I like to jot down quotes that I think are interesting or funny and the following ones I found scribbled into open spaces of the agenda I used last year during PC:

“When the capitalism of you all comes crashing down it will all come back to this [motions to field of cows].  We’ll remember that work needs to be done with our hands and our heart.” -Argentine film maker

“Do you guys struggle with this?  I can’t get them to call me when the cows are giving birth…I even give my host brother money for his phone every week and he still doesn’t call.” -Herre

“It’s very easy to write articles and to critique, but I want to see you in the dance.” -Minister of Education

“Victimization gives us the power to have no power.” -Teleton speaker

“If we do not find ourselves to be part of the problem it would be impossible for us to find ourselves as part of the solution.” -Sebastian Acha, politician

“So, that’s the question. Do we walk off the edge of the cliff just to know how it feels to hit rock bottom?  …Yeah…yeah, I think we do, it builds character.” -Groupmate

“Never going to give it up,
Nor will I stop fighting,
We are going to change– the world!

Paraguay is my passion,
and for that reason,
We are going to build hope.” -Some song lyrics I re-wrote to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up for a national youth leadership camp…I swear it rhymes in Spanish.

Start where you are,
Do what you can,
With what you have.
-Quote that was translated for leadership camp

Thanks to all of the people who donated to my Peace Corps partnership grant, my fellow Peace Corps volunteers who came to help out, community groups who collaborated, and the hardwork of the Conductors, the event was a major success.

We had 150 people move through the train station during the event with 106 people present at one time during our peak hour.  We had musical acts, mimes, a live Zumba demonstration, my Vamos Chicas Vamos girls presented their Rainbow Fish play, rock painting, handicrafts for sale, a bounce house, photo displays, a frisbee workshop and more!

People who missed our first edition are already pleading that we do it again.  So we said, okay, we’ll do it again on June 8th.

Check out the rest of our photos and give the Espacio Cultural La Estacion’s Facebook page a “Like” here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.549451738411402.1073741833.543046729051903&type=1&l=85dc7df0d2

I’m sorry, did I say you?  I meant me.

For me it comes after news like Boston– instances of violence that play tiny parts in a larger culture of violence that go largely unchecked, if not perpetuated, by lawmakers and lobbyists who also export our particular brand of violence all over the world.  Hate, violence, fear, insecurity…byproducts of deeply entrenched systems of oppression.

And maybe if it were just invisible hands pulling strings on our marionette bodies it would be forgivable or at the very least possible of being overlooked.

But soon enough you start realizing that life’s complicated not only through the television screen, but also in the power dynamics, politics, bureaucracy and bullshit of every day interactions between people.  The injustices that we condemn in international and statewide policies we seem quick to turn around and replicate on a microcosm scale with our neighbors, acquaintances, coworkers, friends and family.  Neighborhood kids create caste systems, teachers pick favorites, men do disproportionately lower amounts of housework and child rearing compared to women, etc.

And maybe once we realize that our marionette stage was built for some people to have more power than others, for some to succeed and for some to fail, we could accept it and find reprieve in the song and dance.

But soon enough we’d start realizing that our own synapses betray us.  Even our best attempts to forget about the politics, institutions, neighbors, and acquaintances result in us believing what our puppeteers have told us about ourselves.

And feeling the weight that these issues are not just big dark clouds in the sky, or the words we exchange with other humans, but rather things that have seeped under our skin and into our brains and have socialized us to actively maintain these oppressive systems?

Well, that’s enough to just make you curl up in your bed and call it a day.  Which is what I did for awhile.

And then I got a phone call reminder to come to my grandma and grandpa choir practice (I’m the youngest one by 30 years, but have as many as 53 years separating me from other members).

When I walked in they started a sparkling rendition of Happy Birthday and showered me with fake scented flowers, duck shaped salt and pepper shakers, and an embroidered towel.  We ate cake and drank hot chocolate and watched a video from a performance of theirs from over a year ago.  They chalked up the extreme pitchiness to the poor quality of the sound system and nodded their heads.

