As I said before, it's spring here in South America, and it has been a busy one at that. Here are a few of the highlights:
Happy Fall to you; Happy Spring to me.
Here in Paraguay, flowers are blooming around my house and the cherry tomatoes I planted months ago are finally started to fruit. Heavy field burning, which is a common but unsustainable way to clear fields and sterilize the soil, along with the subsequent forest fires, has made for weeks of hazy days and blood red moons. The huge toads (kururu in Guaraní) are back in full force from their winter hibernation; their croaking sounds like a herd of very persistent, hungry cats. They like to squeeze under the doors and find dark corners and shoes to live in. Baby cows are being born it seems like everyday and so there is milk and cheese to be made and bought once again. Everyone is out clearing fields, planting staple crops like mandioca and corn, and enjoying the “haku porâ” (good hot) weather. We are starting to térere (the cold version of herb tea) again with refreshing ice, mint, and lemongrass instead of the constant soothing yet scalding maté (the hot version), designed to keep both our hands and our insides toasty warm.
Back in Michigan, I imagine some remaining warm sunshine-y days combined with just a slight crispness in the air, maybe frost on the ground in the early morning. I especially love going down Lone Tree Road in mid-fall – the canopy of huge maples and other species turning to colors other than their normal leafy green. New school clothes, buses rumbling down the gravel road again, apple cider a plenty, and hot cinnamon sugar donuts if you’re lucky. The marching band music from the Friday night High School football games finds its way through the evergreen, crosses the marsh, and reverberates off of the aluminum-sided pole barn to give anyone sitting on the back porch a first-row-of-the-bleachers seat to the show.
Fall is usually my favorite season of the year. But for right now, maybe I should revise that to just saying September through November. The weather may be getting hotter here, but when I think of what the next few months have in store, I must admit that it has a lot in common with what I like about fall. First off, it’s busy. I am anticipating a number of new and continuing projects including a demonstration plot, Book Club, World Map painting in another Volunteer’s site, green manure planting, onion harvest, my garden, and a possible weeklong trip to the Chaco region of Paraguay. Secondly, it’s the start of the “school year.” As of yesterday, September 24th, I have been living in Paraguay for one full year. Not only does that mean I feel old, it also means that soon I will be one of the “old” ones in terms of experience – the next group of Agriculture and Environment Volunteers come next week! This also adds to the “busy-ness.” I will be helping to train the new group and welcome them to campo life. One of the most exciting pieces of news is that I have been asked to host a Long Field Practice. This is 5 days of training when groups of 3-4 trainees and a language teacher go to a Volunteer’s site to live with host families, practice their Guaraní, learn some agricultural techniques, and basically get an insider’s look into a Peace Corps Volunteer’s life in the Paraguayan campo. I feel very honored to be asked and very excited to share my amazing community with new soon-to-be Croppies! It is also an excuse to push some projects that are difficult to get people to commit to otherwise, such as marking out contour barriers and planting green manures. Thirdly, Thanksgiving is coming up! While it is significantly different not to be with family for this holiday, I am looking forward to joining in, for the first time (last year I was still in Training), the Peace Corps Paraguay tradition of Thanksgiving in the southern city of Encarnación. I am on the cooking committee, there are rumors of a talent show and numerous fundraiser auctions, and just about all of my good friends here are going. It is also close to the famous Jesuit ruins, which are a UNESCO site, and I plan on going to check them out.
And then, of course, Christmas. And going home to see all of you!! It will be here before we know it, I’m quite sure. Besitos a todos.
For your reading pleasure this evening, we have Blog in 4 parts. Read as you will, and take intermissions as necessary. Lights. Camera. Action!
1.Watermelon and Onions
2. My Huerta (Garden)
3. Over the River and through the Woods (or Fields)
4. Mbeju Delivery!
Watermelon and Onions
I’m beginning to realize that my biggest agricultural focus in site, in accordance with the interests of the people here, is crop diversification. Of course, this has been made possible through assistance with seeds and early plantings by KOICA (Korean Overseas Assistance Organization) and technical advice by DEAG (Agricultural Extension Agency of Paraguay) but it also occupies a great deal of my own time and energy. I mostly fill the roles of:
Cheerleader – “Great job! These looks great. Nde guapo.”
