Back in Asuncion....

Well, here I am...again. I didn't clean my beans so well the other night and left a rock in there, which I bit down on and broke a filling. I went to the dentist here in Asuncion to get it done and there was no power, so she fixed it using her assistants cel phone light to see what she was doing....only in Paraguay.
But, good news. I got the tree seeds! How did I do it? Well, first I called them every day and nagged them, every day, about where the seeds were. Usually I do not like to bother people over and over, but under the circumstances I felt that I was doing the right thing and felt no shame. Finally they must have given up and said I could come get the seeds. It was a very, very long journey to get these seeds. As usual I left my house around 3am and made my way to the routa to catch a bus. This morning, however, was rainy and the dogs were extra mean. Every time I travel at night I have to carry a long stick because the dogs are extremely viscious at night and will bite. I had to swat at a couple of them on my long walk to the routa, but luckily no bites!
I caught a bus at 4am and made it into Asuncion at 7:30. From where I get off I had to take two city buses and then walk about 3 miles to get to the tree nursery. I arrived drenched and muddy, but I was there. I talked to one of the ingenieros about seeds and he turned out to be an extremely nice guy. We were talking in Guarani, and I was trying to be formal when all of a sudden he asked me a couple rather crude questions about girls and drinking in my community. I was taken aback, but at the same time I felt right at home. I thought to myself "so, if this is the game you want to play, lets play" and proceeded to tell jokes in Guarani, we talked about drinking, girls and what not. The guys in the office were in tears from laughing so hard. They had never met a Paraguayan who speaks like a good 'ole boy farmer in Guarani. It was actually a lot of fun and we ended up talking for a while and the ingeniero wanted my contact information so we could keep in touch. And the best part was that he gave me all the seeds I wanted. Finally.

I am happy to have the seeds, but still find the whole process to be illogical. There is no way anyone in my community would go through with what I had to do just to get seeds. The main purpose of this organization is to get seed to these people, and for projects like the one I am doing with my committee. It just isn't run well and overly beauracratic.

Since the past few posts have been relatively negative I feel like I should give something on the more possitive side.
First, work with one of the women's committees is going exceptionally well. There has been a push to continue with more cooking classes after a brief hiattus, which I always get excited about. Also, the garden season is starting to get going and I have been giving lots of classes on gardening and trying to get the women to do even more with their gardens this year. We had a long session on committee funds, lots of brainstorming on what exactly the funds are for etc. The women decided that the funds would be used as a form of medical insurance for members. If a member were to fall ill, or a members family member were to get sick, the funds would be there as an emergency backup for doctors visits and medicines. Now that there is a clear idea as to what the funds will be used for we started going over ways of raising money. Usually the women sell baked goods and have events, but we were looking for different avenues or ways in which we could make more from these events. Last Friday we had a volleyball tournament, a piki volleyball tournament (its volleyball played with soccer rules, no hands or arms), and a Trucko tournament (a traditional card game usually played by men). All participants had to pay an entry fee and there were prizes such as a pig, cooked chicken, baked goods etc. The women also sold cooked food. The event was a huge success and the intial funds were doubled. They plan on continuing on with events like this and maybe more bingo nights.

My neighbor, Kai Zakaria, had such a great honey season that he decided he is ready for the next step and wants to market his honey. Usually we just fill recycled coke bottles, but he wants a more professional look and we are looking into bottles and creating his own label.

We were also able to find funds to build his family a Fogone (brick oven). There are only around 9 families in my entire community who still cook over a fire on the floor and I am going to start a Fogone initiative and try to find a way of raising funds so that every family in my community has one of these ovens. The traditional fires on the floor produce a large amount of smoke, which is extremely detrimental to the health of the women cooking and also there are many instances of young children falling into the fire. The fogon offers a way of containing a fire above the reach of a child and vents the smoke outside through a chimney.

A farmer down towards the farther end of my community came over and we were talking about gardening and he wants to start a new garden to supply his family with food and also potentially for sale. So we went down and checked the plot, and he seems very open to my ideas.

Lots of good stuff.