Che avy´a che familia ndi Guaicápe

I just got back from my visit to what will be my home for the next 2 years and I loved it! I didn't want to leave and come back to training but alas, we have 3 more weeks before we are official Peace Corps volunteers. My town is smaller than I imagined and extremely tranquilo. I spent pretty much every day sitting in the shade, drinking tereré, talking with different people and just enjoying the day and enjoying being with other people. Everyone spoke Guarani so I just zoned out, fully aware that I was the topic of discussion quite often. I would catch a word or two here and there and then suddenly someone would direct a question at me in Spanish and I'd have to start paying attention again.


Guaicá supposedly has 150 houses but I didn't see nearly that many. That may include the surrounding barrios too. Everyone there has electricity and running water most of the time. There is a barrio I visited not too far away (about a 40 minute walk) that doesn't have running water. My site also has a nice looking church (bright green!) and a school. I met the director and some of the profes at that school and the one in the other community. I would like to work in both schools but will probably focus on the one in Guaicá.


The site is a lot more developed than I thought it would be. So right now I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing. There really isn't a need for a modern bathroom or fogón project. But during the first 3 months we have to complete a census of our community to discovery the needs of the people and the resources available so that will definitely be helpful.


This visit really made it real that I am actually in Peace Corps. I mean, I've been here for almost 3 months but it's all been very structured and with other Americans. This past week I spent time in a community where most people had only seen one other American in their lives (the education volunteer that I'm following-up). I had to explain multiple times that although I'm a Health volunteer, I am not a nurse. I also tried to get the point across that even though the most complicated thing I can say in Guarani is “my house is near the church” I do, in fact, have a college degree. That one was a little more frustrating but it'll come with time. I did make some friends my own age already, which is awesome.


Overall it was a great visit and I can't wait to get back and start working. It's going to be a great 2 years!

Semana Santa and Site!!

Happy Easter everyone!


I had a nice tranquilo week here in Paraguay this past week. Semana Santa (Holy Week) is a much bigger deal here than it is in the US. We had a half day of stuff going on in Guarambaré on Wednesday afternoon through Sunday off, which was very nice. On Wednesday I made chipa with my family. It looks kind of like a bagel and I really like it but a lot of people don't. After a day it's really hard and dry and kind of hard to eat but I still like it. Everyone makes a lot of it on Wednesday and Thursday because no one is supposed to eat meat on Friday, just chipa and sopa. On Thursday we had a huge lunch of chicken and sopa. It was delicious. Sopa paraguaya is pig fat, corn meal, cheese, milk and other stuff. It reminds me a lot of corn bread. Anyway, I was stuffed and of course got another huge chicken thigh for dinner.


Friday there was no music playing, which was really weird. I don't think Santo Domingo is ever that quiet. I had gone to church with my family Thursday night where they did a short service with 15 candlelit “stations” around the lawn of the chapel and they read a part of the Easter story at each one then sang. Then they did some other stuff that I didn't really understand.


Sunday we went to a fútbol game, that was fun. 8 de Diciembre, our team, won all their games. Yay! It was a pretty intense game. Overall, Semana Santa was really good. I spent a lot of time hanging out at home, which was nice. It was a good taste of what it will be like for the first few months in site when we are just hanging out getting to know people.


And speaking of my site...I will be going to the department of San Pedro, near San Estanislao. It seems really nice, I am going to visit in the next few days. Yay!! Just over 3 weeks until I am a real volunteer!!

It depends...

I got back from Practica Larga today and I must say, I missed Santo Domingo a LOT. I never thought I would feel so at home with a family that was not my own and that spoke another language but I really do love it here and I was so happy to be back. I really missed the other volunteers too.

Long Field was really good. I was near the town of Caraguatay in Cordillera. Our group was super guapo (“guapo” meaning hard-working in this country, not handsome. Although we were pretty good-looking too). We built a fogón, a trash pit (supposed to be a latrine but the guy changed his mind about where he wanted the hole), a latrine, visited a school, and did a couple charlas. My group did our nutrition charla in Guaraní while we cooked with a women's commission. Our plans changed a lot throughout the week due to rain and mishaps with the fogón but it all worked out. We were supposed to do a radio show but it rained all day Tuesday.

The town was very interesting. The family I stayed with had a very chuchi house—tile floors, real living room, electric shower (I got a warm shower one night for the first time in 7 weeks!), maltise poodles, and a computer with internet. But then we walked 3km to build the fogón, which was veeeery far away according to my family, and it was completely different. Five people were living in one room, they cooked on the ground outside and had a latrine. And kids from both of these barrios went to the same school. It was interesting, and sad, to see the dichotomy there.

