The Nancy Franke Library

I just got home from La Inauguracion de la Biblioteca de Nancy Franke (or, in ingles: The Inauguration of the Nancy Franke Library). This project has been a long time coming, and I’m completely psyched (I can’t even think of a word that emphasizes this enough) that it has been completed. I know that having accepted the naming of this library after me seems self-centered, but I honestly worked my tuccus off to complete this project, so when the library commission (or what’s left of it) suggested this, I enthusiastically accepted. PLUS, this is now the best fun fact that I’ll probably ever have about myself.



As you may realize, I only have a week left here in my barrio. It is INSANE to me. I honestly have no idea how the past two years have flown by so quickly. I leave on the 15th (next Friday), and then will be in Asuncion to swear out/festejar, and then will head on a 6 week trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia with my Peace Corps amiga. Anyway, I have been completely blocking out the fact that time is slipping past and that I’ll be leaving my lovely Villa Madrid so soon. I got choked up about two weeks ago a few times, but ever since have just continued to ignore it. Tonight I gave a speech at our library inauguration in which I talked about how I hoped that the new library would encourage a culture of reading and a renowned unification of the barrio (which is very segregated by section). The people who went were almost all people I have worked with on various projects throughout the past two years, and I got really choked up twice during my speech. I’m not much of a crier—at all—but it just all hit me tonight…unfortunately when I was in front of a crowd (including someone from the municipality). Anyway, the library inauguration was a huge success (despite me having to take two pauses to collect myself). There were a lot of kids and youth, and a lot of people of all ages stayed after to read and admire our wonderful collection of nearly 500 books. I had the pleasure of watching a 45-year-old woman discover the joys and wonders of pop-up books, which was actually a real highlight in my evening.

The library had looked a bit sparse until today, when we decorated it with maps, Paraguayan bicentennial stuff, and photographs taken by 4 neighborhood youth who participated in the Ahecha project. Ahecha (“I see” in Guarani) is a project that gives PCVs 5 cameras to loan to youth for about 6 weeks. The youth then take all sorts of photos, culminating in an exhibit within the neighborhood. They learn all about photography and then the photos are also submitted to the national Ahecha exhibit, in which photos are taken all over Asuncion for a few months. It is a really exciting opportunity for youth, and we had all the photos on display tonight at the library. Though some of the youth didn’t really seem to get the project, I was impressed overall by their work. And their photos added a lot to the library.

Realistically, this is just a really big step for this community library. My follow-up (who is great and meets all of my requirements—Yay!) will continue with projects, hopefully implementing a mobile library project with the schools, several reading/homework/geography clubs, and any other projects you may be able to think of. When I get back to the States (June 3rd—mark your calendars!) I’m hoping to rally a few groups to send down some books. Though we have a lot of children’s books, the books that the typical read-to Norte child grows up reading are IMPOSSIBLE to find in Spanish down here, and I definitely think they’ll be big hits in the library. (I've found that Where the Wild Things Are is truly amazing, regardless of the language it is written in...) That means, I’ll probably be harassing you. So brace yourself to donate to the Nancy Franke Library.

Prison in Paraguay

April 1st, 2011.

I went to prison yesterday. If you know me at all, you’ll understand that I was absolutely thrilled to be there, and then was totally blown away by what I saw. I went with another PCV to this small prison in Emboscada, Paraguay, which is about 20 minutes from my house. I’ve been to about 6 prisons in the US, ranging from camps (very low security where there aren’t even fences around the facility) to maximum security prisons—both state and federal. This was the first time I’d ever been to a prison outside of the US. The prison in Emboscada was shut down about two or three years ago, mostly due to the fact that the facilities were really old (constructed in 1903), and that there was a great deal of violence and murders within the prison walls. They reopened just over a year ago and currently only house just over 100 men. We spoke to the warden, a few guards, and one inmate. (Yes, just a single inmate—I found that to be a bit strange.) The warden explained about the variety of classes (educational and vocational) offered at the prison, showed us an extensive library, and a bakery with brand new equipment. There is a great deal of construction going on right now, mostly by the inmates themselves, to build a new housing facility which will hold about 500 new inmates.

