Slumber Party Weekend

August 22 - La Rubia y la Morena

Sasha came to visit today, discovering that we are just one quick hour bus ride away from each other. I played Show and Tell tour guide with my town. As we were walking by one of the Ao Poi shops, we heard a voice from a group of women doing embroidery: "La rubia y la morena." "The blond girl and the dark girl"

I took her over to meet my girls, and while we were there I mentioned that we were going to be eating dinner at Rosa's place, the restaurant where I sometimes eat lunch.

"Well, did you call her?" the girls asked.

Sasha and I looked at each other. Um, no.

So they called her for me, dialing 40045.

"Um, hi Rosa, yeah, we wanted to eat dinner there."

"Bueno, What do you want to eat?"

"Hmm...milonesa?"

"Bueno. And what time will you be here?"

"About 7"

"Bueno. Chau."

"Chau."

Paraguayan dinner reservations.

At dinner Sasha and I mowed down Rosa's riquisimo milonesa, which is your typical slab of meat, breaded and fried.

After dinner the Kung Fu guy came in with his guitar, and Sasha and I sang Guns N Roses' "Don't Cry" while he played with a pick cut out of a phone card.

Sasha flirted in Guarani.

August 24 - Wild Weekend in the big city

Sasha and I headed out to the compound in Villarica to chop it up a little with the other volunteers. Walking there we saw a guy riding a motorcycle holding a can of Budweiser.

Across from the bus stop was a store we found out later was the chuchiest furniture and appliance store in town. Sasha went in looking for a hair dryer. We priced refrigerators, floor fans, blenders. We joked about having the overstuffed sofa and chairs in my little grass-roof house. There was an air conditioning unit for two million Gs. I asked if I could buy the flat-screen tv. She said no.

I kind of thought that my standard of living would be decided for me down here. It´s hard when you decide, when you can buy air conditioning, a washer and dryer, almost anything you want. I guess the deciding factor for me is if it sets me apart from my community. The girls have hair dryers, but almost no one has air conditioning.

We arrived at the compound with plans to dance it up with everyone that night, but when I mentioned the club to my friend there, he said that we can go, but he's not coming with us. For reasons no volunteer here seems to understand, the club doesn't open until 1 a.m. There are no other bars really to start at, nothing much else to do but wait.

Sasha chose to sleep until said start time, but I thought it best to plow through. So I played cards with the guys until it was time. We ended up walking out the door with Stewart, a volunteer from a nearby town and the only other one willing to brave the madrugada, starting our night out at 2 a.m.

The club was like any other in the U.S. There were the Paraguayan versions of men I'd see back home, those with their shirts sleeves rolled tight against their biceps, looking for ladies who enjoy a good gun show.

We drank Brahmas and danced almost from the second we walked in. We attracted a friend who knew how to lead and took turns twirling Sasha and me.

Sweaty and tired, we nodded to each other at about 4:40 and took it home. At nine a.m. the neighbors in the compound started blasting Limp Bizkit.

We breakfasted on pineapple, rolls, honey, instant coffee and leftover pizza. Sasha returned home straight from there. I took the bus that dropped me off at the routa and walked a few kilometers into town. As I neared my house, I heard kids running and yelling. Around the corner flashed what looked like a running puppy. Then a boy came into view, and huffed for a second at his losing pace. He then restarted after after the animal with his friend. As the scene passed me, I saw that the huffing boys were losing ground in the chase of a very fast little piglet.

New President...the TV Question...The Exercise Question

Hello everyone! I´m settling in, hanging out. I had my first successful video conference the other day. I´m on Windows Live Messenger if anyone wants to find me.

Yesterday I bought the fabric to make my first shirt. Hooray. I´m going to experiment for a while to see what patterns I want to use.

This morning I had the thought that this is going to be like when I went to Penland, aka craft camp. Then I worked in the kitchen on a work-study scholarship while I learned to make glass beads. Now it´s like a two-year craft camp, where I work in the cooperative. Oh, life is good.

I talked to a woman who actually makes the clothes, and she asked me if I wanted to learn to sew. Yeah, we´ll see. For now I´m going to pay her to make the clothes after I do the Ao Poi.

It´s Sasha´s birthday so she´s headed here then we´re going to spend tomorrow in the big city (Villarica) to hit the club. (Usually, it´s hit the clubs.)

August 15 - A new president

This morning while I was enjoying my cafe con leche, fireworks started in the streets. I’m accustomed to these on Sundays, when futbol games are won, but not on a Friday morning. I had forgotten it was the day for the new president.

In the first peaceful passing of power from one party to another in the history of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo became president this morning.

In fact, I can’t believe I’ve gone this long here without mentioning the story that has lead up to why Paraguay is the way it is, why the people are the way they are.

From 1954 to 1989 Paraguay was ruled by the dictator Alfredo Stroessner. In this time, many writers and musicians were exiled to Brazil. People with differing opinions and voices disappeared. No one enjoyed a good job unless they were part of the ruling Colorado party. During our training, some of our Paraguayan teachers told us about family members and friends who had been tortured, disappeared for a while or who locked for days in a room with a wire floor and white walls for sensory deprevation.

Paraguay became a democracy in the 1989. But even after the dictator left, his party ruled. Until this morning.

This is the first generation of people becoming adults now that didn’t grow up under a dictatorship. That’s where many of their parents got their tranquilo attitude. They didn’t have the power to change the way their lives were, so why worry? One of our trainers mentioned to us that when we ask a campo little girl what she wants to be when she grows up, probably no one else has ever asked her that in her life.

As Americans, we have that power, those opportunites, to pick ourselves up and change our lives. We´ve never known anything else but opportunity and freedom to make our lives better, if we only worked for it.

Yes, Paraguay is known for it´s coruption, but the people can see and hope now that things are changing. With an emphasis on transparency and shared profits, cooperatives are one of the ways Paraguayans are changing their country and their opportunities. And I feel really lucky to be a part of that.

August 17 - Television

The reports are starting to come in one how everyone is doing. One volunteer is up in the second floor of a vacation house with a washer and dryer he bought. My friend Tim called me from in a tree -- the only place he gets reception -- to tell me that his family served him pig’s head, skull included. Somehow it’s been miscommunicated that he likes the telenovela Marina, the one with the sexy villianess whose implants separate an extra inch every time she screams during her tantrums and return toward the center every time she takes a breath.

Oh television. It’s as much of a conundrum here as it is back home. When I watch it, I hate it. All the drama - The women with their tantrums. The bad fake slaps. The steamy sex scene that puts that adds an awkward touch to an otherwise pleasant evening with a Paraguayan family.

