Watermelon, Babies, and Mbeju

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.