Instigator – “When are we going to go get the plantitas?”
Nag – “No, really, WHEN are WE going to get the PLANTITAS??”
Sneak - “Ña Merarda, you don’t want Ña Venancia to come as well?”
Rich American with saldo (credit to make phone calls) – “Ok, ok, I’LL call the DEAG agents, Ña Merarda, Nora, the comite, the truck guy, as long as we actually do this tomorrow.”
Behind this façade of chit-chat, what I’m really doing is trying to promote self-confidence, scheduling and organization, implementation of plans, information and power-sharing, and communication. Does that make sense? I hope so. This is the work that most occupies me and frustrates me, and its behind-the-scenes nature makes it hard to explain or value, even for myself sometimes. Yet I know that it is the most important part of my job.
Why diversify your crops? Until now, people in this community only had cotton as a cash crop, which fluctuates greatly in value from year to year. All other crops they grew were for family consumption – corn, beans, mandioca, sugar cane, watermelon, squash, melons, etc. But while providing enough food for your family is very important, more and more people are needing cash as well to buy those things that they can’t produce themselves like oil, salt, rice, pasta, clothes, shoes, televisions, motorcycles, and maybe even higher education. Additionally, onions and watermelons don’t rob the soil of its nutrients in the same way that cotton does.
The onions that we planted back in May have all been transplanted and are growing well. Imagine growing blades of grass in 10 garden beds, each 20 meters long. Then imagine taking each of those individual blades of grass and replanting them in a field, each one 5 inches apart. Talk about a mind-blowing amount of work. Thank goodness there are so many children in each family – I worked alongside a 3 year old and a 5 year old, who surprisingly enough had enough interest to plant with my help for more than an hour. The onions should be ready for harvest by October.
The next horticultural crop we are trying out is watermelon. Back in July, kids and/or adults from each interested family went to the KOICA farm to prepare masetas, or small plastic bags filled with a balanced soil/fertilizer mixture and planted with one seed. The masetas were left in the KOICA greenhouse to be looked after by the farmhands there until they were ready for some early planting… which is now! Yesterday I went with Ña Merarda, Comite President and my community contact, and Ña Venancia, Comite Treasurer and my next-door neighbor, to town to attend a meeting with an official from the Ministry of Agriculture and then to pick up the watermelon plantitas. Lest the term “pick up” sound too simple, let me elaborate. We got to town in the bed of a truck loaded with bags of charcoal, ran about town asking for fruit crates, found 20 of them, hired a guy with a big cargo truck, went to the farm, loaded up 2,000 of the 2,300 plants in the bed of the truck and in the crates, navigated the road back to site at about walking pace, exchanged dagnabbit! glances when the truck got stuck in the mud in front of Merarda’s house, gathered branches to stick under the wheels for traction, helped push the truck out of the mud, and finally unloaded all 2,000 out of the truck into Merarda’s front yard with the help of 9 very guapo/a kids. I taught them how to make an assembly line for passing the plants. It took a little while, but they caught on a lot faster than the adults! There’s another one of those concepts I just take for granted. It was a long but very productive and community-oriented day.
Today we started counting out and distributing the plantitas to the families that already have their plots prepared. Kids and adults alike were passing up and down the road all day with watermelon plants in wheelbarrow, buckets, baskets on their heads. Thanks to the rain last night, planting has begun!
My Huerta (Garden)
Despite my relatively frequent absences and lack of proximity to it, my garden is rocking. I have lettuce (now bolting), swiss chard, green onions, and my personal favorite… broccoli!! I’ve been steaming it and it is just delicious. Even my 10 year old neighbor Silvia tried it and agreed. And Paraguayans hardly ever eat vegetables by themselves. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it. Lettuce salads always have beans and hard-boiled eggs in them. I also have zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, spinach, bell peppers, and eggplant that I’m waiting on. Knock on wood, I haven’t had any pest invasions yet, though I did lose my cucumber and crazy gourd plants to frost. This gardening thing is fun!
