Schools in poor parts of Latin America, Asia and Africa often have no books or teaching materials other than a chalkboard.  The method of instruction is rote repetition.  Teachers sometimes don’t speak the same language as their students. Absenteeism — among teachers, not just students — is astronomical, and some teachers just never show up at all.

A clip from the movie The World According to Monsanto that talks about the reality of genetically modified crops and pesticides in Paraguay:

I recommend listening to this backyard chicken story (starting at minute 14): http://risk-show.com/podcast/in-the-flesh/ Thoroughly entertaining (thanks to Alex for sending it) and unrelated to Paraguay, except for the cuckoo-ing fact check that has been proven by Paraguay.  The story talks about how his backyard rooster was causing problems because he was crowing at all times of the day, instead of just ast sunrise.  Turns out that roosters crow at ALL times of the day, often times all night as well, this has been proved thousands of times over in Paraguay.

From the Crowing section of the Rooster Wikipedia page: The rooster is often portrayed as crowing at the break of dawn (“cock-a-doodle-doo”) and will almost always start crowing before 4 months of age. He can often be seen sitting on fence posts or other objects, where he crows to proclaim his territory. However, this idea is more romantic than real, as a rooster can and will crow at any time of the day. Some roosters are especially vociferous, crowing almost constantly, while others only crow a few times a day. These differences are dependent both upon the rooster’s breed and individual personality. He has several other calls as well, and can cluck, similar to the hen. Roosters will occasionally make a patterned series of clucks to attract hens to a source of food, the same way a mother hen does for her chicks.

Explanation of the images/videos:

1. View from my apartment, lovin’ that red dirt!
2.  A competition at a local high school where each group had to present traditional clothing, dance, food, etc. of their assigned country.  This is actually a traditional Argentine dance.  I taught a group of kids traditional American dance (aka the Cupid Shuffle and basic swing dancing steps) but instead of performing it they just sent one girl up to perform a (not at all) traditional American booty dance.
3.  This is my host sister speaking 3 languages in a 15 second period.
4. My host dad makes these great wooden signs that he chips out/carves and then paints.  Although he says it’s a man’s work, he agreed to teach me this summer so that I could bring the craft back to the United States and teach the men there.
5. Remember how the idea of your parents or teachers watching you dance at prom, for example, was mortifying?  Not the case in Paraguay!  Music was put on for the contestants of the aforementioned competition while the judges deliberated…and all of their parents, teachers, and peers watched them dance.
6. My host sister and the neighbor speaking a little Guarani
7. This harp performance was at a celebration of the 50th(?) anniversary of the local college.  The harp is a very traditional and integral part of Paraguayan music.  The style is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen, with the strings always being plucked very ferociously!
8. One time I was on look out duty through the back of a pick up truck window for the 2 hour ride from Asuncion to Paraguari to see if the fridge was still in fact on the bed of the pick up truck.  Removing my eyes for five seconds resulted in the driver yelling “HAKE, HAKE, HAKE!” (careful, careful, careful!) at me.  Rightly so, as he was generous enough to embark on this adventure to retrieve a fridge for my apartment.  Fortunately, the fridge made it in one piece without causing damage to his car or anyone else.  Unfortunately, the fridge did not work upon arrival.
9. One of my host families had a host dog named Sasha. Sasha is the Justo Villar of dogs. [Justo Villar is the amazing goalie of the Paraguayan national soccer team.  I unfortunately couldn't capture Sasha's most impressive saves on camera, but you get the idea, right?]
10. A bull fight at our neighborhood party.  Bull fights are extremely popular in Paraguay, luckily they don’t kill the bulls.
11. Traditional Paraguayan dance (I’m still trying to join one of these dance groups!  Paraguayans don’t take me seriously when I tell them I want to join.  I’ve also been told I’m too big to join, and that it would be impossible to find a man large enough to dance with me)
12. Me with my host family from training on swear-in day.

Well, quite a bit I’ve discovered.

