Top to bottom:
1. Sometime they get along (notice the Niko bottle dog dish)
2. …and sometimes they don’t (Saraki and Miliki the kitten)
3. Nora enjoys the cake I baked for Na Lourdes’ Birthday by candlelight (we lost power, again)
4. The delicious cake filled with homemade chocolate pudding and drizzled with dark chocolate sauce and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
5. Post-rainy day fun. A raft with Niko bottle for the buoyancy!
6. Processing soja with the Señoras
7. Kai Javier and I planted over 40 pineapple plants or pups as they’re called
8. The kids and I harvested beans and corn!
9. Saraki fell asleep in my boot
10. Day 1…new puppy
11. Diana and I made pancakes with cinnamon vanilla syrup!
12. Painting the world map with the students in John’s site
13. Explaining how to transfer the map by following the grid
Monday, March 29, 2010
March 20, 2010
One of the great aspects of Peace Corps is working with other volunteers. Not only is it a nice excuse from the daily activities, but I always come away with more ideas. This past week I trekked out to John’s site to help him draw and paint a world map on a school in his site. I was joined by Carly and Lyn. While I was there we finished drawing the map and even got a number of countries painted. It was neat to see the kids point to Paraguay and really study the map. I hope to eventually organize the painting of the world map at the school in my site.
A few hours after I got home and unpacked Favie and Rorro biked up and presented me with a little puppy. The kids were all excited and tell me how 2 puppies had been found in the cruce or intersection. Carmen and Nora were smitten right away and asked me if I wanted her. I knew it was fortunate that she was even alive because normally the female puppies are killed outright. She looked fairly healthy too and I was pretty sure I knew who the parents where. I agreed to take her if their parents said it was alright by them because they would be the ones to care for her when I left. Caring for pets is a little different here anyway, but I still didn’t want to there to be a misunderstanding or frustration.
And that’s how I got Saraki (sar-ra-key) or juguetona or playful. It took forever for me to decide on her name, but by the evening of the second day I finally agreed to Saraki. I am guessing she is 4 or 5 weeks old. She’s been eating well. There is no dog food in site because people just give their pets scraps.
I was gifted a solar oven from a Crop Extensionist volunteer who just finished his service. Yesterday I set it up and baked biscuits. I would try it again today, but it’s been raining. It is just cardboard and one side had a reflective surface that concentrates the suns heat. The pot or pan is then placed in a plastic bag and placed in the center of the folded cardboard. Hopefully I can use it to make yogurt too, but I need the temperature to not get as hot.
This morning I biked to the school for my Paraguayan aerobic and dance class and noticed that the fence for the school garden was being constructed. I guess they really want me to work on building a school garden after all. This is excited although I must admit I am a little nervous. It’s great to see my community being proactive and hardworking. The garden is huge which is great because I should be able to turn part of it into a demo plot for abonos verdes (green manures).
A few hours after I got home and unpacked Favie and Rorro biked up and presented me with a little puppy. The kids were all excited and tell me how 2 puppies had been found in the cruce or intersection. Carmen and Nora were smitten right away and asked me if I wanted her. I knew it was fortunate that she was even alive because normally the female puppies are killed outright. She looked fairly healthy too and I was pretty sure I knew who the parents where. I agreed to take her if their parents said it was alright by them because they would be the ones to care for her when I left. Caring for pets is a little different here anyway, but I still didn’t want to there to be a misunderstanding or frustration.
And that’s how I got Saraki (sar-ra-key) or juguetona or playful. It took forever for me to decide on her name, but by the evening of the second day I finally agreed to Saraki. I am guessing she is 4 or 5 weeks old. She’s been eating well. There is no dog food in site because people just give their pets scraps.
I was gifted a solar oven from a Crop Extensionist volunteer who just finished his service. Yesterday I set it up and baked biscuits. I would try it again today, but it’s been raining. It is just cardboard and one side had a reflective surface that concentrates the suns heat. The pot or pan is then placed in a plastic bag and placed in the center of the folded cardboard. Hopefully I can use it to make yogurt too, but I need the temperature to not get as hot.
This morning I biked to the school for my Paraguayan aerobic and dance class and noticed that the fence for the school garden was being constructed. I guess they really want me to work on building a school garden after all. This is excited although I must admit I am a little nervous. It’s great to see my community being proactive and hardworking. The garden is huge which is great because I should be able to turn part of it into a demo plot for abonos verdes (green manures).
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Top to bottom
1.Angela and I baked bread...with soy of course!
2. Breakfast in my house. I made the granola and the yogurt. The drink is banana soymilk. And don´t forget the fresh pineapple. The neighborhood kids and I jogged to the farmers house to pick those up!