Over the River and through the Woods (or Fields)
Due to a random decision to stop and visit my DEAG agents in town, who in turn offered me a ride out to my site, which led to an invitation to go with them to a comite meeting in the community across the river from me, I have now begun working with another comite in another nearby community. Although I have just attended one meeting and one fundraiser so far, it’s already a very interesting scenario. I feel like I’m walking into a potential work situation with so much more experience and knowledge, mostly cultural but technical too, than I did coming into my own community. Of course this only makes sense, but it’s like I get a chance to put into practice all that I’ve learned and have new start, a clean slate. It also has a much more professional feel to it. These people didn’t know me back in December when Guaraní was still so much of an effort, they didn’t witness me learning to peel mandioca or wash my clothes by hand. Because while these are the ways that people have gotten to know me and feel comfortable with me, it also leads my neighbors to see me in more of a “American girl next door” light than a “Peace Corps Volunteer with organizational and agricultural know-how” light. It makes for a less personal, but seemingly more professional atmosphere. I know that I come off more confidently. We will see how the work goes, but it is really great to have another opportunity to share my knowledge and another set of people to get to know. Some of the teenage girls from this other community, Isla Pa’u, came to visit me last Saturday, and brought with them my youngest visitor yet – a one month old baby girl! So adorable.
Mbeju Delivery!
For those of you who may worry about what or how frequently I eat down here, never fear. Not only have a developed a moderate obsession with cooking (not to mention baking - I have been known to bake and eat a whole pan of apple crisp in one day), but my neighbor has taken it upon herself to supplement just about all of my meals with some down-home Paraguayan cuisine. It is very sweet of her, and usually quite delicious, if not always very good for my health (there’s a reason that many Paraguayans suffer from high blood pressure). I’ve just been realizing lately how much she feeds me. Today for instance, I went over to her house in the morning to make mbeju, a flat cheesy cornmeal type of pancake. So I ate that for breakfast, then she brought me a cup of fresh arroz con leche (rice-milk dessert) around lunchtime, and now just 10 minutes ago this evening, her girls brought me another mbeju, hot off the fire, despite the fact that I didn’t go over there to drink maté like I commonly do on chilly nights. It’s common for her to send me a plate of lunch, or to insist I stay for light dinner after maté. I try to respond in kind, sending over pancakes, bringing her fresh produce from my garden, and baking cake with her girls. But it just doesn’t even out, no matter what. It is just one of those facets of Paraguayan hospitality I will just have to accept. Woe is me, I know. So who’s going to be bringing me hot plates of food when I move back to the States I want to know…A girl can get used to this.
and now the cooperation is continuing with early tomato and watermelon seeds sprouting up in the greenhouse of the KOICA farm, giving farmers hope for an early and financially prosperous harvest. A lot of us here in Paraguay, and especially the Peace Corps Ybycui VAC, will miss Namho something fierce, especially for his great sense of humor and his overwhelmingly generous spirit. He's left his mark on us though, and I can't wait to see and share with him how his interest in the welfare of my own particular community will grow and fruit within the context of onions, tomatoes, watermelons, along with hopefully some increased confidence, initiative, and open thinking. Thank you Namho!
Rain is to rural Paraguay as...
A) fuzzy : slipper
B) peanut butter : jelly
C) blizzard : Michigan
Answer: C. While rain in rural Paraguay can make things interesting (like fuzz to a slipper) and is integral for good eats (like peanut butter to jelly), the most obviously fact is that rain here shuts everything down, just like a Michigan blizzard. School is cancelled, no one leaves to go work, public transportation doesn't run, and only the "crazies" brave those kind of elements.
This kind of massive halt shocked me at first. After all, in the U.S. we just throw on a raincoat, run out to the car, and try not to park in a puddle when we get to whereever we're going. No one would ever imagine saying, "Oh...it's raining outside. Guess I won't be going to work today!"