OK, I didn’t finish that blog entry. But, I did go back on Tuesday with my follow-up Volunteer. We were able to actually go in and enter the housing units this time. I can’t figure out if we were only allowed to see them the second time because: A) day 1 was a bad day, B) the first guard showing us around thought we were slightly delicate, or C) because they figured we hadn’t been scared off too badly round one. It was confusing, but really interesting to go in. Again, they only have about 100 inmates currently, so the housing was pretty small. The guys sleep three to a room generally, on mattresses that lay on concrete bed structures. They’re able to have tapestries covering the bars to their cells, personal TVs, and all sorts of things (including hot plates!) that would definitely be considered contraband in most US prisons. We were shown all sorts of really interesting artisan work, like hand-stitched leather-covered terere (the tea, which is served with a thermos, cup, and metal filtered straw) equipment, neat little miniature boats complete with all the necessary ropes, jewelry boxes, and all sorts of other handicrafts. It was really interesting, to say the least. Another PCV (the one I went with originally to the prison) is hoping to help artisans at the prison sell their goods to other PCVs. She and my follow-up are both very interested in doing classes at the prison, though neither of them have worked in the field before. Is it weird that I’m slightly jealous? Maybe.

False alarm

OK, so immediately after posting that last blog entry my power came back on. YES!

Giardia and Power Outages

So, I did my Close of Service medical stuff a couple of weeks ago, and got a phone call from the medical office a few days later saying that I have giardia, which is a gross, though very common intestinal problem amongst PC Volunteers. According to one website, “outbreaks can occur in communities…where water supplies become contaminated with raw sewage.” So, ew. Anyway, apparently mine is minor and fairly dormant, so I’ll take the pills on my last day of service to make sure my system is healthy before I travel through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia…
On a very different note, a few days ago I was visiting Mari, one of my favorite ladies in my site. She asked me if I had heard about the 3 day power outage that was going to happen this week “all over the world” because of “that thing that happened in that other country”. I suggested she was talking about Japan, and she agreed. I laughed at the idea of a 3 day worldwide power outage, assuming she was just messing with me. But, alas, my power went out about ten minutes ago, and now I’m nervous that for some reason we’ll be without power for days. Other PC friends also lost power at the same time, so now I’m getting a bit nervous… We shall see, I guess. It looks like I should prep for a few days of candlelit reading…

Arch Nemesis or My Replacement

I’m having a standoff. With a cat. It started yesterday. It started raining, so I went around my house partially closing the windows to make sure the rain didn’t come in more than was absolutely necessary. This is a tricky maneuver because if the wind blows the right (or should I say wrong?) way, it gets in regardless of what I do. This is, of course, thanks to the fact that my landlord never got around to putting new glass in the broken, and in some cases nonexistent, panes. I did what anyone would do—used cardboard and duct tape to patch them myself. It’s generally effective, but after living in my house for a year and a half, some water is inevitable. Anyway, so I shut the window in my room last, and made eye contact with this mangy looking white cat sitting outside. I registered the look it gave me immediately. The look was that that a teenager gives his parents when they’re about to leave him/her in charge of the house for the weekend. It says, "Of course I won’t have a party", but you know that is exactly what he/she is planning. The look the cat gave me said, “Of course I wouldn’t dream of going through the window into your house—when you’re home.” I hate this cat. This morning I saw it again sitting on a table that I abandoned on my front porch about a year ago in hopes that someone would steal it. I noticed the cat’s ear, which was completely black and looked nearly rotten. But, rather than feel sorry for said cat, I just saw the look in his eyes and knew that he was just waiting for me to move out in a few weeks so he can claim my house for himself. Adding insult to injury, he is completely white. The only reason I mention this is that last October, shortly after moving into my house, I came home to find 3 totally white baby kittens stashed behind my refrigerator. It was disgusting. But not nearly as disgusting as knowing that the next tenant to my lovely home will be this disgusting creature that has already probably been in my house, wreaking havoc but finally catching the lone mouse that keeps scurrying around my kitchen.

Shakira and Wanna-Be Robbers

So I went to see Shakira last night. As I recently mentioned, I’m not a huge Shakira fan. I simply went because I had to do my medical testing and I could get reimbursed while hanging out in Asuncion with a bunch of my PC friends. There are about 200 PCVs in Paraguay and I’d guess at least 50 were there. While we were waiting in line to get into the “campo” section (the cheapest area), a camera guy approached my group. He wanted to interview some of us. I stepped forward (of course), and answered some questions, briefly described Peace Corps, and then was asked what Shakira song I most wanted to hear. I stalled. As mentioned, I’m not some sort of die hard Shakira fan. I’m not even a quasi-Shakira fan. She sings. Her stuff is EVERYWHERE in Paraguay, frequently being bumped from passing cars and neighborhood stereos. I said the only song that I can easily name—Waka Waka. I’m not sure of this song’s popularity in the States, but here is was a constant reminder that the World Cup was happening. Apparently this was an acceptable answer, and he moved on. No other PCV moved to be interviewed, so I was the only one to represent the US’s presence at Shakira.

