Nochebuena... Christmas Eve

One of my favorite holiday season things to do when I was growing up was to make and decorate Christmas cookies. So a few days before Christmas, I invited over some of my students to share one of my favorite aspects of Christmas in the states with them here. I spent a bit more time making frostings of different colors, trying to find Christmas-ish sprinkles to use, and making plastic cookie cutter stencils. But all in all we were able to successfully make some yummy festive sugar cookies. We listened to Christmas music while sharing our favorite Christmas stories from our childhood with each other. And although it was extremely hot, about 101 degrees hot, it made this holiday season feel a little bit more like home.

Christmas day is no more than another day, or so it felt to me, in Paraguay. Nochebuena or Christmas Eve is the big shot here. I spent Nochebuena with my best friends and their family eating the traditional dinner of Sopa Paraguaya (this is kind of like corn bread but it’s not sweet and has cheese), BBQ, and a rice salad. We sipped on a few very cold beers, millers to be exact, chatted about life in Paraguay, Christmas traditions in the states, and what Christmas meant to them here. Later on in the evening we crossed the red dirt road to visit my best friend’s aunt who had put together a nativity scene.

An enormous amount of care went into her nativity scene, her belief in the meaning behind Christmas was all there. Candy and cookies dangled above baby Jesus and the rest of those who gathered to look upon him. This summer’s harvest of fruit all made an appearance too, from mango, pineapple, melon to squash. The tiny house made out of straw, grass and other greenery were the backdrop for the festive celebration. Small colorful lights adorned the whole house and the candles lit by visitors shined on the faces of the small figurines. Those who come to pray to the baby Jesus leave behind lit candles that hopefully will help their message be heard.

There are no gifts of material things exchanged on Nochebuena here, with the company of family and friends eating, catching up on gossip, and occasionally the kids lighting off fireworks is how it’s spent here. When they do give gifts it is to children brought by the three kings on the 6^th of January. Luckily the materialism of what Christmas has become in the states has not reached these depths yet, and hopefully never does. 

Tanto tiempo...It has been so long....

Three months in site have passed unquestionably fast with many things to keep me busy other than blogging. Sorry guys, I am going to get back on it and keep you all up to date with all the greatness of Paraguay!

First of all one of my main distractions has been my lovely guitar. Which is almost taking me away to play it at this very moment, but I have made myself sit here and write. Haha. But yes I have been picking up the guitar quite a lot since I have moved into my own place. Oh yeah by the way I am living on my own in my community now, and it is WONDERFUL! Privacy is something that we all mostly get growing up in the states, but Paraguay is completely different in that aspect. Most children live with their parents well into their late 20’s, and a good percentage also do when they are married too.  So privacy is out the window pretty much, but hey they are used to it and many times it is because of economical reasons. Yes, privacy was one of the challenges I faced and did not know what to do with it once I had it because I kind of forgot what it was like to have it here in Paraguay. 

Anyways back to music, since I am really learning how to play the guitar here in Paraguay having a private space to play in has been key for me. I can get my practice in on new songs I am learning then go out to a neighbor’s house to have a little jam session. Paraguayans love music, and I have been blessed with a very musically talented community. Just the other day I went over to have lunch with a family and the grand-daughter recorded a CD in Guarani and Spanish, and she is 8 years old. So we sat down, jammed and sang a bit because the girl (Paola) is learning how to play the guitar too. Although I am working in health in my community it is nice to be able to have these kinds of experiences that connect people on such a different level. 

16km in and loving it (che avy'ahina)

Picture yourself driving out to my site and seeing nothing but a few houses occasionally placed amongst the campo (farm land) and all of the sudden without warning your 16 kilometers off the main route and arrive in Union. When I was given my site I was told that it was on the big side compared to other PCVs sites. I saw pictures before arriving and thought this is different than I expected. I was thinking I would be very rural because that is what I wanted in a site when I first applied for the Peace Corps. After interviews with my coordinators who help in matching volunteers with communities, they thought I would thrive in a community who are already super guapo (hard-working). So in the end I gave in a agreed with my coordinators because they are the experts at placements. Thus, Union and I now have each other for two years. I now can say that it is a great match, I am the type of person who is used to being super busy so I might have gone crazy without such a guapo community. Although this is nothing in comparison to the busy life I lead before, it is exactly what I want to be doing. I have the balance of having things to do as in radio shows, heading to the health center, teaching English classes, giving charlas (talks), or simply just hanging out drinking terere enjoying the day chatting with my newly found community.

