Pre-vacation post

Im getting ready to head to the beautiful beaches of Uruguay. Me and a group of my fellow ag. sector volunteers are heading down to Montevideo and Punto del Diablo for Christmas and New Years. We are all so excited. It will be good to be out of site for a bit, but I am feeling a bit guilty about not being with my neighbors for the holidays. That is alright, I have many more days to spend with them.
In other news, Ive started an art class with some kids in the neighborhood. It started off with us going mango hunting one hot afternoon. After we came back with our bounty and had stuffed our selves silly with mangoes we sat around trying to figure out what to do. I had a box of crayons and paper so I asked them if they wanted to draw. Their eyes lit up and we got right down to it and started drawing. Every day for about a week now we have been drawing in the afternoons. The goal has become to get the kids to be as creative as possible. I tell them they can use whatever color they want and that there are no rules. We have started doing theme days. For example, one day's theme was christmas and new years. We had draw things related to the holidays. Yesterdays theme was things that makes us happy. A lot of the pictures involved trees, chipa, cows, music, etc. Im having the kids label all their pictures to incorporate some spelling as well. It has become one of my favorite activities so far..and it works! Yesterday as we were drawing our pictures I asked Nidia, my 6 year old counterpart (amazing artist, by the way) what color I should use. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to use silver or a golden color. Without looking up from her drawing she said "David, if you want to color it green you can color it green, if you want red, use red, it doesn't matter. Any color you want is fine." I was shocked. I sat there wordless. Most kids would quickly have said either a brass color or silver but Nidia is a creative spirit...and those are hard to come by. She blew me away.


Dahlia bloom in the flower garden.


Cosmos.

This is a Luffa vine, I will take pictures when the fruits mature.

My garden. Giant Brasilian Okra, Okra from NC, Amaranthe, Tomatillos, Soy beans, Wormwood, Basial, Thai basil, lime basil, rosemary, Hungarian Wax peppers, cayenne chiles, jalapenos, Purira Chiles, Sweet Peppers, Parsley, Cilantro, Lima beans, lemon grass, two types of mint, cherry tomatoes. And Paraguayans said you cant garden in the summer...

The flower garden.

Kai Andres teaching his grandson how to drive the oxcart.

Thai coleslaw: Cabbage, cilantro, thai basil, papaya, mango, black sesame seeds, mint, pickled ginger carrots, garlic, fish sauce. Yum.

Hunting for mangoes with Hedeon and Nidia.

When two years become one

Two pretty big things today. First, today marks the end of my first year as a volunteer...one left to go! The time has really gone by relatively quickly and I have a feeling that it is only going to go faster. Though, the summer months are going to be tough but I will survive. After one year do I feel different? Mas or menos. The challenges I had one year ago are gone, but of course there are new ones. There will ALWAYS be new challenges, but if there weren´t I dont think this whole experience would be as fruitful.
The second big thing is that today is my birthday! Yay! I turn 25, a quarter century. I don´t really have any plans, I will probably kill a chicken and pop it into the tatakua(brick oven) and call it a night. So exciting, right? I don´t really want anything big, and there isn´t a whole lot to do in the campo. I will have a nice dinner with my neighbors, and that will be that.

Thanksgiving was a blast. We went down to this amazing hotel in an ecoreserve...lots of birds and beautiful forest as well as three pools! And AC! The food was unbelievable, it was all there except for the cranberry sauce. But we had Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos, sweetpotato casserole, apple pie, pumpkin pie etc. Needless to say I ate WAY too much, but isn´t that what Thanksgiving is all about?

As far as work is going, Im working on a microfinancing project with one of the women´s committees and a credit agency called Fundación Paraguaya. Each woman is taking out 300,000 Guaranies in credit with 20% interest. They have to pay it back within 6 months. 300,000 Guaranies amounts to about 60 dollars. That is a lot of money in the campo. The women decided first to use the money for individual purposes, but afterwards, if all is paid back they want to take more out and use it towards a group project. This will be a pilot program, if all goes well they will be able to take out more. It will be interesting to see how it all goes, they all know that they cannot default on their debt. Im glad that I dont have to be the bad guy if they do default. But I am working with each of them to find the best way to use the money in a way that they can quickly start making money in order to pay off the loan and continue to make money after the loan is payed off. Some women want to buy chickens, some want to buy help in the field, etc.

Alright, Im going to buy some ingredients for a cake. Turns out in Paraguay if it´s your birthday, you have to make everything for everyone else to celebrate. It´s like in elementary school when you had your birthday you were the one who brought everyone else cupcakes...sigh

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, it's Thanksgiving in Paraguay...which means...well, nothing. However, we Peace Corps Volunteers are still going to celebrate! Tomorrow (the day AFTER Thanksgiving) we are all going down to Encarnacions, about 6 hours by bus from Asuncion, and staying in a nice hotel and having a feast of our own..including turkey and the works. I'm keeping this short, since I have pictures to post and I know that's what you all REALLY want. So, on with the pictures.


Maria's garden. Amazing, isn't it? This time a year ago it was all weeds. The woman has got enthusiasm!

Showing the women my flower garden in between classes.

Summer gardening class on mulch.

Erosion demonstration.

More mulch and erosion talk.

Kids helping with the raffle after the seminar.

