Springtime in Pictures

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:

Although I live alone and am regularly out of the house, I get a surprising amount of visitors. I like to think it's my sparkling personality. ;) Here, Carmen, Ña Merarda and I share some tereré on my patio. I store my water in old glass wine bottles... and they get a kick out of it every time.

The crotchedy old grandmother neighbor had her 80th birthday party in September. Oh, and she`s not crotchety to me (She loves me because I´m guapa, so she says), but to all her kids and grandkids. Anyway, it was the first all-family party I`ve been to, and it was a fantastic time! Instead of waiting around awkwardly for hours for the party to begin, we all began dancing right away and continued the rest of the night, taking mini-breaks for barbeque, pasta, sopa, and delicious cake. Here I am with Carmen on the left and Silvia on the right, ready to go get our groove on.

I went to a nearby city to help a neighbor Environmental Education Volunteer with a Bird Festival for elementary school kids. We basically took them on a short field trip and played games to learn about migration, deforestation, bird species, etc. It was an exhausting day but rewarding as well. The kids had a great time getting out of the classroom and being active!

I travelled out to the eastern part of the country with 2 friends, Amelia and Emily, to help fellow Croppie John with a World Map project. John lives on a peninsula which is generally only accesible by boat. So here we are arriving at his site, a rowboat as our final form of transportation...

First, the wall is painted, the grid is marked out with plumbobs, and then the map is drawn out in pencil square by square.

After careful checking, it is ready to paint. We outlined the countries and then helped students from 1st through 6th grade to paint inside the lines and learn a little bit of geography. The teachers at this school were very excited about the map and already including it in their curriculum. Many Paraguayans, children and adults, can't pick out even the continent of South America on a world map. This kind of project is helping to change that, one school of children at a time.

John readying the boat to row us across for our departure... que guapo!

These are my neighbors with whom I have my garden and demo plot. Here I'm standing with Ña Rubia, Derlis, and Isa in front of the LARGE compost pile space we just created.

These are my closest neighbors, both geographically and emotionally. They are an awesome family, so very generous and open with me. I regularly go there multiple times a day, to tereré, maté, eat lunch, make chipa, borrow something, etc. Here I am beckoning 10 year old Silvia to get in the picture, with 16 year old Richard behind me, 19 year old Imelda showing off her very pregnant belly (it´s a boy!!), and Ña Venancia on the right.

The new group or "G" of Agriculture and Environment Peace Corps Trainees have arrived in Paraguay, meaning I am now an "oldie." Crazy how fast a year can pass! I hosted a Trainee named Lorena this past weekend to share with her what my life is like as a Crop PCV. Here we took a really long walk to a neighboring community to see some exemplary contour planting on the steep hills. This is what I'd like to get done for more people in my community as well. Left to right- Me, Lorena, Diana, Nora's brother, Carmen, Don Ceveriano. Talk about a "3 Hour Tour." Great views but we came back exhausted.

That's all for now folks! I'd love to hear what you're up to, so drop me a letter or an email if you get a chance. My local post address is

Amanda Baranowski, PCV

0983 548 543

Ybycui 4390

Paraguay

And you know my email. :)

Two months from today, I will be arriving in the USA to spend a few weeks for the holidays. Bwwaahhhh, CRAZY! Hope to see you then!

Happy Fall and Spring

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 24^th, 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.

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.

Che Suerte, Ajepa?

Here are pictures from Ashleigh and Rachel's visit to Paraguay, and our mini-Amerireunion and friends trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Talk about some continuous fun... :)

Best Cargo Ever!

I have creative friends. Look at this awesome Book Club sign! :)

It was cold?

Uphill of the Hammock Coaster Ride.

Westward View.

I drew this map of the community 2 months ago...(and it halted there due to school politics.)

and then came some luck and resolution. We got to paint it into a reality,

with a lot of help from the kids!

I've got my own mate bar in Buenos Aires.

The food was phenomenal, but couldn't beat the company.

As I was saying...

Biggest flower I'VE ever seen.

Botanical gardens... So cool.

Story Hour and other news of July

July has been a month of joyous reunions, exciting beginnings, unexpected adventures, tearful farewells, and general self-reflection. That being said, it has also been one of the fastest 31 days I've experienced as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and that's saying a lot.

After spending the first few weeks of the month with my sister, I got to see Nicole's glowing face as she got off the bus last Thursday right here in Ybycui! She and her friend and coworker Tori stopped for a week here in Paraguay to see me and spend time out in my site.

It has been great getting to show them around my community and introducing them to lots of people, including...the kids!

One of the really exciting beginnings of this month is a "Story Hour" or Book Club that I've started for the elementary school-aged kids here. I checked out a mobile library from the Peace Corps Office, which is a set of 15 books in Spanish. There are a variety of books, including Where The Wild Things Are, Clifford, Curious George, and Madeline. So far we've met 3 times, and each time somewhere between 10 and 20 kids have come. We usually begin by me reading a story aloud for everyone, and then we have free time where everyone can read on their own. I usually ask one of the older girls to read aloud for the younger kids who are reading yet.

It was especially wonderful to have Nicole and Tori here for this week's Story Hour. Nicole is an elementary school teacher in Washington D.C. in a 1st grade Special Education classroom. Tori is one of her teaching assistants and is going back to school this fall for her Masters in Bilingual Education. At Story Hour, Tori, who speaks Spanish, read aloud for the younger crowd, who couldn't get enough and kept bringing her another and another book to read them. Nicole noticed right off that most of the kids reading on their own (ranging in age from 8 to 13) were semi-proficient readers, as they generally read aloud to themselves in order to understand what it is they're reading. She offered me some great strategies and advice to help these kids, in the limited capacity that I can, to get more practice and to improve their reading skills.