On an unrelated note, you know how in Wisconsin if one weird bug crawls on you, you start to get the creepy crawly heebee jeebies and you think that bugs are crawling all over you?  In Paraguay, if you have the slightest inkling that a bug might be somewhere on your body, then you are definitely right.  If you don’t have the slightest inkling that there is a bug on your body, then you are most likely wrong.  There’s pretty much always one hanging out somewhere.

In Paraguay people don’t use door bells (pretty much no one has them, but if they do, they still don’t use them), instead they just clap outside of people’s houses at their gate.

“Venís un poco y aplaudir no más.” They just tell you to applaud outside of their door.

Why yes, I would love to give you a standing ovation.  I’m being serious about that…it’s given me a lot of great opportunities to practice my loud clap.

Paraguay takes their politics very seriously in the sense of party affiliation.  Most people belong to one of two political parties, the Liberals or the Colorados, whose theme colors are blue and red, respectively.  My city is (supposedly) almost entirely Colorado, therefore lots of red everywhere.

In fact, you can add finding outrageously bright paint colors to Paraguay’s list of random skills.  As you drive through cities the government buildings are often painted impressively eye-catching reds or blues to reflect which ever political party is in power.  I’ve heard that hiring people to change the paint color is often the first thing done when new people enter office.  I’ve also heard it’s an example of one of the quickest and most efficiently done projects in the political spheres of Paraguay.

I didn’t think twice when my friend Stephanie and I picked out a great blue to paint my kitchen table chairs, but since then I’ve gotten questions about why I picked blue.

Each time I can’t help but nervously laugh and tell them it matches really well with my yellow and pink table cloth.

Paraguay has an extremely interesting and complex history.  They lived under Stroessner’s dictatorship from 1954 (the year my dad was born) until 1989 (the year my sister Carybeth was born).

The current president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, was a priest and a bishop before entering office.  Less than a year after entering office it came out that he had fathered two children with two different mothers during his time with the church.

He also wears Transitions sunglasses (which was Maren’s primary concern about me coming to Paraguay).

I’m headed to our Reconnect training and then a few days on a river to celebrate Thanksgiving!  It should be wonderful.

I hope your thanksgiving is wonderful where ever you are.

Yeah, I don’t know either.

It’s been awhile since I last wrote, and I’ve moved into an apartment since then!  I was really lucky to find the apartment that I did– a decent price, great location, amazing view– with a balcony!  I had high hopes for having my own little Paraguayan house with a garden, fruit trees, and a hammock, but that just wasn’t in the cards for me and Paraguarienses claimed it would be nearly impossible to find.  So, I had to let that dream die and most days I’m quite content with my fairly well-constructed, not (visibly) molded over, might I even say ‘North American’ seeming apartment.  When I hear stories of volunteers that still have to bathe in streams or haul water from wells I do feel quite guilty.

After trying to get a used fridge from a volunteer in Asuncion (and me almost giving the driver a heart attack as he yelled at me in Guarani to keep watching the fridge tied upright in the back of a pickup with some rope to make sure it didn’t fall down) and it arriving only to not work, I had to bite the bullet and buy a new fridge.  But on the upside it is white, clean, beautiful, and does not smell like rotting!

“Bite the bullet” does not translate to Spanish, by the way.

I’ve been trying to make it feel homey by putting lots of pictures up, painting my chairs bright blue (the color of the Liberal party, the political party that is NOT in power in Paraguari, whoops! I’ve already gotten lots of questions about them, I swear they just go well with my pink and yellow table cloth!) and organizing things.  What seems like inches of dust accumulate in just a few days time here, so sweeping should become my new hobby.

Tomorrow makes 3 months in-site, which means we’re almost up to 6 months in country, whoa.

I daresay I might have underestimated the difficulty of the task before I set out for Peace Corps.  I couldn’t help but feeling like “Been there, done that,” as they talked about the emotional roller coaster of cultural adjustment.  I don’t like roller coasters (I prefer Noah’s Ark) and I refused to step foot on the Raging Bull at Six Flags the one time that I was there, but the roller coaster I’m currently on has got to be at least 18x more intense.