We roamed around the “campo” area, or the field, where there was no seating. We danced and hung out all over. My best PCV friend, Barbara, and I wandered amongst PCVs asking if they were hungry…for a sandwich. This is a silly idea, of course. It is a ridiculous move that my sister and I used to employ in high school. You approach a guy and ask if he’s hungry, possibly suggesting that he looks famished. He is usually quite confused, until the person behind him and in front of him begin dancing and you ask if he wants a sandwich. At this point he usually realizes that you’re not trying to give him a BLT or something of the like. It amuses me. Yes, I’m 26. It’s the little things that mean so little.

Just after we satisfied the hunger of a PC friend of ours and took a picture of the three of us, I realized my bag had been unzipped. I saw that a guy and girl were standing right next to us and had been there for a bit. Though there was quite a crowd, it was easy to walk through so anyone passing through had no reason to find a road block. I grabbed the guy’s wrist with my left hand while my right hand fished around in my purse to see if anything was missing. My wallet was still there, but my phone had mysteriously disappeared. I asked the guy, in not the most delicate language, where in the world my phone was. My grip on his wrist was tight. He told me that a girl had stolen my phone and run through the crowd. Still holding tight, I told him to find her, and we rushed through the crowd. His female friend had disappeared at this point. He led me through the crowd quickly, but then led me back out into another group of PCVs. He told me he had lost the girl who had supposedly stolen my phone. I saw my friend Andy aka Sparkles and told him this *#*#(!!! guy had stolen my phone and to hold him. Miraculously, at that very moment the guy told me my phone had been handed to him. I took it in one hand while still holding hard on his wrist. I turned it on to be sure it was actually mine while giving him a lecture about how I only earn as much as Paraguayans and work to improve my community and how he should be ashamed of himself. (Yes, I was on a bit of a pedestal.) It was obvious that it was my phone once it turned on, and I told him to “leave us in peace” (which is much much stronger in Paraguayan Spanish), and then slapped him across the face. I’m sad to say that it was done with my left hand, and therefore possibly not as hard as I’d like. Maybe the slap wasn’t the most peaceful option, but getting my cell back was certainly the highlight of my night—even after hearing Waka Waka.

Shards of Glass and Shakira

OK, just to clarify, I do not have dengue. I had some sort of terrible sickness that resembled dengue, but it passed and I survived (clearly). A ton of people have had the same symptoms in my neighborhood the past few weeks, though for some it has turned out to be dengue. I’m hoping that all of these cases of actual dengue (not its terribly uncomfortable and painful doppelganger) will make the municipality of Limpio come out to Villa Madrid to fumigate. Fumigation would help, but actually getting rid of dengue would involve people cleaning up their yards, keeping their homes immaculate, and maybe taking down those oh-so-lovely shards of glass that often line stone walls to keep people from climbing them. I’m not going to hold my breath.

Today I held a meeting to talk about the library and community problems. The head of the bus line 48, which goes in and out of my neighborhood about every 10 minutes, was there too. We had asked Linea 48 to donate some money for our library project, and in return he asked us to hold a community meeting to talk about various assaults that have happened on their buses within my neighborhood. The meeting went well, though started 45 minutes late, as per usual. I’m hoping that a kind of neighborhood watch group will be formed as a result, but I’m leaving in just 6 weeks (!) so I will not take on this project. We shall see. There is always a lot of crime in my neighborhood. As the PCV who lived here before me said, “Villa Madrid is a relatively safe place with some petty theft and the occasional homicide.” I’ve not heard of any homicides since I’ve been here, but I’ve always loved the optimism of that phrase.

Anyway, things are winding down, though I have maybe about 4 free days until the end of March. That being said, this week I will spend 3 days in Asuncion to have my Close of Service medical and dental exams and to go see Shakira. No, I’m not that big of a Shakira fan, but how can you say no to seeing her in concert while in Latin America?? Answer: You cannot. (Or at least I cannot.)

