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!