“Well, we weren’t so bad.”

They applauded, sang and laughed together.  Inevitably, they complained. (Paraguayans obviously don’t have the market cornered on complaining, I think it’s human nature, but they do say that They complain so as not to lose the custom/tradition)

And then one woman kept complaining and listed all of the things she had done that day: “and then I woke up at 6 am to prepare the mate, and then I swept the whole house, and then I cleaned the bathroom, and will you believe they haven’t even picked up the trash in weeks? And then I made lunch for my grandson, and he is seriously getting so fat and lazy, and then I washed all of the laundry by hand…”

Her list seemed to be getting too extensive and the others tried to interrupt her to remind her to thank god for being able to be so hard working and mobile at her age.

She raised her voice, seemingly not listening.  ”And then I started preparing all of the meat for dinner, all by myself I tell you.  And I had to figure out who was going to take care of my granddaughter while my daughter went to her classes, because she’s just so lazy she doesn’t want to go anywhere…

And that is why I’m happy to be alive and to be here,” she concluded.

Her crowd didn’t miss a beat: “And that is why we’re happy to be alive and happy to be here celebrating, Happy Birthday Molly!” the group responded in unison.

Wait a minute, that was a left turn out of nowhwere.  It seems like they know something I don’t.

One man leaned over: “This is what you have to look forward to in 50 years.”

Honestly, I’m not sure what it all means.  If anyone has some answers they’d like to share I’m all ears.  For now, I think it might have something to do with this:

If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. To sit on the front steps–whether it’s a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city–and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color.

And I hardly need to tell you that in the 19- or 24-inch view of the world, cleanliness has long since eclipsed godliness. Soon we’ll all smell, look, and actually be laboratory clean, as sterile on the inside as on the out. The perfect consumer, surrounded by the latest appliances. The perfect audience, with a ringside seat to almost any event in the world, without smell, without taste, without feel–alone and unhappy in the vast wasteland of our living rooms. I think that what we actually need, of course, is a little more dirt on the seat of our pants as we sit on the front stoop and talk to our neighbors once again, enjoying the type of summer day where the smell of garlic travels slightly faster than the speed of sound.

Work on ourselves, work with our neighbors, work on the world?

I certainly don’t have any answers, but I am glad that I crawled back out of my bed today…and I suppose that’s a start.

My friends and fellow Peace Corps volunteers Amy and Steph really have been a major help on this project– sitting through a full day of interviews and then a whole weekend training.

Lots of lovely people helped make it happen, though:  My boss Elisa helped truck stuff around and then gave the opening words on leadership; one of the professors at the train station drove all of the meals and snacks to the location of the training a few kilometers outside of the city; the team from Costanera Viva, a public spaces initiative, came to present; an AIESECer I know from Asuncion supported the activities; a parent of one of the new Conductors, and train commission member, and my Paraguayan uncle gave people rides home; the outdoor adventure location EcoReserva Mbatovi donated site visits for all of the Conductors; the training location, a space maintained by the army base, was donated; my friend Veronica, and former PC volunteer, sent me her old computer which allowed me to plan all of the training sessions; and many of the dollars that you beautiful readers donated also went to the training and will continue to support the work of the Cultural Conductors!

It truly was a collaboration and I will be forever grateful that so many moving parts managed to fit together gracefully.

At the beginning of the training all of the Conductors did a self-assessment of their metaphorical behavior in the pool of life– were they testers, waders, or plungers?

Getting ready to take the leap

Many in the group self-identified as waders with a few testers in the mix (the ones who stick their toe in to test things out, but mainly just observe the behavior of other people before making moves).

I told them that lastimosamente we didn’t have time for any of the three and I had to just throw them all into the deepest end of the pool knowing that they couldn’t swim– But, that I was jumping in after them and we’d all learn how to swim together.

We all agreed that no one looks cute while they’re flailing around the deep end so our best bet was to take a deep breath and just relax…and I think it worked out well.

More than a few admitted that they didn’t know what to expect when they got to the training on Friday, but were thinking something along the lines of, “Who are these people and what did I get myself into?”