Shopping and Champagne

I’m not sure if I’m alone in this or not, nor do I really know where this urge has come from. Maybe it’s from watching Pretty Woman many years ago? I’ve always wanted to sit and drink champagne (and maybe smoke a cigar, though I dislike cigars) as people my same size parade around in various outfits at a store as I decide what I like and dislike. It simply sounds like the best way to shop. Though that did not happen (sigh), on Thursday I may have come as close to that as I’ll ever get. Except it was in a book store. And there was no champagne. As I’ve mentioned, my library committee received the grant from the US that we’ve been waiting for. On Thursday I went with a youth from my neighborhood to pick out books. He had to leave early, so I was sola for quite some time picking out books and shelves for our brand new community library. The book store employees realized just how much I was there to spend (about $2,000) and honestly treated me like royalty. They gave us a HUGE discount and then took our new purchases and me back to my neighborhood. This week we’re going to spend the rest of the money…maybe I’ll just go ahead and buy myself some champagne.

Dengue and the Chosen Ones

So this week has been a bit crazy. I had been feeling kind of sick last Wednesday, but didn't really have time to be sick, so I pushed through it. Saturday I went to help a fellow PCV plant trees with an environmental camp she was doing in her site. By the time the camp was over and we had eaten lunch, I was just feeling completely exhausted. I had been planning on going to a birthday party for a 15 year old with my favorite family in my barrio, but just wasn't up for it. I did basically nothing on Saturday evening, and when I woke up on Sunday I felt terrible. I realized I had been taking ibuprofen steadily for 5 days, so decided to wait a while until I could figure out if I had a fever. I didn't feel particularly sick--but every muscle and joint in my body hurt, I had a headache, and I was just exhausted. When I finally took my temperature, I had a fever of 103!! I called the medical office, but was basically told to keep taking ibuprofen and toughen up. I said it seemed a lot like the symptoms of dengue (which is a major problem in my barrio), and the doctor agreed with me, but still said there was nothing I could do. Thanks. Anyway, I took two Benadryl and knocked myself out for about 13 hours. Monday I felt a bit better and my fever had gone down to just over 100, so I read in my hammock until my trainee got to my house for a four day visit. (Yes, obviously all I want to do when I have a high fever is host someone I don't know for four days.) The visit was good--I basically just had to show the trainee what life is like for a real live Peace Corps Volunteer. That included explaining that stuff gets cancelled last minute constantly, and that about half of the kids show up for school if there is rain, which there was.

Anyway, I survived the week, and don't think I still have a fever. (Small celebretory dance.) I also got a phone call from the Peace Corps Office yesterday. This year marks the 45 year anniversary for Peace Corps Paraguay, Paraguay's bicentennial, and the Peace Corps 50th anniversary. Obviously the PCO decided to celebrate all those things together. They're making a new Peace Corps Paraguay video, which I assume will be shown to new trainees here, and to promote PC PY in general. They chose me as one of the PCVs to interview! I'm not sure what this will entail, but am feeling pretty...ummm...special. Hopefully things turn around in my barrio in the next few weeks and people stop cancelling nearly every event I'm a part of so I can become slightly more positive before this interview. It has been, to say the least, a really rough week. I'm feeling pretty discouraged and frustrated. Here's hoping things turn around and I don't come off as a total Negative Nancy in this interview.....

Big News and Meat Radio

Yesterday was full of news! I went to finally have the mayor of Limpio sign the document that will cede the room in the municipal-run community center to the library committee. This means that he or future mayors will not be able to take any books, materials, or furniture from our library. It means that the library will continue to be communal—just for my neighborhood of Villa Madrid. I also got a phone call from the Peace Corps Office, saying that my SPA Grant of $3,000 has arrived for us to buy books and furniture for the new library. If this seems pretty late in the game, considering I have only 2 months left, it’s because it is. My library committee and I have about 4 weeks to spend all the money, so that’ll be a big push and will definitely keep me very busy. I’ll leave a lot of the organization piece to the library commission and my follow-up volunteer (who will be here for 2 years and arrive in my site a few days before I leave).

I was also at the municipality yesterday morning to finalize a truck to go to the water treatment plant in Limpio for 100 trees for a neighbor PCV to take to her town (about 20 minutes away by bus). Though she (the PCV) doesn’t live in Limpio, the mayor agreed to donate the trees since I’m going to be helping her plant them in her environmental camp that is running through Saturday in her neighborhood. Though they didn’t have any municipal trucks available, they sent the mayor’s private chauffer with the mayor’s truck. Yes, I have this kind of pull with the mayor, apparently.

