Paraguayan TIme

Today i tried to go to a Paraguayan police station and file what is called a Denucia or a report that i lost some money that im pretty sure someone took from my bag at a hotel. I have done such a procedure before when i lost my cell phone. On that occasion, I walked 10 minutes from the Peace Corps office, waited about 15 minutes and was attended to. The whole process took mas o menos, 45 minutes. That wasnt so bad. Today i was told that i had to file my denucia in the distrct where the hotel is. That meant a 15 minute bus ride into the center of town. Once there i discovered that i needed to walk about 8 blocks to the above mentioned police station. Once at the police station i was told that i was at the wrong district station and would need to visit another station...... 15 blocks away. I should reveal that today in Paraguay it felt like Hong Kong. HOt as #$%^ and humid as #$%^.  I proceded to run the blocks and arrive at the so called correct police station. I then had to wait another 20 minutes for the one dude who does denuncias despite two other dudes who were apparently working extremely hard at standing around and looking bored. Finally I get up to the guy and explain what happened. IT takes about 30 minutes at which point he proceeds to stare at my 3 forms of ID, my bank card, paraguayan ID and California Dirver's license. I ask him what he is looking for or needs at which point he turns and says. I can not do this unless i have your passport. I do not have my passport on me, it is blazing hot, i am sweating bullets and am quickly losing hope. As i start to inquire about the next time i can come i decide that i will not stand for all of this. I begin on this long explanation of the classes i have to teach tomorrow morning and the work i am doing and how i simply cannot stay in Asuncion for another day. After another 20 minutes he concedes and continues to write down this official explanation of what happened. He finishes this task and relieved, I ask for a copy of it to turn into Peace Corps. "Nope you have to come back tomorrow for.... ill finish this later

a normal day

Ill try to outline a normal day here in my home town of Santa Librada. Ill start at the very beginning. Santa Librada is located about 4 hours away from the capital of Paraguay, Asuncion by bus. Asuncion is what I would call a 3^rd world developing modern city. Unlike China's quickly modernizing cities, Asuncion does not have the developing infrastructure or buildings that other cities like shanghai have. There is no real skyscraper skyline and the tallest building are maybe 6 or 7 tall apartment buildings. There are no big electric signs or anything. However the city does of course have running water, electricity and pretty much every modern convienience. Like other 3^rd world cities the rich and the upper class have the same things we would have in the states. Some of their homes are similar as well. The middle class are office workers in modern businesses such as banks and law firms. There is trash pick up and a basic recycling system. The biggest give away that the city is still 3^rd world is that stores are not super clean or organized. Store signs are home painted and a dishevel of products. The stores are normally small and cramped often no bigger than the size of 2 bedrooms put together. There is a lack of corporate stores with the exception of several chain grocery stores that look much more like american grocery stores. To get to Santa Librada you take one of 4 major “Rutas” that transverse the country of Paraguay. The primary one and most extensive is Ruta 1 which runs from the capital east to about the center of the country and then turns directly south until the bottom of the country. To get to my site you would take this “highway” directly passed many other smaller cities to  a 4 way crossing that is in between 2 bigger cities. The crossing is called 4 mouths because it is a 4 way crossing but the cross street from ruta are dirt roads. From this road its a 30ish to 40ish minute car ride into my site driving on a red dirt road. The scenery is kinda hard to explain. Think farmland like in America but in a tropical climate without machinery, much less organized and clean and animals kinda roaming around everywhere. When I am traveling to and from site I ride buses that are like old unclean American tour buses. The buses drop me in front of 4 mouths and if im not lucky I have to walk about 2 hrs into site but if im lucky a truck passes by and I can hitch a ride. Other than that there is one community bus that takes me to the Ruta but it only runs Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays at around 7 AM and 12 lunch time. If I ever come back in the afternoon I have to walk or hitch a ride. My site is made of about 80 houses spread out with some houses practically next to each other and others with a 10 minute walk between it and the next house. Most of the families have farming land somewhere near their house and animals on their home property. Everyone has chickens, usually 1 or two pigs and sometimes ducks.  There is an elementary school in my community and its a nice building. Often the church and school are the nicest buildings in town because of the importance of the church and the government funding for the school. Children go to school each day except when it rains hard. When it rains hard nothing happens. People dont leave their homes and the roads often become rivers. Power also goes out when it rains. School quality is pretty poor. Class usually consists of kids copying stuff written on the board verbatum and class goes from 7 am to lunch time or from around 1 to 5 depending on what age group the kid is in. Okay on to a normal day. If I am being a good volunteer I will wake up around 6 or 6:30 to start my day. Help the family with any house work like sweeping their property of leaves and stuff, maybe getting some wood for fire for cooking. Many families still cook on fires on the ground even though they have gas or electric stoves. The gas is relatively expensive and most people have free wood on their property. In addition there is a strong custom of cooking with wood. Breakfast is usually some sort of grain food made of corn flour, cheese, milk and egg cooked in a pan. It is usually kind of like a homemade toasted dough. To drink people here drink instant coffee that has much more milk than coffee or this drink called cocido which has an herbal mixture with sugar and milk. I drink cocido most days. After that its off to do a days work which is maybe visiting the school and talking to the teachers and kids about future talks I can give in the school. Or I might try to talk to people to solidify plans to speak at a community comission meeting. My community has 3 or 4 commissions. 1 for maintaining the running water. 1 for the school. 1 for the church and there may be one for the farmers. I am planning to do a fagon commission. A fagon is a type of cooking apparatus that includes 4 “burner” spots and an oven. It is made completely of brick and mud and fixes most of the problems that occur from cooking with fire on the ground. There is no bending down to cook. There are 4 cooking surfaces to cook more than 1 thing at a time. The smoke is channeled through a chimney to prevent inhalation and the wood burns more effeciently. I am hoping to get many families to buy into the idea and begin the process of procuring government funds to assist the community in building the fagons. I would then likely sit down with any of the families and drink terere which is a very common custom here where people sit in a circle and drink out of the same cup that has a herb mixture in it. 1 person is assigned as the pourer and has a pitcher or thermos of ice water sometimes with natural plants in it. The cup which is about 3/4^th filled with this mashed herb mixture (bought in stores) is filled the rest of the way with water and passed around to each person who uses a metal straw to drink the liquid. When the liquid is drank it is passed back to the server to be refilled. The flavor is quite refreshing and its fun to do. At least I think. On the other hand the sharing of liquid and straw would wreck havoc if someone was sick but all in all nothing bad usually happens. Lunch would probably consist of oily pasta with some sort of meat sauce in the sense that the sauce has tough chewy beef in it and the sauce would consist of oil onions and green peppers chopped into tiny pieces and cooked for hella long. Then people generally take a nap or terere some more. Then I could probably dig more trash pits or build hand washing stations or play soccer with kids who are way younger and way better than me at soccer. It is kinda depressing. Then its back home for dinner usually consisting of more fried food meat and rice with cheese or something similar with no vegetables. But more commonly dinner is just bread and cocido or cafe again. Dinner isnt a big meal here unless you have the money to make it lol. And then its off to chill in my room for couple hours and sleep at 10 ish. 

