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