Yo sé! Yo sé donde voy a vivir en Paraguay!

or in Guarani: Che aikuaa! Che aikuaa moó che aikota Paraguaipe.

I know! I know where I´m going to live in Paraguay! Santa Maria de Fé! (Saint Mary of Faith!)

As you can see from the above photos, it is a town in the south of Paraguay. If you look to the left to the little sticky in the first photo, you´ll see San Ignacio is nearby. You should be able to find this place on a good map of Paraguay and then just go up and over a little and you can mark a little spot so you´ll know where I am. :) Hee hee.

Santa Maria (without the Fé as it´s more commonly known) is in the Departmento of Missiones. It was originally a Jesuit reduction. There is a museum there from the old Jesuit Church and I live closest of everyone in my group to the Jesuit ruins, one of Paraguay´s claims to tourist fame. It is located 13 kms (7.8 miles) off the main ruta and the roads are open when it rains, which is more than many places in Paraguay can say!

There are a total of about 8000 people who live there. There´s the "centro" with about 1200 or 1400 and then 12 "campañias" with the other 6800 or so. It will cost me about 27,000Gs (about $5) to get to Asunción and only 6000Gs (about $1) to get to San Ignacio, where´s there´s everything I would ever need, pretty much. There is apparently internet in town, but that was told to me in my folder in a writing from 2005, so you never know what´s happening currently. We´ll see.

There is some English journalist lady named Margaret Hebbethlewaite who lives in town and teaches English and works there. No clue why. I said to someone "No! I don´t want to speak English!" and they said "No worries, she hates American English." Hee Hee.

Que mas? There´s loads of housing available in a reasonable price range when I´m ready to live on my own which is great. Santa Maria is a very safe town with very little crime (this was reported by the last volunteer who lived there in 2005 (he was a part of a different project, I´m the first Muni volunteer to live there)). There are no restuarants or hotels, but there is a project in town to try to change this to attract more tourists because of the cool Jesuit history there.

Initially, my contact person in town will be the Intendente or Mayor, Damian Garcia. He is interesting and active and is running for reelection. Someone in the Muni will be another one of my contacts once I get there and we all figure out together who´ll I´ll work best with.

They need help with: improvement of the muni social work programs, expansion of the cultural center and the library, increasing revenue, advancement of the tax collection system and working with neighborhood commissions. All of that is interesting to me, even the tax collection, más o menos, since it´d be a good skill to bring back to the States.

This is the CRAZY part. The woman I went to visit back in week 2 in Nueva Italia, Jenny, was there yesterday when we got our assignments. She has a friend from High School in the States who lived in Scotland for a while. While in Scotland, this friend met a Paraguayan named Rufino Olmedo. So when Jenny got here, she looked him up. He lives in Santa Maria, and Jenny has been to visit him! He is really active in the town and is listed in my packet as someone else to work with! How cool and weird is that? And, Jenny says my town is so beautiful and cute and awesome. I´m so blessed, I swear!

Que más? All the major cell phone companies get good reception in town. Yay. There is apparently a sugar cane factory only 3km away, and these tend to send a really awful baby puke smell into the air. Vamos a ver (We´ll see) how that goes. If it´s strong, I guess I´ll get used to that really quickly. :)

Money: I will earn 1,250,000Gs per month. This is roughly $208 per month. It should be enough. Housing there is about 150,000 to 200,000 a month, so that´s really good. I just found out that I get taxed on my living allowance as well as my montly readjustment that I earn for when I finish. Stupid US Government won´t even cut us a tax break when we go live somewhere to volunteer for 2 years. Crazy.

Well, people. That´s that. I hope you can find me on a map. Once I get to site, I´ll know more about communication and mail and stuff. It´s possible that you can send mail directly to my site...many PCVs do this. Kara, in Yuty, gets her mail in only 14 days from the States addressed like this: PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER, YUTY, PARAGUAY. Seriously, that´s what they write. So great.