They said by Sunday they felt like family and were extremely excited to move forward on planning their first event– Estacion Abierta (Open Station), which will conveniently be held on my birthday in April!

Making it look easy

Stay tuned for more stories about the Conductors. Follow this link to see more photos from the training event: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10102034710830067.1073741825.8644178&type=1&l=5a21e2af81

A giant Thank you! to everyone who donated to this project–you’re helping to make awesome things happen in Paraguay.

I’m off to prep for this weekend but I’ll write a longer update soon!

THANK YOU!!

source: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8030/8027147732_4d5130e851_b.jpg

Can you believe we finished the 30 Days of Trains! Blogging Challenge?  Me either.

Read a recap about guest bloggers, page visits and money raised here: http://mollymeg.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/day-28/

I plan to keep writing about the Train Station Community Center project on my blog to keep people updated, I just won’t be doing daily entries.

While 30 Days of Trains! is complete, my fund raising goal is not.  We still need to raise $765 more dollars in order to close out the grant, get to work on the train station, and for me to have access to the list of all the kind souls who donated.

What does this mean?  I can only assume that every single person I’ve ever met between my birth and age 24 has already made a donation to the project because of all of the requests I made. So, most likely the remaining donations will need to come from people I don’t know.

Can you help me out?  Spread the word to people who you think would be interested in the project!

And to really go out with style and a bang tell them that if they make donations today or tomorrow (February 22 or 23, 2013):

-With a donation of $30 dollars or more to the Train Station Community Center in Paraguari, Paraguay you will receive a personalized Thank You video from the Conductors of Culture team that your donation is supporting

-With a donation of $130 dollars or more to the Train Station Community Center in Paraguari, Paraguay we will send you a LIMITED EDITION Conductors of Culture t-shirt to the United States.  The very t-shirt that the team will wear while inspiring Paraguayan youth and working at the train station.  We’ll even send you a picture of us in our t-shirts so that you can Photoshop yourself into the picture.

As always, don’t forget that donations are tax-deductible!

To be eligible for these promotions you MUST donate today or tomorrow.  Please also forward me your “donation received” confirmation email from Peace Corps to mollymreddy [at] gmail.com

Now, go tell your friends and everyone else you know!

Thanks for following along. Oh, and HAPPY 30 DAYS OF TRAINS!

The other day when a friend stayed over she asked if my church bells rang every hour on the hour as their tones filled the air.

She glanced down at her watch, it was 5:45pm.

...and every 15 minutes before the hour?

“No, that can’t possibly be right,” I responded.  Turns out it is.  The church bells ring on the hour all through the night.  And usually 15 minutes before the hour, too, just for good measure.

These are the sounds (along with the roosters, the polka paraguaya, the old man campo yell) that I don’t want to forget, but that I also can’t seem to remember while I’m still here. All too familiar.

Anyways, I’ve been giving myself an extra 3 hours to post my daily blog by pretending like I’m in Wisco’s Central time, but I haven’t had to cash in on these hours at all during 30 Days of Trains!  Except for today.

This morning my sister Carybeth emailed me to remind me what I was doing one year ago today.  She uses this cool thing called TimeHop that reminds you what your social media statuses were one year ago today.  I myself have not signed up for the daily email, but I’m enjoying when my life events were big enough that they spilled over into Carybeth’s and she can remind me of them.

So she said, Remember when you made this awesome video?  Can you believe that was a year ago?

I couldn’t.  It’s funny to think about that time.  Scrambling all over to try and make a youth leadership camp happen in my site.  Here I am a year later and I’m scrambling around trying to make a youth leadership training program happen.

It appears I like leadership.  And scrambling.

But, I’ve definitely learned a lot in the last year and I’m pretty confident that Conductores Culturales is going to be more successful and sustainable than last year’s scramble.

So, I thought I’d make another video on this day so that my sister can send me another email reminding me in one more year.

