¡HOLA!

It maybe a while before I can post again, next week we might be in Asuncion, to find out out future sites, and the week after we go to visit those sites and sort of see where we are going to be living for the next two years, and also to meet one of our community contacts, one of the people who is going to help us in our community.


While in training we have whats called A Dia de paractica, where we started by getting to know our community, and seeing what it was we could do to help them, sort of like being a volunteer, which by the way, I will be one month from yesterday. So for our Dia de practica, Ali another Volunteer and I met a woman called Ña Rosa, and she showed us her well which right now looks like this.



The top isn't so safe, and aside from the fact that its easy for stuff to get in there, there are vines growing down into it… not so good.



Here is the inside of the well where you can see the vines growing in to it.



So we asked her if we could make her a new tapa (thats the top thats keeps stuff out) and clean the water as well. So today Ali and I began to build the tapa, with the help of our friend Amanda.




This is me wielding a machete Hake (Guarani for careful)!




The we cut down Bamboo, in guarani Taquara, and measured and cut it




And this is as far as we got, to be completed next week.





So next week we will finish the tapa by adding the rest of the bamboo, and making a door. And finally maybe darning her well so that we can go in it and clean the bottom, but we have to talk to her about that. Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, and Passover to others, and to anyone else I left out, Happy first week of April.



As always heres a sunset!

LONG field

Long field practice is … LONG!

So it poured really hard here when we left form Santo Domingo, and all the way to Ca'aguazu which is where we were for long field, we had to push the van like 3-4 times.

So we finally got there, and I was the last one dropped off, the farthest away from our volunteers site, about 1.5k (not really to far, but to have to walk it 3 times a day…) and monday night after it rained, we didn't do too much, just hung out and chatted about what we were going to do for the rest of the week. Tomas, our volunteer lives in a veer small house, next to his old host family, and has to use their bathroom, I hope thats not my situation (but I don't want to jinx myself), and his huerta (thats spanish for garden for vegetables), and his pigs.

Tuesday morning it was pouring again so I decided not to go, and ended up sitting and chatting with the Señora who was hosting me, and watching her cook some Paraguayan food which was really cool. And she said that my spanish was really good which was great to hear. Then in the afternoon after it finally stopped raining, we met up again, and had a small sort of language class, where we worked on charlas-- which is spanish for chat, but really means a lesson your giving in a school.

I had to leave at 5:30 because the Señoras husband works in Ciudad del Este during the week, and she didn't like to leave the house open late.

Wednesday morning we did some more work on our Charlas, and talked about a different charla, about parasites, and also how to make fabric softener, we were doing both of those things that afternoon with the committee of mothers and fathers, but Wed. afternoon it rained again, and so that was a no go. Much later in the afternoon we began work on our fogón, which we didn't get to far with because we had to did a hole that ended up being about 6'ft deep to get to the red clay dirt, which is what you use as mortar for the bricks.

Thursday we gave our lesson at the school, which I guess was successful, but the kids are really shy and quite when they don't know you especially with the americans. Later in the day we worked more on the fogón, and pretty much finished, except for the last part of the Chimney.

Friday morning we went to a plantation for murukuja which is Guarani for Passion fruit. That was really cool for me, they are really good and pretty easy to grow. We harvested a bunch of them, and so got to keep a bunch, I'm harvesting the seeds from some so that I can grow them at my site.

Because it rained so much I didn't get to take many pictures but I did take a few pictures of the plantation, which I'm sorry to say are all over exposed,


This is a murukuja -- Passion Fruit



And this is the row of vines they grow kind of like grapes.



And here's a cool sunset from last week.

Field Practice

Last week we had our Tech overnight, which is an opportunity, to go and stay with another volunteer, see what their community is like, and to live with another family, and also to do some kind of work, that you will do possibly as a volunteer. My group went to a place called, Costa Ju'u, in the Department of Paraguari, and our Project was to build a fogón and a Pileta.



A fogón is a large brick, wood burning oven sort of. Its base is 2 meters by about 60cm, and 7 bricks high, then you fill that in, the top past has a hole for wood, and on top or that is a stove top, and an oven (which is just a metal box set into the bricks). The idea is that many women here, cook on the floor over an open fire, and it take a long time to cook if thinks have to be cooked separately. The fire in the fogón heats the entire stove and oven all at the same time.



The pileta is 3 brick columns that you can place a sink on, so that your washing can me done at waist heigh instead of having to bend to was in a basin, and the water in the sink can be drained into a bucket and used for chickens or watering trees, and what have you, if there is no running water.