Most of us come into contact with at least one person every day who truly love us.  And it makes sense, we live in houses, neighborhoods, communities, go to schools, churches, and jobs that help facilitate these encounters, these run-ins with love if you will.  The people that love you even though they knew you while you were aged 13-17 and a big jerk.

But what happens if you go days, weeks, months and never run in to love?  Not in the street, not at the supermarket, not even at the park on the swings. Signs go up in storefronts: “Fresh out of love, not geographically accessible for 7,536.2 miles.”

You’ll probably be watching The Wire, Season 4, where there’s lots of prison visits, and you’ll find yourself thinking: “That dude’s in prison and he gets to see his friends and family more than I do!”

I’ve definitely found a lot of unexpected and amazing love from other volunteers, and lots of acts of generosity from Paraguayans, but there’s something about love, live and in person, from people that knew you before 180 days ago.

So, I guess all of this was my melodramatic way of saying I am thanking my lucky stars that my younger sister IS COMING TO VISIT RIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS. Woooooooooo!  I couldn’t stop screaming when she called me to tell me she bought her ticket.  I miss everyone at home and did I mention that I have a second bedroom at my apartment?  And now lots of chairs, that will soon be modpodged with words from Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Chairs.

a chair,
a chair
for me,
for everyone,
a chair not
only for the weary body’s
rescue,
but also for everything,
and for everybody,
to renew lost strength,
and for meditation.
-pablo neruda

1. I saw a Shakespeare production in Paraguay!  My friend Stephanie (a fellow Wisconsinite), and now my neighbor in the town over called to let me know a group of 16-25 year olds would be performing at her Municipality.  I have to admit my motivation for going was not a love for Shakespeare in this case, it wasn’t important to me what production they were doing, I mainly just wanted to watch Paraguayans try and do Shakespeare.

And that I did my friends.  It exceeded my expectations!  There were costumes, a set, and it seemed very well-rehearsed.  And then, the last 20 minutes got weird.  It all started with an awkwardly choreographed dance (waltz?) to an instrumental version of Penny Lane.

Wait a minute…there are no Beatles in A Midsummer Night’s Dream!

Something about the dancing, and the song, and Paraguay all together had me laughing uncontrollably for literally the next 10 minutes.  I was in convulsing heaps as I desperately tried to swallow my laughs and avoid making any noise.  My two friends on either side of me had to shield their side view of me so that my laughter wasn’t contagious.  Everything was very reminiscent of that time in 3rd grade that I was laughing so hard that the teacher made me leave the room [and Yes, Ben, you're right, it was at my own joke].

As tears of laughter rolled down my cheeks I thought there would be no relief.

Alas, the quirky traveling theater group saved my day as they entered the scenes at the end of the play.  They were supposed to be funny.  Paraguayans thought they were funny.  And suddenly it was okay to be laughing so enthusiastically.

2. I moved host families for the 4th and final time in my site about a week and a half ago.  I’m living with an uncle and his 17-year-old nephew and 22-year-old niece.  The girl is a lot of fun to be around and has introduced me to more people my own age, and the boy is funny and randomly asks me to translate phrases like “I love you,” and “It is love.” I like to think I’m helping him win the heart (that’s right JUST one, fidelity is a topic to be covered in a different blog post) of someone with sweet English love poems.

Paraguayans love to ask what their name would be in English, lunch today went something like this:

-What would our dog Beethoven’s name be in English?
-Beethoven.
-What would our uncle Modesto’s name be?
-Modest.
The Uncle: [repeating back what he thinks I said, he throws his hands up in the air and says] “Mah-stair! Viste?”  (Master, did you see?)

Since Paraguayans don’t grow up listening to English, it’s often impossible for them to hear and replicate many of the sounds (the same problem native English speakers have in lots of languages, including Spanish).  When I said “Modest” the closest English word he knew was “Master.” (It’s one of those words from movies, etc. that they know what it means)  Now you try saying Modest out loud, does it sound like Master?