During the making I did remember quite clearly that my computer was actually working one year ago much better than it is today– this video was quite the 6 hour headache to try and get video/quality/audio/internet, etc. all working how they needed to.

But, alas, plan to not have your plans go according to plan.  Especially in Paraguay.

Hope you like it! And if you don’t speak Spanish leave your guess of what I’m saying in the comments and I’ll tell you if you’re right or wrong!

Oh, and don’t forget to donate!  Only $765 to go! https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-526-009

All of these shenanigans started on January 24th.

Since then we’ve received over $2,000 dollars in donations and have only $765 dollars left to go in order to close out the grant and get to work on the Train Station Community Center in Paraguari, Paraguay!

Since 30 Days of Trains! started we’ve received 955 page views and have had visitors from 35 countries learn about the project.

We’ve had guest blogs from:
-Pablo Zulaica Parra, A Spaniard currently living in Mexico who biked the distance of the Paraguayan rails: Biking the Distance
-Elizabeth Escobar, a returned Peace Corps volunteer from Paraguay who worked on a similar train station project during her service: Notes from the Field
-Greg Henschen, a lifelong train enthusiast and model railroader: Model Railroading
-St. John Barned-Smith, a writer for the Gazette and another returned volunteer who has researched and written stories about the trains and their history in Paraguay: Like a Big Party
-Gabrielle McNichol, a current high school student and aspiring Peace Corps volunteer organizing a project to collect supplies for the train station at her school: Generosity
-Brittany Boroian, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, friend, blogger, train lover and supporter of this project: How Have Trains Impacted Your Life?

My friend Evelyn designed a Valentine’s Day card in honor of the train station, my friend Carly helped me record our version of Train Song, and my friend Stephanie made these blogs possible by lending me her computer for the entirety of her vacation!

To top it all off friends, family, fellow volunteers, past co-workers and people I’ve never even met have been supporting this project, cheering me on, and making donations.  And that means a lot.

With much love and gratitude, I promise that I’ll stop maxing out your inboxes, Facebook feeds, Google Readers, etc. in two more days,

Molly

View outside of the train station at night.

Like what you heard?  Make a donation! https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-526-009

Don’t like what you heard?  Help us keep our day jobs (being Peace Corps volunteers) by also making a donation! https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-526-009

Confession: I’ve been working my butt off on the online/promotion/North American side of the train station project while simultaneously dragging my feet on the Paraguayan side.

Why?

Well, I wasn’t so sure that we were going to manage to raise all of the money for the project ($965 to go!).  I didn’t want to set dates in stone, release applications for participation, reserve the training location for the Cultural Conductors course, etc. only to have to hang my head and say, “Sorry guys, show’s over…and it never even began.”

Somewhere a couple weeks ago my faith started to grow and I could feel the teeter totter starting to rise, although my legs were still dangling and my seat didn’t feel that secure.

Well, today I pulled the trigger, because I have that much faith we’ll reach our fund raising goal (But we’ve still got work to do, tell your friends!)

With the team at the train station (aptly led by a man named ‘Lider’ whose name translates to ‘Leader’) we solidified the time line for the Conductors program and visited the location where we’re going to hold the training.

So, I just launched the informational powerpoint: http://tinyurl.com/conductoresparaguari, the extended project description: http://tinyurl.com/b3goh9b, and the application for participation: http://tinyurl.com/serconductor

I know what you’re thinking, ‘Thanks, Molly, I’ve been wanting to brush up on my Spanish/teach it to myself for the first time by reading through these three documents.’

And so yeah, it’s really no problem.

But maybe you’re actually thinking, ‘I‘m an expert Spanish speaker and I just spotted an embarrassing error.’

In which case, I’m thinking, ‘Could you tell me? Because I’d actually really like to know that.’

At this very moment Spanish language copies of The Little Engine that Could are fly through space towards Paraguay thanks to a wonderful friend of mine, high school students in Deleware are collecting supplies for the art room-to-be at the train station and students at Waukesha STEM are making recycled jewelry to sell and earn money to donate the train station.

What can YOU do to help us make this happen?