I named this blog what I did because I was thinking about daylight savings time. You all in the States have already changed your clocks but we have yet to do so. When I asked my tech trainer when daylight savings time is here, he said that we actually might not do it this year. Huh?! So I guess it's usually in April but who knows. It might not happen this year. Which gets me to my point. Peace Corps so far has been a lot of “Oh it depends...” and “We'll see” and “Maybe”. Not to mention that when you ask a Paraguayan a question, they will give you an answer even if it's not the right one. So you should probably ask 3 or 4 people and accept the answer you get the most.

Two months ago, this way of doing things would have driven me nuts. I am someone who likes to be on time to things and who likes to know when stuff (like daylight savings time) is going to happen. But ya know, it doesn't really matter. I'm learning to live one day at a time and to enjoy the time that I have. The Paraguayan view is that people should not be a slave to time but that time works for people. It's a lot less stressful when you just go with the flow.

Pictures (Hopefully)

The road to Nati´s site two days after it rained. Still very muddy.

The store near her house had a baby toucan! It doesn´t matter that they´re endangered...

Yes, we are the world´s finest volunteers!

That is an ant-hill by my house. They are everywhere!

This was at Carnaval. Feathery lady covered in foam.

On Carden´s birthday, my sister made her a cake. Carden (center), my host mom (orange shirt, standing), my niece (cute baby in pink dress), Franko (next to me, another volunteer). The others are various family members.

Muchos sapos! After it rains, there are toads everywhere. I got 5 in this picture. They eat the bugs so it´s all good. Some families are scared of them.

Paraguay has AMAZING sunsets!

Chicharrones in the Campo

(As a quick side note, you should be able to comment now on posts)

A lot has happened since I last wrote so if this gets incredibly long, I apologize. I just got back from a 4-day PCV visit where we all went to visit a real volunteer. I'll write more about that later but after swapping stories with several people it was decided that I had the most interesting trip so far.

The weekend before last, some of us went to Carnaval in Villeta. I'm not really sure what the point of Carnaval is but there was a street parade and everyone was spraying each other foam, which was fun and there were women dressed in big feathery costumes. It was cool. Then we went to a club and danced for hours. It was really hot and I have never sweat so much in my entire life but it was really fun. I wasn't planning on going but I'm really glad I did. We got home around 3am. My host family is so sweet. I apologized for waking them up and they said, “Oh no, the music is keeping us up anyway”, even though they had clearly been sleeping. We do have neighbors that play loud music constantly on the weekends though.

During the week, not much happens. We have language class 7:45-11:45ish (time is very flexible here) and then we go home for lunch and go back to school 1-5pm for technical training. We have been building losas, or the concrete floors for latrines. We also have learned how to lay bricks for fogons (brick ovens) and how to dig trash pits. A couple times a week we have trainee facilitated sessions where we give the charla (charlar literally means “to chat”. A charla is a short lesson on a topic). I did mine last week on health issues such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, dengue and yellow fever. It was a pretty boring topic but it still went well.

Last Wednesday we had our Tapeapóvo. We were paired up and given a mission to visit two places either in Asunción or close to it. My partner and I went to a Ferreteria (a hardware store, not a ferret store) and SENESA, the agency responsible to developing water, trash and waste service all over the country. Volunteers often work closely with SENESA when they want to do anything in those areas. We then met up with everyone at the Peace Corps office in Asunción and did a bunch of stuff there. On the way home, we convinced our tech trainer Ricardo to stop for ice cream!! About 10 of us gobbled down 2 kilos of ice cream in a matter of minutes. It was sooo good.

And finally back to these past few days. I went to see a volunteer named Nati who lives in a barrio near Mallorquin in the department of Alto Paraná. Departments are basically like States here. So, I got totally lost trying to find her site and didn't get off at the right stop (we figured out later it was because I was missing an entire page of directions!). I ended up somewhere I was NOT supposed to be. I got back on the bus and eventually made it to the right terminal after riding for about 8 hours and having motion sickness the entire time. I also crossed the entire horizontal expanse of the country from west to east that day. On accident. So I got there and it was raining and we have to walk 10km to get to her house (1km = about 0.6 miles, so 6 miles). We rode about 2km on the back of an ox cart but walked the rest. In the rain and really deep mud. We got there around 6pm and I had left Santo Domingo at 6am.

