Running out of Gochujang (Korean Red Sauce) and Sesame Oil

More about my life, bare with me.....

So I am officially running out of two ingredients that make my food in Paraguay taste awesomely and epicly Asian and delicious.

Have you ever noticed that making food with sesame oil automatically makes it much better?

Liquid yum.

 Have you ever noticed that using Gochujang is summer easy and also makes it almost impossible for me to mess up food.

Nom Nom Nom ... spicy

  In other news I have successfully made JaJa Mein and pork dumplings in Paraguay even with my super limited ingredients.

Mine were not accompanied by a china plate.

had all the cucumber, porky  noodlish goodness 

 But today I visited 2 different major carnicerias (butcher shops) and no pork, only vaca meat (beef) sigh.  

Third World Occurances

Common occurances in Paraguay:
Singing and dancing in my house by myself at 1 am.
Kids coming to my house to ask to drink my cold water
Kids coming to my house at night for no real reason except be away from their own houses
Eating my own food creations that are borderline unappetizing
Eating my own food creations out of need for sustenance as opposed to taste
Wiping ants off me every 20 minutes or so
Ants biting be every 20 minutes or so
Losing power
Running out of food
Waking up to roosters or wild parrots
Stepping in ant hills and cursing
Thinking spending more than 10 dollars a day is a lot

House chores:
Burning my used toilet paper
Making ice in Tupperware
Waiting 10 min for my toilet tank to refill with water
Sweeping layer of dead ants and other dead bugs, every morning
Emptying my organic compost scrapes on a in a pile outside
Emptying my inorganic trash in a hole outside

Just another day...

First of all let me tell you how frustrating it is not to have a camera and want to take pictures of everything to post. I will surely get one soon.

Anyway, I had my youth business group meeting today. As I suspected neither of the 2 members came. But at least one had a good excuse that his mom fell and injured herself so he had to take care of her. On the bright side it seems i have recruited 3 new female members who i am hoping and seem far more efficient and responsible than the guys. Why is that? It's the same deal with tried and true lending practices. In micro-loan programs women are far more likely to succeed and return money borrowed than men. More proof that men suck.

Women in Uganda using micro loans

 We were supposed to make the food today but we did not really have the ingredients to do so since group members are supposed to bring them to the meeting in the morning, cook and sell the product in the afternoon. You know how you you know females are better? The girls even suggested that they cook and sell the food themselves when I told them I would not be available tomorrow. That's amazing! When I try to get other groups to meet without me they often say they will but never follow through. We will see about this group.

After discussing all of this we took some time to Terrere and then i got involved in a water balloon and bucket fight that was awesome because it is still soooooooooooooooo F*&%*$&^ hot out here.

Ok maybe not quite like this.

More like this.

The playtime was followed by some good old fashion farm work. Today many families harvested their corn from the fields. As a suburban dweller back in the states I don't ever see this type of work and it was cool to watch the young men I know and hang out with working hard with the older men gathering the corn and driving the ox cart full back to the house to unload. Everyone is obviously exhausted and sweaty but still chatting with vigor and smiles. After Terrering for a bit they all sit down and throw aside their wide brim hats for lunch, their long pants and long sleeve shirts dirty and soaked through. It is a hard life out here.

Which brings me to my work. I sat down in the shade and de-husked corn for an hour. Definitely not as hard other jobs but necessary and time consuming still.

Ill try to put up a pick of this work if I can.

Alright thats it for now.

Something in my Ass? and New Purchases!

So yesterday I seriously thought I might have something in my ass. Not like in my ass but burrowed in my ass cheek. Which brings me to today's third world problem.

First World: Oww. there's a sore itchy bump on my body, must be a zit or something.

Threat level: 8%

Third World: Oww. there's a sore itchy bump on my body, BOT FLY LARVAE!!!!!

Threat level: Over 9000 %

Holy shit that is a fly larvae coming out of his leg. Fortunately, I no longer think there's a gooey maggot chillin in my butt chowing down. But it is truly an issue here. 

In other news I got a couple new luxuries that I am super excited about. 

First: A pillow, ohhh yeeeeah. 

This was what I was using before:

Airline blanket inside a pillow case.

