stormy daze

Why am I so bad about remembering to publish these things? In this case at least I wrote it when I had no power again and was running out of battery so left off with the intention of returning to it… Either way, this article is now 5 months old, but still relavant to my situation if you’re interested. I suppose not much seems to change except for the date. And interesting to find it and publish it on what is now my last day in site. The shack is pretty much packed and now I’m just waiting for the truck to come and haul me and contents away. Enjoy, and remember this one is 5 months late in being published but given my lack of communication I figure I may as well put it up here.

Good morning everyone (or whatever the appropriate salutation would be depending on the hour which you are reading this),

So it’s been a few weeks since my last update and I figure its about time to write another one. I have no detailed updates this time on projects or great events, I think this one is going to get back to the subtitled nature of this blog – the ‘ramblings of my wanderings’. So if you’re not into reading my random thoughts on deeper meanings of running from dogs on muddy Paraguayan campo roads at 3 in the morning while hoping to catch a bus, then stop reading now cuz this one may get a little philosophically waxy. I’ve been writing a lot about my projects and such but not so much my random thoughts, maybe it’s time for one of those types o’ entries.

The days are winding down for me here. I still have a little over 5 months left as a volunteer here which sounds like a lot, but in comparison to the 22 months I’ve been here it doesn’t feel like much. It feels somewhat intimidating actually as I’m looking at the things I still want to get done before I hop the plane outta here. Then there’s the questions of what do I bring home with me – the banjo or the guitar???

One thing there is never a shortage of for me (and I’m sure the majority of other volunteers here) is time to think, at times this is a detriment to my overall well being. As I’ve heard before, the Peace Corps is not the thing to do if you’re running away from things at home or in your personal life for this very reason. I wouldn’t say I ran away from anything necessarily, but as time has passed here with the countless hours of solemn silence its hard not to think back on things and rummage through the baggage that has been on the back for perhaps a bit too long. It’s hard not to fall into the trap of the day to day routine, overlooking the bigger picture – in my case that this is only a strange temporary period. This time next year I’ll be back in the States (or so I expect) living a drastically different life that once seemed so normal, but now sounds so foreign. I’m sure when I get home I’ll be riding my proverbial (and physical) bike normally again in no time. My dreams will be themed more normally again by the standards most of you reading this are accustomed to (last night I dreamt I had a rat next to my bed, stabbed it, threw it out the door, and went back to sleep – this is my current normal!!! Yes, seems very odd to that this is what is rattling around in my subconscious). But what will I remember of this adventure? What will stand out as my ‘life in the freedom of the south?’ These questions have been coming up more and more for me lately. The more I think about it the more I relate the questions to life in general for anyone. From where you are right now in life, what will stand out in your memory 10 years from now? Will you remember it fondly or will it be another kilo of baggage on your back?

The past week has been pretty rainy, and after all the frantic work on the project over the last while I’ve been accepting of any excuse to lock my front door and hide out in my shack taking some personal time. I read 2 books in three days, Tom Robbins ‘Villa Incognito’ and Donald Miller’s ‘Through Painted deserts’. The latter may be partly responsible for my current thoughts of memory making and analysis of my life, the former just made me laugh. Miller writes about a trip he took in a VW van from Texas to Oregon and discusses some themes of god, fate, and (to simplify it) overall greater meaning in life. Maybe I can just relate to a lot of it at the moment, but I really enjoyed this one and it gave me pause to reflect on my own past trips and current situation. While Miller attributed some of the situations he got into to the involvement of a higher power, I am still more inclined towards the stance that my old friend Andy Levandowski always used to say “I’m still the master of my own destiny.”

 

That’s where it left off. I could add on to it, but I think it speaks for itself. I’m glad I’m staying for another year and getting to know Paraguay better. I do miss my family and friends, but I hope they all understand my reasoning for staying.

Happy trails to you all!

Cue the banjo – I’m packin up the shack

A fine how do you do from a beautiful sunny morning in the freedom of the south! It’s done, I’m out of here tomorrow (assuming rain won’t prevent the truck from getting out here to haul my stuff off to the big city of Asunción where I’ll start my new volunteer role as a volunteer coordinator and also with A Todo Pulmon – Paraguay Respira.

Where to begin? I just published a blog I wrote last week that was pretty heavy on the work talk from my two years and so I’ll try to avoid that on this one. But really, that’s been the majority of my experience. When I was a volunteer in Nepal I felt like I didn’t really do much to ‘leave my mark’ largely for lack of opportunity. Here I’ve found the opposite: I found more things to do that I had the time, energy, or patience for. When it rains it pours I suppose.

Yesterday I wrapped up my last presentation to the community about the findings so far from my research and it went really well. 25 people showed and sat through my hour+ powerpoint presentation (does that surprise you? Powerpoint out here based on the descriptions I’ve given you all of my community? it was the first time many had seen it) but it went well thanks to PRO COSARA for their presence and loan of their projector! I was glad I got the opportunity to show them what I’ve been working on the last few weeks as I was running around counting/measuring trees and then locking myself in my house for a day or two – they all thought I was just being lazy but in reality I was staring at lines of data on countless spreadsheets trying to get it all together before I left. That type of work is pretty foreign here; there are only 2 people I know of who have a computer here (and those are only within the last year) and both of them primarily use them to store music and pictures they take with their cell phones.

