Che ryguata...that means I'm full!

So yesterday was Father's Day...in the States and here in Paraguay! I would like to celebrate all loving fathers, alive and deceased, especially my dad and grandfather who, along with the rest of my close-knit family, mean everything to me.

Yesterday was extremely hot hitting nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We're in winter supposedly so I'm kind of worried about how hot it will be in the summer, which is quite a long season here. My host brother told me it's not uncommon to reach 45 degrees Celsius here in the summer which translates to about 113 degrees Fahrenheit. I've been sweating like a pig to say the least the past few weeks... Anyway, back to Father's Day.

We went to a relative's house a few kilometers down the road, and I ate a ridiculous amount of asado. Asado, for those who aren't familiar with the term, is pretty much a barbeque with a ton of meat  consisting mostly of beef and pork. Here in Paraguay, they do not waste much in terms of food. They use every part of the animal, even blood, intestines, head, and any other part you can imagine, including ears and bones that serve as food and toys for dogs. I helped the men of the family prepare the meat a bit while the women made side dishes and the little kids played around the house. There were about 25 of us in total so I got to meet more of my extended Paraguayan family. I ate far too much meat. My host mom loves to serve me food. I'm convinced she would like me to become gigantic, that is, in a horizontal manner! The guarani phrase "Che ryguata" has proved to be very handy, though I still find it hard to eat a healthy amount of food here. After we got back, I fell into a food coma. Now on to other more important matters.

This past week was our first of 3 volunteer site visits. Some trainees stayed in pairs for the visit and a few went alone. I was one of the ones that went alone, though my commute wasn't bad as I only had to take one bus that only took 3 hours. I stayed in a tiny town in the south central part of the country. It had it's own municipality, school, a few tiny food markets, and, of course, several soccer fields. Everywhere I seem to find more soccer fields than anything else which I guess is great if you like soccer, as I do, but not so great if you want businesses and other activities that help the community. I actually got to play the second day. The other players were good, so it was a competitive game. I'm beginning to see that it quite common here to smoke cigarettes while playing here. I find this pretty hilarious and strange at the same time. I had to pay 2 thousand guaranis, which is the equivalent of 50 american cents to play. It seemed strange as it was only a pick-up game between friends. Little did I know, they bet on the games, and as my team won both games, each player on my team got 4 thousand guaranis so I made a 100% return. Haha. Peace Corps says we can't earn money during our service, but as I didn't know about the bet and as I would be using it to celebrate the win anyway, I don't think it was a big deal. 

The town in which I stayed is quite small, though the area in which my volunteer often worked is a much smaller, rural village called Potrerito Yvaty. I will put some pictures up of my visit at the bottom of the post to give you all an idea. My volunteer worked with the municipality a bit earlier in his service, but is now working more in the school in this rural area. I was able to go to the school with him, talk to some of the students and professors, sit in on a class, and, also, help him give a class. 

The volunteer was well known is his community. Everyone we passed would always greet us and often talk to us at length. It was pretty cool to see how he integrated into his community and how well he got to know everyone. He also spoke guarani well, proven by the fact that he would often converse with the locals in a language that I could barely understand, even though I could recognize that it was, in fact, guarani. One of the projects on which he will be working on shortly is a photography class for the students of this village. It will be an opportunity for the kids to learn basic function and use of the camera along with learning techniques and styles of photo taking. It sounded great so we talked about the program a bit and gave out permission slips to be signed and returned.

Apart from that, I was able to meet several people in the community, and everyone was very welcoming. Come to think of it, so far all Paraguayans I've met seem to be very friendly and generous even to the extent that people, in San Patricio and Postrerito, who especially don't have much would always offer me terere, food and their warm company. And by much, I am only comparing material possessions that a typical American family would have and that which a typical Paraguayan family has. This comparison, of course, is only based upon the little time I've spent here so far. Though, it reminds me how important relationships are and how unimportant material possessions are when it comes down to what truly makes a person happy. I like to think that I realized this before I came here, but I know that this experience of both being away from loved ones for so long and having to make another, new family here in Paraguay makes it much more real. My happiness and success here depends on the love from everyone at home and the relationships I build here.

Now I will put up some photos, which is probably what you've all been waiting for while working your way through my rambling. So here are some photos of my site visit. Enjoy! Perhaps, in my next blog I will explain and teach some of the Guarani language, gastronomy, and culture of which I've been learning so much these past few weeks. Until then, Peace everyone!

The main road in Potrerito with school on right

Some kids playing soccer!

Just before sunset

The Mighty Paraguayan Sun!

This is what we would call a "ñandu guasu" in guarani, otherwise known as the tarantula. They're quite popular in the Paraguayan countryside!

Che vare'a... that means I'm hungry!

Hello all!


If you're all wondering about the title, I'll get to it! First things first.