I also bought a fiembrero which her emeans a closet like wood structure that serves as a place to stow plates, cutlery, cups, dry food and such. It is super exciting because before I had to strategically place things on and under my fridge (I have a small fridge that sits on a really short stand.)

Ill try to post pictures when i get a camera. 

SO excited for such basic things.... sigh.

Visit my Asian American Blog!!!!

Hey guys, just wanted to thank you all for following my blog. Makes me feel like I am actually loved at least a little. And on that note, if you are really cool please check out my Asian American blog at aapulse.blogspot.com. Its got some cool stuff and some really insightful articles. Thanks a ton and if you can follow it, leave a comment or chat.

Third World Problems 2

2 of 15 commission members arrive an hour late for meeting, pump fist because more than one came.

Catch a truck ride back into site, avoid a 2 hr walk, booyah.

Get woken up by cows at your window.

Get woken up by roosters at your window.

Get woken up by kid at your window.

First World: Being angry for paying 8 bucks for a coffee

Third World: Being angry for paying 75 cents for a coffee

First World: People assuming you know Karate because you're Asian: racism

Third World: People assuming you know Karate because you're Asian: security

First World: See an Asian person on the street, do nothing

Third World: See and Asian person on the street, discreetly look and nod as if in a secret fight club

First World: Tell someone they need to do it by Thursday: gets done by Thursday

Third World: Tell someone they need to do it by Thursday: might get done 3 weeks from Thursday

First World: Wish dragons were real

Third World: Explain that dragons aren't real

There is a storm:

First World: Shut windows, turn up heat

Third World: Shut windows, go through predetermined set of actions to make sure belongings don't get soaked by numerous leaks in roof and windows. Pile blankets on self to create heat.... and hope house doesnt fall down

First World: Kids on volleyball ball court playing with partially deflated ball

Cause: just sprung hole or too lazy to replace

Third World: Kids on volleyball ball court playing with partially deflated ball

Cause: normal, holes created by barbed wire (anti cow fence), too poor to replace ball.

World Map, Hardcore

A couple days ago I decided I would help my neighboring volunteer with his third world map. The World Map project is usually an education volunteer project in which you pick a school and proceed to paint a world map on the wall so that Paraguayans can get a sense of what the world looks like other than Paraguay and Argentina, the limit of most Paraguayans. It would be an understatement to say this process is tedious. The first method involves painting the wall blue, drawing a grid in pencil and painstakingly using a book to blow up and redraw the countries grid box by grid box. The end result is a pertty, proportional map that takes &^$&$^* forever. In the case of this last map we decided to do the second method, known as the projector method. In this method you paint the wall blue but then instead of gridding you use a projector which depicts the countries straight on the wall and you can paint straight onto the wall. It is a little less accurate but much faster. You also have to finish the project in one sitting unless you know exactly where to replace the projector, at what angle and what focus. It sucks..... if it takes more than one sitting.... trust me. Anyway, so my friend and I decide that we will have a chill night together to paint and finish this world map in one night because its easier to do at night.  We thought we would start at 8 or 9 and end at 1ish. This is how the night actually went:

8:00 Arrive at Andy's house.
9:00 Finish eating dinner and begin preparing and mixing paints
10:00 Paints packed and bikes prepared to ride to the school a 20 minute ride away
10:30 Arrive at site and begin setting up computer, projector, and paints
11:30 Still setting up projector image and putting down paper under the map
(At this point I was pretty upset. I had expected to leave Andy's house when i got there at 8)
12:00 Realize that the projector is too far away to do good focusing. Blurriness is inevitable. Painting begins.
1:00   Painting continues.
3:00   Painting is still not half completed with much guessing work being done due to blurry as &^%& image.
(Frustration is unbearable.)
5:00   Frustration turn into feeling of hardcoreness as it becomes obvious that we will not finish before daybreak.
6:30   Sun begins to rise and hardcoreness peaks along with a beautiful vista.
7:30   With sun completely up, both Andy and I pack up and ride home. Map is 90% complete.
YATA!

All in all i felt hardcore and it ended up being pretty fun. Still wish we had started earlier as we ended up resetting up the projector at night again and were unable to create the same image. In consequence our world map is somewhat distorted but meh. Mission accomplished.