I´m off on Tuesday to visit my contact first in a retreat center and then to visit my site for 5 days. I´ll be gone Tuesday to Tuesday and will be back in good ole Itá on August 9 for only 10 more days then I officially swear in. So exciting. I´ll post a few more times before then, I am sure.

Much love and missing with LOADS OF EXCITEMENT!

No pude creer que hoy estaba presentando a 26 alumnos en un colegio

The title says: I can´t believe that today, I was presenting to 26 students in a high school! En serio! (Seriously!) In Spanish! But I did. And I did it well. I thought so and the profesora who sat in the back and evaluted me thought so too. :)

I was so worried. I had written out everything I was going to say and how I was going to do it, and the whole time, I have been pissed that I have to do this, since I haven´t written out what I was going to say for a presentation since I was in high school (or maybe early on in college). It´s one of my skills, to be able to get up in front of just about anyone, any number of people and talk about whatever. And here I was, going to talk about self esteem and the importance of working hard and I was so scared.

But, It was great! I was able to use humor and kid with them and explain things well. They participated and other than the fact that a few times I couldn´t understand what they were saying to me and had to ask another student to scribe on the whiteboard for me so I could stop looking like an idiot, it was so good! Yay. I now officially believe I can teach stuff in site.

I know my Spanish is advancing, because the other night, for over an hour, I talked with my host mom about my sister´s interracial marriage and was able to explain the nuances of why it is not that weird in the US for this to happen. She was particularly interested in how my sister would raise her kids in a different religion than her own. She also loved the stories about the amazing 4 day wedding and really loved the part about the Catholic preist throwing a fit. :) And, I was able to understand every word of her story about the time she was in college and she and a friend took out the friend´s father´s car without permission and scratched the roof all to hell and painted it with 10 bottles of white nail polish...he didn´t notice for a week and they totally got away with it. Great night. I´m so pleased with myself that I can talk for an hour about complicated stuff in another language. I´ve wanted this for so long.

Tomorrow at 3 p.m., they are going to hand me a folder with information about where my new home is going to be. I will get onto email on Saturday sometime to post info about it, so stay tuned. I´m so excited. I can´t wait to find out. Only one of the seven of us in my group will be a "follow up volunteer", going to a site where there has been a volunteer before. That site is Yuty, the place I visited last week. The rest of us will get a new site where we get to create whatever we find out they want or need with no preconcieved notions of Peace Corps. I´m pretty sure I´m NOT going to Yuty, because it´s just not the right place for me, so vamos a ver! (We will see!)

¿Que mas? I promised more about people. My sister who is 10 is such an amazing kid. She is a natural actress, often putting on little funny skits in the kitchen with false teeth or crazy sunglasses or more. She just breaks out in song, randomly, and often imitates Michael Jackson or the Matrix apropos of nothing. It´s hilarious. We play Uno a lot and watch the Simpsons all the time. I´m just starting now to be able to understand what the Spanish-speaking Bart, Lisa, Marge and Homero (as he´s known here) are saying. It´s a little victory when I can get a whole scene. She and I laugh together a lot. I keep thinking how great it would be if I suddenly was able to make a lot of money and when she´s 18 and I´m 41, I could invite her to come for a month to the US and could pay for it all. I´d love to give that to her. I of course would never mention this to them, though.

I have taken to doing my own laundry. I put it all in a bucket in the bathroom and use the cool laundry soap I bought in Yuty for a mil ($.17). I liked doing my own laundry this way in Thailand, too. I´m a weirdo. I had to stop in Thailand because I didn´t have enough time. I was working so many hours there. But, here, I´ll be able to. We´ll see. If I can make friends with someone like the woman in Yuty who has a machine, I´m prolly gonna end up paying. Vamos a ver sobre este, tambien.

I have totally begun to study Guarani. Here´s a little taste.

Che areko mokoi ermanos Estados Unidospe. Che aiko Itápe Paraguaype. Che sy ko´ape oreko mokoi memby. Che aikota Paraguaipe por mokoi ano.

Okay, that says: I have 2 siblings in the United States. I live in Ita in Paraguay. My mother here has two kids. I am going to live in Paraguay for 2 years.