This is my experiment of Crotalaria inbetween pineapple. Eventually it will grow taller and shade the pineapple so that the fruits dont scorch. Also, it fixes a lot of nitrogen and it's roots release a chemical which kills nematodes, pretty cool, eh!?

I gave Maria some sunflower seeds from the states, look how pretty!

Random wildflower.

My herb section of the garden. Lemongrass, two types of mint, a little thai basil baby, some chamomile.

Summer garden. Watermelon taking over, creating a great green mulch. Two types of okra, experimenting with amaranthe , tomatillos.

Hot chilies, okra, watermelon, basil, nasturtiums, marigolds. I dont like a neat garden, as you all can tell. I feel like the "mess" disorients bugs, there isn't just one section of peppers and just one section of watermelon. It is all dispersed so that if bugs were to attack it would be localized and not destroy an entire section. The perfection lies in the imperfection.

My red sunflowers...almost black!

Maria with her sunflowers...she absolutely loves them. They are the talk of the town, literally.

This is my other neighbor, Nidia, with one of Maria's sunflowers.

The woman across the street, Juana, is using old bean pods as a mulch. Not only is it thick and will decompose slowly adding lots of nutrients, but I also think it looks wonderful.

Bees love sunflowers.

This is my neighboors newest puppy, Lupino (they let me name him), playing in a pile of Mandi'o peels.

Freshly baked Sourdough. A volunteer gave me some of her sourdough starter culture, so I made my own Sourdough with some ground lentil and flax flour along with traditional white flour. Tossed in some Sesame seeds and Caraway seeds and this is the end result.

Long Field Practice

This past week I had four trainees visit me as well as their language teacher for Long Field Practice (LFP). LFP happens towards the end of the training period, and the trainees visit a volunteer for a week. They live with families and do things that volunteers usually do to get a feel for the work and the lifestyle. I had a great group come down, they were very enthusiastic and open to everything. The families were all happy to have them and none of the volunteers ate anything TOO strange. Though, back in MY day, when I was a trainee going to long field I had to eat liver...a couple times. They had it easy.
I had a lot planned for them, we worked bees, we did a lot of work in the fields. Planted Mucuna with Corn in one of the farmers field. We worked in my demonstration plot. They also helped me with my class on summer gardening. It was one of the best classes I have given. Around 50 people from the community came and they all left very excited and enthusiastic about getting their gardens ready for summer. Most Paraguayans assume that it is too hot and the sun too strong for gardens in the summer. This class was to show that it is possible, with a little bit of planning. We had a rotation of charlas. So one group went with two trainees and talked about composting, one group went and talked about shade structures, and one came with me and we talked about mulching and erosion. I dont think it could have gone any better. The trainees were doing pretty well with limited Guarani and all the community members were conscious of their effort and they all learned something from their charlas regardless.
Having the trainees in site was also a boost for me. I got to show off my community, and how much the people there are willing to do and change. It was also pretty interesting to compare my Guarani with theirs. I remember being in their position and thinking `how am I ever going to talk like that in a year` and sure enough they were saying the same thing about my Guarani.
All in all it was a great week, my community was so happy to host more Americans and Im excited to have the new trainees as volunteers. I took a lot of pictures. Here are some, but not all from this past week.


Getting suited up for bee work.


Me giving an intro to the summer gardening charla.

Jordan and Kevin talking about Media Sombra - shade structure.

A simple, yet extremely effective demonstration on the use of mulch and it´s effects on erosion. Everyone was amazed at how much water and earth came out of the box with no mulch...and then equally amazed and how much water and earth stayed in the box with mulch.


A tour of my new flower garden.

Dan and Rachel talking about composting.

More on compost.

Camera works

It turns out that all the computers in Santani are not wired correctly because my camera works fine in Asuncion. I am in the city since I am STILL getting eaten by bugs. Unbelievable. It has been a very long couple of weeks, but I will say that the last two nights have been bug bite free. Anyways, I will keep this short and post the pictures that I was planning on posting a while ago. Enjoy



Flowers in the flower garden that Maria and I built. Lovely.


Maria in our flower garden. The arbor will eventually be covered with passion fruit (yum)/

The flower garden. Jardin de la paz as Maria calls it.

Mmmm, vegetable juice. I came into school and did a healthy eating charla out of the blue. I came in with a handful of carrots and beets and asked the teacher if I coudl talk. He was happy to have me, so we made beet and carrot juice with a bit of sugar and the kids LOVED it. When asked which was better, soda or juice, some said juice and still some said soda. However, when asked which was better for you they all knew that juice was better. And why? I asked Because it has lots of vitamins and minerals! they answered. That was good enough for me.

Seconds.

Harvesting more carrots from the garden. They all wanted more juice!

Maria's next experiment. These are lima beans growing in between marigolds. Prior to these beans there were tomatos. A good crop rotation, and a very good use of natural pest control.

Beautiful.

A double wall of protection, and it looks great too. There is some left over basil. This picture is relatively old. Right now the beans are well above the marigolds.

My new favorite toy... a handmill. Im grinding up a storm.

This is a result. Chapatis from brown rice and barley flour which I ground. Lentil and squash curry and carrot chutney. Not bad, eh?

Sweet potatos are purple in this country! And very, very sweet.

This is an older picture ( about two weeks old) of an experiment that has gone well. The melon in between the pineapple is almost completely covering the ground in between and it is in fruit, I cant wait to eat these sweet sweet melons.