Unfortunately, I also heard some bad news yesterday. As I believe I’ve mentioned, Paraguayans are notorious for their wandering eyes (and I’m not talking about the kind that can be simply solved with an eye patch at a young age, though that is also a problem for some). It is pretty common for couples to cheat on each other, particularly the men. This may come from Paraguay’s history—particularly the War of the Triple Alliance in which Paraguay lost nearly 90% of its male population. Whatever the reason, cheating is a reality in Paraguayan culture. So, supposedly one of the main male contacts with whom I work on the library committee cheated on his wife (another very active member in the library committee) while she was away working in Argentina for the past 2 months to make money. Again, I’m not sure what happened, but they’re talking about separating. They have 5 kids, ages 5 to 20. It is just really sad, and really unfortunate for the kids, obviously. But, on a more selfish note, it puts a big kink in the library process. I’m hoping, for everyone’s sake, that they end things amicably. Both of them are from northern Paraguay, so it would be a huge strain on the kids for one to move back north. We shall see. I think I’m going to talk to the wife today after she talks to a lawyer.

Let's move on from "radio so'o" (which means gossip but is literally translated as "meat radio") to the actual radio... I do the radio show each week with two other PCVs and we talk about various topics. Last week was environmental issues, particularly against littering and how to recycle. Today we talked about healthy relationships, the decision of when to have sex, and the lack of the sex talk between parents and their kids. I’ll spend the afternoon today making banana bread and then going to a youth assembly to hopefully expand the youth group I’ve been working with for the past year and a half. I’m not sure how I got roped into baking for a bunch of teenagers, but I wish I was more surprised to be doing so. Better go bake!

Best. Day. Ever. (but sans H2O!)

Best. Day. Ever.
OK, so maybe not best day ever, but I’ve had an excellent day. And here’s why: I had a great meeting with the mayor of Limpio. Limpio is a town of 80,000, and I live about 3km outside of it in a neighborhood of 800 houses. It was only brought to my attention by a friend from the states that knowing the mayor of a town of 80,000 is weird, but I don’t find it strange in any way. The current mayor is named Tito, but his brother was the previous mayor. Though the previous mayor was supportive enough in my projects and always donated money when various neighborhood groups I’m involved with asked, I wasn’t the biggest fan. The reason? The traditional greeting between a man and a woman in Paraguay is a double kiss—a cheek-to-cheek on both sides. (Generally your lips don’t make any contact.) The old mayor used to intentionally aim for the corners of my mouth. It made me uncomfortable, and with good reason. Since the woman is generally in control of what kind of greeting it is between a man and a woman (double kiss or handshake), after he pulled this maneuver with me twice I gave him the hard extended hand, signifying that I was only interested in a handshake. That didn’t help him from doing the “killer” move on me. I say Killer, because that’s what we used to call it at the camp where I used to work. Someone is designated as the “killer” and while everyone goes around shaking hands, he/she scratches the palm of the hand of the other person. The other player then shakes hands with a few other people and keels over dead. It is truly a great game, but the former mayor was not playing this game at the time. It is a (super creepy) sexual advance.

Regardless, this new mayor, Tito, is not creepy towards me in any way—he is actually quite professional. I’m very pleased with this fact, to say the very least. Today we had a meeting in which I wanted to talk to him about three things. 1) Peace Corps in general, that I am getting a follow-up volunteer in my site when I leave in April that he should coordinate projects with, and that I’m trying to send an environmental PCV to another section of Limpio to work with the water treatment plant, which has a huge amount of veggie seeds and vegetables and trees that anyone can transplant for free. Essentially, I wanted to show him how great Peace Corps is and how helpful we can be to Limpio. 2) If he wanted to sign a note saying that he’d send 100 saplings to the next town over so I could help another PCV do an environmental camp with kids. This was only tricky in that I was asking for him to send a truck over with the trees so we wouldn’t have to take them on the bus, and it is actually not benefitting Limpio in any way. 3) This is the most important, and what I was buttering him up for, to be perfectly honest. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m working with a library committee to build and start a library. The problem is, we want to put the library in a municipal building without giving all of the power to the municipality to move the library to wherever they choose. This means asking the mayor to sign a document. I was a bit letrada (this basically means sneaky/tricky in PY) and told him that we were looking for a place where we could put the library, but where it is safe, and has a night guard. He fell for my wonderful trap and suggested the municipal-run community center in my neighborhood. Though we haven’t signed a contract as of yet (that should happen this upcoming week), he is enthused about the project and more than willing to help. This was a huge load off my shoulders. We should be getting the money any day now, and will soon be buying books and the shelves and such to equip the library with all it needs. My library committee and my follow-up will most likely be in charge of organizing it and getting the ball rolling, since I have such little time left here.