Construction is that the "a" in front of "reko" makes it the first person. The "o" in front of "reko" makes it the third person. The "ta" after the "ko" means future. The "pe" after a place means "in". It´s really interesting. I love the structure. I totally understand it. But, the pronunciation is so hard. I´m getting it though. If I can speak a little, it´ll help.

¿Que mas? I know nothing about the news. I have been only paying the slightest attention to the middle east and the senate vote about abortions and other things. I really know nothing. Anyone who wants to send along a little news sound bite now and then, I´d much appreciate it. I do know that the damn Big Dig is falling to crap, though. Amazing. And we think the infrastructure here is a mess. Jeez.

I am still patiently awaiting the cold winter weather, although I will admit the 90 degree heat does dry my laundry in only 3 hours or so. Quite convienent. Giant apples only cost a mil ($.17) and a big ol´pear only 1500G ($.25). But remember, I only earn $2.44 a day right now. Hee hee.

Tomorrow we are going on little cultural trips to different towns that are arty where we can buy hammocks or ao´poi, which are traditional Paraguayan shirts. That should be fun. I think they are only doing it to distract us from worrying about finding out our sites at 3.

Much love and missing. My first bout of homesickness has passed and I´m well now. Done with training, but well. Tell all your orientation staffs that they should be glad their damn training isn´t for 11 weeks! Jeez.

Pues, me encanté Yuty...

Well, I loved Yuty. What a wonderful little place...actually not that little. With about 4300 people in teh center and another 23,000 in over 80 different campañias (rural communities), it´s hardly small. There´s the Municipalidad and a rockin´library and a huge plaza with a grand church. There´s a pretty little traffic circle and resturants and even a couple of small hotels! (there´s not even a hotel in Itá!)

Kara is the volunteer who has lived and worked here for 2 years, she leaves in August. She worked on the cultural center, the library, with some neighborhood groups (notably one of women who make detergent, soap, and other things to sell locally).

She is "llevar-ing" her boyfriend (spanglish for taking him back to the States) and they will be married in Februray. Paraguay has a rather high percentage of volunteer marriages to host country nationals. Many stay here. (I can´t imagine this now, but vamos a ver and nunca dice nunca - we will see and never say never.) He´s fantastic, works at the Muni and is studying English now.

This town is 90k off the paved road, so if it rains, there´s no coming or going. The island of Yuty, más o menos. There´s no internet here, yet, although, there may be soon. To get from here to Asuncion is 90,000 G round trip, a small fortune on Pace Corps salary. But, I felt at home there. At peace more than in Itá. No sé porque. (I don´t know why.)

Someone from my group of 7 is going to be placed here. We don´t know who yet. There´s another site close by called Buena Vista. It´s much smaller, but supposed to be cute. We´ll see! I find out Friday, July 28 where I´m going to be living for the nxt two years. And the following Tuesday, we go on a 2 day retreat with our sit-contacts (each of us is matched with someone in the community). Then we travel with them to our future sites on August 3 for a week. We return to Itá on August 8 for only 10 more days before we swear in! I´m getting really excited and less nervous as time goes on.

My host mother in Yuty not only fed me gloriously, but she did all my laundry in her Machine! Amazing. And, she´s a teacher and we had a great conversation about studnets and learning and politics and stuff. Her husband is Argentinian and he is there working with her son who´s 19 who is studying. She and her 14 year old daughter are in Yuty. There´s lots of family splitting her because of lack of stady work in Paraguay regardless of education level.

Otras cosas:

- I haven´t mentioned the Paraguayan sky. It´s AMAZING. It looks fake sometimes, sort of like the Grand Canyon or the Annapurnas. Some days I can´t believe it isn´t a backdrop.

- Music. I cannot believe the noise pollution here. NO matter time of day or night, music blares - out of cars, trucks, houses, bars, restaurants. You name it. There´s this Paraguayan called cachackra. It´s everywhere. The most popular song is called ¨Dame duro¨ translated as ¨give it to me hard¨more or less. There´s no chance of it´s popularity fading, and in fact is playing right now in the internet cafe.

