Che rakuitereri. Atopase che chicorá.

Back in Caazapa for the day. Had to pick up my packages of dental hygiene supplies for the kiddies. I never really thought about it, but its kindof weird to think that I had to teach full grown adults how to brush their teeth. Just one of those things I think about sometimes. I came in on the mandioca truck again. I was invited to sit up front again as well. Silly me. I was tired and didn´t want mandioca sticking up my ass, so I didn´t object. I made sure to keep my mouth closed this time. Even when repeatedly asked why I wasn´t talking. I didn´t want to reply with ´I don´t want to eat your finger for breakfast, thanks.¨so i just left it.
Nothing exciting here. It hasn´t rained in a month. I have to go back to the city monday for a project design and management workshop. I just got back from the 40th anniversary tuesday, and really don´t feel like leaving site again. The city wears me out. Lassie had a bath yesterday, and then went and rolled in the dirt. I got angry. Tears were shed. My neighbors invited me over for dinner the other night. We had cow head. Cow head is gross. I don´t know what part they served me, but it was gross. I tried the brains. That was even worse. Never again. I don´t like chicken, but i must say, chicken heart is delectable. I have a crush on a 16 year old. Wait thats a lie, he turned 17 last friday. He´s moving to ciudad del este to work. I think its for the better. The boys my age like me, but they all have kids and have no teeth so I don´t like them back. Everyone keeps telling me that im getting old and need to get married soon. ¨Why dont you love the paraguayans?¨they ask me. It´s a tough question, that I hope to one day be able to answer.

no words. just pictures.

this is actually a surprise for sejal. the kids are just so darn cute, i had to post some pics...and ruin the surprise..

here you see chipa and lassie modeling their new collars mom bought them

being crazy on my birthday

poor robin trying to kill a chicken

celebrating my birthday at the paraguayan discoteques.

ninjas and prostitutes

It´s been exactly 2 weeks back in site, and I´m leaving again. This time its for the 40th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps in Paraguay. Very exciting. My ride back to site in the mandioca truck the other week turned out to be the most interesting yet. It was cold so I got to sit up front with the driver and his helper. I was nervous to be sitting up there alone with them because they are dirty old men who say dirty old men things. but luckily, the 19 year old prostitute (she really is, and her mother is her pimp), sat up front with me. Apparently she is dating the truck driver. He´s in his 50s. It was not a pleasant trip. I wonder how much he is paying her. The ¨helper¨guy wants to be my boyfriend. Yes, he tried to hold my hand and put his arm around me, nothing new. But out of nowhere he stuck his dirty ass mandioca finger in my mouth for no reason. I dont know if that has special significance here in paraguay, but to me it just means gross and uncalled for! anyway, it was the longest 3 hours of my life.
It´s finally starting to warm up. The 2 month long winter is just about over, and I have 10 months of untolerable heat to look forward to now. Everyones planting their summer crops, and lucky me, i get to help. Planting sugar cane sucks. Planting mandioca sucks even more. Using a machete to chop down everything in site to prepare a field for planting is the most amazing experience ever. i swear i felt like a ninja. you might think i was too if you saw me chop down a tree in one swoop of my machete. then you might laugh when you saw me struggling to cut a piece of tall grass, and ended up slicing my ankle in the process. Yes, it happened. But i didnt flinch. Im a ninja afterall.
what else? my dogs are good, im sure you were wondering. my cats still dead. my hens lay their eggs all over my yard, so i have to go and search through the tall grass everyday to find them. in my opinion, that just makes everyday easter. i have yet to find an egg filled with chocolate. one had a fetus, but no chocolate.
I have nothing else exciting to tell at the moment. But I have started a list of things you could send me, if you are ever feeling generous enough to send me a care package. it would be greatly appreciated. but mom, you can hold off for a while. I picked up 6 packages from you at the post office today.
so heres my list.
cinnamon toast crunch (sejal gave me that idea. best birthday present ever), tooth whitening strips (maté stains your teeth worse than coffee), magazines (any, the trashier the better), candy, cds (anything. my ipod broke, my radio broke, my cd player works. sometimes.), nag champa incense, egyptian goddess perfume ( if you dont know what it is, you wont find it).
thats the end for now. I will add more when i think of more.

