Half Way There

It´s crazy, but we are already halfway done with training!

Casey Crazy

 My family has started calling me “Casey Crazy.”  I’m not entirely sure why.  It all started one Sunday afternoon while we were asado-ing (BBQing).  They know “loca” significa crazy in English, and they thought it was hilarious to say Casey Crazy, and they haven’t stopped since.  I asked my 7 year old niece why I was crazy and she replied because I like to sleep and drink water…I’m quite the hooligan.

Work

Peace Corps training takes me back to my kindergarten days.  I consistently feel like a 5 year old because of my language skills and the absurd amount of games and icebreakers we play, but at the same time I’m really enjoying the technical stuff we are learning about.  We have learned a lot about breastfeeding, nutrition, the three most common parasites in Paraguay (Giardia, Hookworm, and Round Worm…there is almost 100% certainty I will contract at least one of these parasites at least one time during my two years here….So excited), latrines, modern bathrooms, trash pits, compost piles, gardening etc.

My favorite thing we’ve learned about so far is the composting latrine.  It’s a nifty little latrine that has two sides.  Once you fill up one side with your chivivi (Let’s face it, waste is always diarrhea here) you close up the hole and begin defecating in the other side.  After 6 months the first side is fully decomposed and sterile and ready to be scooped out and used as fertilizer in your garden.  What’s better than being able to put your own pooh to good use?  It’s kind of hard to wrap your mind around at first, but I think it’s a very cool idea if you are able to get past the idea of playing with your own excrement; however, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have a modern bathroom in my house in site…if not I’m planning on building one.

Anywho, we have started putting what we’ve learned to practice.  A couple weeks ago, or maybe it was last week..I’m not really aware of time here; we split into groups and invited our families to come watch us give charlas about parasites.  It was very humbling presenting on a topic we really don’t know that much about in a language we aren’t able to communicate in very well.  The little kids were correcting just about every other word that came out of our mouths, but our parents were very proud of us and told us we were guapos (which means hardworking here…although it’s another word for pretty in Spanish in most other Spanish speaking countries)

We also made a losa, the sanitary floor of a latrine, sometime in the recent past.  We had to make cement in the street and then pour it over our matrix of rebar.  It’s currently drying in the other health group’s community.

One day, we made homemade soap from cow fat and dish washing soap from a kit.  My mom was super excited when I brought home the dish washing soap.  She didn’t even mind the dead bugs stuck in it.  “No hay problema.” Sweeeeeet.  I’m not really sure what happened to the bar of soap I brought home, but she was pretty excited about that bad boy too.

Future Site

We find out our future sites in about 3 weeks.  I’m so excited!  So far, we’ve had two interviews with Don Pedro, the director of the Rural Health and Sanitation Project, and his team.  We had the second interview on Friday, and I told them my preferences about my future site along with projects I’m currently interested in working on.  I told them I wanted electricity and running water, I liked communities that weren’t too spread out, I want a Puesto de Salud in my community, I want a community that speaks more Spanish than Guarani, and I’d like a site with a high school in the community.

The two project ideas I’ve come up with/am most interested in working on are: A modern bathroom project using recycled plastic and glass soda bottles as materials for construction.  And, I’d also like to try to put a program together to help interested high school students get to college.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do either of these projects because I’ll have to see what my community wants and needs, but I’m glad my mind is already coming up with some project ideas.

Machismo Culture

“A Woman is to a man as meat is to a cat.”

-real quote from a Paraguayan Woman in the campo, and the perfect explanation as to why I currently have no interest in dating a Paraguayan man; However, 2 years is a long time, and I hear they can be trained…

Hammocks

There are hammocks everywhere here, and they make me so happy.  I’m planning on furnishing my house with hammocks only (and a real bed).  We have a hammock in our backyard.  I decided to lay in it for the first time the other day.  I was pretty much in heaven taking a little siesta in the hammock until I opened my eyes and looked around to realize all the trees above me decorated with ALL my underwear.  My family had done my laundry for me, and I had over a month’s worth of underwear air drying in the trees.  I was slightly embarrassed for 0.2 seconds, but then I just thought it was awesome.

Birthday Party

I walked into my yard after class one day to find my brother in law and all of his friends tying up a pig in the back yard.  My sisters explained they were slaughtering it for my niece’s birthday party the following night and asked if I’d like to watch.  I said yes, but then I got squeamish and decided I couldn’t watch the actual killing and walked away.  I came back a couple minutes later, and the pig was dead and they were draining its blood.  Then they shaved him, cut off his head and hooves, and skinned him.  That’s all I saw.  I didn’t eat any pig at the party the following night.

Victoria, my niece, turned 7!  There was a pretty big crowd that came out for her birthday party.  I wore my skinny jeans with the rips in them and my entire family told me my jeans were broken, and my 11 year old cousin told me I was hot…Thanks?  All the men were in the back drinking beers and roasting the pig.  My sister told me to go get my flabongos.  You don’t have to ask me twice.  I brought them out and was immediately given a chair in the men’s circle.  I raced a Paraguayan man and I won because “Soy la reina” (I’m the queen).  I’m not shy about announcing my claim to fame.  Leina, another trainee that lives next door to me, and I were sitting in the men’s circle and they kept trying to speak to us in Guarani but we weren’t able to understand anything.  We both felt super uncomfortable especially because we were the only women around so I finally exclaimed we weren’t able to understand them and we were going to talk to the ladies.  Not too long afterwards we ate and everyone started going home.  I told my family I was tired and I was going to bed.  On my way in to my house I had to pass the giant circle of men again.  They all did their cat calls to me so I turned and said I’m tired, and I’m going to bed.  The guy I raced against asked “with me?”  To which I replied “no, alone.”  Bet that sucks getting your butt whooped by a girl in a drinking contest then shot down by the same girl in front of all your friends.  I’m awesome.

50^th Anniversary

Last week was the 50^th anniversary of the Peace Corps!  We had a small fiesta for our families in our satellite training center on Friday.  We invited all of our families, had a couple of speakers, showed a slide show of photos, did some arts and crafts with the kids and had “a small penis for everyone to enjoy outside.”  Ooops the Guarani words for food and penis are a little too similar and Matt, our MC, chose the wrong one when he tried to tell everyone we had a little bit of food outside.  Luckily, our families just laughed and replied that they wanted a big penis.  Awkward.

Niko

I officially have my own Paraguayan puppy, and he is absolutely adorable.  I named him Niko…it’s a brand of Paraguayan soda and kind of a weird/long/hard to explain story behind it so I’m just going to leave that part out.  He lives in the neighborhood and lately he’s been coming to our satellite training center every morning.  It was love at first site.  I have permission from the neighborhood to take him…I just have to find him again….