-Español, also known as Castellano. I´m coming along. I learned a lot in site this week. Everyone I meet seems to understand me. Now if only I understood them back! Hee hee.

NOTE: I tried to upload other photos and can´t! Sorry!

Algunos fotos, por fin!

Mi madre y hermana en Itá.








Haciendo detergente en Yuty.

Mi madre dijo que...

So my mom called me out. She says that she's still waiting to "smell" and "taste" and "know" Paraguay through my writing. She's right. I've been lazy. When I go to "Orange" (which is our nickname for the Internet place in Ita because the building is painted bright orange unlike no other) I am always stressed for time and money and usually just post something up and be done.

So, I figure I owe it to you all and to myself to really hunker down and try to invite you all into this crazy little country that I've begun to call home.

--There is a sugar cane factory along the Ruta on the way to Guarambare (where we train together once a week with the other group). Picture yourself on a micro (public bus) with a million other people. You got on and had a seat, but you got up to let an older woman sit down. Now you are holding on for dear life to the overhead bar while bracing your hip against the side of the bus, because the driver goes 50 mph and then slams on the breaks every 500 yards or so to pick someone up. There are no bus stops in Paraguay. You just stand on the street and stick out your hand and a bus will stop for you. Even if it just stopped less than 100 feet away to pick someone else up. Back on the bus: You are being stared at a lot, because your backpack or your jeans or your hair or something is giving you away as a "norte". The floor of the bus is thin metal and on some buses, some days, there are small holes and you can actually see the road pass by below your feet. There might be a chicken that joins you on the bus, or a small child toting a basket full of freshly baked chipas (bread with cheese and egg). When you begin to get close to the sugar cane factory, the smell permeates the air. Baby puke. That's all you can think of, and you hope that the wind is going AWAY from Guarambare, or else you'll have to smell this funky air all day while training.

--Awaking in the morning and opening the door to figure out the weather is always a challenge. Those who live in New England probably have some idea of what it is like to never know what the weather will be like, one day to the next, but even I have not experienced anything like this. 92 one day and 60 the next. In the morning, it might be "hace frio" (cold) so you put on jeans and socks and two layers. By 11:30 when you walk home from lunch, you have stripped off a layer and your socks and are still hot by the time you get home. And then when the sun goes down, it's chilly again. Sun and heat are often followed by rain and clouds and mist. Paraguayans take any sign of rain as a sign that they should definitely begin burning garbage. So, sometimes when the clouds begin to roll in, the smoke does too. Sometimes it's pleasant -- just leaves and orange rinds and the like. Other times it's toxic--plastic and bags and other man-made items. But, either way, no matter what the weatherman says, you probably know if it's going to rain based on the amount of smoke in the air and the smell.

--Mandioca is yucca. For those of you who aren't familiar with either, it's a root vegetable like a potato, only harder. And while it grows underground, it has a tree that grows up to about 4 or 5 feet in height. When they are harvested from the ground, they are covered with a dark brown bark that you have to peel before you boil them, inside is white. People eat them plain, just on a plate after being boiled. It would be like eating a slightly undercooked potato slice. Others mash it up and use them to make a pancake type thingy or use them for the dough for making empanadas. Empanadas are a half-circle shaped pastry that is filled with beef or chicken, along with egg and some veggies (sometimes). The dough is either made from mandioca or corn and then is either fried or baked. You can buy the dough circles at the store in a package and make your own. They are really easy. I've made soy-meat ones. Oh, let's talk about soy!

--Soy. There's tons here. They begin as beans. The ground is so fertile and soy so healthy, there is a national move to encourage people to eat it more. The process is that you have to soak the beans for 12 hours or so. Then you boil them for a long time, then you crush them up in a blender, and then push them through a strainer to separate the milk from the meat. Then you can use the milk to make a cake, use to make juice with fresh apples or oranges or mangos or whatever is growing on the tree in your yard. You can use the meat to make empanadas or cook with veggies and eat plain on with salad. It's really yummy and the protein equivelent is equal to like, a bunch of chicken or whatever. Lots of people in the campo don't know how to use it or prepare it and some consider beans a "poor people's food" and keep trying to eat meat exclusively, but it's getting better.