So, my last day. I woke up before dawn again and enjoyed a sunrise run. Got chased by a few dogs as usual. Gave and received the standard “Adios” and a thumbs up greeting to all the neighbors I passed along the way as they sat in their front yards drinking their morning mate. I kick up the red dust as the smell of wood smoke gets stronger in the air from all the fires on the floors of the kitchens I pass that are undoubtedly cooking ravido and heating more water for the next round of mate. I made my left turn away from the community leading between the large expanses of soy and smell the slight hint of recently sprayed pesticides mixed with morning dew. I turn back at the top of the hill and look back on the community and mainly feel excited for all the things coming up – a move to a different city, job, lifestyle, and a vacation for a month or so in Peru and Chile with an old friend from what I consider  home. I’ve enjoyed my time out here for the most part and it’s been a great experience, but I can confidently say it’s time to move on to the next adventure.

I could relate an endless stream of problems, frustrations, and things that scared me or just really made me angry that have occurred out here. Sadly, these are the things that come to mind first when I think back on the last two years. But I’m hoping that with time that will change. I’ve largely avoided relating these tales to avoid worries or concerns from friends and family, as well as for my own benefit to not dwell on those things that can’t be changed. I feel I’m leaving this community having planted a lot of seeds of ideas that may or may not take – for sure i can count a lot of new practices quite a few people are doing. But as I ran through the community one last time I still see more basic needs and issues – primarily that lack of unity. Of course couple that with standard issues of poverty, food insecurity, ‘unbalanced’ diets, and preferences for motorcycles, TV’s, cell phones over things like shoes for kids. Maybe I sound a bit judgmental in this; I try not to be but it’s hard sometimes.

I take with me a greater sense of a part of the world/life I’d previously not encountered. In Nepal and other travels I’ve seen similar issues, but largely different senses of community culture. I mean to offer no judgment or place a greater value on any culture or anything, but rather prefer to say that it’s an amazing world filled with all sorts of things that’ll either make you smile or cry, laugh or pull your hair out, spread your arms wide in appreciation for life or make you want to curl up in a ball and hide away. No matter where you are in the world you never know which way you’ll be feeling by the end of a given day – but that’s all part of the adventure!

Sometimes you wake up and find a dead rat on your floor. You can choose to be frustrated that there are rats in your house, let alone on your floor like this. Or you can be happy that it died in the middle of your floor instead of in your dresser where you wouldn’t find it for a few days. Is your glass half full or half empty? ha. I just liked the picture and wanted to share.

For now I’ve got to go, the kid showed to go help me fix the shading at the school garden. HOpe you’re all having a good day and thanks for reading!

 

where does the time go?

I wrote this about a week ago, but the battery died on the laptop before I got to publish it. I’ve since forgotten about it until today… So it’s a week old, but still relavant(ish)

Hello once again from the freedom of the south/libertad del sur! This may be my last blog post from here – i have about 9 days left in my site here but given the pace of my blog postings over the last year or so I think it’s safe to say it’s my last one… It’s crazy to realize that two years have gone by living out here. There have been days when it felt like it was longer to be sure, but for the most part the time has passed quickly – and of course usually strangely.
I write this while there is no power and hasn’t been all day. I have 60% battery left on the laptop and the battery is getting a bit old so that won’t last too long. Thus, I feel pressured to write what I have to say somewhat quickly at the moment with no frills or photos added. What you’re likely to get is an honest one shot take at what my life is like at the moment.

to start: I’ve been working a lot on wrapping up my research. I’ve been running around since August measuring the yerba mate plants and counting the mortality rates. I haven’t entered them all in the computer yet but I’m pretty sure I’ve counted about 7,000 plants at least, and measured about 3,000 between about 50 or 60 families. I’ve done 20 interviews and talked with each family about their plants, their experiences, plans for the future, and how they are going to care for the plants for the next year or so while they’re still somewhat sensitive in a somewhat harsh terrain/climate. While I only have a few days left I really want to be checked out and do nothing but sit back, hang out, and wonder why my language skills are still so terrible. Instead I find myself running around in the 95 degree heat and sun (35 or so if you’re reading this from the parts of the world that follow the celsius scale) counting more trees and trying to wrap up my research and collect as much data as I can while I’m here.
I have to admit at moment, and many other times during the last two years, I wonder if it’s worth it. Sure, I may have a good research project, or it could turn out worthless… Largely up to me and my abilities/continued interest I suppose. But really, I find myself pondering the value of my efforts on a larger more sustainable level as I type in the dark here. I can confidently say that I’ve had a successful service. The Peace Corps often says that if you ‘plant the seed’ of a new idea in a community then that’s worthy of a mission accomplished banner (yes I’m envisioning the battleship with G.W. in flight suit…). But as a volunteer, I think we all come to expect/hope/dream of greater achievements than are realistic. Maybe this isn’t limited to volunteers – maybe it’s human nature.
To be clear and honest – I’ve put myself out there over the last year more than I have (personally) in other jobs. And I am probably more critical of myself for this reason. But through my research I’ve seen firsthand the successes and failures of my work – some people saw 80% of their yerba mate plants die over the past couple of months while their neighbors lost only 5%. Some planted their native trees to adopt agroforestry systems which contribute to reforestation efforts in a severely deforested region of the world, while others left their seedlings to die where I delivered them months ago still in their poly-bags. It’s tough to balance the successes with the failures when the disparities are so great and it’s all become so personal as a two year commitement of my life living in rural Paraguay dealing with a community who largely seem to misguidedly blame the failures on the quality of the plants, occasionally my personal shortcomings, sometimes on their neighbors,  as opposed to their own efforts. Always so much easier to point a finger at others…

