Christmas Round 2

Its a few days past Christmas and I can hardly believe that I spent another Christmas in Ka’a Jovai. I swore I wouldn’t be in site after I was so miserable last year, but it’s amazing what a whole year can do. Spending it with a different family and having a house packed with Americans sure changes the story.

I have been planning for Christmas since my first green beans fruited and I was gifted a large Libby style pumpkin. I promptly put them away in the freezer. As the date got closer, my refrigerator got fuller. I was gifted several pounds of fresh Paraguayan cheese, liters of beans, a dozen eggs, and a live chicken. Great kindness was shown to me by the same gentleman who gifted me the eggs. Sandia or watermelon and Christmas are synonymous here. You can bear the Paraguayan heat any day if you can dig into a sweet, juicy watermelon. Last year watermelons were everywhere. I could eat watermelon with one family and then walk to another family and eat more. Since it is not allowed to be mixed with terere, I ended up drinking more water in sandia form than strained through yerba. I didn’t think 1 dozen eggs would satisfy 8 people so I made the 2 k walk to buy 18 more eggs. I was bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have any watermelon to Don Ignicio and he told me there was plenty just 5 K from here. The next day, the kind man and his nephew road over on their motos to bring me four of the largest watermelons I had ever seen. I was so excited. Thankfully, Teresa and I had just finished making scones and baking bread which I gifted back to him

Five friends travelled out to my site in spite of the scattered showers on Christmas Eve. One walked 5K and Teresa came from the far southwestern corner of Paraguay a few days early to help with the food buying and preparing. The married couple brought a tent and four slept on the floor. Teresa and I claimed my bed. I borrowed a bunk bed from my neighbor, but it wouldn’t fit through my door, but tranquilopa there is always a place to sleep. Teresa and I had fixed spaghetti and garlic bread for our weary guests (Tk and Jenny came the farthest having just flown in from Costa Rica that morning. They arrived in Asuncion by 7am and came straight out). This isn’t your ordinary spaghetti dinner. It was fresh herb flavored tomato sauce and spicy sausage. Fresh baked bread topped with real butter, more herbs from my garden and the aged Paraguayan cheese. Homemade has a new meaning here. Thanks to the Romaine lettuce seeds from my Dad, we also served a colorful salad.

Christmas Eve dinner was Chipotle chicken fajitas. Ña Lourdes showed me how to kill the chicken and I tried to wring its neck, but alas it was a tough old hen and Lourdes even had a bit of trouble. I plucked all the feathers and helped to cut it up. The chicken was full of eggs, or rather the yolks that were still forming. I threw all the random parts in the pot too—heart, gizzard, liver. I did turn down the feet. I didn’t think that would go well in a fajita.

Christmas Day we shared with my Paraguayan family. Three tables were lined up together under the shade of the citrus trees and loads of food was placed in the center. Cheesy corn Sopa, rice salad, potato salad, clerico (fruit salad soaked in soda and wine), mandio, and coal roasted beef were the Paraguayan contributions. Lemon-herb marinated chicken, garlic roasted green beans and lima beans, pumpkin pie, and salad were the American additions. A prayer was said and everyone feasted. My Paraguayan family must think that all Americans like spicy food. The salad had a Hungarian wax pepper tossed in and Marcelo (cousin) started talking about how spicy the chicken fajitas from the night before were. He was sweating and we were unfazed as we shook extra Tabasco sauce over our plates.

Around 6pm it was finally cool enough to walk to Rio Monday. A whole gang of us sauntered down the red, rutted road. I called out Felizidades to everyone and thought how strange they must think it is to suddenly have so many Americans walking down the street. We arrived at the river and after much begging Teresa talked me into jumping in with her. Jenny jumped shortly after. The current was swift and it took a lot of strength to get back, but that didn’t stop us from jumping over and over again. The water was refreshing and it was amusing to watch the expressions of the Paraguayans since everyone I know is afraid of water over their head since they can’t swim. After the last jump, I joined the game of Po (guarani version of 500) and promptly coated myself in sand when I dove into a sand hill. Walking back was exfoliating.

Dinner was biscuits and gravy and scrambled eggs. Leah and Alejandra made the biscuits while TK used the drippings from the Christmas chicken to make his specialty. Of course it was spicy with the addition of the spicy sausage. Several rounds of card Monopoly were played after dinner. After losing all afternoon, I was finally able to win. It’s so much better than regular board game Monopoly. It has plenty of strategy in that it reminds me of Settlers of Catan, but it moves quickly and doesn’t require money.

Everyone except for Dan, Leah, and Alejandra left on Sunday, but not before the cinnamon roll breakfast and real coffee. My old host family down the street was able to give them rides to O’Leary. After having a really random pop-pops war with the kids, I returned to my company for a relaxing Sunday. I like a Christmas that lasts multiple days. Presents are unnecessary with the presence of friends and family.