Union is a tranquil place with dramatic differences from barrio to barrio. My community is fortunate enough to bare the gifts of having a Municipalidad, 2 primary schools, 2 secondary schools, a health center with two doctors and a dentist, many small despensas (small stores inside people’s houses), two churches, and two plazas. With about 550 people per barrio I have been keeping busy trying to visit them all. It has been hard to catch everyone because some people work all day on farms and people typically do not hang out after dark (which right now gets dark after 5:30pm). So as I mentioned previously there are 4 barrios, 2 of them I would say are better off than the others with the exceptions of those who live at the center of the town. On the outside of Union everyone is pretty much in the same boat, a small wooden house with a latrine, where they are most likely cook on the ground outside with lenia (wood). Luckily I have had lots of luck with people wanting to get commissions or groups started up because there are no currently standing commissions or groups in Union.

Overall, with almost 2 months in site I am super satisfied with how things are going. I am picking up on Guarani (the native language of Paraguay), which is getting easier day by day. The people are inviting and extremely generous. I could not be more pleased with where I am at in this moment.

My view from my host families house of the primary and secondary school. 

End of training…Beginning of Service!

It was truly sad to leave my training community with the amazing relationships I had formed with the community. I just told myself that I will be back to see them and soon I will be forming new relationships within my official site, my new community.

Our swear-in ceremony was short but sweet, with a few tears between Peace Corps Volunteers and families. This would be the last time in 3 months that we would see each other unless there were surprise visits in between then. I think that we were all feeling pretty torn how we felt leaving our training host families (THF) because they are our first host family. Most are pretty seasoned THF, where they understand our weird USA ways and are sensitive to our needs in the beginning of our time in country. So you have to give it to them, they do such a great job, how can you not miss them?

I got to speak at the swear-in ceremony which was pretty awesome. Hopefully I inspired the PCTs (now PCVs) to go ahead with no worries because they will make a difference in the world, in their communities.

Now I have been in site for 3 weeks and love it. Life here is way different from training. There is no structure here what so ever, while in training we had a pretty defined schedule, here I make my own. Although I have had no defined things to do I set goals for myself to keep me busy enough. My day changes from day to day but usually involves integrating into my community by meeting people, visiting the schools, going to the health center, attending church, dancing with the youth, and just saying yes to anything I am invited to.

My community is quite large in comparison to most PCVs in Community Health (CH) just about 3600 people or 650 families, while other PCVs have around 50-200 family CH sites. I will be focusing working with the youth on STD/HIV prevention, values and self-esteem.

Other areas of CH work:

Nutrition

Physical Education/Activity

Hygiene

Parasites prevention

Dental Health

Dengue Prevention

Sexual Health and Prevention

Recycling

Diabetes

High Cholesterol

Hyper Tension

Gardens

I hope to cover most of these areas by talking within the schools, after church, commissions, clubs, radio shows, by hosting workshops, and by having summer and winter camps. I kick off my work here by integrating to gain the communities trust, by getting to know their priorities/concerns, along with a community wide health survey, this will be my main project for the next 3-4 months.

I am living with a host family for the first 3 months in site then after that I will be renting a house from one of my host family’s brothers. I love living with my host family but all privacy is out the window, so I am looking forward to getting that back at least within my home. Before I move in I hope to have my garden all planted and ready to go. I have to fully furnish the house myself with the budget that Peace Corps gives me, but I am hoping to inherit some stuff from other PCVs that are heading home around the time I move into my place. 

Sites!!!!!! In the know now!

I finally got my site and am super excited to start!

Beautiful Views and Art

Amazing just done pieces of art that an artist did within seconds on a foot push ceramics wheel.

 Cute Elephant!

 Gorgeous church in Aregua. 

 A wonderful hike with a interesting rocks

 Full view of the hike in Aregua

 Bees doing there thing.

 The green water beach in Aregua

Madame Lynch's castle in Aregua. 

Sharing Soccer

The "mita'ikuera" (children) adding their names to the ball we gifted them this past weekend.

PCT's and the Mita'ikuera