Having heard so many stories/excuses/rationalizations over the past months regarding something I put so much effort into, the best way I can describe my feeling is ‘dizzy’. As I look at 9 days left i sat tonight listening to someone who was complimentary (rare). He bought me 2 liters of beer (and so sorry for how this may not flow so well…) and said thank you so many times I wanted to walk away. I’ve never been one to take compliments well, and I’ve sat and thought about whether or not to share this story with y’all but decided that I needed to be honest in the depiction of my tales… This was the guy who helped every day with the delivery of the plants back in June ( a lot of work, voluntarily). I gave him a knife from the U.S. as a gift to thank him. He’d had ‘issues’ with the previous volunteer, and was very happy/thankful every time I invited him to take part in whatever i was doing. Like everyone out here he’s poor and looking for help where he can find it. Long story short, while I was warned to stay away from him when I first arrived, he turned out to be a great help and ardent supporter over the past year. Tonight, he shelled out money to buy me beer while thanking me effusively for the fact that he received 1000 plants through the project i organized. I teared up. The majority, or at least the loudest voices, have complained or just wanted photos or whatever else they could get from me.
I write this to express the range of emotions that I’ve felt that I can’t fully explain. I’ve said before on here that i need to step away for a while to process it all. That holds true.

—-This is where the battery got too low when I wrote this. It’s been an up and down week with a lot of thoughts of the last few years. I’ll write another blog shortly about the more fun stuff. HOpe you’re doing well

where you at?

Howdy folks once again from rural Paraguay!

Have you ever wondered how you can help a small school in the middle of nowhere Paraguay learn about geography? Of course you have!

So here is one way that you can help out. Here are two pictures of a boy and a girl (thanks to the website flatstanley.com) that you can use in this effort. They were colored by 2 of the students from my 4th grade class and selected by the whole class as the best.

So what do I ask you to do?

1. Print out one or both of the pictures here (preferably in color)

2. Cut out the image (boy or girl)

3. Take a picture of the boy and or girl at some place interesting or representative of where you live or are visiting.

4. Send the picture to me at bpattullo@gmail.com which I will then print out and put on the wall of the classroom around our maps.

5. When you send the photos please tell us a little about was taken. For example: What is the place famous for? What foods do people like there? What is the weather like in the different seasons? What sports are most popular? What do people do for fun? How many people live there (more or less)?

Seriously, this is coming from a VERY small town where the majority of the kids have never been the 40 kilometers to the paved road. What they know of the world is what they see on TV. Reading is not very common so photos have an incredible value out here. The value of anything that they can see is indescribable. No matter where you are in the world if you have some time to do this it would be greatly appreciated. I’ve printed out a few photos from the states as well as from my travels abroad and shown them around, later other kids have shown up at my house asking to see them. So, no matter how boring you may think your ordinary life/community may be it is drastically different and incredibly interesting to the kids here.

I will present the photos and whatever information you may provide in the class  and put them on the wall to show the different parts of the world for our world map project.

As for a timeline, I’m leaving this community December 5th, so if you’re reading this or contemplating sending anything after mid November 2011, thanks but you’re too late!

If you have any problems with printing the pictures or anything please let me know and I will email you the pictures. Thank you all for your support for this!

I should also thank my sister Christy and niece Chloe for inviting me to share in their flatstanley project and giving me the idea to use it here.

Happy travels!

Here are a few pics of our map projects

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

where does the time go?

Why hello there, tanto tiempo as they say in these parts of the world. Yes indeed it’s been a while. If you’re a follower of this blog, then I offer my sincere apologies but technology here in Paraguay failed me on the last few update attempts. So it goes…

So, given that my most recent attempt to update this thing failed so miserably after I wrote a long boring update, I won’t go into great detail on what’s been happening in my world. Instead I will just give a few updates

Water miraculously appeared in my well again 3 weeks ago after being dry since February. If’ you’ve been reading this regularly you’re aware of my many climbs/digs in my well to try to clean my well and keep water in it. I gave up after February, and then it just filled up again on it’s own after a couple of rains a few weeks ago.

I haven’t seen a rat in my house for at least 3 weeks.

The school garden is looking great with the total participation and support of the professors and the students

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve made three maps in the school; a world map with the 6th graders, south america map with the 5th graders, and a map of Paraguay with the 4th graders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The majority of the last few months have been spent working on my thesis and research stuff. I’ve measured about 300o yerba mate plants in about 30 different farm fields. Thanks to many different kids who helped me out as research assistants

For my research I’m looking at the different planting styles of the various campesinos within my community to try to determine the best planting method of the yerba mate plants. I’m also looking at this as a means to reforestation through agroforestry by looking at how many people planted the native trees that were also provided through my project. So far it looks like a lot of people heard what was said during the trainings and planted the trees around or in the yerba mate plantations. Time will tell, or so I hope…

In other news the guitar continues to be a good friend and I got to play again in a show in early August with two different groups. The first one I just played harmonica and the second act was me and my good friend Matt playing guitar and the mouth harp while singing. Good times.