And there are the commercials. Somehow, the advertising seems more rediculous here. In America, no matter how anorexic and photoshoped the models are, we somehow think, if we throw enough money and gym time into it, we could look like that. Here, it’s like two different worlds. I see perfect world on the tv, then look around and see the third world.

But, everyone watches tv. It’s what’s done. Like back home, the conversations are on what happened last night on such-and-such a show. While I’m searching for ways to connect with people, it’s the easiest thing to chat about. And when I do catch an episode of Marina or Pura Sangre, it’s something to talk about with some of my PC friends who are far away. (Sasha thinks she might have to buy a tv, she´s that deep into Marina.) If community is shared experiences, then sometimes television is one of the only things you have to share with the people you want to keep in your community.

And, it´s TV. I like it. You don´t have to think. You don´t have to move. However, I consider myself a reformed couch potato, and I know my life is much fuller without. Must. Resist. Temptation.

I’m going to try to avoid it. Since the average American watches 5 hours of tv a day, I heard a statistic that by the time he is 60 years old, he will have spent 15 years in front of the tv. I want those 15 years.

August 19 - Crafty Dia

I woke up today at my usual hour, which is to say whenever I realize the noises in my dreams, twisted into screams or alarms, are really the roosters and hens on the other side of my wall.

I went out for my coffee. The empleada of the house talked to me about staying to live here for my two years. Of course, living alone is a strange thing here. What I didn’t say to her was that if I lived here, I would essentially have an empleada. While I sipped my coffee, someone else would be sweeping my floor, doing my laundry, taking out my trash.

Now, I can accept that life here isn’t going to be the rustic hut-life I thought it would be, and that’s fine. But I simply cannot live more luxuriously here than I did in the states. Playstations, coffee ready-made when I wake up, tvs and cars? I can’t live like this!

After breakfast I went to the IPA, where they teach Ao Poi, and sat with the ladies there for a while. Then I went to the cooperative and made Ao Poi there.

I lunched at home, tried to siesta but couldn’t, and got up. I listened to my Most Played list on my iTunes while I made a necklace for my friend Sasha’s birthday this weekend.

Then back to the cooperative. More Ao Poi.

By then my tushy was suffering from craft-butt, so I convinced my buddies to go for a walk. We strolled down a lane where the cobblestone gave way to red dirt, and suddenly I felt like I was walking in the top half of a hanging calendar. There were little ponds lined with yellow flowers. A man passed us on his bike, holding a rope that was attached to a horse trotting in front of him. We passed cows coming in from the field, which one of the girls feared after a freak moto vs. cow accident she had a while back.

Their dog trotted along with us as I talked about the ocean in St. Augustine. A man passed herding his cows with his motorcycle.

Then the land just opened up, the path swallowed by the tall grass. It went on until the hills in the distance, and I pictured myself as one of those cows with their legs disappearing into the grass, only for me it will be as I’m jogging along my new found path.

It was getting dark so we returned. We watched the telenovelas, I made Ao Poi and shared a packet of Skittles with them.

A WORD ON EXERCISE

Something has to be done about my health. I’ve got to get something started here. One of the ladies here told me that the women don’t like to exercise, and that’s been confirmed by several sources.

I saw a Wii Fit mat in the store here, which is something you attach to this video game consol and do exercises with (There’s a boxing game!). And I’m tempted to dip into my dollar funds to buy one. But that just seems like the American thing to do, especially with exercise -- throw some money into some technology and think it’s going to change things.

I was hoping to play volleyball here, but only the men play. The only other thing I’ve heard of is this nice guy I met, who practices Kung Fu.

Yes, Kung Fu, and I’m welcome to join in.

The other option I’m considering is starting an aerobics class. That’s what I heard another volunteer did. But how to convince women to come. I thought about having a charla (talk) about the health benefits. But, we in America know all the benefits, but how many of us actually get out there and exercise? If we did Zoomba, it would be really fun, but people have to show up first. And public exercise requires a kind of lack of shame that I’m not sure is common here.

The woman who’s teaching me Ao Poi does walk some days, and I’m going with her tomorrow. We’ll start there.

Some pics of Yataity

Hi all, I wrote a blog on my Mac and now it´s not uploading here. Overall, all is well. I´m learning Ao Poi, learning Guarani, killin it with the Spanish, missing my fam and friends, and hanging out watching telanovelas. That´s about it. For now I´m just looking around seeing where I can be of use.

Oh, and a lot of you have asked what you can send me. I´m really fine, but the only thing I can´t get here are books. If you want to send something on down, there are some computer books on my Amazon wishlist that would help me when I start teaching classes. But really, I have everything I need.

Also, I´m trying to figure out how we´re going to make this online store. If anyone knows anything about that jazz, let me know.

Me speaking at graduation


The house Im living in now

The house I´ll be in for my two years

My friend making a table cloth

All the Ao Poi I´ve done so far!

Detail shot

The graveyard and grazing cattle

Finally in Site and loving it

Hello all,
In the cyber cafe in my site. Today I got my first Ao Poí lesson. I love it. Here are some notes from our training graduation and three days in Asuncion. I´m off to watch the telenovelas and practice crochet.

I´m realizing my dreams of being a crafty old lady...just a bit early.

Also, my address is now:
My full name
Cuerpo de Paz
Box 23
Villarica, Paraguay

August 6

We have Wi-fi internet in our hotel in Asuncion. Que bueno! The hotel we use has a hostel called The Attic, a big room in the top with eight beds in it that rents for 40,000 Gs a night, or $10. There's another one, and between the two we fit our group.

We´re definitely adjusting to the Guarani. The other day we played a game for 13,000 Guaranis we had left over for a fundraiser. In two groups, we got so competitive, fighting over less than four dollars to be split six ways. Later my buddy Tim had a lunch of half a chicken, two pieces of sausage, and a piece of barbeque, blowing 20,000 guaranis. "20,000 Gs!" we said. Then I thought, that's five bucks. While cleaning out my purse, I found a receipt for a 29 dollar meal I had before I left the states. I converted it to Gs in my head and nearly fainted.

The night before last I had a long night of sickness and a 100.8 fever. I missed the morning of classes, but had to go in for the afternoon, where we had our despidida. The trainers had skits making fun of all of us, and we performed the same. Our skit went over really well, and I read a story I wrote as well. I'm glad I dragged out of bed to go.

We got our scores from our oral exit exams, and I got Advanced Low in Spanish. It's awesome, I guess, but I feel like I still have a really hard time understanding people. And so far to go.