The best was the expression on his face and how he threw his hands up in the air, a look that said, “You like that? Did you see what I just did right there?” [Dad, do you remember the last time YOU said that? ] He was pretty pleased with himself that his name is so close(?) to the English word for Master.

3. I just was looking through my wallet when I stumbled upon SIX Culver’s Kids Meal Scoopie tokens.  I’ve decided to make the generous offer of GIVING these tokens FOR FREE to the first person to come and visit me in Paraguay.  That’s right, you’re 60% of the way to a free Grilled Cheese Kids Meal (or really any Kids Meal, but let’s be honest, Grilled Cheese is where it’s at)  So you can just go right ahead and subtract $2.97* from your plane ticket and consider it REPAID. (*While this number was reached through a legitimate mathematical equation, prices are subject to regional differences and price inflation not accounted for since my departure in May 2011)

4. I’m back to work at the Teacher Training Institute tomorrow, as the last 3 days have been nationwide education strikes in all of the public schools and highschools.  From my understanding, teachers have been striking on a clockwork-like basis for the last few years demanding fair wages.  Strikes are fairly common in Paraguay, usually are not violent, and sometimes seem like they don’t accomplish much more than a national day off of work.  There are rumors that this strike could continue for weeks, but I will find out more tomorrow.

We sprang ahead for daylight savings, so I now have another hour gap from most of you than I did previously.

It’s 2:30am, an entirely inappropriate time to be awake in Paraguay, when in a short 1.5 hours many people will wake up for their morning tea and work schedule!  However, I had a coffee and a siesta today, so I’m feeling great.  I forgot that I do all of my best thinking at these hours.

To close, if you’ve got some time on your hands I recommend clicking through this SlideShare presentation on Cross Culture Shock, it’s extremely interesting!  I can definitely identify with a lot of the themes discussed.  If you watch it let me know your reactions.

But most importantly, please post a comment if you plan to be a contender for the 60% FREE GRILLED CHEESE KIDS MEAL.

1. “Nosotros, los Latinos, entendemos que un dia sin amor es un dia perdido.”  We, the Latinos, understand that a day without love is a day that is lost.
-A speaker introducing the topic of the 21st century Latino, noting that traditionally Latinos have always been very capable in matters of the heart.

2. “When the Capitalism of your country [the U.S.] comes crashing down it will all come back to this [motioning towards students milking cows].  We’ll once again remember that work needs to be done with our hands and our hearts.”
-An Argentinean documentary filmmaker while talking to Amy and I during our visit to Fundación Paraguaya’s Agricultural School.  The school trains students to be entrepreneurs by operating their own micro-businesses while they’re studying [and thus making them a financially self-sufficient school].  On the campus you can find a hotel, restaurant, as well as milk, cheese, meat, vegetable, and honey production.

3. “Do you guys struggle with this? I can’t get them [Paraguayans] to let me know when the cows are giving birth…I even give my host brother money on his phone every week and he still doesn’t call.”
-a fellow volunteer who was upset that he hadn’t yet witnessed a live cow birth.

4. “Paraguayans LOVE free stuff, they wouldn’t leave me alone this morning when I had a free CD to give away.”
-A Brazilian representative from the organization the Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education.  I mean we all love free stuff, that’s natural, right?  Paraguayans knock people down and don’t say sorry to get free stuff, bringing love for free things to a new level that I haven’t experienced previously.  As you can imagine this desire-for-gifts mentality complicates doing any sort of mobilizing the masses, bottom-up community development projects (although another full post on that a different day).  My ability to (semi) speak Portuguese earned me the CD that he had started telling other Paraguayans he ran out of.

5. Today on the way back from a conference on education in a van full of 13 other Paraguayans I made a big mistake.  I was quizzed at length on which things I eat if I don’t eat meat, a CONSTANT topic of discussion for Paraguayans.  Eggs? Cheese? Yogurt? Fish? and it went on.