 

So the fun must come to an end… Or perhaps not. I find myself with 3 months left of service here and wondering what comes next. I’m currently looking at a few different options for a year extension here. I’m meeting with a few different organizations this week to discuss further opportunities. To this point I can claim responsibility for the distribution of 54,000 yerba mate plants and about 15,000 native trees. I’m pretty happy with that, but there is the opportunity to do more and I feel the need to act on it. I’ll be 33 next week, and looking at another year of a job that pays about $4,000 per year but I’ve never been all that interested in money. You have to follow your heart sometimes and do what you feel is right regardless of the immediate economic benefits that may follow. There’s a world of  adventure out there in the every day no matter where you are, and sometimes the greatest benefit comes from within – or at least so says an underpaid/under appreciated volunteer.

Them’s the key points from the last few months in my life, heading for a much needed vacation wandering around Argentina next week with a good friend from the states and will hopefully have more to say as a result. For now, I need to get back to work on the data entry and thesis work…  As always, I hope all is well with you wherever you may be reading this. Lovin from Paraguay

Why don’t we do it in the kokue

Buenas noches a todo! Greetings from the Freedom of the South once again. Life is good down here these days as the winter sets in and the families come a bit closer together around the fires in the kitchens. As for me at the moment I’m in Encarnacion recovering from a long month in site finishing off the last big steps of the yerba mate agroforestry project I’ve been working on. As the title would suggest, we’re trying to incorporate more trees in the fields of the local farmers in an economically and environmentally friendly way. Yes, I’ve thrown these numbers out quite a few times, but here’s the whole deal: 55,898 yerba mate mate plantitas delivered between 87 families and 8,147 native trees between 92 families. All told this will cover up to 40 hectares (98 acres as many of you may more easily relate to) in agriculture systems that incorporates trees in the properties of small farmers in one of the most severely deforested regions of Paraguay. A far stretch from restoration of the native Bosque Atlantico Alto Parana, but at least will help to promote a more sustainable system of agriculture that is more economically beneficial to the poor rural farmers of this community while assisting in local goals of restoring biological corridors throughout this region. $10,000 spent well in my opinion!

I hate the fact that all of my recent writings are about this project, but the reality is that this has been my life the last couple of months pulling this all together. I’m really happy about it and I think the pictures tell a big part of the story, so please enjoy.

Well, due to a lack of patience and reliable internet connection I won’t be making this page super lindo with pictures conveniently placed in accordance with their relevant story spatially across my blog… Sorry. But as you can see, we started every morning with varying numbers of volunteers to help load the truck. Some days we had 8 to 10 people, others it was 1 from the community and 3 Peace Corps volunteers.

The cynical side of me wants to tell the story of the truck that wouldn’t start on it’s own and needed a push 90% of the time. This was a task performed frequently with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the number of volunteers present to push, the quantity of plants in the truck, and the slope of the land where the truck was stuck.

We had 13 plastic containers, pesticide bottles cut in half, to load the plants 35 at a time. These boxes were carried to the truck which was loaded up to 2,200 plants at a time. Then unloaded again house to house through all 64,000 plants.

This picture is of the load of 24,000 yerba mate plants that came on a single truck load from a community 40 km away. They showed up at 5pm. I had 10 guys help me unload it until 10 pm. It also involved 6 bottles of caña.

I suppose this last picture tells part of the tale of the night of the delivery. Not pictured, the dude passed out next to the truck who fell back in mid squat to unload some plants and fell asleep. The caña played a significant role towards the end of the cold night.

A lot of people had their kids help out with the distribution. It was pretty fun to get to work with so many different people over the last few weeks.

A couple of other Peace Corps volunteers helped out with the labor with great appreciation from myself and the community! Dirty, monotonous, tiring work but kinda fun at the same time.

The serious side of me wants to say how much it meant to see so many people very happy to receive these plants. While there are a few individuals who still complained that their free plants weren’t good enough or they wanted more than what they got      (the maximum based on participation was 800 plants = 1/2 hectare=significant), it felt great so many times to see the

majority of the families and individuals smiling like this. I love my job.

bent over loading the truck as carefully as possible to try to fit 2,500 natives for a 18km bumpy road trip back to Libertad from the community vivero in Carona’y

Ambrosio: my hero, great guy, my neighbor, worked almost every shift with me over 11 days VOLUNTARILY  to distribute the plants. Also received nearly 1,000 yerba mate plants.

The morning after we got 24,000 plants delivered. What came on one truckload stacked 5 levels high took us 3 days and 12 truckloads to distribute.

And then there’s me. How did I do this?

This will be a story that I will likely remember for the rest of my life. I am so happy to have been able to be a part of this. Thank you so much to everyone who was involved. It’s been amazing to get so much support from such great organizations as PRO COSARA, WWF, Todo Pulmon, Guyra Paraguay, and the Peace Corps.

There are 92 families receiving these plants. many are receiving 800 plants that could produce at least 300$ US of income annually within 5 years (and increasing product yield thereafter) in a country where the national average income is $1,200 per year.