Rained out

Being rained OUT of site was a new one for me. In the midst of the unexpected extra time, I realized just how much of a blessing in disguise it was to be stuck in O’Leary. It also helped that my PCV neighbor Mike’s host family has plenty of room. Through the course of the extra day, I stumbled upon a lady who is active in reforestation work. Less than a week ago my contact/host dad, Javier, approached me with the idea of replanting trees in the well pilfered remnants of forest. I said I would check into it, but had not put a whole lot of thought into it because I was not sure I could keep up with another project. But lately, I had been obsessed with the Chivato tree that grows here. Its vivid red-orange blossoms stand out against the rich green leaves. While biking with Mike to his English class, I noticed (it’s hard not to notice this tree) a Chivato tree with fallen seed pods. While picking up seeds, the lady at the store across the street approached me. She informed me of a woman down the street that often sells plantitas. And that’s how I met Ña Chichi, an energetic grandmother who travels to Itapu (about 1 ½ hrs east) to request free trees and thus far has reforested some 7 hectares. I returned to my site the next day with a beautiful little Chivato plantita and the promise of an invite the next time she makes the trip.

pictures from Salto Cristol

Above the falls.

the hike down.

Amanda and Amelia, my cropee girls...the ride out to the falls

The beautiful Salto Cristol, Paraguai, Paraguay. Secluded beauty...best Halloween ever.

Typing class

November 21, 2011

It’s finally raining and I actually get to enjoy it because I am here in my house. Just because I haven’t posted in ages does not mean that nothing is happening. On the contrary so much has happened that I am having a hard time collecting my thoughts so I can report on the most important events.

The past seven Saturday s and Mondays have been devoted to a typing course, supervised by myself and my 15-year-old host sister Noelia. To be honest, at first it proved to be more of a frustration that took me away from my agriculture work than something I was genuinely excited about teaching. But now that the students are getting the right idea and looking at their hands less I have realized just how many good Saturday mornings I have had because of the class. Don’t get me wrong it still has its frustration points. I have had to explain why every key is being typed wrong because Caps Lock was accidentally pressed to nearly every student. I wish I could disable that key now. I also wish I had blank keyboards so looking down would be pointless.

Yesterday was beautiful because I brought my Spanish children’s books from the Peace Corps library with me and by the end of the day a half dozen children or more didn’t have to just sit while their sibling tapped away at the keyboard. It was the sweetest site to see my host grandparents and their granddaughter, Dalilah, enjoying stories together. (The classes are held at their house)

Other Saturday typing class memories include an armadillo that stole the show. Kai Eligio even gave it a bath for its photo op. I always get to enjoy Terere with Kai Eligio. Yesterday, Cynthia brought a whole plate of hot sopa (cheese corn bread) her mother had made and Na Carmen served empanadas for lunch. Na Naty made papaya juice and I got to take the rest home since no one else wanted to drink it.

I didn’t think the day could get any better, but after classes ended around 4:30pm I stopped to visit Na Asuncion. My garden is doing well, but I want to experiment with some homemade pesticides. After talking to Na Asuncion we journeyed out to the fields in search of the plants. We were joined by her niece and by the time we returned a good portion of the community was talking about it. Tomorrow we are going to smash up the plants for the pesticide.

Every day has been a whirlwind of activity between keeping my house clean, my garden watered and weeded, planting green manures, making homemade pesticides and fertilizers, and keeping my compost pile at the optimal temperature there has not been time for relaxing in my hammock. But the temperature has been hovering in the upper 70s and lower 80s and I am not complaining one bit about the unusually cool spring and summer. I have so many other stories I could share, but I would like to hear from my faithful readers what they are curious about? Do you want more detailed stories and less of an overview? Do you want to know about specific work or more about green manures? I would love to hear your thoughts. Just send me an email at chowie86@gmail.com. It’s getting late and since it just rained tomorrow is going to be busy…like always.

Little blessings

Today started off like any other--cleaning up dog and rabbit messes, but then began filling with everyday happenings that remind me exactly while I love this place. When I arrived at the school, Professor Victoria and the 9th graders were already busy preparing our cooking project. Project goal: teach them that vegetables are delicious and nutritious. Most have never tasted broccoli or cauliflower, much less the leaves.
Vegetable soup (carrots, onions, oregano, corriander seeds, beets, swiss chard, broccoli and cauliflower leaves--and a bit of queso paraguay), cabbage salad (with fresh broccoli and cauliflower), parsley juice and beet juice. The students loved it!. We were using everything from the garden the students planted before I left for the states. I knew it was a
success too when the Professor's 5-year-old son had to be begged to try the
soup...and then ate two whole bowls!
I wrote the following haiku on my hand while waiting for the soup to boil. Naturally, the students were curious and immediately went to work diciphering the English to Spanish. Once I explained the significance they loved it.