--Sunday mornings, the church bells ring out and then church music is piped out of the church and into the community. I live about a half-block from the church, so it's my morning greeting. This morning, the 8 a.m. mass was being broadcast out over the speakers as well. Many people here are very Catholic, but don't attend mass. The sounds of Sunday mornings are lovely though, especially since they are my only free day right now.

--Exhaust. Go outside and stand next to the nearest big truck you can find that is idling. Breathe in at the back of the truck two or three times. Ah, the smell of Paraguayan cities. :)

--Open hours. The stores open at the crack of dawn and there are people in the street early (around 6:30ish). But, they also close early. You can't buy anything after 6 or 6:30 at night. Well, okay, you might be able to find a dispensa (small store in someone's house) that is still open. But, you have to plan ahead to get what you need. Maggie (a woman in my group) lives where there is a dispensa, and her host mom gets up all night long on Fridays and Saturdays to sell stuff to mostly drunk people who want more beer and ring the bell.

--The sound of clapping hands. Here, when you come to someone's house and want them to let you in, you stand outside their door and clap. Seriously. If someone knocked on a door, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't know what it was. And I still haven't gotten used to it. Partially because half the time, when someone is in the street clapping, I have no idea if it's for us or another house nearby. It just sounds like clapping. But, my family always knows when it's for them. Our house also is two stories and the main living areas are upstairs. There's french doors that open to a balcony on the street, but if it's the slightest bit cold, those doors are closed and I can't hear anything. So, a few times, my friends have come by and clapped their little hearts out and I've never heard them. But, without fail, my family hears it when it's for them. Hee hee.

--The dog chorus. I've never been a fan of white-noise, especially to sleep with. I have one friend who can't sleep without it. But, I've been converted, and since the only white noise I'm able to produce is running the fan in my room (which, luckily, it turns out, is really loud). Thank god for it, because the damn dog chorus woulda killed me otherwise. There are about 100 dogs on my street. 3 live with Jim across the street. There are a couple on one side of me that live there and the others, I have no idea where they come from. But, the noise they make when they get started is astounding. One begins, woof, woof, woof. Another joins in, woofa, woofa, woofa. A bigger one gets started, arrrrwoof! arrrwoof! arrrwoof! And soon, the entire dog chorus is woofing away as if Arthur Fiedler was out on Calle Lopez in Barrio San Antonio in Ita, conducting the whole affair. One night, it went on for over an hour. One night, it was directly in front of Jim's door to his bedroom for an hour and he said it sounded like they'd invited a goat. Often, it sounds as though someone is being killed. This week, one of the dogs at Jim's is in heat, so it's even better! Viva la dog chorus, and thank f**k for the noisy fan my family gave me.

Next installment: people...but for now, Chau. I'm off for 5 days into the unpaved road yonder. I'll catch you on the flip side when I return. Luvvies.

Voy a visitar otro lugar en Paraguay en departmento Caazapa, se llama Yuty

I am going to visit another place in Paraguay in the department of Caazapa called Yuty. We (three of us in my group, a language teacher and my trainer) leave on Monday a.m. and come back on Friday. This is called Long Field Practice. We give charlas, work with the Muni, etc. Should be a lot of work and a lot of fun. Considering that Yuty is 90 k.m. off the highway and that road is dirt, we are really hoping it doesn´t keep raining or we won´t get there.

This week has been hard. I am homesick for the first time and struggling with small group dynamics. We found out our sites are more rural than usual, and while I am glad about this since smaller Municipalities need us more than larger ones, it is also a little scary. Perhaps I´ll be living in a place like Yuty, off the main ruta and then I will be on the island of Yuty if it rains and the roads shut. But, I´ve lived in very isolated places before (I once spent 4 straight months on Koh Tao without leaving at all and NEVER left Steamboat for over 5 months) so I know that part will be fine. It´s the communication that scares me. Internet and the ability to keep in touch. But, again, I´ve dealt with that before too. I continue to worry about my level of Spanish and being understood and understanding. I know at this point I can be understood without too much trouble (even if I sound like an idiot) but it´s the understanding others part that scares me more.