As you all can see, I've made it here to Paraguay! This will be the first blog that I write in Paraguay! I arrived more than 2 weeks ago, and it feels like I've been here for months. I say this because so many things have been packed into such a short amount of time. I arrived in Miami for Staging not this past Tuesday but the Tuesday before. That night I met a few of the other trainees and then tried to get some sleep. Wednesday was filled with ice breakers and other orientation activities to get to know better fellow trainees and the organization through which we'll be serving Paraguayans! All my fellow trainees are really cool. It was nice being around them because I no longer had to do much of the explaining why I'm here that I've been doing the past few months because everyone joins the Peace Corps for roughly the same reason. After a busy day, we went to the airport around 6:30, and, after  a long check-in process and a 2 hour delay, we finally took off at around 2 in the morning on Thursday, technically.


We arrived in Asunción, Paraguay at around 2:00 after a short lay over in Montevideo, Uruguay. To be honest, I hadn't in the moment nor have I now thought much about the fact that I had just flown to a place quite distant and distinct from the place where I have lived my entire life, and that I will be spending quite a while here. I think I've been handling this fact well so far. I have not once questioned my intentions, and I have not once freaked out about the fact that my resources, primary support groups, and responsibilities will now be in a country in which I've never lived before. I've felt no reason not to be calm. I have too much to learn and take in during these short 11 weeks of training that it seems pointless and quite overwhelming to be preoccupied with much else.


Once off the plane, we were greeted by the Peace Corps Paraguay staff. From now on, I will use PCP as an abbreviation referring to Peace Corps Paraguay because I can already foresee it becoming old quickly having to write that out over and over again... Continuing on...We spent out first night in Paraguay at a retreat center not too far from the airport outside of Asunción. It was a nice time to relax a little, talk to fellow volunteers and staff, and experience some of Paraguay's traditions, one of which being the drinking of an herbal type tea called terere. It is very similar to mate, the most important distinction being that it is taken cold, not hot. There will be more about  terere and mate later I'm sure, but for now, for all those that are interested in how to speak Guarani, the last vowel in words is the one that carries an accent. This is a general rule. For example, one would put the emphasis on the last e in terere. In the exception to this rule, an accent will be put on the vowel that is stressed to make clear its pronunciation. For example, Mba'éichapa, which is the most expression used to greet someone that roughly translates to "Hi, how are you?," has the accent over the e to show that the stress is not on the last vowel.


The next day we me the rest of the Peace Corps training personnel. All the staff are great. After having a session at the training in Guarambare, we went to our communities to meet our host families. I'm staying with an older retired couple and their son who is a university student. After having lived only a little over 2 weeks with them, I already feel like I can call them my Paraguayan family. I love them. They are very warm and welcoming, and were excited right from the start about hosting a trainee. The first weekend, Joel, the son, invited me to play soccer with a few of his friends and to go to one of his friend's birthday party. He is around my age, so I feel like we have a lot in common. My host mom is very caring and generous, especially with feeding me enormous amounts of food. It's great because she's a good cook, but if I didn't still have a good metabolism I'd probably be huge in a month or so. She taught me how to say 'I'm hungry' in Guarani! It's Che vare'a. I guess she figured that it is important to express my desire to eat. Ha! I'll talk more about specific foods in another post. She and my host dad also try to teach me a lot of Guarani, which can be a little overwhelming at times because I'm learning a lot of Guarani in class, but I appreciate it a lot. Luckily, we exclusively speak in Spanish, or Castellano as it's called here. They do not know any English, but since they lived in Ciudad del Este, which is a Paraguayan city that is located at their border with Brazil, they understand and can speak Portuguese as well, so sometimes we converse in that as well which is cool. It's amazing how they essentially can speak in 4 different languages: Castellano, Portuguese, Guarani, and Jopara, which is a mixed language of both Castellano and Guarani that it widely spoken in Paraguay.


In terms of Guarani, I've surprisingly learned a lot so far, and I feel like I can independently think about the language and figure a lot of things out based on the structure, form, and grammar rules of the language. Our training combines language classes and specific technical training which we have each day. Training is quite intensive, and we don't have much free time especially since a lot of time spent outside training is with family and other volunteers, so I'm exhausted by the time I have any of it.


Apart from all the Paraguayns I've met and all the language and culture of which I've been learning, I've been able to get to know better my fellow trainees, which has been nice because they're all very cool and have great things to share with Peace Corps and with other trainees/to-be-volunteers like me. We all actually got a chance to go to Asuncion, the capital city, for the first time in pairs to do a little excursion in which we had to find a few places in the city and then find our way to the Peace Corps office. I had a great partner, Evelyn, and we had no trouble getting around, and we had a good time figuring everything out. Tomorrow (Monday, June 13, 2011), each trainee will be visiting a volunteer to stay with them for a few days to experience first-hand the life of a volunteer and the work in which they're involved. I'm looking forward to it. I will be going to a little town called San Patricio in the departamento of Misiones which is in the south of Paraguay. I will update soon to tell you all how it went. Until then, I leave you all with a picture of the entire training group so you can see the people with whom I've been working. I'll try to put up some other pictures up soon, and write a little bit more diligently about my experience thus far.


From right to left, more or less, we have Steph, Roberto, Taylor, Amy, Eric, Vicky, Julie, Veronica, Kevin, Johanna, Ginsey, Shavon, Richard, Estee, Brittany, Randi, Molly, Dion, Evelyn, Ben, Chris, Marilu, and, finally, Me.