We build the fogón at a school



This is the beginning step



Then we had to mix the mortar, which in this case was dirt from a hole that the had dug at the school, this is Lauren standing in the hole.



And this is the mortar being mixed, which is the dirt, water, a little bit of cement, and cow manure, which works really well.



This is the finished fogón



And the finished Pileta



We weren't able to completely finish the fogón, which needs a chimney, but while we were building, it began to rain really hard, and you can't lay bricks in the rain.



And finally this is the storm that prevented us from finishing, and prevented me from being able to use the internet last week to post this.



This week coming up is Long field practice, where we go to a different site, for five days, and sort of get and inside look at really being a volunteer. We will be building another fogón, a latrine, and giving talks to a school and a women's group about dental health and nutrition. Should be interesting.

Ok so this is a really random post, but I woke up this morning and there was an ox cart in the pation so I took a picture




Then later my sister came into my room and told me there was a monkey, and I though she was pulling my leg but then I could here the OoOoOo of the monkey.

So here are the bigfoot type photos where you can really see,








so I ran back to my room to get my other lens, and here is the monkey.

Asuncion and Caraguatay

Asuncion is a really nice city here's what happened dung our trip:

First we took a bus into Asuncion, it's really hard to say where the country ends and the city begins, its not really a city like you or I would think, it actually reminds me of like ocean parkway; no tall buildings at least not where we were. So that was fine, the first place we went was Terminal Ominbus, where you ca get buses to other cities or to other countries, for a lot of Guarani but the cost is actually pretty low, like $110 to take a bus one way to Chile, which is pretty cool. Then we were told that we should take the 51 to our next place and that this buss would go all the way along Ave. Rep. Argentina, which it doesn't. So we asked this woman who told us to get off and that we would just have to walk 2 blocks to find the place we were looking for. Well we got off the bus and asked around and ended up having to walk 10 blocks. We did finally find it a company called Fundacion Moises Bertoni, they do sustainable development and basically tack care of 2 mature reserves in Paraguay, and are trying to fight the major deforestation going on in Paraguay. The last place was a really big super market, that was super expensive. After this we took bus 31 and our teacher told us to get off when we saw a church and a cemetery. So we did and walked around the cemetery for a while it was cool, but really creepy. It was raining but i did take a few pictures of the cemetery.






My partner and I were walking in separate places, and I found a mausoleum where the door was open, and one of the shelves with a casket on it had fallen and the casket was broken and open, boy was that creepy! So then we left the cemetery and asked some people where the street we needed was and they pointed us in the wrong direction (we ended up waling all the way back to were we got on the bus and had to get on it again). We finally got to the Cuerpo de Paz headquarters just on time.


This past weekend the trainees all went visit a real volunteer, to get a chance to chat with someone who had been through this, and see where they were and what sort of things they were doing with their service. I was at a site in Fulgencio Yegros, which I think is between Ca'acupe and Caraguatay.



So this is Carla's house, she lives on the ruta, which is interesting for a "rural" health volunteer, but I really liked the different dynamic of people she was able to work with because of that. It was raining very hard (which it sounds like its going to do soon again) so I wan;t able to take pictures on the way. I had my first mate when I got there with was really hot, and burnt my lip, but thats ok, it was really good. Carla's friend came over later in the afternoon, and we all made bread, which was great, and much then most of the bread I've had here. On monday we went to the Basilica of Ca'acupe, which was very beautiful, and had some awesome stained glass work. We visited with some neighbors, and sat in on a reunion for the health post, which is like a meeting, they are trying to raise money to expand so that they have room for a dentist, and on tuesday we went to Caraguatay, to the raido station that she does with three other volunteers. All in all a really great fun weekend, very informative, and is a jumping off point for me to know what I want out of my service. Aside from the fact that Carla was just really chill and I'd like to hand out again.

Here are some more pictures not all from this weekend though:



This was a really sweet sunset a few days ago, taken from my front yard



We had a really great lighting storm last week, the clouds here are so cool so sorry in advance, there will probably be lots of cloud pictures for the next 2 years.



This is from the side of my house, its the neighbors mango tree





And finally this is my sister Fátima, she's a really great kid, I'm working on the rest of my family, maybe I'll have pictures of them next week.







Oh and a freaking gigantic bug from Carlas yard, her hand is in the photo for reference.

This all for now, language is coming along, I think were going to start Guarani in a week or two which is great because I feel like I need all the time I can get with that.

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I would be great if possible to send me music, it's weird, listening to the radio here, you only get latin music, Paraguayan polka, and Lady Gaga.