Again, if you’re looking to donate to projects like these, visit www.procosara.org

Anyways, I hope this will be the last blog update about this project, I do have more going on here… I feel like I’ve been talking about it for a bit too long at this point. I have 6 months left in my service here and am not quite sure how I am going to fill my days in the coming weeks. For now, I’m in Encarnacion enjoying a nice hotel, hot showers, lots of good food, and a mattress that isn’t caved in in the middle. Good times all around.

Hay que luchar…

Hello once again from the Freedom of the South, Libertad del Sur. Today marks a moment of supposed personal success, the presentation and meeting portion of this project is done. It’s kind of a bittersweet ending to this story of rural economic/environmental development work. I’m reminded of what I was told by the previous volunteer in my site when I first visited this community, ‘you offer a hand, they’re taking your whole arm’. I write this mainly for my friends and family who may be curious about what I’m doing, (easier than emails) but obviously it’s open to whomever’s interested. Of course, the views expressed are my own, and don’t necessarily represent those of any other individuals or organizations mentioned here. But this is a morning when I can’t help but reflect on the value of what I and others try to do here.

A big part of what I’ve been doing here started with the idea of PRO COSARA, ‘lets start small independent viveros in this community and give native trees to everyone.’ This is just one of the projects of PRO COSARA. If you haven’t looked them up yet from my mentioning of them in other blogs you can at procosara.org. You can even donate there if you’d like to, they do a lot of great work in the surrounding communities that focuses on preserving the San Rafael Reserve, one of the last remnants of the otherwise 90% deforested (in Paraguay) Atlantic interior forest (Bosque Atlantico Alto Parana – BAAPA).

The viveros received materials necessary to produce professional quality trees and nearly all produced more profitable native yerba mate seedlings. Through distributing the free native trees, I received a lot of requests for yerba mate last year. Yerba mate is a plant that is consumed as tea (when hot it’s called maté, cold they call it terere). Yerba mate is a significant part of the culture in this country/region, and is pretty profitable for small farmers due to fewer required inputs financially and labor wise. So I started looking for funds to buy yerba mate from these viveros and give it to the rest of the community of poor rural campesinos to promote agroforestry systems. Thanks to Fondos de Conservacion de Bosques Tropicales Paraguay, who donated the necessary funds for the project organized between PRO COSARA and the Peace Corps, with a lot of technical help from individuals and organizations such as the Cooperativa de Las Colonias Unidas, WWF, Todo Pulmon, PAS/PY, and SEAM.

With all of their help, the project provided 3 trainings of 2 hours each talking about the importance of reforestation here, the problems related to local water supplies and the overall risk to the Guarani Aquifer, as well as topics such as sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, viveros, and yerba mate production. Attendance reached up to 72 individuals from the community in the trainings at the highest, and 47 as the lowest turnout due to light rain in the morning of the first training. A final meeting was held with representatives of WWF, Fondos de Conservacion de Bosques Tropicales, Peace Corps, Guyra Paraguay, Pajarito (local yerba mate company), Productores Ambientales, the Municipal office of Alto Vera, and even a reporter from the Ultima Hora. Attendance waned during this final reunion during a chilly morning to 37 individuals, including some of the official representatives.

To this point, 32,000 yerba mate plants have been distributed that were produced locally from the viveristas in my community worth 25,000,000 Gs. ($6,500 U.S.). We’re bringing another 24,000 plants in later this week to total 56,000 plants total with a minimum 6,000 native tree seedlings to come in the following weeks.

Success? Who knows, depends how you measure it. This has been a pretty boring blog to this point, very dry and informational I realize. I feel the need to lay the groundwork for the other side of it. There’s lots of questions about this kind of work in a situation like this. Is it valued by the community to ‘regalar’ or gift plants like this? Does it encourage a ‘hand out culture’? Were the required meetings and trainings heard, or was attendance just a crappy way to spend their Saturday but a means to receiving something of value for free? Will the message be heard that there is strength in numbers as a community united in trying to develop a market for a more sustainable crop? Or will the focus be on the variable quality of the plants provided, where some received very hardy seedlings and others received some that were less so?

A high hope personally from this was community attendance at the final meeting with so many representatives of important organizations present who have been behind the scenes trying to promote and fund development work in the community for the past several years. An underlying theme of all the meetings was thinking forward to what is next, the final conversation was to be with the community and these organizations for what else can be done in the coming years. The fact that there were only 31 members of the community who showed, and only 20 who stayed through the whole meeting makes me question the value.

Perhaps it stems from coming from a culture where instant gratification is more common in work. You have a task, you accomplish it and results are usually seen pretty quickly. These plants will hopefully be in the ground soon and that is great. The fact that so many people at least showed up throughout the trainings was surprising to me, and I am very pleased with that. It will be 4 years until the first worthwhile harvests, and I hope that they are cared for and maintained well until then as was taught by the ingeñeros from the cooperativa. I hope that people will start thinking more in terms of the value of preserving the environment and the importance of biodiversity. But that is a tough one to measure. I have to take the continued presence of the 20 individuals as a positive sign, as there are at least 20 people who really seemed to appreciate it all and take something away from it. I hope that they appreciate the presence of those individuals who came from very far away in Asuncion to attend this two hour meeting on a Saturday in this very rural community.