¿Que más? (This phrase has become a running joke, because our language teachers say it every two seconds to get us to expand and talk more about stuff. We give them a hard time about it.)

I got a french pedicure for 5000G last night (about $1). That was a nice treat. Food continues to be fine. I should do a whole post about that at some point. I will. I bought the Paraguayan equivelent of Soft Scrub and cleaned my bathroom floor the other day because it was so gross (anyone who knows me well knows that it must be really gross for me to actually get down and clean something!). We found a bakery and now the owners expect us each day after class. :)

This weather is insane. Yesterday it was 92 degrees (about 35 C) and today it´s about 65 (20 C). Crazy ass winter.

I´m going to Asunción on Sunday to see Piratas del Caribe II which just opened today. YAY! A real movie in a theatre. In ENGLISH! Woo hoo.

Este semana, mis compañeras de clase y yo empezamos apriendiendo Guarani. Ahora, yo tengo tres idiomas en mi mente. Loca! Necesito traducir Guarani a ingles en mi mente y despues, traducir a español. Dios Mio! Pero, yo sé que es mejor saber algo Guarani porqué lo ayuda con trabajando con la gente. (This week, my classmates and I began learning Guarani. Now, I have three languages in my mind. Crazy! I have to translate Guarani to English in my mind and after, translate to Spanish. My God! But, I know that it is better to know some Guarani because it helps with working with the people.)

All is well in Paraguay. Hope you are well too. Keep in touch. Love and missing.

Visité San Juan Bautista y ví un voluntario en su sitio

I visited San Juan Bautista and I saw a volunteer in his site. (That´s the translation of the title.)

We went on our "technical overnight" to check out another site. We attended a "charla" given by the volunteer, Leo, about civic education and we had dinner with the Intendente (Mayor). After that we drank beers and hung out with both Americans and Paraguayans. The next day, we went to a meeting of a women´s neighborhood comission (they first built a bunch of fagons (which are outdoor ovens) and now they are working on getting some modern bathrooms with septic tanks built). We also visited the Casa de Cultural and the Biblioteca (Culture House and the Library) before we left. It was a cool visit and a good change of pace to get out of Itá.

I got a "Intermediate Mid" on my language test. That´s the level I have to be at before they will let me go to site, so that´s good, since I have 6 more weeks. It´s also the level you have to be at when you start studying Guarani, so now I am. It´s hard and intimidating. There are 12 vowels. a, e, i, o, u pronounced the same as in spanish and y, said like a gutteral sound you would make when you poop. Then there´s a, e, i, o, u and y which are all nasal. Say a short a sound through your nose. That´s it. Every word in Guarani ends in a vowel. Apparently I won´t need it much, depending, but it does a world of good to know some.

¿Que mas? We figured out that we get $3 a day for stuff. We are obviously fed and housed, but for everything else, that´s what we get. It´s enough, but not enough to go around buying stuff. I have to be careful.

As I get better at speaking Spanish, my host mom has kicked it up a notch, so it still feels like I don´t understand anything. I guess if someone learning English was all of a sudden speaking in the past participle, I´d use it more and it´d be hard for them, too. I still love my family, though. We talk forever some nights.

Did I mention there´s a housekeeper/childcare woman in the house? She cooks and cleans and takes care of both girls while Malú is at work. She left this week to go back home to take care of her ailing parents since she´s the only single one of 14 kids. I´m not sorry to see her go. I didn´t like her. She poked me a lot and I couldn´t understand anything she said (Malú said she can´t understand her sometimes, too.) She also tried to exhort some money from me for doing laundry. Long story. Anyway, now there´s a new girl who´s 21 and can´t cook anything. So Malú is teaching her. She cleans like a demon, though, so Malú likes her so far. It´s weird to have a maid in the house, but I´m getting used to it, too.