I met several nice families. One of them asked if I liked chicharrón and since I didn't know what it was I said I would like to try it. Fried pig fat. The first one was really hard to get down but not wanting to offend them I said it liked it. So naturally they gave me an entire plate of it with mandioca, which I am also not a fan of. I ate what I could while trying not to think about what I was eating. Meanwhile these adorable little piglets were snuggling on my leg and I asked if I was eating their mom and they laughed and said “Yeah you are!”. Ugh...

So I'm back in Santo Domingo and I'm so glad to be home. It's weird to say “home” but it is my home at least for the next 9 weeks. I also really missed my host family and the other trainees. We all had fun stories to share. My host mom said that my niece kept looking at my closed door and asking when I would be home. It was really good to do these visits though because now I know what to bring up in my placement interview and what a real site is like. I thought Santo Domingo was the campo but it's not by any means. It's almost urban compared with the site I visited. It was also nice to be with a volunteer who was very honest about anything I asked her and who had been though everything already.

We have a lot of stuff coming up. I can't believe it's March already! February went by really quickly but it's not showing any signs of getting cooler around here. Boo. Anyway, I am doing great here. I miss you all a lot; keep the letters and e-mails coming! I really want to know what's going on back home, even if it doesn't seem that exciting.

February 10, 2010: Tia Alala

For all who are wondering about my well-being, I made it to Paraguay safe and sound. I am loving it here so far, it has been so wonderful already. It's hard to believe that only two days ago I was still in Kansas City.

We finally landed in Asunción earlier today after four flights in two days. Very exhausting. I could hardly speak in English, I didn't know how I was going to talk to my host family in Spanish. As the plane was nearing the landing strip in Asunción, it suddenly started going back up, much to everyone's dismay. Turns out there was a “communication error”. I still think it was the pilot's first day and he just biffed it. But we made it; forty-nine volunteers, the largest group ever. I have quickly become friends with many of these people; we're all going through the same thing and we can relate to each other so easily.

Anyway, we were driven to Guarambaré and met the Peace Corps staff and did a bunch of activities despite being on the verge of lapsing into a coma. Over 24 hours without sleep is not fun. Also, if this entry sounds weird and disjointed, it's because I still haven't slept yet. We had a brief interview to place us with a family (vegetarian, do we like kids, animals, large or small family, etc), received our money for the week and some more papers, and went to meet our families that we will be living with for the next 11 weeks. I have never been so nervous in my life.

Since there are so many Rural Health and Sanitation workers, we are split into two groups. I am living in Santo Domingo with the Arrúa-Gómez family. My host father is Don Marcelino, my host mother is Ña María Cristina. I also have a sister Lidia, who is 24. She has a husband (Aldo, I haven't met him yet) and a 2-year old daughter Nataly. Nataly can't say my name so whenever they ask her who her aunt is, she says “Tia Alala!” She talks and talks all the time and is the cutest thing.

My house is gorgeous. I will post pictures of my room and my family later. They had my room all set up when I got here with a bed, a desk, a fan (yay!) and a huge armoir to store all my clothes. Don Marcelino is a farmer and as we walked around Lidia pointed out their 9 cows, 5 dogs and numerous chickens to me. She said they also had 9 pigs but I haven't seen them yet. They also have a cat. And they all have names. The house has electricity and running water. I had a warm shower earlier and it was wonderful. Ña Maria made pizza for dinner. She said it was her first time making it and she really enjoying both making and eating it. See, I'm already having and impact here! :)
That is about all for now and I am very tired. We start intense training tomorrow. I'm nervous, my Spanish is pretty bad. We have language interviews to see just how bad it is. And we get our first round of shots. Good day!

Tres Días Hasta Miami!

So it's probably about time I share my address with everyone since I will be leaving in 3 days. Here goes:

Amanda Firestone, PCT

Cuerpo de Paz

162 Chaco Boreal c/Mcal. López

Asunción 1580, Paraguay

South America

That will be my address in training for the first 11-weeks or so, until I get sworn in on April 30. Then I will be an official Peace Corps Volunteer (that's right, I'm STILL not official). Airmail takes 2-3 weeks but don't let that stop you; keep the letters coming!

Just a recap: I fly out Monday morning from KCI to Miami where I fill out forms, get immunized some more (yay) and meet the rest of the group. Then we all fly to Paraguay through Brazil getting there on Wednesday morning. I'll try to update this thing as much as I can, although I'm not sure what that means yet. Your e-mails and letters are very much desired and appreciated!