There’s always the choice of listening to the loudest voices, in my case those who will publicly denounce your project because their relative received small plants while someone else picked up their own plants of the highest quality, or you could let it go as a minority view of the loud individual. Yes, she said that the project discriminated against other campesinos and we should have made sure that everyone received equal sizes and vigor of plants. She hasn’t even received hers yet, and she is commonly denouncing certain individuals in the community – one of whom picked up his own plants in the project. Again, does this sound like someone who appreciates the overall messages and that they appreciate the help that they are receiving? So many questions… I suppose the lesson is you gotta at least try, it may not go perfectly, you may sound like an ass in a foreign language, but we do what we can and accept that not every plant is going to take root, but celebrate those that do. It’s tough being your own toughest critic sometimes, although that lady is a pretty fierce competitor for the toughest critic title

In other news, the rats are getting bigger these days in the shack. The past three nights my piles of rat poison have disappeared overnight and replaced the next morning. Hoping I find them in obvious places in the coming days and not hiding/dying in a corner somewhere or in my dresser. I killed my fifth one the other day with stick, though I have to admit this one seemed a bit slow due to the rat poison.

The cold is setting in and its getting down to the upper 40’s at night. The public running water project is coming along and the trench in front of my house is dug and the pipe is down. Now they just have to finish digging the remaining 60 some odd houses over 4 km or so. Wishing my well wasn’t dry cuz it’s gonna be a while before that water’s a runnin.

Vacation plans are in the works. Looking forward to some South American travels in December and daydreams are shifting from viveros to hiking the Andes and wandering aimlessly for a while. 6 months to go, probably about 3 till I mentally check out.

This has been a long update, but also an end to a fairly significant portion of my experience over the past year. Lots of reflection and such going on this morning…

I hope you’re all well and happy and enjoying your Sunday
Cheers!

Not sure what the tall rubio is saying, but I think he likes trees…

Hello everyone out there once again, always seems strange to write to an unseen, potentially largely unknown audience. But so it goes in these days of instant online updates of whatever you’re latest thoughts may be. So strange to still be connected to that part of the world as I sit here in my shack in the middle of the soy fields in Paraguay that, at one time at least, used to be a subtropical forest. Isolation is indeed a recurring theme for me here, as it is for the rest of the community in which I reside, though I assume we have much different perceptions of it in how it relates to the rest of the world. I was asked the other day how I know which way is north out here to which I responded ‘because the sun always rises over that hill over there so I know that way is east…’ Surprisingly I was then asked, “is that true for the whole world? The sun always rises in the east?” This is from a 40 year old mother of 5, the majority of whom have never been the 40 kilometers to paved roads. Its a different world here and I’m surprised everyday be the scope of it – even after a year and a half here.
In local news, and I suppose my own personal news, the second training for my project is complete!!! I realized the other day that one of my updates that explained my project was never posted so I suppose I’ll go ahead and explain it again. Here we go, there’s a lot to it!
Since I arrived out here in libertad del sur (the freedom of the south, just waiting for a funky banjo song about this place) I’ve been working with some 8 different family viveros. Most of the time they’re working and I just stop by and say hey, but as a volunteer sometimes that’s what we call work Long story short, they’ve grown nearly 90,000 yerba mate plants over the past year that are going to be ready to be sold this May/June. For those not in the know, yerba mate is essential to the culture of Paraguay and many of the neighboring countries. As a native plant it suits my objectives of reforestation since it grows well with native trees, but this is getting ahead of the story… Since we’re pretty far removed out here we were all wondering in September where they were going to sell it. So I wrote a request for funding with a local NGO PRO COSARA to buy about 50,000 yerba mate plants from these guys to plant in agroforestry systems with another 10,000 or so native trees to be given from another organization Todo Polmon (in association with PRO COSARA). The first request was denied so I had to incorporate mandatory trainings for all beneficiaries of the project. If they want the plants, which are far more sustainable and beneficial to the local small farmers environmentally/ecologically/socially/economically and for the overall health of the community than the predominant soy monoculture that surrounds us and occasionally engulfs us in a pleasant smelling herbicide/pesticide fog (occasionally being every 16 days or so per farm – like I said we’re surrounded!) they have to attend the trainings. Wow that last sentence was a long one, perhaps my english is being affected by the combination of constant spanish and guarani as well as the fogs...
Anyways, so today was the second of the four trainings, and I hope the last time that I have to present a topic. (for photographic evidence that I do some work at least take a look at me presenting)
We’re planning on starting the distribution of the plants May 23rd, it will likely take the whole week as we go house to house with a large rented flatbed truck to drop off all 60,000 or so plants. The last training will be the 28th of May, then I’ll be going back to help plant and also to start my study to see how people are planting them (spacing, and with what types of trees or crops etc) and will monitor growth and mortality until I leave in December. Hopefully I’ll be able to see a difference in planting techniques within this time frame but if nothing else this will be beneficial in the long run for the community.
As for the more humorous side stories and politics of the project, there are a lot. Some seriously ridiculous stuff said and done from other organizations and individuals spawned from jealousies or just plain spite. I was having a hard time getting the guys that I’ve been working with (the viveristas) to sell to this project as they said they had ‘compromisos’ with other people to sell their plants to them. I talked with those other people, and those compromisos never existed. I assume there was some local small town politics that they may not have wanted their plants to go to their neighbors that they don’t like. Other’s were disappointed that the only benefit they would receive from the project were that they would be earning money from selling their plants to the project – instead of selling them to the project and then me giving them the plants they just sold me so they can plant them in their own field… These negotiations have been interesting to say the least, but at the moment I think I’ve got all 50,000 lined up securely!
This project has also been amusing on my own personal behalf because I got the chance to use it as leverage to get other things accomplished in the community. The steadfast followers of my inconsistent bloggings may remember my frustrations last year at being the sole gardener at the school garden, and how much I dreaded a similar situation this year. In January, thanks to some very thoughtful and generous indivdiuals in the States who donated $ for my school garden project (and whom are still owed a thank you letter from me -it’s coming I promise, mail is not easy for me!) we were able to purchase and install shading and several other projects at the school. The leadership of the parents committee that was excited to work with me on the project changed the week after completion of the infrastructure. The new committee and the old committee are seriously at odds with each other and so the new folks didn’t really care to pick up where the others left off, including for the school garden. Soooo I got clever If the people want to receive the plants, they need to work for one day in the school garden. As of this past Friday that thing is lookin good! All the raised beds are hoed and ready, half of which have already been planted. Next ‘volunteer day’ I’m going to have them clean all the trees that my predecessor planted around the school and plant some more! I’ve been called ‘letrado’ (clever but with more of a conniving significance) several times now. The concept of working for free for the benefit of everyone isn’t a strong one here, so this was a HUGE victory
I also am about halfway through a world map project with the 6th graders at the school.
In other news next week is the bicentennario – 200th anniversary of independence – for Paraguay! Saludos a todo and there may be a shortage of beef soon in the rest of the world as there will certainly be a severe increase in consumption next weekend in these parts, to be followed about 2 weeks later by Argentinas own bicentennario. I’ll be eating my asado in Asuncion to see what kind of crazy festivities are going on there. It’s pretty exciting to be able to see Paraguay in the world cup last year, and such a big event this year as well. I suppose this is as good as the partying gets in Paraguay – beef, pork, mandio and beer. You just can’t go wrong
Okie dokie folkies, that’s about all I gots for now. I hope this satisfies your cravings for more news from a place you’ve never heard of before and will likely never see, and for the second time in a week! Don’t get too used to increased frequency of the blogs tho, no promises of maintaining this pace – though it is getting colder and making me want to spend more time inside wrapped up warm with a cup o tea and the computer, occasionally throwing things at the mice that I spot out the corner of my eye scurrying along the wooden rafters. There’s a nice closing image for ya
take care and be well