So I thought the last question was a joke when she said, “y carne humana?” (and human flesh)

Thinking I was clever I responded, “Depends on the day.” At which point the entire van lost it, laughing so hard they could not hold it together. While impressed with my joke, I didn’t think it was that funny.  I soon learned that the phrase “Comer carne humana” does not refer to cannibalism when in Paraguay, but rather to sexual acts.

Beet red, I desperately tried to explain that I was joking about actually eating people.

Alas, at the rate that gossip travels in Paraguay, I’m sure I’ve already earned myself a reputation.

I was eating breakfast at a hostel in Asuncion (pretty much the only hostel in Asuncion, and therefore the hub for all backpackers in Paraguay it seems) when I started chatting with a guy who’s traveling through Paraguay and Argentina before returning home to Bogota.  We discussed our common love of Colombia, the summer I spent in Medellin, whether the Rolos (people from Bogota) really aren’t as nice as other Colombians, and more.  Needless to say, it was well established that he was in fact Colombian, not Paraguayan, therefore there was no need to interact with him based upon Paraguayan social cues.

Yet, when I pulled the juice out of the fridge and asked him if he would like some, and he responded, “Ah, gracias,” I turned right around and put the juice back in the fridge.  The most concerning part of it all:

There was not a single doubt in my mind that he definitely did not want juice.

It wasn’t until some awkward laughter by people in the room [all non-Paraguayan], and him saying, “Uh, yeah, thanks I did want juice,” that I realized my mistake.

Oh god, what have I become?

And the answer came back: Paraguayan.

In the mate circle (traditional tea that is passed around and shared) when you don’t want any you say, “Gracias.”  When asked if you want seconds in Paraguay, which surely will be phrased in the negative, “You don’t want any more to eat, do you?” The magic “Gracias” will get you out of eating more.  Paraguayans have such a culture of indirect communication that they will go as far as needed to avoid directly saying the word “No.”  So far in fact, that “Thank you” now means “No!”

I would feel fine about this situation if I were just sharing a cultural tidbit and it stopped there.  What’s alarming is that apparently I’m slowly becoming re-wired to indirectly communicate like a Paraguayan [Seems I would prefer the inarticulate mumbling of American teenagers].

This is after only four months.  God help us all when we see the results of two years, do you think they will be life-long permanent?

So, when I get back to the U.S. and you invite me over to your house for dinner, and I look at what you cook for me and say, “Yo no sé comer” (“I don’t know how to eat this,” a phrase used by Paraguayans which really means “I don’t like this”), I urge you to please yell at me in your loudest voice:

“THAT IS NOT TRUE MOLLY!  YOU DO KNOW HOW TO EAT THAT, EVERYONE KNOWS HOW TO EAT IT, AND IF YOU DON’T, I WILL TEACH YOU RIGHT NOW!”

And then a little more calmly, “And if it’s that you don’t like it, I’m going to need to hear you say it out loud.”

That’s one of the more frequent questions I get in Paraguay, usually right after ¿Te hallas en Paraguay? Are you enjoying/do you enjoy Paraguay? (For all of you Spanish speakers out there, example 1 of why Paraguayan Spanish is strange).

Is there a check yes for both box?

Paraguayans, relieved to hear that you are both enjoying it here and miss your family, once again try and wrap their brain around why a 23-year-old Estadounidense girl wanted to leave her family and the perks of her previous life behind for Paraguay.  What’s more is I had the audacity to do it during my prime husband-finding and baby-making years!

I imagine their inner thoughts to resemble something of Jerry Seinfeld’s bit on racehorses: “That was the longest possible route we could take.  Why didn’t we just stay here?  We would’ve been first!”  In this case, their idea of a first place prize includes a comfortable existence in some American suburb, complete with excellent air quality, decent schools, smiling blond children, air conditioning, escalators and peanut buter.