Today was our swearing in, and I was voted to make the speech, which was fun. I'm having fun just writing little things here and there, looking for assignments now that I'm not writing for a living. (I'll put the speech at the end of this post. I'm cringing a little now because I didn't have too long to write it and now all I see are edits I would make.)

(My friend just walked in the Attic and, looking around at everyone together, but on their laptops, tapping at their cell phones, said, "Well, we're definitely back in the states.")

PARAGUAYAN JOURNALISM:

I've been wanting to buy a newspaper here to send back to my peeps at the St. Augustine Record to show them the difference in journalism here. For instance, on the tv news, you'll see victims of domestic violence and dead bodies, stuff that would never fly in the U.S.

As for the newspapers, there are several levels. There's Ultima Hora and ABC Color, which are the most respected. Then there's Esto!, which usually have chicks in thongs on the cover. Today's Esto! looked especially naked, so I bought it as an example. Then I opened it, and there were so many bloodied news photos and dead bodies that I just handed it off, grossed out.

ANOTHER NOTE:

We've already had one down on the "Oops I crapped my pants." It wasn't me.

Training Graduation Speech:

(References - *Jason is a mystery guy who was supposed to come but just never showed up. *Also, our director gave us this speech where he said we should think about the movies we had in our head about our service and be our own protagonist.)

To my fellow G-27ers,

Do you ever wonder where Jason is, our mystery 19th volunteer. I wonder if he's working some 9 to 5 somewhere, thinking about that time he almost joined the Peace Corps. We'll never know what actually happened to him, but I wonder if he just wussed out? I wonder if he packed his bags, said his goodbyes. I wonder if he went to the airport. I wonder -- At what point did he turn back?

I almost backed out a million times. I laid in bed, obsessing, needing to know exactly what my life would be like. I made lists of pros and cons, thinking I could quantify the decision. I sought advice from everyone. I even asked my four-year-old nephew if I should join the Peace Corps, and he said, "Sure."

But I still couldn't decide. Then one day I realized, I was afraid to fail. That's when I decided I at least had to try.

There were still plenty of moments of doubt. But, like you, and unlike so many other people, I got through every one of them. I think that's the biggest thing we should really be celebrating today.

Yay for us, that we'll never have to be the people who say, "Peace Corps, huh? I always wanted to do that."

Let's celebrate that we are not of the people who maybe sent out for the packet, but never filled it out. Maybe they filled it out but never found the guts to mail it.

Let's celebrate that we are not of the class of people who have been duped by advertisers into thinking that they should be spending their youths trying to look more youthful, spending thier money to be thinner, using their time to get more things.

Yay for us that we didn't listen to those who said you're going to work your job and go home to your couch and watch your tv and eat your fast food. This is how things are done around here.

We heard another voice, just a whisper, that brought us here. And we did all that paperwork and dismantled our lives and got on the plane.

And we had that movie in our head, the one that Michael Eschleman told us about.

But then we got to our sites, and, for some of us, it felt like we walked into the wrong theater. The set was all wrong. The cast was not following our script. We brought all the wrong props. And we're back to being scared.

This is because we mistook ourselves for the screenwriters. We are just the characters. And the characters never get to choose their challenges, only how they will act in the face of those challenges.

Maybe you saw yourself being Campo Cowboy, with bragging rights that you walk 10 miles to your latrine, uphill both ways, but you ended up chuchi.

Or you were hoping for chuchi, and now will find yourself with a lot of time to think, while squatting, about just how long two years is going to be. And you're wondering again - Can I do this?

When that fear starts to creep in, try to find that voice, that whisper, that you listened to in the months before you stepped on the plane. It's a humble voice, that didn't bring you here for the sweet Facebook photos or the captivating blog material. It's something that tells us that there's more to life that what we've found in our own little fishbowl.

And if we stay to find out how our movie turns out, we'll leave with benefits too numerable to list, the least of which is being able to say, "Peace Corps, huh? I did that once."

August 7 - Last night was my pleasure

Last night we started the celebration of our graduation at a Mexican restaurant. We had wide glasses of peach margaritas and meals out of volcanic rock bowls. Other volunteers came to join in the festivities, as well as our trainers.

From there we walked, through the chuchi part of town, beers in hand. No open container laws here.

We walked past the lit windows of shops that could have been from any shopping district of any American downtown. There were pink and blue baby clothes, mannequins draped in shiny shirts, couches with fluffy pillows for sale.

Then we turned a corner and bam...A mall. Outdoor tables surrounded by couples in club clothes. A bar called Liquid, with a waterfall running down one full wall lit in purple. A sparkling Swarvoski shop. Inside we found an Irish pub.

We bought Brahmas and found seats. A drum set was in place, and we waited for the show.

Then, taking the stage, Indie Show: Paraguay. The lead singer had on one of those khaki baseball caps with the seam around the top and a Led Zepplin T-shirt. The bassist had a long ponytail and a Pink Floyd shirt. The drummer seemed quiet behind his beard. I'd seen this band before, only not.

Then they proceeded to play not only American music, but great American music: Radiohead's "Creep," U2's "One," Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here."

We stood in front, air drumming and dancing. Everyone else in the club was just sitting watching, tranquilo. But the band was loving us and we loved them.

When I ran to the bathroom as quickly as I could, so as not to miss anything, all the girls in the bathroom looked cuter than I did. I had on my Birks, khakis, Ao Poi shirt and my hair back. They fixed their lip gloss with their jewelry dangling as they leaned over into the mirror. And I listened to their chit chat in Spanish, nearly the only clue besides the color of skin that told me I was in Paraguay.

August 8 - Asuncion

We've just been hanging out, running a bunch of errands in the Capital. There's pockets of poverty here, in shanty towns near the river where we don't go, but the populations are here.

At stop lights, there are children that clean the windows of drivers shaking their fingers. There are kids doing handsprings. There are people weaving in and out of cars with handfuls of tangerines for sale.

Yesterday two guys boarded our bus with guitars. After saying a few words, they just started playing. On buses where I nearly dislocate my wrists trying to hang on, they just swayed back and forth through the stopping and starting, just trying to play the Guarani polka for a few mil.

Between them and the band last night, I was thinking about the arts. How many super talented musicians have had to spend their lives working in the fields? What if Picasso had been too poor to afford paint? What if Shakespeare had kids to feed?

In America we're afraid to pursue our arts because we're afraid we not going to make enough money. Not too little to live, but too little to live without the shiny things we all think we need to be happy.

In Paragauy, people don't get to choose to sell out or not.

August 10 - First Day in site

I arrived late last night on a bus that was packed with people coming back from working in Asuncion to visit their families on the weekend. I kept trying to tell myself that at least I had a seat, but the people standing were practically smushing me into the left half as they leaned over me.