But the longer I live here, the more it makes sense to me. Poorly drained dirt roads turn into mudpits and rivers with a bit of precipitation, and the constant lakes turn into oceans. Those clothes you just got soaked in? That is one of 2 pairs of pants you have. And when it rains here, the rain is usually here to stay for at least 3 days. That means no laundry, because nothing will dry anyway with no sun and all of the humidity in the air. Hot shower? Your showering area probably doesn't have a roof, so even if you do heat up a pot of water over the fire for a warm bucket bath, it'll just mix with the cold rain and wind coming up from the South, whipping at your exposed body, leaving you just as chilled as you started.
So while this may be a little dramatic, you can see that there are plenty of understandable reasons why Paraguayans do not usually leave their houses when it rains.
And so maybe with this preface you can better understand my amazement, bewilderment, and great pride in regard to the following story.
Last Friday, June 4, 2010, despite drizzly conditions, a late start to the morning, and no prior plan involved, 13 adults (including myself) and a whole mess of kids walked an hour through rocks and mud to the womens' comité's newly designated community plot up on the hill. We planted 3 different winter "green manure" or "abono verde" crops - Avena Negra (Black Oats), Lupino (Lupine), and Nabo Forrajero (Forage Turnip).* All in all, we planted almost 80 pounds of seed, and because it was too muddy to use the simple planting machine, we did it all by hand. Señoras left their kitchens and hence their responsibility of feeding lunch to their families, señores left their work in other fields and around the house, and the kids... well they gave up their free "rain day" of no class to come work in the field. There were no tereré or lunch breaks. We left at 9am and got back at 3pm. Can you say GUAPO/A!?!
And oh man, did people have fun as well, joking around and hassling each other. It doesn't hurt that almost everybody in the community is related in some way or another. I swear it was like a neighborhood block party... but in the cottonfield! And it was amazing to see people so dedicated to the idea of working together that they would work on a day like this, against so many odds. I still don't really understand how it worked out, but I am very impressed nontheless. It will be fun to watch how the field comes up, and of course see what people think about it. The oats and turnips are already sprouting, as of yesterday!
*Green manures are crops that you plant for the purpose of recuperating or protecting your soil. They fix nitrogen, break up hardpan, and provide essential cover to keep soil and nutrients in place. Promotion of green manures are one of the key areas of the Agriculture sector of Peace Corps Paraguay. However, it is difficult to convince farmers to plant green manures for a number of reasons. It is a something "new" and strange, seeds can be hard to find, seeds cost money and don't provide a quick turnaround profit, etc. My community's seeds were loaned to them by KOICA (Korean Overseas Volunteer Association) on the conditions that they prepare a plot ahead of time, attend a daylong workshop about green manures hosted by KOICA, and return twice the amount of seed borrowed (half of the quantities mentioned above are planted for seed for next year, and half for demonstration of the benefits of green manures.) If everything goes well, each family in the comite will have the opportunity to plant abono verdes next winter, at no cost, from a source within their own community. Sounds like a start to… sustainability. YES!!
When I woke up that Friday morning, I had no idea what the day would bring. I thought to myself, “Ok it’s not great weather, but we really need to get these seeds in the ground.” So I texted my community contact Ña Merarda and went next door to talk to my neighbor Ña Venancia. Both were giving me the “Ikatu / Puede ser / Maybe…” and asking what the other thought, until I got a little huffy, called my contact, put her on speaker phone, and BAM. Before I knew it, we had an ox cart coming to pick up the seeds from my house and were soon on the road, walking barefoot through the mud, picking up people at just about every house we passed. I still can’t get over how amazing it was. I guess it’s a good lesson for me to remember as well. Just because I want to work with Paraguayans, respecting their social and work culture, this doesn’t mean I shouldn’t push a little, ask the questions no one else is, suggest an idea even when I suspect it won’t be popular. After all, look what can happen. J Rain day success!