Nada mas. Ojala que el español que estoy aprendiendo ayudará en el futuro en los estados unidos. Hay muchas palabras specifica a Paraguay. (I hope the spanish I am learning will help me in the future in the U.S. There are many words that are specific to Paraguay.)

Love and missing.

Hoy es Diá de Practica numero tres

Today is Dia de Practica number 3. We have 5. During these days, we are meant to go out in Itá and talk with people and possibly work on a small project with someone in the community as a way to practice what our days and work will be like in our placements later. Kimberly and I were matched together and we went two weeks ago to talk with the Director of the Technical High School. Today, we meet with him to finalize the charlas (talks) we will give on self esteem (autoestima) and the importance of being a hard worker (importancia del trabajo duro o ser guapo/a) (NB: guapo and guapa here mean "hard working" intead of "cute/goodlooking"--este es muy interesante.)

Because our project was so easy to put together - the director had worked with the Peace Corps women who were in Itá - I went this morning to interview the Secretaria de Mujer (Secretary of Women) at the Municipality in Itá. It was an interesting conversation. The office was opened only 2 years ago and deals will all issues relating to women. She created a women´s interest group and deals with domestic violence problems. She is pretty dynamic. We talked for about 45 minutes and since I´m still only getting about 80% of what anyone says to me, it was even more interesting. Hee hee.

We go tomorrow for one night to a place called San Juan Bautista in the Department of Misiones for our Technical Overnight. We will spend time with the Volunteer who lives there and learn more about Muni work. Not next week, but the week after, we go for 5 days for Long Field Practice. There are two sites for that, the 7 of us are split. We again spend time with a volunteer and learn even more.

On July 28, I find out my site. I´m getting excited and worried at the same time. I remember so clearly that when Becky and I were travelling in Asia, I would not want whatever transport journey we were on to end (like the 20 hour train ride or the 15 hour bus ride) because even though it was exciting to be in a new place, it meant having to walk around finding somewhere to stay and reacclimating all over again. Training is like one of those journeys. It´s been long and will be longer, but at the same time, there´s so many challenges that come with its ending. Leaving my family here, who I´ve grown to really like (and they me, they keep asking if I can be placed in Itá) and leaving the safe little bubble of my cohort, and going somewhere alone and having to figure out the work every day. But, I don´t have as much fear about this than I did about leaving in the first place from the US, so I must be fine. I know wherever I go in Paraguay, I will be able to do good work there, helping people be more in order to help themselves have more.

Here is a list that Jenny and I (the volunteer I went to visit my second or third week) and I made called: What is development work? I share it so you have more idea what I will be doing for these two years and what I want to do in the US when I get home.

--We are here to help people be more, not just to have more. Working on the being more is best. The having more often overshadows and can sometimes undermine the being more.

--Our work is a process. Our work can´t be known before we get somewhere. Our work will be grounded in relationships. Our work, therefore, might not become completely clear for some time, and once we think it has, it might change.

--What does "sustainability" really mean and look like? How do we check for it? We need to engage in constant self-assessment: do our actions create sustainability and independence or dependence on the part of Paraguayans (or whoever we are working with)?

--We should recognize that we will be tempted to "take charge" and have "successful" projects that ultimately lead to more dependence. We should recognize that fostering independence and sustainability is more ardous, more time-consuming, and often less clear (in its outcomes).

--Development work is an inherently long process. Sustainable development cannot be anything but a long process.

--Most of us want to be able to see and touch the results of hard work. Sometimes we just don´t get to....

--We will be uncomfortable. We will engage in action that takes us outside our comfort zones. PC Volunteers need to be willing to engage in real relationships, be wrong and therefore re-assess, admit what we don´t know, and put ourselves in work situations we might not be able to control.

--Our nature as humans is to want answers: the "correct path" is either "one" (black) or the "other" (white). This is our nature because feeling lost makes us uncomfortable and we want to believe we have done good. In development work, we must be prepared to LIVE IN THE GRAY.

--The little things (small changes) need to be enough.

Until next time, Love and missing.