Camp, Dam, Camp

2-24-2010

Alright, so I haven’t written in about 6 weeks, which is a new record for my blog slacking. The summer has finally ended here—school started yesterday all over Paraguay, though I have a friend who lives further south who told me that inexplicably no one showed up for the first day in her neighborhood. I’m pleased the school year is starting again—it means a more structured environment and also that the comedor kids may have a bit less energy to pick fights with one another and generally be rambunctious. That being said, I’m not sure what happened to the summer.

In February I’ve gone to two different camps with teenagers from my community. Both were organized through other Peace Corps Volunteers—one was the Urban Youth Development Camp, which was just for UYD volunteers and their youth (13-18) while the other was Gender and Development Camp which was open to any volunteers to bring youth (15-25). The first was a leadership camp, where the kids did a lot of games, activities, charlas run by other youth, etc. and was held at Jack Norment, near Caacupe. The highlights for the two kids I brought were meeting other teens from all over Paraguay, getting away from home for a few nights, and the pool. They seem really excited to do some of the activities we did there with our youth group here—particularly the one where you have kids dress up one member of their group as a bride using only toilet paper, tape, and random things found in the area. The camp only cost about 10,000 Guaranis for each of my kids (US$2) since we received funds to do it. Each kid had to pay the cost of the bus ride to get to and from the camp, which was more expensive for some than others. It was just really great to see this kind of rare opportunity given to the kids. One of the four kids I brought lives in a one room shack made entirely by found materials with her mom and 12 year old brother. All the kids have already asked me about going back next year.

The other camp I went to, the Gender and Development camp, was at Tati Yupi, a Biological Reserve near Ciudad del Este and the Itaipu Dam. I brought three kids from my neighborhood—one was invited to help run the games at night since she’d done so the year before with the last volunteer who was in my site. The ride was a long one out to Ciudad del Este (about 6 hours by bus) but comfortable. Unfortunately for us (we travelled with my friend Barbara and her teens as well) the driver wasn’t a big fan of our group for whatever reason and started leaving the bus terminal in Ciudad del Este before we got a chance to get off. He then slammed on the breaks suddenly, sending me flying down the stairs with my hands full just to stub my toe, get rug burn on my elbow and slam my head against the wall. It was a nice welcome to the biggest city in Paraguay not using some sort of Christian name (i.e. Concepcion and Encarnacion). This is the city of black markets—a city where Peace Corps Volunteers are actually not allowed to stay overnight. Regardless, we made it out to Tati Yupi and from there had a great 4 days and 3 nights of charlas, activities, a great deal of singing and chanting, tractor rides, and an absurd amount of BananaGrams (among Volunteers). The theme was Service Learning, so we focused on how to train these kids to go back to their communities to be leaders there. On our last night we went out to Itaipu, which has been named as one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World. We went for a light show. It was honestly one of the most disappointing displays I’ve ever seen. I thought light show meant colored lights, maybe some fireworks, etc. Instead it just meant someone turning on a bunch of light switches (seemingly) to show the dam, then lighting up a 7 floor office building floor by floor. But don’t worry, all this was set to dramatic music, which made up for it. Another great addition was that they took the velvet rope down once the whole thing was lit up, thus allowing us all to go forward to the railing. Regardless, the next day we went back to see the real deal in daylight. It was MUCH more impressive then, especially since the water was flowing. Apparently it has been since November thanks to a bunch of flooding in Brazil. (The dam shares borders with Brazil and Paraguay, providing 20% of all of Brazil’s electricity and 90% of Paraguay’s.) It was amazing to see and really made me want to ride on water rides… I’ll try to put up some photos. I think that all the Volunteers who went to GAD Camp are putting up photos together somewhere, so I’ll post that when I know.

New trainees got here a few weeks ago as well. There are three groups of trainees that arrive in Paraguay each year but the numbers are growing, and this is the first group that has come in as my sister G—meaning they are all part of my project, or the two other projects that come in in February (Rural Health and Sanitation and Early Elementary Education). It is amazing that I’ve now been here for a year, and am now the one going in to trainings to teach other trainees what its like to be a Volunteer. This weekend, in fact, a trainee will come to visit as a kind of day (or weekend) in the life… Bizarre. The timing, too, is off, since school has just begun and Monday is a holiday here. The weekends tend to be slow, but we shall see. My younger youth group wants to do a project, so we’ll see how that goes. Also I’ve been trying to figure out a way to motivate my older youth group to come together to reignite our census project within the neighborhood. Anyway, I’m not sure how it’ll go, but it should be interesting. Thus far I’ve gone in to help with ice breakers and games and also to talk about youth groups. They’ve gone well, and the trainees have all now been taught Gaga, which is obviously the best game ever played.

Funny things keep happening, obviously. I was telling a story to a bunch of other PCVs about how my friend Hugo and I keep track of the mini-telenovelas happening between the pre-teens at the comedor…basically lots of flirting by way of hitting and chasing each other. Hugo and I laugh about bringing popcorn to eat while we watch these little dramas unfold. I mentioned Hugo as “my friend” in the story (in English) and then realized that this is how greatly my life has changed over the past year. Hugo, someone I consider a friend, is actually 9 years old. He is honestly one of my favorite kids. He’s so thoughtful and sweet…the other day, for example, I was walking down the big hill to the comedor but was running late. So naturally he offered me a ride on his bike. As I sat on the seat with him standing on the pedals, my hands reaching under his armpits to grip the middle of the handle bars in fear as he ignored his fully functioning brakes, I realized that my life really is quite different than it was a year ago...