These buses for longer distances have those head rests that come up on the side. At one point I had my head pressed against one side as the woman next to me stood so closely that her boob kept bouncing into the side of my head. bounce. bounce. I thought, Why doesn't this ever happen to Tim?

I felt kind of sick, which I'm sure had nothing to do with celebrating for three nights in Asuncion. So I laid in bed most of this morning. After that I started my new routine, which I told myself I was going to stick to for a year: one hour of Spanish, one hour of Guarani, every day that I can. Or maybe just weekdays. Or weekdays that I feel like it. No, weekdays for sure.

Day one: Studies subjunctive in Spanish which my cell phone kept beeping. We're all enjoying our texting abilities. (My mass text from yesterday: Foot-long braided side rat tail spotted.)

Afterward I walked to try and find a store that sold notebooks. They were closed so I just bought some yerba to make terere in my new guampa.

I came home and the empleada (housekeeper) who lives on our property was walking her sheep.

I returned for hour two. Starting Guarani feels like starting over. How long ago did I study me, you, he, us, them in Spanish? And all that work that I've put into Spanish, all the work I still have to do, I'm going to do that, again?

This is what I avoid thinking about as I open to the first page of my Guarani notebook.

I'm recognizing the stages, too. First, you start to pick out just a word every now and then out a conversation of jibberish. And you say, "Mbae! I know that. I means "what." Yes!" Then you know a few more and more until it's every once in a while that you don't know something. That's where I'm at with Spanish.

August 12-

Yesterday I went to a meeting of all the volunteers in my area. In Villarica there's a volunteer who lives on a compound with a retired colonel and a parrot. While making assorted empanadas (pizza, thai chicken, breakfast, apple pie) we neglected the outdoor stove and the oil burst into huge flames that looks beautiful again the palms, as soon as we realized they wouldn't burn the house down. The colonel didn't seem to mind, but took over the cooking after that.

Also yesterday the empleada washed my clothes for me. This morning she approached me while I was drinking my morning coffee to show me one lone sock that was missing its partner. Then she told me that she would iron all my clothes this afternoon. Every time a housekeeper tells me she's going to do something, I feel this need to react like it's a friend who's just told me she's going to do me a big favor. "Oh really? Thanks so much." I said this as she stood with the one sock draped over her arm like a waiter with a towel.

This morning I was supposed to get my first Ao Po'i lesson, but last minute my friend here needed me to go with her to buy a computer. In the bus she handed me an advertisement and asked me if it looked like a good computer. I wished I had the number to my computer friend. Now I am the computer friend.

We stopped by a bead store, and I had to make the decision of whether I was going to dive into making jewelry here in Py. Reading, writing, Spanish, Guarani, website making, volleyball, Ao Poi, eventually garden-making and cooking: I've got a lot on my plate. But it's two years, so I dropped nearly 100 Gs on cheap crystals and string and tools.

We arrived in the rain at the computer store, just a small space with a few sparse shelves of electronics, she talked to the guys then looked at me, as if to make the final decision.

We drove home in a taxi with the computer desk strapped to the top, listening to Ryan Adams. The taxi driver had what looked like a good luck deer hoof with a rosary wrapped around it hanging from the review mirror.

We're officially volunteers

hi all! We swore in today, so I'm now a volunteer. Everyone is getting their cell phones and calling each other. I've got to go get mine!

Here are some last photos from Aveiro:

Our group outside our school

Pennypacker, evil rooster
Me and abuela, or grandma
Matt's yard

Here's a look at Yataity:

The Ao Po'i Shop

Inside
My host making Ao Po'i

The orchids are in bloom

Hello.

Hey guys,
Not much is up. We sat the Batman movie, which was shown with Spanish subtitles and had an intermission, during which I bought a beer just because you can do that here.

I´m excited to get back to my site but I´ll miss my friends here at site.

I added something to the left over there, those little orange boxes are a way to be notified when I update. There´s a video explaining how to use them here.

AFter a few days in site...

It´s been a great few days in site and I don´t want to leave. Although I am excited because we are going to see the Batman movie in Asuncion tomorrow.

I´m in the cyber cafe, and outside a guy just trotted by on horseback with sugarcane loaded sideways.

My host took me to the local big city in their car yesterday. On either side of the country road there was the typical open spaces, with cows and horses, whose legs disappeared into the dry grass. In the distance, the hills looked like a piece of blue construction paper ripped in half and glued to the horizon. There lives a colony of Germans who have a beer festival every November. There´s also hiking trails.

Once in the city we nearly hit a herd of about two dozen dogs outside a school. The school´s long brick wall had been painted with public service messages, I assumed by the students. One had Bart Simpson saying that smoking was bad. Another had a huge condom with a face and a knowing finger pointed up. The speech bubble said ´´Don´t forget me!´´

We stopped at the supermarket, which they have in the cities. Ah, it´s all the same. Neutrogena with a spanish label, frozen chicken nuggets, plastic bowls with bright flower pints. Blenders, food processors, sandwich-makers (yesss!) My life will be as simple as I choose here. Which is good, I think. Simplicity isn´t a place.

I got to walk around the city by myself, a nice breath of independence. I made a map at every corner, and managed to make a loop without getting lost. I walked with hung clothes brushing over my head on the covered sidewalks and calls coming at me ´´adelante.´´ I almost bought a shirt that depicted Homer as Che.

Last night the women who works at the cooperativa showed me a house she has that I could rent. It´s two rooms with a grass roof, a brick enclosure in the back with a toilet, and the water coming from a spicket in the back. It has a yard with avocado trees, palms and room for a garden. I said Puede ser, or could be, because I want to see what else is around. It´s right across from the church in the plaza, so it might be a little busy for me.

That same woman invited me over and for the second night I watch the telenovelas with her and her five daughters. I´m addicted, despite my best efforts to the contrary. The telenovelas are on every evening, like soaps in the states but in the evening. Last night they taught me to crochet while we watched Paulina have an affair with Ricardo. And on his wedding night!

Today I went to a craft show to help at their booth. It was just like my jewelry days. I think I´m going to like it here.

I´m CHUCHI baby!

Hello all. Please excuse me while I die and go to heaven. I love my site. While my buddies are out there digging holes, I´m in my own little casa with a bano. The first day my host dad was showing me how to use the remote on my tv, and I was like, no, this is not what I signed up for, but I´ll take it!

My site is a cute little town with cobblestone streets around a central plaza. Ao Po´i stores dot the street. They´ve already given me two shirts and they insist that I learn how to make it, which I gladly will.

