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.