So I hope that gives you a grasp of what I am doing here. The above day is an ideal day by the way. Sometimes I wake up late and do nothing. Sometimes I spend a lot of time on the phone talking to other Americans.

its a peace corps life.

About 3 months in site

Its been a long time since I´ve written and i apologize. I don´t realy have good internet options so that is partially to blame. Lets see i am currently working to finish my house by house census of which i have done 33 of 50. Then i will be able to start my commisions which i am really excited to do. In terms of more interesting things, a 2 yr old i am currently living with walked into my room and pooped and then proceeded to drag some of my things through it. That was unpleasant. I am working on the house i am going to rent and will be shortly helping build a modern bathroom in the house. Its a rather daunting and expensive task but it should be fun. My computer broke which is also a reason i have not updated this blog. I have successfully made soap with community members out of chemicals and cow fat. That was fun. I will be trying detergent and softener next. Right now i need to work on speaking more Guarani which i keep putting off but it really makes talking to people hard. I just wish people spoke more Spanish. Being in paraguay without internet or a lot of conviences really gives you a chance to see how much we have and others do not. People here spend a lot of time really doing nothing, sitting together and talking and not talking. the whole awkward silence thing isnt very awkward here. I was in the capital the other week and ate chinese food for 3 days in a row and you would be suprised at how good the food was despite the lack of roast duck which made me quite pissed. Anyway it is crazy to see full blood asians speaking fluent spanish. I feel like so much time is passed but i really dont have that much to say. There are some young community members who i cant wait to start working with more and teach english. That is one thing. You see a lot of youngsters with so much potential and really realize they wont have the resources to explore that potential. Again if any of you have questions please ask.

updates and post swear in

In America, updating requires you to turn around and type some %^&* on your laptop or desktop. Thus we get awe inspiring updates such as "ate a potato today." This action requires no energy because your  sedintary lifestyle has already left you unable to move from your computer.

In Paraguay  internet is challenging. In my training community  i would need to get on a broke a%^ bus, travel 30 minutes to the closest town and sit in a boiling hot room jimmying with sites and downloads in the hopes that i can download or upload 2 pictures in the 40 minutes i sit there. In my site i will have to bike 1 hr and hopefully encounter a bus which will allow me to take a bike onto it instead of driving by at full spead with a "no bueno" face. Or bike in a different direction for 1.5 hours into the closest town where the internet willl likely laugh in my face when i try to sign on.

Swear in was really fun. Ate out and other than the massive toilet destroying chivivi that ravaged several volunteers including myself, we enjoyed ourselfs and went to a pretty awesome night club. I was also able to download like 28 things, mostly movies so i wont feel cut off from civilization. Ok thats all for now. Ill try to update more but there is the likelyhood my internet access with be once a month maybe so be patient dudes.

Jajotopata! - see you later!

Swear In

Swear in weekend pretty much starts tomorrow. Friday, Sat, Sunday and Monday in Asuncion, chilling and having fun. Everyone is super excited. Its like the first weekend of college, graduation weekend, and a going away party all in one and By next Tuesday i will be officially a Peace Corps Volunteer living in my rural site 3 hrs from Asuncion. Thus i will soon have internet much less often which kinda sucks but its life. Please stay in touch and send me emails so i can be reminded that there is more than cows and chickens in world. As always ill try to let you know if there is anything cool that goes on. Jajotopata! - see you later!

Do a Barrel Roll

Do a Barrel Roll! is not something you'd think to do ever in real life, Except when the hoopdy bus you are riding and trying to get off of starts driving off while you are half way off the bus. With the help of years of Starfox and the barrel roll meem i instinctively barrel rolled onto the ground suffering only ripped pants and a deep cut in my finger. After much thought i think the rolling did help me minimize injury or get pulled under or closer to the bus so hoorah for starfox!

Site placement

Recieved my site today, running water, electricity, no internet or other modern conveniences but otherwise a good site. Will visit it the end of this week and be deployed i think in half a month or so. Thus wil begin my 2 year deployment with the Peace Corps. In other news, saw my host dad shaving a raw pig head and ate pig ear as well as heart, lung and other parts in a sausage. no biggie bec chinese people eat the same. Holla my azns!!!!! lol. miss you all and all the conveniences of the states. in site i will have sig less ability to use internet but meh. i hope all of you are well.