There´s a nice family of girls who work in the store. The first day I was here they invited me over there house. One asked if I like Goons and Roses and Nirvana. They love American music. The second day I went over their house for lunch, and we sat and watched Guns N Roses videos from an illegal DVD with slightly delayed sound.

My host dad is the president of the cooperative and his wife is the retired principal. They have a manicured lawn with lots of flowers. The orchids are blooming from around their palm trees. Their house is like a little complex with lots of little houses. In front, they use one to sell Ao Po´i. Out of the other they rent DVDs and have two Playstations that the boys in town use by the hour.

The cooperative needs my help to set up a web site to sell their products throughout the world. They also want me to teach them Excel (can do) and how to use the computer that´s been sitting dormant, covered in a Ao Po´i cloth, in the corner of their office.

I´m so happy that I love the clothes they make. They´re so beautiful, and they have cute little clothes for children. Of course, this isn´t what you think of when you think Peace Corps, but it´s what I got, and it´s perfect. It kind of blew my mind the first day. Considering that I could have been redoing the books for a soy bean farming coop, it´s pretty amazing that this is my life right now.

Where will I spend the next two years of my life?

In Yataity!

What does that mean? How do you pronounce that?

Here are some excerpts from my letter

Dear Paulette,
Congratulations! You have been assigned to the Cooperative Artesanal de Yataity in the beautiful town of Yataity in the Department of Guaira. Yataity is known as the Capitol of Ao Poì, the famous Paraguayan artisan work. If you want to buy an Ao Poì shirt, dress, pair of pants, table cloth or basically anything else, Ao Poì, Yataity is the place to be. But your interest won´t be in buying Ao Poì (so they think) as much as it will be in selling it. In Yataity, there are various women´s groups laboring day in and day out to create this complicated design. So not only will you be working with the Coop to market Ao Poì, but you will also be working with women`s groups to be better organized, increase production. Not only will you have the opportunity to work with amazing people but you will also experience the fantastic culture of Yataity and the Department of Guaira. With the bustling City of Villarica right down the road, there will be no shortage of cultural experience. (Did I mention this is also where people go to party for Carnival, and where another volunteer lives on a compound with a colonel?)

So I`m going to be helping them market their products and make a Web site. This reminds of me of when I made that site to sell my jewelry after college. It`s funny that that didn´t really `work out,` but it´s one of those experiences that I never knew I would use in the future. Just goes to show you never really know what a failure is.

There are also two radio stations with which I can work. And I consider exposing people to the Beatles and James Brown community service. Also getting closer to sending that letter to NPR. Yeah Ira Glass, I started doing stories on the radio in the Peace Corps. Eso.

Also, the guys who pick our sites came up to me and said that my site is really beautiful and they didn´t want to leave it.

Other details include that I will be the only first volunteer in my group. The others are following up others. This means I will be responsible for breaking in the community to the odd habits of Americans and answering lots of questions.

My other friends are going to be working with organic sugar farmers, computer centers, and banana farmers.

A word about expectations. I wanted another site, but I told myself to not expect it, to be open. My friend Sasha ended up getting that one, and now I`m happy I waited. Life is so much better when you let it surprise you.


More cultural fun time= I went jogging yesterday, which is not normal. School got out right as I was jogging by, and a huge group of kids swarmed me, jogging next to me and laughing.

I explained Frappachinos to our language teacher today, and told him to put his cafe con leche in his blender with ice and drink it. First he told us that if he did that everyone in his house would think he was crazy. Then he said, in Spanish, `Cold coffee, huh.` And tilted his head to consider the possibility.

Guarani Craziness

Hi all. Here´s an embarrassingly disorganized little something from our first day learning Guarani. I was feeling overwhelmed and crazy. I feel better now, just realizing that the learning part is going to be the whole two years.
We find out our sites this Friday! The next day we hop on a bus and go to where we´ll be living for two years.
And I have a confession...I hacky sacked (sp?). The first time other people hackied, I stood back and made fun and called them `90s stoners. But then I gave in. And it´s fun. I´m a hippie.
Other than that, I had a great birthday in the capital. We all danced in a club that played sweet 80`s hits from America.

July 22_We got our first Guarani lesson today.

Learning three languages is showing me how arbitrary language is. It breaks that agreement you once had with life, that an apple was an apple, the sun is the sun. Turns out those are just a grouping of sounds the people around you agreed upon saying when referring to something real.

You think at first that learning a language is just about memorizing vocabulary. Turns out it’s more like understanding how different people are.

I had to twist my mind to understand that in Spanish they say, “I to them brought the orange to them.”

Well, in Guarani, some words are just endings.

One of the things that will help is that you can use Spanish verbs, for example, practicar, to practice. You take off the r, then you add -se to the end to say you want to do that. “Che” is I, for which you add “a” to the beginning to the verb. So if I wanted to practice, I’d say, “Che apracticse.”

For plural, you don’t add an “s”, instead add “-kuera.” There aren’t any question marks, instead you add “-pa” to the questioning word. To make a verb negative, you add “nd-” to the beginning and “-i” to the end.

Words can grow pretty quickly:

japo - to do

ajapo - I do

ajapose - I want to do

ndajaposei - I don’t want to do

Got it, now I’ve just got to learn to pronounce it.

And, oh yeah, there’s still learning Spanish. Our classes are moving forward so fast that I feel my foundation is so rocky. I’m going to have to review and review like crazy, and even then I’ll probably have it wrong, or it won’t make sense when I’m back in the states, trying to speak to people from Central America.

Also, we get warnings from our teachers about speaking “chuchi,” or too correctly. This would be like going around using “whom” with your buddies. This is not the accepted way to speak.

So yes, it is correct to use the pronouns “lo” and “la” in Spanish, but it’s too chuchi here. So my challenge will be to learn the wrong way and the right way, so I can be accepted here and use my Spanish back in the states.

And of course, people speak differently in different parts of Paraguay, so anything I have learned up until now may or may not be correct.

That word - correct. Does that even apply? Right and wrong have lost their meaning. The question is does it work to communicate.

This is started to feel like a mountain I started to climb, and now that I’ve gone a little ways, I look back and I look up and I realize how hard it really is going to be to get to the top. Though that way to not climb it is by just looking at it.

With my head swirling in these thoughts after class, I let out a sigh and sat on our mini playground. Eric came out, I looked up at him and said, “This is going to be the hardest thing I ever do.”

And he looked at me and said, “No shit.”