Mango tree shadows.
Rubies, emeralds, pearls, and death,
9th grade cooking class.

On my way home, I stopped at Kai Pedro's and Na Lalita's house. I joined the terere circle and was immediately asked by Na Lalita if I could teach her how to bake bread. She wanted to sell it. Kai Pedro agreed to help with the wild hive capture on wednesday and wants to
plant abonos verdes when there's a full moon. To end the visit--a dozen bananas to enjoy later!

Now I'm home, enjoying pizza bread and fresh squeezed orange juice,
but before this I said hello to my good friends down the street. I
wanted to know if they were ready to build the compost pile (tomorrow
afternoon we have scheduled). We also chatted about the
school cooking class because their daughter, Angela, had just returned
from school. Her Mom is motivated to learn how to use the oven more
so she doesn't have to eat so many fried things. She also wants me to teach her how to make vegetable soup (am I really still in Paraguay? this is far from typical). The electric oven is better
because she won't have to gather firewood and cook in the heat and
smoke.

Just now I got a phone call from the lady i was supposed to visit
yesterday, but never had time for it and she said her son is coming to
the typing class this afternoon. Well, those are today's little
blessings--and it's only 1 in the afternoon.

It's Spring...

I was waiting for a good rain to put everything on hold long enough for me to collect my thoughts and write another post. Spring is here and it’s a flurry of activity here. In an effort to give you a picture of what has been happening here I am going to give you my top ten favorite things that have happened since the last time I wrote (in no particular order).

1. Neighbors who bring me bananas. I love baking banana bread to give away and they fuel my supply of bananas. Tonight I plan on showing my Paraguayan siblings the classic camping dessert of bananas, marshmallows, and chocolate wrapped up in foil and heated over the fire.

2. Typing class. Noelia and I are teaching about 30 students of all ages using a typing program. Everyone is really excited about it, but the part of the story that touches me the most is how my community pulled together. One of the computers wouldn’t load the program at all and the other two had tons of viruses. Professor Lilian recently acquired a laptop and generously offered to allow the students to practice on it. Another professor, Professor Enrique, is good with computers and was able to correct the computer problems. Now we have 3 working computers.

3. Pumpkins, green beans, and other garden related things . My garden is sprouting and all the pumpkins I planted with my community are breaking through the ground too. Getting others to work with me has never been so easy. Yesterday, I had a breakthrough. I have been talking up “compost tea”, compost piles, and homemade pesticides. Na Marina and I gathered everything together to make some “compost tea” or liquid fertilizer and just as we were putting the finishing touches on our concoction her husband, Kai Anres returned. This lead nicely into talking about his pineapple plants. The fuchsia babies look perfect now, but I am afraid the hot Paraguayan sun will scorch them. Thus we are going to plant Luceana which is a fast growing, leguminous tree which will provide shade for the pineapples and the foliage can be feed to animals. Also, the wood can be used for burning fires in the fagon (wood burning brick stove) which they cook over daily. Hopefully, we can also plant Crotalaria because it will germinate before the Luceana. Crotalaria is another green manure which is nitrogen fixing.

4. Honey harvesting and wild hive capture. I have three people waiting for the weather to warm up a little more so we can work bees. There are always volleyball games before any work happens.

5. Jajapota vaso de vidrio de botella. Does teaching thirty 9th graders how to break glass bottles using wire and cold water sound like fun. Besides the bottles that were lit on fire using gasoline, everything went surprisingly smooth. By the way, soaking cotton string in gasoline, wrapping it around the bottle, lighting it on fire, and then dunking it in water will also break the bottle…but it also makes the resulting glass more brittle. I wonder why they even let me work in the school sometimes. Next week…let’s make volcanoes erupt.

6. Making Tofu. And serving it to Paraguayan. It must by something in my character and smile because people will always try what I ask them to eat and a large majority actually like it. The most popular way of eating it is when I mix it with herbs and make it a spread for bread. You would never guess it is soy!

7. Che ho’ukuaa brocoli hogue. I know how to eat broccoli leaves. Here’s a fantastic recipe. Let’s home the students are also impressed. I tried it out on my Paraguayan family first.
Here’s the recipe:

Roasted Broccoli leave, Cauliflower leaves, Kale, Swiss Chard, or other greens

Leaves
Soy sauce
Green onions
2-4 cloves of garlic
Sesame and or olive oil
Salt and pepper

Fill a pot 1/3 full with water and bring to a boil.
Wash the leaves and chop coarsely. Discard the tough parts. Place in boiling water, cover, and steam until tender. Drain. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a skillet and toss everything else in. Add more soy sauce and salt and pepper as necessary. Top with sesame seeds. Enjoy!