3 and 4. Breaking bottles with my contact families kids. (That´s Nora being silly). Step 1. Mark the bottle with two lines of tape a few cm apart.
Step 2. Have a bucket of icewater ready
Step 3. Wrap about 3 ft of wire once around the bottle between the two lines of tape.
Step 4. Have another person hold the bottle while you steadily rub the wire back and forth in a steady motion against the bottle
Step 5. When you think the friction has made the bottle really hot (maybe a minute) dunk the bottle in the water. It should crack. If not, repeat process.
Step 6. Use sand paper to make the endges smooth
5. My garden. the largest plant in my loofah sponge plants. There are more plants that you just can´t see although it´s really not the great of a garden.
2. Breakfast in my house. I made the granola and the yogurt. The drink is banana soymilk. And don´t forget the fresh pineapple. The neighborhood kids and I jogged to the farmers house to pick those up!
3 and 4. Breaking bottles with my contact families kids. (That´s Nora being silly). Step 1. Mark the bottle with two lines of tape a few cm apart.
Step 2. Have a bucket of icewater ready
Step 3. Wrap about 3 ft of wire once around the bottle between the two lines of tape.
Step 4. Have another person hold the bottle while you steadily rub the wire back and forth in a steady motion against the bottle
Step 5. When you think the friction has made the bottle really hot (maybe a minute) dunk the bottle in the water. It should crack. If not, repeat process.
Step 6. Use sand paper to make the endges smooth
5. My garden. the largest plant in my loofah sponge plants. There are more plants that you just can´t see although it´s really not the great of a garden.
Top to bottom
1. Passion fruit flower
2. The old mixed with the new
3. I´m going to have a little more furniture soon, but heré´s a picture of my stove and fridge.
4. Nora and Carmen (L-R) help me shell lima beans in my house
5. The whole family and Don Cantido (far right) who built my house. Wednesday, February 24!
2. The old mixed with the new
3. I´m going to have a little more furniture soon, but heré´s a picture of my stove and fridge.
4. Nora and Carmen (L-R) help me shell lima beans in my house
5. The whole family and Don Cantido (far right) who built my house. Wednesday, February 24!
Peanut butter cookies...in Paraguay
March 11, 2010
I was so excited when I walked into my house and saw a large bolsa or sack of manduvikuera or peanuts sitting by the door that I decided today was finally the day I would enjoy peanut butter cookies and milk. (Kai Eligio delivered my 5 kilos of unshelled peanuts; that’s about 11 pounds). Thankfully, I was able to convince Ña Naty to sell me a liter of fresh milk this morning (it’s getting harder to convince people to part with their eggs, cheese, and milk since Semana Santa or Easter is just around the corner and all anyone eats for about a week is chipa and sopa*). I already boiled it and now it was chilling in the fridge. Peanut butter cookies on the other hand take a bit longer.
To make peanut butter cookies begin with shelling enough peanuts to make a half cup of peanut butter. Once shelled you must toast them so the papery skin breaks off. This process takes about twenty minutes. Now that you have toasted and skin free peanuts you must walk across the street to Ña Asuncion’s house to borrow her grinder. As it happens she is at the high school for a meeting, but thankfully her husband is home and thus you engage in a conversation about planting tomatoes and recipes for homemade pesticides while grinding all those peanuts to a fine paste. You can almost taste the peanut butter cookies the aroma from the nuts is so rich. You depart with the promise to bring some cookies back. Now you must make the peanut butter. You prefer to make it with honey, but alas you will have to substitute regular white sugar and miel de caña or molasses in addition to some oil and a pinch of salt. There is no real butter here (just margarine spreads which are not ideal for cookies) so you substitute oil (thankfully, you know from previous experience that the amount needed is almost half of what it calls for given the consistency difference between butter and oil). You mix all the ingredients together and even use the molasses again to make brown sugar. You end up with about 40 cookies, but then the best part is giving them away. And of course you remember that you originally had in mind to visit Ña Vinda, your first host grandmother. By the time you return to your house it’s nearly 6pm and time to go running. You are down to a half dozen cookies, but everyone loved the cookies and they declare you very guapa (hardworking). You even got 3 eggs, a tomato, and an onion from Ña Vinda. You decide your cookies and milk will have to wait until bedtime. You’re just grateful you got to skip a few steps and bought peanuts that had already been harvested and dried.