Milk and cheese and bananas and chickens

Hi all! We're in Asuncion on our first night out in the big city.
We find out our site placements next Friday at 3 p.m. (why not just in the morning? Isn't that cruel?) We keep speculating who is going to get which site. After we find out, we're going the next day to check out the situation. I'm going to be arriving on my own to live there in two and a half weeks. That's crazy.
Sorry all this is long, but as the quote goes: "If I had more time I would have written you a shorter letter."

July 10 - Peace Corps Heaven

All I knew today was that we were going to visit an urban farm. We took a side street away from the fuming traffic and pulled up at a gate to a house hidden by tropical trees and guarded by two brown spotted hounds.
We were greeted by a man named Fernando, who took us to sit in chairs on the patio under the near constant shade of his property.
His family’s farm started when the area was all grasslands and spots of forest. His father believed in trying to make farming as natural and as closed process as possible.
To that end they have a biodigestor, which turns pig poo into cooking gas. He showed us bunny cages and told us what a great stew they make with white wine and rosemary. He showed us huge worm farms, speeding up the compost process.
He also had a pipe running through his compost heap, and he showed us how, as he poured water into one end, it came out warm on the other. They’re going to try to set up a shower to run off it.
He took us out to his “chacra” or field, which is small but effecient. He had corn and something called hibiscus which didn’t look at all like the hibiscus I know. He had healthy strawberry crops and told us to help ourselves. And, yes, I know how annoying it is when people go abroad then brag about how much better the fruit and veggies are. But oh it was so true.
In the field Fernando talked about how his crops were a little more expensive, but why wouldn’t it be worth it to not put poison in your body. He talked just like some of my friends back home. He said some people in town, who came in with the urban flood, don’t like that there’s a farm nearby. But they don’t seem to mind the factories.
After we marveled at their pigs and cows and innovative farming techniques, our hosts took us out front, where an amazing spread waited, assembled by the other family members. On a checkered tablecloth sat plates of Paraguayan cheese and quail eggs soaked in vinegar and pepper. There was jam made from guavas and strawberries and the fruit of the hibiscus. There was strawberry milk from their fields and cows. There was homemade chipa cheese bread and homemade cake and homemade yogurt.
Needless to say we tore it up, mmm-ing and aahing and feeding each other the things the other just had to try.
On the way out we gave Fernando a ride and he told us about brewing his own beer. And we drove on and a Spanish cover of “Under Pressure” played and the sun fell behind the silhouettes of palm trees.

I love piggies

Feast your eyes on my feast

July 11 - Today had its challenges

I could use a vacation from some things. I wish maybe, for one day, that the roosters’ screams wouldn’t enter my dreams at 5 a.m. every morning and wake me up. I wish my shoulder didn’t feel dislocated as I lay on my side on a two-inch thick mattress. I wish there wasn’t always a fly in my room. Just one, but always, buzzing laps around my head.
Today we went to make cheese with the ladies we’ve been hanging out with for several sessions now. Remember the bluntness I told you about? It was back with a vengence. One woman was asking about a death in the family, down to how I found out and how I reacted when I found out. Thanks, didn’t want to relive that.
We made cheese using a cow’s stomach. I’ve had the opportunity to see culinary teams in action and I know about the sanitation standards of the U.S. I miss those.
The woman who was helping us was making a point as she spoke, and to punctuate that point, she kept putting her finger on the soft cheese, the way one’s boss does on his desk. Her finger left a little bowl every time it left. The problem was, there was a curve of black underneath, where her nail met her finger. And everytime she pushed it into the cheese, I wondered if it was soft enough to really mold in there and touch whatever remnants lay underneath her nails.
I had a headache today and could not find my Spanish, so Sasha did much of the talking. But they asked me about two things: How much my watch was and how much my camera was. Then one woman asked me to give her my watch, several times. From what I can tell this is not a normal Paraguayan thing, but people do ask you how much things cost here. If you give someone a present, it might be the first thing they ask.
Also, I’m tired of being the Rubia. I have a name.
And I miss feeling like an adult. Today I was cutting my bread, struggling for a second, and my sister took it from me and cut it for me. My dad here told me he’d teach me how to cut vegetables.
You want to learn, you ask for help, but the second people overlap your existing knowledge, you get defensive.
Oh, and I’m sick of how hard learning Spanish is. Your spanish teachers try to explain words to you in Spanish, the dictionary says it’s something else, your family says they don’t use that word here. It makes me crazy. Tonight Matt told me that for a month and a half now, I’ve been telling my family the equivalent of: “I’m going to I am going to bed.” And yet no one has bothered to correct me. The only way I know I’m saying something wrong is the blank look on people’s faces at times.
Paraguayans are at the same time very direct yet not direct at all.
Phew, ok, feeling better.

July 13 - I love English

I got what I needed, a good old dose of American buddies. We all hung out on Saturday night. We grab some beers from the store, where I give my money to the guys so no one sees the rubia buying beer. We go to the Tim’s house and his dad puts on techno music and we sit on the porch. We fit in as many laughs and as much beer as we can until we have to head back to be home by 10.
We found out this week that due to “budget cuts,” that ugly term that I’d hope I’d left in the U.S., our last week of training has been canceled. That means that we’re swearing in on August 6, and we only have two more weeks actually in this town, in this house.
This means that I’ve kind of given up on pleasing people here. If I want to hang out with my buddies, I’m going to do it. If I want to go out, I will. I miss my freedom.


July 18 - Land of Milk and Honey and Bananas

We started the week of Long Field Practice on the barge to Tembiapora, crossing the land to a hillside of lanky palms, banana trees and cows. It hadn’t rained in two weeks, and the trucks hauling bananas kicked up red clouds that had coated the banana trees near the road.
We were visiting a guy named Kyle, whose two years are just about up. The people around his town call out to him as he walks down the road, saying his name like someone with a Mexican accent says “killer.”
He took us on his radio program to introduce us to the town. When he got to me, he asked me if I liked pakova. Our trainer put his head in his hands, laughing. I thought this was because I froze, not knowing the Guarani word. But he was really just laughing at the use of “banana,” which of course has a double (and naughty) meaning.
Kyle might forget that not all of us are as awesome as he is with the Guarani.
We toured the banana fields and visited a beekeeper who sold us a 2-liter bottle of banana flower honey. Paraguayans love to joke around, and besides telling Kyle to tell me he’s single (in front of his wife), he was telling all the guys how honey increases your stamina.
At Kyle’s cabin, we ate sandwiches of fresh bananas, peanut butter and honey on bread we bought fresh out of the basket of an albino Paraguayan boy’s bike.
Matt and I stayed in the same house due to some last-minute changes. It had a store in the front, a sewing room, and outdoor kitchen and a latrine that smelled of generations of Paraguayan beef shits. I planned my day around not having to go in there more than once or twice, opting instead for the open air of the hole behind Kyle’s house if I could hold it.
One night I went for it. A black horse scared the crap out of my on the way there. Five steps away I took a deep breath, entered, then shoved the door closed, which unfortunately forced my held breath out. I did my thing then tried to open the door. Nothing. Yank. Yank. Oh god it smells in here. But the bottom was stuck.
Matt had been just beyond the open door of the house, 50 feet away, chatting with our host dad. So I wound my battery-less flashlight, poked it through the opening above the door, and tried to Morse Code him to peek out the window so I didn’t have to yell. Click click. Nothing.
With three houses within 50 feet of the latrine, I knew this was going to cause a scene, but whatever.
Matteo. Matteo! MATTEO!!!
Finally he and our host dad came out and released me from my stinky confines.
From then on, above a dozen people over the course of the next day explained and acted out that you have to lift the door to open it.