Still, the most important goal of Story Hour is just to get kids excited and interested in reading, whether they know their ABCs yet or are already in middle school. None of the families around here have books at home, nor are the kids exposed to anything except for textbooks at school, so they are thrilled each time I take my pile of books out of the bag. What a great feeling it is to be able to share one of my own personal joys with some little guys that I really care about. Yay!!

Story Hour with Nicole and Tori

Tori reading to the little ones.

Karina, age 10, and Isidora, age 13 enjoying their stories.

One major change of this month is that my friend Namho, a KOICA (Korea Overseas Volunteer) completed his own two years of service in Paraguay and left to go back to Korea. Namho has been a constant friend since I first got to my site (He lived in my town, Ybycui) and we especially worked closely the past few months because his organization offered my womens' comite the chance to learn how to plant and manage some new horticultural crops. The onion planting project, and winter green manures planting got us started off,

Namho and I on his last day in Ybycui

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!

1440 watermelon plants, prepared by the womens' comite

"Two Amanda's!" -Don Poli

She made it!

Long story short, Marissa came down to Paraguay for 2 weeks this July

and we had a phenomenal time. I think she will return home more exhausted

and sick of buses/airports/Spanish than ever before, but hopefully it was all worth it. :)

Here are some short summary photos of our first week in Paraguay, mostly spent at my site in the countryside. I attempted to introduce Ris to the finer points of Paraguayan culture and cuisine, and I think it was a success. Check it out...

2:30am arrival after a 24 hour layover in Lima, Peru. Que guapa!

And doesn't she look fantastic, Ladies and Gentlemen.

We terere-ed and washed our clothes by hand.

That's idodine pill water, NOT my well water, no worries.

Tranquilo time in the hammock.

Nothing beats some hot mandi'o right out of the pot.

At first, Marissa was very reluctant to believe that digging with a machete actually was much easier than digging with the shovel.

She soon learned.

And we planted and transplanted some flowers and trees. This is a sunflower.

We ate hot chipa at the neighbors'. She "knows how to eat it!"

(Direct translation from Guarani)

We spent July 4th at the American Embassy. Look how festive our cupcakes are.

We took long walks down dirt roads.

Marissa learned some key Guarani phrases and the all-too-important "al Pelo!" or Thumbs Up.

This can rectify any awkward situation.

One thing Marissa told me was, "Amanda, if Mom met the people here in the community, and saw how much they care about you, she wouldn't worry half as much as she does."

That was an amazing statement to hear, especially considering how apparent this fact was to Marissa after only a few days, and after meeting just 4 or 5 neighboring families. I know that I am surrounded here by a lot of amazingly warm and hardworking people, but it struck me that already I am starting to take that for granted. And I don't want to.

It was incredible to be able to share some of my day-to-day life here in Paraguay with my sister. She adapted much more quickly than I had ever imagined to the "rustic" realities of my site, and it was truly a pleasure just to hang, catch up, cook, laugh, and reminisce - just as it always is. As the saying goes, life is in the details, and it can be difficult for me to share these details that make each day here worthwhile, because to fully explain their significance, I usually have to explain vocabulary words and cultural situations and basically give a lot of uninteresting backstory that bores the person I'm speaking to even before I get to the heart of the subject. So sometimes I just try to keep it short. Simple. Uncomplicated. Individual. But that's not life here at all. It's about the interactions between people and across boundaries of culture, language, age, gender, etc. Like how my 12 year old neighbor now shouts "Bara-no-ki!" as a greeting to me across the field, how Na Venancia always winks at me to let me in on the joke as we're mate-ing around her fire, or how I now know and can join in on the constant gossip about the weather, the foot traffic on the road, and the price of cheese. And just by being here, Ris got to take that in for herself, and I could never really explain in spoken or written word. Hopefully she can share a taste of that with you back home as well.

What a blessing to have my sister here with me. Che avy'a!!!

Oh, and as to the title of this post, yes that is a direct quote from one of the señores as we walked up to his house. Contrast that with Argentina, where fellow hostel dwellers couldn't even tell we were sisters!?! Weird, eh.

World Cup and fun things to come

So the U.S. has made it to the next round, and Paraguay plays today. FUERZA PARAGUAY!

I haven´t been able to watch too many of the games. The channel that they´re on comes in really fuzzy and black and white on my neighbor´s tv. Plus... people in my community don´t really care THAT much. Sure, they want Paraguay to do well and to win, but everyday work takes precedence. There´s still work to be done in the field... and so they go.

This weekend is the festival of San Juan (Saint John). It´s a big fundraiser for the school, and I´m looking forward to seeing the kids doing some Paraguayan dance, eating lots of chipa and sopa, and getting my own groove on at the nighttime party. Should be fun!

One week from tomorrow, my sister will be HERE. With me. I still can´t quite believe. And I´m SO EXCITED!!!! We are planning on celebrating the 4th of July at the Embassy in Asuncion, coming back and visiting my site for a few days, and then travelling across the border to Argentina and exploring around the city of Salta in the North.

Alright, gotta run for my VAC meeting with other PCVs in my area. We are, apparently, making hamburgers and watching the soccer game. Go Albiroja!! (the Paraguayan colors)