This one’s pretty dry and boring…

Good morning everyone! Tanto tiempo, verdad? Yes indeed, time is flying by. I can’t believe months have passed since my last entry here. Lots has happened, but day to day it seems to be the same old same old.
I suppose the biggest news is that the big agroforestry project with yerba mate has started! I’ve visited house to house (for the 4th time) in my community to discuss the project and find out who wants to receive yerba mate plants for free, and not surprisngly about 90% want them. The required trainings started last Saturday and despite a rainy start to the day the training took place, though an hour and a half later than proposed. I suppose it went pretty well and the next one is scheduled for this Saturday focusing on agroforestry and the issues with agrochemicals in the area. These two topics aren’t necessarily obviously related, but it worked out that way since a tecnico was available and wanting to do a presentation here on the topic so we’re fitting it in because it is a pretty big issue here. Nearly everyone uses the chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers etc.) in some form on their fields as well as the large farmers that surround the community. Not everyone uses them in the safest manner so it is definitely useful to talk about it. The majority of the small farmers use a backpack sprayer and walk along through their fields spraying away without any respiratory protection, and often are in their flip-flops or barefoot, shorts, t-shirt, and a hat to protect from the sun at least. There are also legally supposed to be wind-breaks around the large farm to protect overspray from reaching the houses (like mine) that are right next to the large mechanized farms, however, these are only present in about 2% of the farms I see here.
Anyways, I’m hoping that the trainings will continue to be useful and appreciated here by the community. I’ve already seen a pleasant result from the first training that talked about reforestation and the importance of forests for protecting watersheds and such. The people who live along the river are already talking about wanting to plant a lot more trees this year in order to protect it. I gotta say I was pretty pleased when I heard these talks and people started asking me if they could increase their numbers of native trees to be received through this project!
In other not so work-related news, my well is still dry since early February… I’ve been taking my two buckets a day from the neighbors house about 100 yards away and rinsing out my laundry on their lawn every week. Sadly, this also has prevented me from gardening so far this fall. I’ve pretty much given up on my well, since I’ve worked on it at least 10 times over the last year and it just doesn’t want to work for me. It’s also down to 45 degrees F at night now, so it’s a bit chilly to be hanging out down there digging away as the water starts to fill up. When I went down there in August under similar conditions by the time I climbed back out I was shaking so badly I was pretty nervous that I would slip and fall back down the 35 feet to the bottom! But, there is a project going through here to bring running water to the community and the most optimistic estimates are that we’ll have it by July. I’ll be surprised if I see it before I leave in December.
So, yes, winter is coming on quickly. Over the last week it was a pretty significant change from 60′s at night to mid 40′s. I had to dig out the winter clothes from the dresser and found what the rats/mice had been doing since I put them away last September. A couple of holes and lots of funky smells. Had to load up the backpack and take ‘em to the laundry place in Encarnacion earlier this week to clean them up quickly as it takes soooo much longer for those things to dry with shorter days, not to mention how much I hate doing my heavy laundry loads by hand when the water is this cold!
And yes, with the recent harvest of the soy, and the return of the chilly temps, the rats and mice have returned to find homes in the shacks. The poison has resulted in 4 of them dead in the last week, but on the upside so far they’ve all died in obvious places and I didn’t have to search for ‘the smell’. Or at least I’ve found 4 obvious ones, we’ll see how many more are in hiding…
Not much else to report on at the moment. sorry there are no pictures this time, I’m at home and the internet is a bit too slow to try to upload them. I’m heading in to Asuncion next week to celebrate Paraguay’s 200th anniversary of independece and will (hopefully) update again and put some pics up. At least this update will serve to prove I’m alive and kickin despite lack of correspondence over the last months.
Hope this finds you all well and good and enjoying some cinco de mayo festivities. Till next time