The barge to Tembiapora






Matteo, yo & Eric

Naners are heavy




Anything you can do I can do...unless I don't feel like it

This is where we swam

Sunset on the way back from the swim

Eric Kills a Chicken
Ever since we arrive, my friend Eric has been bragging that he wants to kill an animal. I’ve been telling him he’ll be traumatized.
He got the chance on our trip, when his host mom told him he could kill a chicken. We were over there grinding and sifting corn, when all of a sudden he asked me to video something for him. We went in the outdoor kitchen, where there’s a pot of water steaming over a fire and his host mom holding a chicken by the legs.
There’s commotion: Flapping of wings, an unsure assasin, three languages of asking and explaining. Get the broom.
Eric is supposed to put the broom over the chicken’s neck and pull up on its legs to break it, but not too hard, says Kyle.
He steps on either side and pulls. Stretch and snap. The chicken’s head is on the ground, two noodles flowing out of it’s neck, and it’s body is in Eric’s hands, flapping.
We’re screaming, blood is squirting out of the carcass, spraying our clothes.
The senora of the house grabs the chicken and takes it to where its blood can spill on the cement and a nearby stack of unhusked corn. On the floor, the chicken’s mouth opens and closes. Five feet away, the organs that wound have produced the squaks are inside its flapping body. It was a magician’s trick, an assistant cut in half, yet tap dancing with her feet and smiling with her severed head.
Eric, who had been so excited, slowly picked feathers off his hands.
We calmed down after the senora put the chicken in a bucket to contain its last tremors. The senor of the house brought out the chicken head and positioned it like the top of a totem pole on the fence.
The chicken was then boiled, and Matteo and the senora plucked its feathers and let them drop into a cardboard box, where a cat had wandered in, licking. The senora cut the chicken open as it hung from it’s tied leg, its head watching from above. She identified the organs for us. We saw the eggs inside being made, hanging like a bunch of grapes, each at a different stage of growth. The biggest, a soft orange group, was handed to me to admire, and I was told that was good eatin’.
We folded open the stomach and dumped out the chicken feed inside. She whacked her knife at the joints and produced drumsticks. Eric had a reservations about how many chickens had to be killed for one night of chicken wings. The senora hacked the toenails off the chicken feet, which from the underside look eerily like fingers.
Our meal was placed in the oven, and we sat under banana trees to drink terere and chat in the English/Spanish/Guarani way of mixed company here.
The senora brought us out pieces of sopa paraguaya served on pieces of banana leaf.
We were called in for the meal, each person served a plate of noodles with a piece of chicken sticking out. Matteo’s bowl had the biggest unlaid egg in it, and we all soon found we had our own little surprise lurking in the soup. Our teacher had a smaller non-egg and what looked to me like the neck. Eric had the heart. I scooped in to my liquid and brought up the liver in my spoon.
I looked up and noticed that I had a unique view from my seat. Across from me was the senora, and over her head and through the doorway I had a direct view of the chicken’s head as I tried a bite of its liver, then hid the rest of its organ under its bones, which I had gnawed clean with my teeth.

Chicken head, body, feathers

Chicken egg preview

Aah!

Watch the video if you dare. It's quite graphic and not for chicken lovers.

Language learning and teachings of a questionable nature

Hola. I just have some random happenings to report this week. Oh, and I have pique. It looks like a splinter in my toe, but it's really an insect that has burrowed into my foot with the hopes of making a nest. About half the group has gotten it. It's supposed to be good luck, but maybe that's just to make you feel better about a critter layin eggs in your baby toe.

We're going next week to our Long Field Practice, a week of shadowing another volunteer. I'm going to a banana plantation you have to get to by boat. Anyway, it might be a while before I update.


July 2 - Oh Tim

Things have not been the same in language class since Tim learned the phrase “relationes sexuales casuales.”
For he likes two things: Women and meat, especially if it comes in the form of fried pockets called empanadas. During our language classes, I catch him looking in his Spanish-English dictionary, giggling.
Our poor language teacher has to keep a straight face while he practices his question by saying to me, “Quieres muchos relationes sexuales casuales con los Paraguayos?”
If we’re learning about present tense, his example sentence is “Yo como empanadas.” For the past, “Yo comi empanadas.” Commands, “Por favor, traeme una empanada.”
Tonight we were at the bus stop, late getting home because we couldn’t tear unplug ourselves from the internet cafe. There had been no talk of going to the meat stand, where he answers his cravings for meat on a stick. We were counting out our Guaranis at the bus stop. We’d been waiting about seven minutes, when Tim burst.
“I’m going for asadito!” He yelled, running away from us. “If the bus comes just leave me. I’ll find my way home somehow!”
“Get me one!” I yelled.
“Ok!”
It was just 30 seconds later that a bus pulled up. I didn’t want to leave Tim in the dark by himself. We looked at each other and mulled the line.
Right then he booked it around the corner, holding his hat on his head and carrying a green little bag with two sticks coming out of it, weighed down by meat and two pieces of mandioca.
“Go! Go!”
We jumped on and wedged in the middle, holding on the rail with one hand, and feeding ourselves from meat sticks in the other.

July 4 - Happy Fourth of July

Oh, you know, just another day at the embassy, playing Frisbee and mowing down hot dogs and hamburgers while listening to a radio station piped in via internet from Miami.