8. Jazz. I have a new puppy. He’s just over 6 weeks old now. He loves to get into everything. Imagine a little white fluffy teddy bear. This pet loves sleeping next to Lila, the rabbit I am watching for a fellow volunteer.

9. Quinceañeras! And birthday’s in general. Lot’s of delicious food and dancing! There was one two Saturdays ago and this coming Saturday is Noelia’s. Today, my family butchered their hog in preparation and we enjoyed some organ meat and chucheron (the equivalent of bacon although more of the fat, delicious) with mandi’o of course.
I celebrated my birthday in Asuncion with a lot of my fellow Peace Corps friends. We had appetizers on the roof top pool deck (pear and gruyere cheese and caprese salad). We dressed up (thank you Mom for my birthday outfit) and headed out to a delicious pizza place that faces the President’s house. An exquisite white columned building that just glows with all the lights reflecting off it’s ivory surface.
And to conclude the night we ducked into a little ice cream shop on the return walk to the hotel. Catching up with good friends made the day memorable.

10. Rainy days and time to read. I am not sure where my list went, but I have read several dozen books. Currently, I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

(pictures will be posted in a few weeks)

and I'm finally back in Paraguay

I was hoping to report a smooth return to Paraguay, but now I know that all the other hectic travel I have experienced were merely training for what I faced in my return flight. Peace Corps scheduled my flight and I was only too grateful to be flying directly out of Willard. I had an 11 hour wait in Dallas/Fort Worth, but even that passed quickly enough. I can tell you exactly how to get to each terminal via the Skylink tram and I must have look knowledgeable because I was asked for directions on more than one occasion. I even had an opportunity to go to a chapel service—who knew they had such things at airports.

When I finally boarded the plane for Buenos Aires, I was relieved to see how spacious the exit row seats are. The lady behind me wondered how I possibly could have reserved it. I told her I picked it out yesterday. The flight went smoothly enough although I did accidentally fall sleep on the guy next to me. In my groggy state I realized my mistake and quickly shifted to the other side. He was sounds asleep himself and I don’t think he was even aware what happened. It was a 10 ½ hr overnight flight.

We arrived in Buenos Aires at 8:05am local time. My flight to Asuncion: 9:00am. As I followed the yellow line for connecting flights it dawned on me that I was not ready to board my flight. I did not have the next boarding pass and my luggage had only been tagged as far as B.A. I did not think much about this when I was in Champaign, but now I realized this might get complicated. I was not disappointed. Instead of continuing through to the gates, I went to customs with my flight itinerary. Because my bags were not checked all the way through I was technically entering the country and therefore required to pay the 130 USD entrance tax.

“Al mismo, al mismo Senorita (minimal, minimal, Miss) ,” the customs agent said when I asked how much.

I kept explaining that it was not my fault and tried to look innocent as I stood in the little office while more agents got involved. They were all drinking mate(the hot tea like drink) and I wished I could have some too. Finally, someone made a phone call, they had me fill out some forms, stamped it, and I was free to proceed, free of charge. By this point I had 40 minutes until the flight left. I knew I was in trouble.

My grabbed my waiting bags from the carousel and loaded them onto an empty cart while searching for the shortest exit line. After asking for Aerolines Argentina Airlines I jogged with my cart to the counter. Breathless, I slid my itinerary to the agent.

“Why are you so late?” she wanted to know.

“I just arrived,” I explained. I gave her a rundown of my transfer problem.

She made a phone call.

“I am sorry, but the flight is boarding now. We can’t let you on. You were supposed to be here 2 hours before the flight. We can get you on a 3pm flight.”

I exchanged some Guarani’s for pesos and purchased my bus fare. After 1 hour and 40 minutes of driving through downtown B.A. we reached a small airport by the ocean.

My 3pm flight was supposed to board at 2:15pm and after running from gate to gate they finally called my flight at 2:45pm.

I finally arrived in Asuncion at 4pm local time. I had only been traveling since 7am Sunday morning.

Now I am back in site. It’s beautiful here and projects are starting to pick up again. Everyone was overjoyed to finally have me back and wondered at my extended absence.

Yesterday, I visited Ña Asunción. The abonos verdes (green manures) I planted with her husband and brother-in-law are just starting to flower. There are still a plethora of vegetables from the garden we planted together. Most of the broccoli was flowering and I learned that they did not know how to eat it. I snapped a good head off and offered her a taste while explaining that you can also boil it. We shared it with the other women and kids who were also hanging out with her at that time. They were all impressed and just loved it. This afternoon we are going to plant some sweet corn and pumpkins from the states—and more broccoli. When the corn is about knee high I want to incorporate some summer abonos verdes in between the rows. It’s just another average day here in Paraguay.