On another note, the mayor gave me some other good news. He said that he is donating the money to fix the motor on the water tank that gives me and about 350 other houses water daily. My water situation is unstable to say the least, with water about 5 hours a day, but the motor broke on Friday and we have been without a single drop of water ever since. I ran out of potable water yesterday, which…umm…sucked, but my neighbors gave me a bunch today since they have a different (and more expensive) water source. I have a big barrel of water I fill whenever I can in case of emergencies, but even that is down to about 2 inches of water. Today I bathed at the Peace Corps Office, since I had to go in there briefly to deal with some other things, but otherwise I’ve just been using an absurdly small amount of water to bathe. To be honest, I’ve not been the cleanest person here the past few days…and remember, we’re in the midst of summer. Thankfully it has been rainy and a bit cooler in the past few days or I have no idea how I’d be surviving… I’m hoping that tomorrow the motor on the water tank gets fixed and things return to normal.

Otro Dia

So, kids are a huge part of my life here, to say the very least. They come visit me all the time to color, or read, or just play. Sometimes they decide my house is too messy and do my dishes. I’ve shown some the joys of the internet, about a jillion pictures from my life, and how to cook various foods. I made pancakes for one of my favorite families last week. I’ve become so used to just cooking for myself that it was much more of a to-do than I expected. On top of that, the kids kept asking if I thought they’d “know how to eat pancakes”, which is an expression that I love and that has repeatedly gotten me out of eating kidney, liver, intestines, stomach, and other innards. I told the kids that I’m sure they’d have no problem figuring out how to eat pancakes, and I was right, except for one kid, Guillermo age 5, who for some God-forsaken reason apparently doesn’t like pancakes.

A few days ago I was bucket bathing, another part of my life that I had completely forgotten to mention in my last blog about things that’ll be different in the US. Here’s the thing—I like bucket bathing. When it’s cold and I have to heat up water and then jump around to keep myself quasi-warm while bathing is not enjoyable, I must admit. But with the hot weather that we have now (February is the hottest month here), I actually enjoy it. I think of it as jumping into a pool over and over again—it is that refreshing. Anyway, the other day I was bucket bathing at around 6:30pm before heading to a meeting on the other side of my barrio. I heard someone clapping outside of my house, which is the Paraguayan equivalent to ringing the doorbell. “Quien?” I yelled, knowing whoever was at the other side of my door could hear me thanks to the half-wall that makes up my bathroom. It was a few kids who live a few blocks away, wanting to “study”, which really means color/play. I shouted that I had a meeting, so I didn’t have time to study, and they said they’d come back after, at 9pm to play. I said it was too late, but suggested “otro dia” we could play. This is essentially a total brush off. Saying “another day” is a passive way of being sure that no other date is set for play time with them. Here I say it to random people trying to sell things on the street, and we both pretend I’ll find them the next time I’m in town to buy their handicrafts. These particular kids get the brush-off because of the last time they came to visit. They’re nice enough kids, but brought their toddler cousin. The family very simply does not have the money to buy diapers, so they let the toddler urinate and defecate wherever she so pleases. Generally, I have no real problem with this, though I don’t like to be around for it. Last time the kids visited, the kid pissed all over my chair and floor. It wasn’t really a problem, though I had them leave about ten minutes later. My floor is made up of big bricks and is easy to clean. I actually spit on my floor with some frequency—this may be another habit I need to change when I’m stateside again, huh?

On a totally different note, we’re still fundraising for the public library project in site. I adore my library group—it is a small group, but everyone is so dedicated and hard working. Also, they’re hilarious, which makes it a lot more fun to have 3 meetings a week with them. At the moment, they’re obsessed with the idea of putting a huge framed picture of me on the wall of the library. I’m quietly hoping someone suggests again that the library is named after me, but for now I’ll settle for a huge picture of me with glasses on and a finger to my mouth, forever shushing the room.

Scabies Free and Winding Down

I talked on Skype with my brother today. He’s in India and is super guapo (that means hard working here, though elsewhere means good looking) and was harassing me about updating my blog, which I somehow haven’t done in a full month. I realized that it isn’t that I don’t have anything going on in Paraguay, it’s just that things here just seem so normal to me. My library committee is trucking along, doing fundraisers for the 25% of the funds needed to build the library. The other 75% is (hopefully) coming in a couple of weeks from a SPA grant. I had originally wanted to do a Peace Corps Partnership for the money, which would have meant asking everyone I know to donate money, but the SPA grant (through USAID) seemed like a better option. All in all, the project will cost $4,000 and will be passed along to my follow-up, who arrives in Paraguay tomorrow. (NUTS!)

