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)