I have to admit, there are times when I ask myself the same question.  Like during the small red ant invasion of my bed last night.  Or when I talk to my sister and hear that she went out dancing last night and is going to a concert tonight (she assures me her life is not normally this exciting).  Right now my Fridays and Saturdays for the next two years seem like they will be relegated to reading/watching movies solita.  In Paraguay there are a lot of beliefs about what women should do/not do and when, and we received some harsh warnings that if we broke these social norms we may lose respect in our communities, and therefore our ability to do good work.  One wrong move (like going out at night, associating with the wrong people, etc.) and a woman can earn herself a reputation as a mariposa de la noche (“Butterfly of the night,” a phrase meaning prostitute).  That’s definitely something I’m looking to avoid, so for now I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with watching The Wire  :)

With all of this extra time I finally was able to open my Peace Corps Community Economic Development Reader, to find this quote on the first page:

“The real healings and renewals in human life occur in individual lives, not in the process of adjusting or changing their institutions.  These are not the superficial revolutions by which people change their politics; they are the profound metamorphoses that occur when we ‘rectify our hearts.’  No matter what laws or governments say, we can only know and come to care for one another by meeting face to face, arduously, and by the willing loss of comfort.”

So, I guess here’s to being uncomfortable for the next two years…and I don’t meant the red-ants-in-your-bed kind of uncomfortable.

I began to worry when I walked out of my bedroom at 5:30am to lots of rain (It should be included that Paraguayans generally don’t go out at all in the rain—often not to work, definitely not to school, etc. Much of this can be attributed to the dirt roads that quickly become impassable with a little bit of rain, and the rest, I suppose, is that it has just become the cultural norm even in places where there are now paved roads) As the rain trickled on I discussed the possibility of going into the city with my host sister in a taxi, who in the end opted to ride her moto into town. So I left for my 4-kilometer walk into town during what seemed like a lull in the rain, solita and weighed down by bags carrying a change of clothes and a large Tupperware full of mini-cheesecakes.

Within 30 seconds on the road it began to pour harder than it had at any point that morning and I scanned my brain for who I could call directly in the U.S. from my cell phone.  I realized it would be 6am there and no one would be prepared to give me a convincing pump-up speech at that hour of the day.  So I had no choice but to ride the wave of the *“Come on, Eileen” dance party pump up I had attempted prior to departure.

Upon my arrival others looked minor to majorly concerned about my gremlin-like appearance, but I ran to the bathroom and did my best to arreglarme (fix myself/put myself in order).  The rain lightened up and with the 40-minute delay in start time more people began to trickle in.  Additionally the students who attend the teacher-training course of the Institute (where I held my event) boosted attendance and helped to fill up the room.

The man who gave the opening words from the institute began by saying that Paraguay is an agricultural nation and they believe that rains at the beginning of a season are a sign of a prosperous harvest to come, so today’s weather could only be promising for my service.  That was particularly sweet and reassuring to hear.

My part of the presentation went well where I talked about my family and some of my previous experiences.  A student and employee of the institute closed the event with a few musical numbers singing and on guitar.  They were quite good!

I spent all day Wednesday preparing treats for the mini-reception we had after the presentation.  Paraguayans often seem wary of women who don’t possess amazing domestic skills (and are slow to believe that gringas do).  So I did my best to prove my worth through mini strawberry cheesecakes, peanut butter pies, cornbread, and vanilla and chocolate brigadeiros—they were well received.

I’m moving houses again on Sunday and have lots of other things I could include here, so I’ll be sure to write soon.

*My brother and I once discovered that we had separately been using Come on, Eileen as our go to pump up song for quite some time.  It was then that I decided that pump up songs (along with profuse sweating abilities) are in fact genetic.

My site neighbor has received a letter in 3 days to this address, that’s incredible!!! (It goes to a post office in the city, where they then text you to let you know a package has arrived for you– just in case they forget to text it’s probably best to let me know you’ve dropped something in the mail for me so I can be on the lookout)

I’ve yet to receive any mail in Paraguay, so I’ve got high hopes for this new address