We had our Close of Service conference last week, which just meant a load of paperwork and realizing that I’m actually going to be leaving this wonderful and sometimes weird place in about two and a half months. Some of it was nice to think about—traveling after Peace Corps a bit through South America with my best friend from Peace Corps, going back to the US (and family, friends, and delicious foods that are included in that). But other parts made me anxious. I’m applying to grad school right now, which is an incredibly strange process to do from my house in Paraguay. I can’t believe that I will no longer be living in the fantastic community of Villa Madrid that has made me feel like I’m welcome and at home. I’m sad to leave the great Peace Corps relationships I’ve built here. It is just such a mix of emotions.

And then I think of how different I’ve become since joining the Peace Corps. I realize that there are all sorts of things that will be strange not to do while back in the US:
1) Drinking terere (the wonderful Paraguayan tea) all day every day.

2) Grunting at animals.
3) Giving myself a free day because it’s raining, or looks like it might rain.
4) Eating popcorn for dinner. All the time.
5) Making faces at children on the bus.
6) Having inappropriate conversations in English no matter where I am.
7) Siesta.
8) Being stared at everywhere I go. Unabashedly.
9) Considering eating lunch/dinner in a grocery store a delicious meal.
10) Speaking Spanish (and mishimi Guarani) daily.
11) Not flushing toilet paper.

There are so many more, but I just can’t even think of them. The US seems like such a foreign place at this point. It’ll also be sad to realize that that 10 year old kid who has a “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” shirt probably knows what it means. I’ll miss those horrible English grammar errors on clothing… I’ll try to be better in the next few months keeping an eye out for things that no longer faze me but once did. My February resolution is now to be better about this blog. You’re welcome.

PS-Best news I got yesterday is that I don't have scabies! This is what success looks like.

A Very South American Christmas

So this is Christmas…

On December 10th I found myself walking from my bus stop in Asuncion to the Peace Corps Office with this song suddenly stuck in my head and I laughed out loud. I had meetings all day in the PCO with other Volunteers, as we do every other month, and I was running late as per usual. It had been horribly hot and muggy when I left my house with my backpack packed for the weekend. I had heard it was supposed to rain, so I grabbed my umbrella, having left my rain coat in my mailbox at the PCO a few weeks before. By the time my hour long bus trip into the office ended, it was pouring. We’re talking buckets of water here. Somehow Paraguay’s capital city has nearly no water drainage, so when I got off on España (the street), it was not that surprising that I was stepping into a river. The dirty city water went nearly to my kneecap and continued to threaten to steal my flip-flops as I fought to wade through it. So I did what anyone would do—took off my shoes and trudged through, crossing two of Asuncion’s major streets completely barefoot. If that doesn’t give me some sort of horrible disease, what will? Of course I had that umbrella, but by the time I got to the PCO I was completely drenched (even down to my underwear!) and, since my backpack was also not covered, had no clothes to change into. Great. So, this is Christmas.

This entire month has flown by, as have the past nearly 23. It is truly incredible. We had some movie nights for the library project, for which the municipality loaned us a projector. Is it weird that I am totally buddy-buddy with the mayor of a town of 80,000? I was told recently that it is. Movie night was a success—everyone ate an absurd amount of popcorn, and many children later reported having nightmares after watching Drag Me to Hell. (I’ll just say that the movie selections were not my call.)

My parents got here on the 18th—we started the trip in Paraguay, then went east to Iguazu Falls, then flew down to Buenos Aires where we spent Christmas week. While in Paraguay I had a little BBQ with some of my closest families in site, introduced my parents to a bunch of my PC friends, and then showed them the comedor. They were amazed by the comedor—the kids were really enthusiastic to see me (this place seriously makes me feel like a super star) and were especially pumped to receive the bouncy ball and pencil that my parents gave each of them for Christmas. (My mom apparently got stopped at the border after they saw the x-ray of her bag containing 90 nearly lacrosse ball sized balls...) We went and saw the carpinchos (capybaras) in Villarrica and met up with my friend Tomas. I also finally saw Tomas’s house for the first time. Anytime I hear anyone complain about any sort of house problem for the rest of my life, I’ll probably think of this house. It can much more accurately be called a shack. There are wooden boards as the walls, but often times these boards are separated by an inch or two of open space. We’re talking about a place that most would decide should be fixed up if it was the shed out back—and Tomas lives there without a word of complaint. Que quapo!

