Swine Flu Or Playing Sick?

08-10-09

So I’ve been horrible about blogging. July passed strangely. During the final week of extended vacation I was essentially bed ridden with a cold. I’m really not good at being sick—especially since I feel like with colds you should still be able to function. Adding to my guilt, because of the vacation there were only a handful of things on my to-do list so cancelling those to stay in bed and read just made me feel like a slacker volunteer. During this week I also had another absurd communication mix-up with my host family. I was asked by both my host mother and my host brother if I had “gripe porcina” but I heard “gripe por cine”, which means cold (as in sickness) for the movies. I didn’t quite understand but for whatever reason decided that they were asking me if I was faking my sickness. So here I am, feeling horrible, kind of wallowing in self-pity, and am being accused by my host family of just pretending to be sick. Days pass, I’m still feeling sick, I’m hating that I have to speak Spanish when I’m functioning on such a low level, and I scoff when my host family tries to be helpful and tell me that I shouldn’t drink hot tea and then immediately drink cold water. I find myself really annoyed at my brother and mother for accusing me of faking this sickness and I tell Barbara, another PCV amiga of mine, about the accusations. She then tells me that they were really asking if I had “gripe porcina”, which means swine flu. I didn’t believe her and actually asked a table full of teenage boys at the café where I was sitting. She was right, obviously, and when I explained all of this to my host family we all had a good laugh.

The next week was Reconnect back in Guarambaré (the training community) with the 30 people I trained with. We did language stuff and did a bit of technical training. It was weird being back in such a structured environment after the past 3 months (!) of being a Peace Corps Volunteer on my own. It made me realize that I really need to focus on Guarani, which I’ve essentially been ignoring for the past 6 months. I also realized that I really need to figure out a way to work with smaller groups in schools. I had really wanted some advice on classroom management, since I somehow have zero control of Paraguayan children, but realized that it is just going to take some time until I work well with a group of 60 kids in another language. We shall see.

I’ve started working with the elementary school in my neighborhood. I had been really hesitant to work with them because the last volunteer had had some issues with some of the teachers but they seem open thus far. It helps also that I know a bunch of the kids from the comedor so I came in with a solid fan base already in place… There is a program that gives poorer Paraguayan schools milk for each kid every day. This school is one of those schools, so they have like a billion milk cartons. They’re bigger than milk cartons you find at schools in the US. I was asked about ideas for how to reuse them, so I want to do a program with the teachers on how to use them for school materials. If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them. Thus far I have: puppets, wagons (with bottle top wheels), puzzles, fraction teachers, dominoes, board games, gift boxes, building blocks, planters, Bingo cards, dice, name sticks (where you write each kid’s name on a piece then pull them out of a hat to ensure the teachers calls on everyone), bookshelves (may be difficult), instruments if filled with beans, geometric shapes, and purses. I realize that that is already a lot but they have an absurd amount of these milk cartons.

Ok, I think that is about all that is new in my life. I’m working in a bunch of different places, there is a TON of drama with the women’s group that I’m trying to avoid as much as possible. I’m trying to figure out how to start a sustainable tooth brushing program. I’m looking for a new place to live. I love my current host family but wouldn’t mind some more personal space. I’ve been riding my bike a bunch lately and simply love it! It is finally getting warmer here, thank God…though I’m sure that I’ll be complaining about the scorching heat in no time.