Thats right, I’m still alive and well in Paraguay, and no I didn’t forget how to type

My oh my it has indeed been some time since the last update… I suppose I’ll take advantage of yet another rainy day to finally say hey. I wish I could say it’s been due to a lack of free time, but really I just haven’t gotten around to it… Things are going well here, the adventure continues and the rain keeps on a comin’! It has been a VERY rainy summer here in rural Southeastern Paraguay, which has been kinda nice in that I’ve had water in my well since early December and it’s not been too incredibly sweaty. This has, of course, increased the challenges of transportation and otherwise locomotion, however.

Not to be dissuaded, I’ve kept on finding things to do however. Since the last update here I’ve gotten to take a vacation to Uruguay over Christmas and New Years, played a small show with other volunteers and even a solo spot on the radio in Asuncion in December, ran a 10k trail race in a respectable time, saw a cow insemination process first hand rather randomly while making my way through Uruguay (what a Christmas day miracle!), got me a banjo, and walked miles and miles in the muddy red rural roads of my campo town appreciating the squishiness between my toes.

Currently, the well is dry again (so much rain, but the walls appear to have fallen a bit again…), but that’s not getting me down since I’ve got a lot of work happening that is a very pleasant distraction. Thanks to all of you who donated to the school garden project that was completed through the Peace Corps Partnerships program. Over the last few weeks I worked with several of the local parents committee to construct the media sombra/shading and get some of the raised beds constructed. This last weekend I even held my first large scale training in the community at the garden and had 88 families come and participate!!! It didn’t hurt that an NGO (Guyra Paraguay) assisted with the distribution of free vegetable seeds to all participants – universal truth: Free stuff brings people. The training was great though, I spoke a lot in Guarani and gave a demonstration on how to prepare a raised bed, a seed box, seed placement/distance/depth, transplants, and importance of fertilizer/cow poop. The funny part was that it was primarily the women who came to the training and the men who did come mainly sat off to the side smokin their smokes and chatting amongst themselves while the women lined up along the side of the garden to watch the demonstration portion of the training… very similar to my Nepal training experiences, and a good reminder of who these types of activities should be geared towards. They all seemed pretty interested in follow up cooking training events once the veggies are grown – as mentioned here before meat with rice/pasta and mandioca are the staples of the diet and veggies are largely considered secondarily, if at all, thus not a lot of awareness of the varieties of preparation out there. (pictures of all this are to come at a later time with higher bandwidth availability for uploads)

I’m also working on a world map project with the school and have completed the outline and initial painting, waiting for the school year to start to work with the sixth grade class on a geography project and final painting of individual countries. The other teachers seem a bit jealous and want a map of Paraguay, and a map of South America for the 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th grades respectively. Time will tell, as will the availability of the paint…

In other news, the big project with the yerba mate is still being considered for funding, fingers are crossed that we’ll be able to distribute upwards of 50,000 plants and 10,000 native trees for agroforestry systems in May, along with numerous reunions/meetings/trainings leading up to the final distribution – fingers crossed as this would be my thesis. The backup plan for the thesis is in the works now, however, as I’m planning another training for March 5th on how to start small viveros to produce yerba mate seedlings for individual families. With a small corner of the gardens that should be in construction right now (based on the already received seeds) they could produce at least 1,000 or so yerba mate seedlings for planting in their fields the following year. Sounds reasonable enough, just hoping logic doesn’t fail me yet again in Paraguay…

Alright, enough project ramblings… Outside of this I’ve been playing lot’s of guitar, banjo, reading, chasing chickens out of my house (not to mention out of my garden, off my laundry board, off my well cover, and everywhere else they like to go where I don’t want them), machete mowing my lawn weekly due to the regular rains and quick growth, staring, and as always lots of cooking and baking.

Theres lots of random anecdotes I could tell such as seeing a baby being ‘stored’ temporarily at the bus terminal in the back of a yerba mate shack along with all the bags of travelers, or pushing a somewhat crazy ministers Volkswagen uphill for an hour in the peanut buttery/muddy roads to no avail while having to step over snakes and rocks while barefoot no less… But these stories will have to wait for another entry as this entry has already rambled on long enough.

Oima, dale, dale, listo, listo, ciao, ciao, ok (as one of my contacts says regularly before hanging up his phone). Till next time, I hope all is well in your part of the world

ps. Just looked at the stats part of this and still my most frequently viewed post is the one titled ‘streapers and streaptease’ from well over a year ago… what does that tell you about the internet searches, I’m sure they were rather disappointed after reading it