Hace tres semanas que yo llegué en Paraguay

It has been three weeks since I arrived in Paraguay. Amazing. It feels like three months. Seriously. I do not remember the last time I was so ensconced in learning, whelmed (not over, but just whelmed, and I have lost enough English at this point to not know a good word to use here) with imformation, and happily acculturating. College was the last time, I guess. This is really intense and really great all at once.

The Paraguayans have a word for the life I´m supposed to live. ¨Tranquillo.¨ Translated to English, this would be "chill" and in Thai, would be "mai pen rai." But here, it is a true way of life. The way of being in the US, hurrying here and there, is totally foreign to this culture. I am already effected. I walk slower, I think slower, I am more willing to just figure it out later than I have been in a long while. This way of life is not natural for me at all, but I really like it and I think I will come to appreciate it.

We had a huge session on site matching and site placement the other day. I will visit my future site in week 9 or 10. Right now is only week 3. But, the process of matching seems meaningful and thoughtful. The Assitant Director here (my jefe) looks at the available sites (of which there are more than there are of us) and then at our skills, our language, our abilities and our attitudes and then matches us to a site. They also take our requests, but only to a point. Right now, I have no requests. I think I can potentially succeed anywhere.

We are not supposed to be thinking of projects now, really. We obviously know our interests, but we won´t really know what a site needs till we get there. Por ejemplo, if I decide that my interest is in garbage clean up and nutrition for kids and then I get to Chelmsford (my hometown in the US for arguements sake) and I pitch this there, who knows...right? Maybe some school kids are already doing garbage projects or this subject is a sore spot for the Town Manager/Mayor for some reason, and I upset them. Or, perhaps the kids have great nutrition, or the parents or health center are insulted by my insinuation that they don´t. BUT, instead, if I get to site, introduce myself, say I work at the Municipality (our equivelent of Town Hall) and say that I´m there to support projects, perhaps a mother´s group will approach me about the fact that there´s too much garbage in the streets and they want to organize THEMSELVES to do something about it. Now I can appropriately react. Make sense?

What I´ve learned, basically, is that development work is not to help folks HAVE MORE, but to help them learn how to BE MORE. The HAVING MORE sometimes can undermine the BEING MORE, if that makes sense. It´s slow, ardous, relationship-building-based work. And, I´m really excited about it.

Que mas? I visited a volunteer in her site last week for 4 days. It was great to see her work in real time, and see what a Muni voluteer does. I really liked her, too. It was great! We have also begun our Dia de la Practica, of which we have 5, to practice by talking to people in Ita and developing a "mini project" while we are here. Very cool.

Final observation: today, June 24 is Dia de San Juan, a celebration of a saint. It really lasts the entire month and involves these games and traditional things. Sort of like hotdogs on the 4th of July. There´s one game called pelota del fuego (ball of fire) in which a ball made of cloth and dipped in gasoline is lit on fire and kicked around. Crazy. Tengo mucho miedo, y, no me gusta. Me creo que este es muy peligroso. (I was very afraid and I didn´t like it and I think that this is very dangerous.)

Oh, and the US Embassy in Asuncion is hosting a 4th of July gig on Saturday the 1st. We´re off to play with the marines and other PCV´s and I am staying overnight in a hotel in Asuncion. Yay! Fun.

Love and missing. K