Talkin´ Bout My Reputation.

6-11-09

I think I ruined my reputation today. All during training we talked about the importance of maintaining a good reputation in site. Paraguay is a country that loves to gossip. It is small, eevryone is related, people travel to work, ther eis not much entertainment. They´re good at it. Some of the gossip is just absurd. Some gets turned around so that it is just silly. I told my host family during training that my parents in the US live in the country and that we used to have a horse. This turned into the fact that my parents are dairy farmers. What? Much more ridiculously is another volunteer´s story. Apparently his town was convinced that he killed someone in the US and was sent to Paraguay to do community service as punishment. Obviously the US government would send him elsewhere to work with kids and local governments...

Back to my own reputation, I just don´t think my barrio´s kids are going to be very happy to see me anymore. Sure, I´m working with the community kitchen thing, playing games, and attempting to teach them to whistle through their hands, but today I walked around helping give vaccinations. The kids were so happy to see us at first. Most seem really thrilled to have me up close and personal to stare at. Then comes some sort of drop in their mouth. I gave that. It isn´t the best tasting thing in the world, but most kids take it without much fuss. Then come the shots. By the end of our visit the kid is screaming, bawling, and glaring at us. I wish I had brought lollypops. I was thinking about how many people I know have fears of needles. Maybe this helps with some of that fear. Perhaps it only helps curb the fear of the doctor´s office. I was also thinking about my Aunt Sally--my mom´s aunt who was the nurse at our pediatrician´s office and has the shakiest hands I´ve ever seen. Watching that needle tremble violently into my skin was trully terrifying each time...but she never missed. I also saw a really gnarly parasite in a girl´s arm. ¨Does it hurt and itch? That is because it is trying to get out.¨ I have never seen anything like it.

Although my assignment is Urban Youth, I live in the campo. Today I realized that more than ever. I wasn´t in my barrio exactly but very close. Villa Madrid, where I live, is 3 blocks wide, starting at the main road and working its way down a big hill then up another for about 35 blocks. There are two bus lines that go into the Villa, and they travel on the cobblestone road. Everything else is dirt, with some gravel. Running along the north long side of the villa are asentamientos. I don´t know what that translates to but they are shacks made of wood, metal sheets, and occasionally cement blocks. The people in them are squatting. They´re mostly families from the Villa who have been promised housing bu without a timeline. There are lots of lone lightbulbs that you can see glowing at night. I have been told most take water from houses in Villa Madrid to bathe, do laundry, and clean dishes. Those asentamientos have been around for more than a year and reallyhave no idea when they´ll actually own the land. Today I walked through the asentamientos along the south side of Villa Madrid to do the vaccinations. I think I´m going again Wednesday morning.