Stuck in town

Sooo after waiting for 2 hours, in the blistering cold for my bus back to site last night, it finally came. Then they said they weren´t going any further because the bridge still wasn´t ready. Why didn´t anyone know that earlier? Anyways, on the verge of tears, I hauled all my bags back to the hotel I had just left and was giving back my room from the previous night. Just the way I left it, garbage over flowing, crumbs in my beds, dirty towel on the floor. Just like home. Luckily this morning I ran into Mr. Saro. The driver of the mandioca truck, which I normally depend on the get to and from my site. This truck passes my house every morning at 4am to bring all the women from my community into town to sell their mandioca (you might now mandioca as yuca in the states. a root vegetable. very popular here. eaten with every meal because its cheap, its everywhere, and it fattens you up. they call it ¨the bread of paraguay.¨) Anyway, he told me he will be leaving caazapa around 11am and passing my house. This means I dont have to walk 45 minutes to my house from where the bus drops me off with all my heavy bags of crap. What a relief. So we ride in the back of this oversized pickup truck (which recently got a roof installed) sitting on bags of mandioca, corn, oranges, peanuts, whatevers in season. It´s an experience. My parents know. You should come visit me. I promise I´ll let you ride in the truck to.

From the beginning...

I decided on a whim to start a blog. Mostly out of boredom. That was last night, while stuck in my pueblo, but then I deleted it like an idiot and gave up. So I will start again. I´m not very good with keeping in touch with people, so I will start from the beginning to update everyone. I´ll try to make it brief.

Last march I applied and was accepted to peace corps. I had my interview and talked all about my human development and familie studies major that I was about to graduate with and my horrible spanish speaking skills. That summer I received my invitation to Paraguay, to work in the field of agriculture. Crop extension they call it. First thought; where the hell is Paraguay? Don´t they speak spanish there? I don´t. Second; what the hell is crop extension? agriculture? My previous agriculture experience includes weeding my neighbors from steps for money in high school and refusing to eat the veggies out of my moms garden when i was younger, just because i thought that was gross. Yeah, so I was the perfect candidate for this job.

Anyway, I arrived in PY September 28, 2006 with 33 other bright young trainees/future volunteers. After 3 months of living with a host family and having training/school everyday to learn about agriculture, culture, and language (spanish and guarani), I was assigned to my site where I would be living for the next two year. Colonia Jerovia, Quinta Linea, Caazapa. I´m about 7 hours south of the capital of asuncion on bus. My closest town/pueblo is Caazapa, which is about 2 hours (30 kilometers) away from me. Once you exit the pueblo, its all dirt road to get to my site and we must cross 12 old as dirt, rickety bridges as well. One bridge just collapsed last week, which is why I am stuck in Caazapa at the moment. They just fixed it, so I will finally have a bus back to site tonight. I´ve been out of my community since monday. I went to the capital for medical issues. I think I have a parasite in my stomach making me extremely sick, so I´m getting my shit tested. Exciting.

So my life in site is pretty much routine. I wake up around 7, drink maté for an hour, poop in a hole, sweep my porch, eat breakfast, wash my clothes, visit people, drink tereré, eat lunch, nap, visit people, bathe in a bucket, drink maté, eat dinner, go to bed around 7. of course i occasionally throw in some language studying, lots of reading, oh yeah and i work sometimes too. having no background in agriculture makes it difficult, especially being a young woman. the men don´t listen to me or want to work with me. i hear everyday that women shouldn´t be in this field, and i should focus more on women jobs, which i have been. I work a lot with the women in their gardens, we make soap and we cook, i also do a lot with the chilren because there are sooo many in my community. I just gave a dental hygeine charla and gave out close to 100 toothbrushes and toothpastes to the kids, i teach them nutrition, we color, and i´m teaching 1 english.

I had to build a house. I have a fantastic garden with tons of veggies. I have two dogs who are my life, 4 hens, a rooster, and lots of mice that frequent my house and i frequently kill with a broom. I had a cat but my neighbors killed it with a machete. I would like another cat to eat my mice. i shit in a hole and bathe in a bucket. i have running water outside my house. when it rains my roof leaks. are you jealous yet? Its tough at times obviously, but I am so happy and wouldn´t change a thing. When I´m lonely or homesick I have special people in my community that always know how to cheer me up. I complain all the time (which is inevitable in my situation), but afterwards I can always laugh and I always have great stories to tell.

I´m sorry this turned out longer than I had planned.

I´ll probably end up writing more later while i´m stuck in town waiting for my stupid ass bus.

I´m starting a blog

I´m starting a blog tomorrow, because the really long one I just wrote, just got deleted and I am to upset to write another one at the moment.