*Two weeks ago I finally tasted what I believe is the final dish consisting of corn, grasa de chancho or pig fat, Paraguayan cheese (not to be confused with any other cheeses, but it’s probably closest to mozzarella although it does age and will become a harder cheese) and a few other ingredients like onions, but it depends on the dish and the family. That dish was chipa so’o or chipa with meat stuffed inside. The other dishes are chipa(almidon) , sopa, chipaguasu, vori vori, and polenta. While all of them consist of the basic three ingredients they are each delicious and different (mostly). Chipa almidon or just chipa, as it is commonly referred to, uses mandioca flour in addition to the other ingredients (the corn is a cornmeal consistency). It’s a dense biscuit like texture and is squeaky when you bite into it. When you’re hungry on the bus you won’t have to wait long until a chipa doña steps aboard with her basket piled high with fresh, hot chipa. Sopa can best be described as cornbread without sugar. It’s my least favorite of the collection. Chipaguasu on the other hand is so delicious--especially when it’s hot out of the oven. The corn is of the sweet choclo variety and it’s not ground very fine. Chipaguasu is like cheesy, corn bread—yum! Vori Vori is like corn gnocci or corn dumplings. It is always served with piping hot soup. You probably already know what polenta is, but just in case you don’t it’s like cream of wheat corn style and don’t forget to add the cheese and grasa.
I was so excited when I walked into my house and saw a large bolsa or sack of manduvikuera or peanuts sitting by the door that I decided today was finally the day I would enjoy peanut butter cookies and milk. (Kai Eligio delivered my 5 kilos of unshelled peanuts; that’s about 11 pounds). Thankfully, I was able to convince Ña Naty to sell me a liter of fresh milk this morning (it’s getting harder to convince people to part with their eggs, cheese, and milk since Semana Santa or Easter is just around the corner and all anyone eats for about a week is chipa and sopa*). I already boiled it and now it was chilling in the fridge. Peanut butter cookies on the other hand take a bit longer.
To make peanut butter cookies begin with shelling enough peanuts to make a half cup of peanut butter. Once shelled you must toast them so the papery skin breaks off. This process takes about twenty minutes. Now that you have toasted and skin free peanuts you must walk across the street to Ña Asuncion’s house to borrow her grinder. As it happens she is at the high school for a meeting, but thankfully her husband is home and thus you engage in a conversation about planting tomatoes and recipes for homemade pesticides while grinding all those peanuts to a fine paste. You can almost taste the peanut butter cookies the aroma from the nuts is so rich. You depart with the promise to bring some cookies back. Now you must make the peanut butter. You prefer to make it with honey, but alas you will have to substitute regular white sugar and miel de caña or molasses in addition to some oil and a pinch of salt. There is no real butter here (just margarine spreads which are not ideal for cookies) so you substitute oil (thankfully, you know from previous experience that the amount needed is almost half of what it calls for given the consistency difference between butter and oil). You mix all the ingredients together and even use the molasses again to make brown sugar. You end up with about 40 cookies, but then the best part is giving them away. And of course you remember that you originally had in mind to visit Ña Vinda, your first host grandmother. By the time you return to your house it’s nearly 6pm and time to go running. You are down to a half dozen cookies, but everyone loved the cookies and they declare you very guapa (hardworking). You even got 3 eggs, a tomato, and an onion from Ña Vinda. You decide your cookies and milk will have to wait until bedtime. You’re just grateful you got to skip a few steps and bought peanuts that had already been harvested and dried.
*Two weeks ago I finally tasted what I believe is the final dish consisting of corn, grasa de chancho or pig fat, Paraguayan cheese (not to be confused with any other cheeses, but it’s probably closest to mozzarella although it does age and will become a harder cheese) and a few other ingredients like onions, but it depends on the dish and the family. That dish was chipa so’o or chipa with meat stuffed inside. The other dishes are chipa(almidon) , sopa, chipaguasu, vori vori, and polenta. While all of them consist of the basic three ingredients they are each delicious and different (mostly). Chipa almidon or just chipa, as it is commonly referred to, uses mandioca flour in addition to the other ingredients (the corn is a cornmeal consistency). It’s a dense biscuit like texture and is squeaky when you bite into it. When you’re hungry on the bus you won’t have to wait long until a chipa doña steps aboard with her basket piled high with fresh, hot chipa. Sopa can best be described as cornbread without sugar. It’s my least favorite of the collection. Chipaguasu on the other hand is so delicious--especially when it’s hot out of the oven. The corn is of the sweet choclo variety and it’s not ground very fine. Chipaguasu is like cheesy, corn bread—yum! Vori Vori is like corn gnocci or corn dumplings. It is always served with piping hot soup. You probably already know what polenta is, but just in case you don’t it’s like cream of wheat corn style and don’t forget to add the cheese and grasa.
I moved!