July 6 - Bam in your face

We’ve been having “Dias de Practica,” or days of practice, where they send us out into the community to hang with a family and see if we can try to find out if they have any needs we can help them with over six days spread out over our training time.
My buddy Sasha and I have been hanging out with some women who live on beautiful land of sugar cane fields.
We find them in the kitchen, two sisters in law, their mother tending the store out front, and little kids, some old enough to jump the overturned chair that serves as a baby gate.
This last day they were making tortillas in their open kitchen, a building with a half-wall along one wall, letting in a breeze and casting photographer’s light on the side of faces.
Their kitchen was some countertop held up by stacks of bricks. Turning up the heat on the oil for frying tortillas meant putting more coco palm fronds on the fire.
The first time we visited I said little to nothing, as we toured their fields, followed by two boys calling for their dog, Pupy (pronounced Poopy, also a brand of diapers here).
By now, I feel like I understand about 80 percent of the conversation. It actually feels like chatting. I notice that my eyebrows lift at the same time as everyone else’s when someone says something surprising.
Paraguyans are never direct, but they can be pretty blunt.
We had a conversation at the last visit that went a little like this:
Paraguayan to Sasha: “You’ve gotten thinner.”
Sasha: “Oh yes, I have a little.”
Paraguayan motioning at my stomach: “You’ve gotten fatter.”
(Paraguayan putting arms at side and expanding them out.)
Other Paraguayan: “How much do you weigh?”
(This portion censored)
Pyan to my stomach: “Yes, you are fat. When you return home you will be fatter.”
Other Pyan to Sasha: “I like your skin. Her skin is dry.”

They asked us to teach them English, and one of the mothers, a sweet woman who looked to be about 60, was great at pronouncing.
“sheep” is what Sasha taught her.
I decided to pass along one of my favorite phrases, useful for when winning hands at poker or when gloating.
“Bam in your face!”
“Bamnyofae,” said the small keen-eyed grandmother, laughing to herself.
“Bamenyoufac”

When one of the woman brought in a sac of loaf-sized madioca and put them on the ground and started to peal, I asked her to teach us. Laid out an old sac and we gathered around it. Holding the madioca in her hand, she whacked the ends off using the force of a swinging knife.
Sasha and I got some knifes and started to scrape them down the sides. Then we had to peal off another layer. It was difficult a first to find where the white peal ended and the white madioca began, but I started to get the hang of it. Sasha and I compared our work and I gloated that mine was better.
One of the woman pointed at mine and said, “Es bam inyou face.”

Delicious, yet not quite right

June 28: Mate Dulce?

My buddy Matt had one of those experiences that's just pure PC. His family took him out in the fields to collect cocos, which are marble-size coconuts. They cracked them open with a hammer, mashed them with a pestol and mortar, put them in a mate (MAH-te) cup. Then they gathered around a charcoal stove and put a kettle of milk and sugar on. They poured that over the cocos and drank.

I happened to visit at the perfect moment. My sister came from the house to peek in just as I was exclaiming "He terei!" (delicious in Guarani)

When I went back home my family said we were having mate dulce the next day. I didn't get to go into the woods and get the cocos, they just made it for me. No experience, but still delicious.

Mate dulce is our new drug.

But I wanted they experience. So the next time I they said we were going to have it, I said I wanted to go with them to get the cocos. "Vamos."

We walked in the back yard, where the chicken and cows roam around our drying laundry. My sister started looking around on the ground. I looked to the sky and asked, "Where are the trees?"

My sister laughed. Then, I thought I must have been misunderstanding, she explained that the cows ate the cocos, then they collected them. From their poop.

"Las vacas comieron?" I asked, "Entonces..." I haven't learned the word for "to poo," so I just put my hand on my butt and then jetted it out. "Si," she said, laughing.

Alright. Let's play, can you find the coco...

See it? Got it? Ok, one more try...

They´re the brown balls kind of hanging out near the poop mounds.

Appetizing, isn't it?

So then we put the poop cocos in a box. We took them to a rock and broke them with a hammer, then put the inner meat back in the same box. Then, without any kind of surgical-style hand scrub down that one might hope for, we prepared the mate dulce. Only something about it this time wasn't so sweet.

UPDATE...There is some Spanish debate about whether the cows poop out the cocos or vomit them up. I don´t know which explaination would make me feel better, but I´ll probe further into this issue.

June 29: On Not Being Indiana Jones

There’s a pleasure when you see new things. You see someone carrying a basket on their head and you say, “Yes, I’m in a new place. I have traveled far and now I’m here seeing things I wouldn’t see at home.”

Like the way people here eat fruit, splitting the peel in a curly-que until the grapefruit is a white ball, then scalping off the top and squeezing all the juice to the top and into their mouths.

I’m in South America.

Vendors board buses and speak in auctioneer’s Guarani, hocking socks, candy, medicine, porn. Out the window I see an ox cart shuffle in with city traffic, a wooden box with two mudflaps, both adorned with huge gleaming Mercedes decals.

This is why we leave home.

Since I’m here, in the Peace Corps, my Paraguayan madre makes the most delicious, exotic cafe con leche in the world. I am in South America, after all.

“Is it the instant stuff?” asked one of my fellow trainees. “That’s all we’ve had in my house.”

Instant? Instant? This stuff is so good, there’s no way it could be anything less that an ancient Paraguayan legend. I assume the beans are harvested from plants that grow through the cracks in the ruins of ancient monuments to the gods of deliciousness, brought through the forest by donkey and sold to those who only know how to negotiate in Guarani.

On cold mornings it’s waiting for me on the table on our patio. I cup my hands around its holy vessel, a mug covered in hearts and a big “Te Quiero.”

Then one morning I am there, in the kitchen, as my madre pours warmed milk into my mug, digs a mound of sugar and drops it in, then heaps pre-ground beans out of a bottle that says Nescafe. She stirs and hands it to me.

I look down into it as it spins like brown water flushing. Oh.

Ok, so they have instant coffee. They also have a stereo bigger than the one I had in college, sweet motorcycles, floor fans, and cell phones that go off during meetings. But I wanted loin clothes, exotic facial pierces, a canoe ride deep into the forest of a secret land.

But the Peace Corps, nor the Paraguayans, are here to act out the fantasy adventure movie I had planned. I may never even get to spit a blow dart into the neck of an enemy tribesman.

We want the exotic, the strange, something to write home about. But in the grand, ever humbling theme of This Is Not About Me, I have to remember that people still need help. And every time something is not the way I had planned it, for my own Indiana Jones Adventure, it reminds me of the reasons I had, or should have had, to come.

That's also part of the pleasure, the normalcy of it. You can travel until the water in the toilet spins the other way, and still no one wants to change the toilet paper roll.

Now enjoy these pictures of day old piggies, born across the street from my house. Day old should be hyphenated, but I can´t find the hyphen. Thank you.