guess thats it for now. As always feel free to ask any questions.  

Meeting my friend Brad... How I Met Your Mother Style

HIMYM -Brad

Kids, we always meet people who we know we will forget, the man on the street or the woman sitting next to you on the subway and normally, your Uncle Brad would have been one of those guys. But the universe has a funny way of doing things.

You see in the Spring of 2011 I was a brand new Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Paraguay and soon to embark on a journey that would change my life forever. That day I was in the Peace Corps headquarters finishing the last paperwork before heading yo my rural site in the Department of Misiones where I would live for 2 whole years and where I hoped to make a lasting impact on people's lives. Our training group had just finished lunch when he walked up.

“What? Everyone got Lomita Arabe? Aw man. How come nobody told me?” He was wearing an Abercrombie sweatshirt and clearly from the South.

“Sorry man, you wern't here when we ordered and it was kinda our G's idea anyway.” I said.

“It's okay, no worries, I actually just got in. Brad by the way.” We shook hands.

“RiSo, nice to meet you. Hey, you're my VAC President aren't you?” Too clarify, the VAC was the Peace Corps version of student government.

“So you're in Misiones too? You're lucky. Our VAC is awesome!”

To be honest, when I first saw Brad's photo days before on our Misiones volunteer sheet I thought he would be an awkward square, someone you said hi to and smiled politely at. His picture was pretty nerdy but, I was in Paraguay and didn't have many friends and so Brad and I bought Lomita Arabe, yes I ate twice, and chatted about his Peace Corps experience. After lunch we went our seperate ways.

“Hey I got to go dude but catch you later.”

“ For sure RiSo.”

As you know, Brad and I would become best of friends. Without Brad there would have been no Waldorf bathroom story, no water tower story, no face punch story and I may never gotten together with Natasha. But those are other stories. Brad would go on to become the successful venture capitalist you know today but back then he was just Brad, from South Carolina, who needed a 730 on his GMAT. Brad who shared my passion for bro-dom, drinking games and random internet meems. Brad who bro-ed out with me and ate sandwiches on the top of Machu Pichu. Brad who after I suggested we go to a bar after his GMAT said it would be legend... wait for it... dary. I said legend, he said dary.

During our time in Paraguay, Brad would prove de-brotion and bra-someness. When I met Natasha, he encouraged me to approach one of the hottest girls in Peace Corps Paraguay. During my first night with her, he purposely ducked out so that Natasha and I could walk home alone together. He continued to watch Jersey Shore as if nothing was happening while Natasha and I made out behind him. Sorry Brad. For my part, I supported him 110% as he tackled the GMAT and continued to support him even after he went on, and on, and on about his GMAT. Its just what bros do. And guys Brad didn't get the 730 he wanted. He got a 750, which is what allowed him to come to Stanford and the rest is well I don't have to tell you that story.

Meeting my friend Andy... How I Met Your Mother Style

Sometime s in site you have extra time to be creative. As many of you know I love the show How I Met Your Mother. Here is my take on A story in Paraguay as if I was Ted. 

Kids, as you know, my time in Paraguay with the Peace Corps changed my life. I met your Uncle Brad there, Aunt Natasha, and of course your Uncle Andy. In fact it was your Uncle Andy who helped me through some of my worst days in Peace Corps. This is the story of how I met Andy Golub. It may not look it but believe it or not, your Uncle Andy wasn't always so , well, put together. He was a bit of a nonsequiter as he likes to say. He had lived as a street kid in Spain, stolen pants and been subsequently beaten by the Spanish police, squatted in an abandoned mansion and sold mushroom.. uh .. sandwiches back in Salt Lake. Oh and been deported from Russia but those kids, are stories you need to ask him to tell. Anyway, I first heard of Andy as he was to be my closest neighboring volunteer. He was an education volunteer who had been in service for a year. Like Brad's, Andy's picture did'nt look so promising and I was prepared for the worst. Then again Brad had turned out great so I was excited to meet Andy. During my first week in site I was getting to know my community when I got a call from Andy inviting me to his house. When I arrived, I opened the door to find Andy suited up, smoking a cigar and sipping on fine whiskey.

“ So you're the new kid huh?” He swiveled his chair around to face me. “Andy Golub, nice to meet you and welcome to Peace Corps.” Okay, okay, okay that wasn't how I met your Uncle Andy but we thought it would be cool to meet that way. Here's how it actually happened. Like I said I was getting to know my community by walking around house to house when I noticed someone with blondish hair standing in front of a wall at my elementary school. As I approached I knew he was definitely American, baseball cap turned backwards, Ipod earphones in, drawing a grid on the wall. I walked up right beside hi and said, “Whats up?”

He turned slightly and said, Que tal?” and went back to work. It took him a second before he turned, laughed and said, “ Sorry man, I thought you were one of those Asian Paraguayans. How you doing?”

Over the next few weeks I visited Andy frequently. He was an 8 minute bike ride away. We drank beer and cana and he told me the craziest stories I have ever heard. Having Andy's carefree and Carpe Diem attitude, gracious hospitality and valuable advice really kept me going those first days and that kids was just the beginning.