From Villarrica, our driver (yes, we had a wonderful driver named Caballero) took us through Ciudad del Este to go to Iguazu Falls, where we were spending a night. Ciudad del Este (City of the East) is the only major town in Paraguay not named after something Biblical—we have Asuncion, Encarnacion, and Concepcion. It makes sense that the name is such. It is generally considered the biggest and most thorough black market in South America. Name it and you can buy it there, and yes, feel free to use your imagination. So we were stuck in traffic trying to cross the bridge into Brazil for an hour or two. But all around us, things were being brought out to cars and trucks in bulk. Though it was the middle of the afternoon, it was easy to spot a bunch of sex workers wandering throughout the traffic. Motorcycles and motorcycle taxis whizzed by and darted in and out of cars. It was quite a sight to see. We finally made it over the bridge and into Brazil, which we had planned to cut through on our way to Argentina, and weren’t stopped at all at the border. Twenty minutes later, when we were leaving Brazil to enter Argentina, that became a problem. It took some finagling to convince the border patrol not to send us back to the bridge to get stamped, but I’m happy to report that no money changed hands.

Iguazu Falls was amazing. I had heard other PCVs talk about it, but there is truly no way to describe how spectacular the Falls are. We stayed in the park on the Argentina side, so we’d have drinks or dinner while watching and hearing the falls in the distance. The nice thing about what is sometimes called “Niagara on Viagra” is that they allow you to explore the falls so completely—you get to walk out right near La Garganta del Diablo (the main falls), or walk out throughout the upper circuit to the tops of others, or go down through the jungle to be at the bottom level and look up at the falls all while surrounded by birds, lizards, monkeys, armadillos, and some weird rodent thing I don’t know the name of. My mom and I decided to do the boat trip where you get right under the falls. We got totally drenched, and the lifejackets smelled strongly of BO, but it was excellent. If, whoever you are, you have the opportunity to go to the falls, take it, and give yourself two full days of exploring to do it.

Buenos Aires was excellent as well, of course! This was my third time, which seems slightly excessive, and may be, but each time was quite different since I went with different people each time. BA is simply a city I could easily live in for a year or two. We had delicious food and wine, walked around a lot, and just explored. Restaurant highlights were: Don Carlos in La Boca (he just brings out plates and plates of food without asking what you want), Ceviche in Palermo (with hands down the best ceviche any of us had ever had and solid sushi), and Rio Alba in Palermo (with Raul, a great waiter, who would flat out tell us when he thought we shouldn’t get something and then bring some other deliciousness). We had so many delicious meals, but these stand out. We also spent a day in El Tigre, which is a river delta town about an hour north of BA that I adore and that we explored by boat. Another day was spent in Colonia, a historical town in Uruguay that is about an hour’s ferry ride away from BA. It was pleasant, but didn’t knock my socks off.

In South America fireworks are a big part of Jesus’ birth. As are watermelons. This may seem strange to a North American reader, but it’s true. In each nativity scene you see (in Paraguay and Argentina at least) there is a watermelon present. Maybe it has to do with the fact that it is peak watermelon season down here, or maybe North Americans just have it totally wrong to not include the watermelon. I won’t attempt to argue that fireworks actually were present for the birth of Jesus, but maybe there were some sparklers at least? At midnight on Christmas Eve, just after my father and I watched possibly the worst Christmas movie EVER, and after the three of us had read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, the fireworks began. We stayed in a great apartment in Palermo on the 13th floor, and had views out of three sides of the building. In every direction (well, minus much in the Rio de la Plata direction) there were firework displays. We’re talking about thousands of people setting off fireworks at the exact same time all over the city. I’m not a huge fireworks fan, but it was truly beautiful and impressive that though there was obviously no official coordination, everyone knew to set off the fireworks at midnight.

So I got back to Paraguay yesterday afternoon, to find that my fridge door had opened. I was having some trouble with it right before I left, so I duct-taped it shut. Apparently I didn’t duct tape it well enough, and I came home to find it partially open, the freezer full of ice, and the fridge completely drenched with water from when the ice melted. So I unplugged the fridge, and went to work with a little bit of hot water, and a lot of machete to chip away at the ice. Yes, I know that I could have waited for it to thaw. Yes, I know it isn’t a good idea to hack at something filled with Freon with a machete. But I just wasn’t feeling very patient. That is the really what it came down to. So after a lot of very productive machete-ing, one bad swing resulted in a stream of smelly gas shooting towards me. I went to my neighbors (the same who help me with everything, from the broken water pipe to those grotesque cats behind my fridge) and they called a guy they know. He came last night to start working and is back today to hopefully finish the job. I honestly wish that I had a picture of his face when I told him what had happened. Apparently everybody everywhere knows that taking a machete to your fridge is asking for trouble…