March 6, 2010
I moved into my house February 24th and it was the best day ever. The next day I moved to rest of my furniture and in between trips to neighbor’s houses for cooking demonstrations I got my house cleaned and organized. I no longer take for granted the ease of purchases in the States. If I needed something all I had to do was jump in my car and make a run to the store. This is not the case for me in Paraguay. Even if I could use motos; they wouldn’t be sufficient for getting a bed out to site (well, a Paraguayan might say differently, but I have yet to see a queen size mattress being hauled by moto, but if they can fit an entire family of 6 on a moto with the horsepower of a weed eater then I supposed anything is possible). No, my options for transporting my goods involved busses and taxis. Sadly, my nearest town did not sell any real mattresses and unless I wanted to sleep on a 5 in foam pad for 2 years I was going to have to think beyond O’Leary. I spent over an hour wandering to every business that sells electric ovens before I found one that also had the hot plate range on top. As it was I was on my way to Asuncion and thought to myself why not just by it right before I get on the bus back. I always stop outside of Asuncion and get a connecting bus to the office because it’s much faster than riding all the way to the terminal. I hoped off the bus and began looking at my options. I finally found a real bed and it happened to be near the bus stop and a little farther down the street I found the electric oven I wanted too. The next day I made my purchases. I bought my bed and asked that it be delivered to the bus stop. I bought my oven next and the delivery guy followed me to the bus stop. Sure enough, there was by bed on the sidewalk by the side of the road. I sat down to wait. The bus station men wanted to charge me the price of a ticket to transport my stuff, but I knew this was outrageous. I said no and scowled at them. They kept trying to convince me that this was customary, but I knew others had traveled the same way and not paid but a few mil guarani’s extra. In the end, I still paid too much, but at least I had my purchases. The fun part came with the taxi. Thankfully, I had the number of my favorite taxi driver and I had asked if he would meet me (especially since I thought I was going to miss the last bus to my site). Well, my bed got strapped to the roof and my oven placed in the back seat. I asked if we could make a quick stop at the supermarket and I raced through the aisles grabbing things on my list so I could begin cooking just as soon as I made the move.
All the way down the dusty red road the taxi driver and I drank terere while checking to see that the bed wasn’t suddenly going to fly off. This was the Saturday before my house was finished. Just another skill I never thought I’d obtain through the Peace Corps.
I moved into my house February 24th and it was the best day ever. The next day I moved to rest of my furniture and in between trips to neighbor’s houses for cooking demonstrations I got my house cleaned and organized. I no longer take for granted the ease of purchases in the States. If I needed something all I had to do was jump in my car and make a run to the store. This is not the case for me in Paraguay. Even if I could use motos; they wouldn’t be sufficient for getting a bed out to site (well, a Paraguayan might say differently, but I have yet to see a queen size mattress being hauled by moto, but if they can fit an entire family of 6 on a moto with the horsepower of a weed eater then I supposed anything is possible). No, my options for transporting my goods involved busses and taxis. Sadly, my nearest town did not sell any real mattresses and unless I wanted to sleep on a 5 in foam pad for 2 years I was going to have to think beyond O’Leary. I spent over an hour wandering to every business that sells electric ovens before I found one that also had the hot plate range on top. As it was I was on my way to Asuncion and thought to myself why not just by it right before I get on the bus back. I always stop outside of Asuncion and get a connecting bus to the office because it’s much faster than riding all the way to the terminal. I hoped off the bus and began looking at my options. I finally found a real bed and it happened to be near the bus stop and a little farther down the street I found the electric oven I wanted too. The next day I made my purchases. I bought my bed and asked that it be delivered to the bus stop. I bought my oven next and the delivery guy followed me to the bus stop. Sure enough, there was by bed on the sidewalk by the side of the road. I sat down to wait. The bus station men wanted to charge me the price of a ticket to transport my stuff, but I knew this was outrageous. I said no and scowled at them. They kept trying to convince me that this was customary, but I knew others had traveled the same way and not paid but a few mil guarani’s extra. In the end, I still paid too much, but at least I had my purchases. The fun part came with the taxi. Thankfully, I had the number of my favorite taxi driver and I had asked if he would meet me (especially since I thought I was going to miss the last bus to my site). Well, my bed got strapped to the roof and my oven placed in the back seat. I asked if we could make a quick stop at the supermarket and I raced through the aisles grabbing things on my list so I could begin cooking just as soon as I made the move.
All the way down the dusty red road the taxi driver and I drank terere while checking to see that the bed wasn’t suddenly going to fly off. This was the Saturday before my house was finished. Just another skill I never thought I’d obtain through the Peace Corps.
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