"When there is no struggle, there is no change." -Frederick Douglass

The common view of the Peace Corps in the U.S. is one that shows volunteers building schools in these poor countries, installing running water, or overall very large-scale projects. However, the reality of life and work of a volunteer is very different from this. Things vary greatly depending on your country, and especially within your country to the site you live in. Each one of my friends experience different types of work because of the different needs in each community, to the money available, to the resources the volunteer may offer or have interest in, to the size of your community. I live in a more urban site so there is more money. However, along with more money, there is great need as the gap between rich and poor within my city is very prevalent.
As the school year began in the end of February, I started attending school to get to know the teachers and have an idea what types of things they are interested in. My main contact is the Coordinator of Projects for the middle school aged kids. She is extremely motivated and has many ideas for big projects, but just does not have the support she needs in terms of expertise of subjects, development of projects, and how to continue the project. This is where I come in. She has wanted to create a project entitled, “Zero Waste Campaign.” However, her hopes for this project are not only for this school of 1,200 students, but she wants this to be institutionalized within every school in my city, and later into all of Paraguay. This makes sense because trash is a big problem and this project includes the maintenance of schools, consciousness of environmental problems so that students learn to value and keep the environment healthy, a school garden to promote nutrition as students are encountering many problems with health here, and environmental leadership though a youth forum in which all schools can attend. Needless to say, this project is large, but since I have experience with large projects, I am excited and motivated. I have already completed with my contact the budget and proposed project, which will soon be presented to local and state governments, but also other organizations in hopes to receive the funding.
As I started with my school, I was introduced to a NGO named PREVER, which focuses on drug addiction, but also other threats to creating and/or maintaining healthy communities. This NGO gets their funding from Spain, but the funding is for their community center and to pay the salaries of the main workers who are a combination of social workers and psychologists. This NGO works in the most marginalized neighborhoods of Encarnacion to promote sustainable development through helping to find health care at reduced costs, classes to promote new jobs like cosmetology, computer science, etc, and many youth leadership groups. The women who work there are amazing and are eager to use my knowledge in the environmental field. With that said, I work mainly with a Social Worker named Francieli who is Brazilian, but grew up in Paraguay. She is about 26, studying to get another undergrad degree in Psychology and wants to study somewhere else in the world for her masters. Anyways, I spend a lot of time with her and we developed a family gardening project. We surveyed about 50 families about if they had gardens, would like one, have health problems due to lack of nutrition, and/or have space for a garden. Essentially we narrowed this group down to 12 families in which we will be providing technical assistance by me on the gardens, and we are still asking for funding so each family can receive tools, seeds, and other resources necessary for the project. This project spans from my class last Thursday until this October. Many of these families once lived in the country and had land, but due to outside pressures and lack of economic resources, were forced to sell this land and move to the city in search of a better life. Needless to say, many of them lost their knowledge about gardens, and many suffer from malnutrition since they can not afford vegetables. In this sense, I am teaching them some biology, ecology, social sciences, and nutrition throughout the course of this project. I am super excited about this project because it is all older women with a couple younger women around my age and although they have spiked their curiosity in me the foreigner, they want to have gardens to empower themselves and their families for a healthier lifestyle. In this venture, I have been inspired to begin my urban gardening as I will begin to garden on the roof of my apartment, probably the first in Paraguay that isn’t just herbs…
Both of these projects have taken a lot of my time to plan, but are finally underway. I am really into both of them and have some other great ideas for projects, which will soon become developed, and I will let you all know. Another thing I am spending a lot of my time on right now is making recycle furniture and crafts for my new apartment…Take a gander of my pic of the trashcan I wove out of newspaper…ballin!

The Illusion of Freedom.

Many times people from the U.S. symbolize their country with freedom. In other words, the U.S. is synonymous with freedom. Freedom of speech. Freedom to choose. Freedom to be an individual. Freedom to create your identity without the fear of being persecuted…or wait, is this really true?
The Peace Corps has given me insight of what sort of context portrays in my everyday life.
In terms of neoliberalism, free trade is the utopian type of hyper capitalism with a side of freedom for those who operate in this system. The freedom to exploit women and children for labor. The freedom for corporations to cross borders freely to pursue lessened labor laws and environmental laws. The freedom to pollute air, water, and people, as much as you want. The freedom of consumption. Although I could go on, elitists in power also have the freedom to pick and choose the freedoms allowed to everyone else.
The freedom to live without persecution based merely on the color of your skin doesn’t exist, just ask Arizona…The freedom to choose an alternative economic system because apparently exploitation of people and nature are the ultimate model of freedom. The freedom to stand up for what you believe in without being reprimanded in society. The freedom to say that 22,000 people dead in Mexico just based on the past 3 years due to the Drug War initiated by the U.S. is not worth the lives of innocent people it has cost. With this said, all I am asking for is the freedom to be me.
The Peace Corps has presented a fair amount of challenges and questions as I beg for the freedom to be me. We join this government organization in helps of helping to sustainably develop a country in the global south. What I have I realized? The inability to be ourselves.
The first day of training we have 3 rules drilled into our head from Peace Corps Paraguay. No riding motorcycles, no drugs, and no crossing into other countries without telling Peace Corps. I do understand that these rules exist for our own safety, but I am just providing another outlook. These may not seem like such big problems until you understand that motos are to Paraguayans as adderall is to college students during finals week. Crossing into other countries, I live a 10 minute bus ride over a bridge to get into Argentina. I have to take vacation days to go there for a day. As for drugs, they are prevalent as Paraguay is a major exporter in the world of Marijuana. I am not saying that I have a desire to do any of these things or even will if I didn’t have these rules in place, but the freedom is taken away instantly.
Another part of being a volunteer is adapting and integrating into the culture and especially within your site. Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be the epitome and example of a U.S. citizen. In many of our communities we may be the 1st or only person from the U.S. these people may meet. With this said, people form opinions easily based on this one volunteer that they meet. I find myself trying hard to fit in and being nice to everyone so I am well rounded and liked with no hard feelings. It is nearly impossible to express my opinions or many of my ideas because this could harm my relationship with many people that I need to have relationships with.
This really has affected my mental and emotional state. With this said, the family I was living with literally drove me into another state of mind, and where I usually speak up for myself, I found myself restricting and suppressing my emotions because I had to maintain this relationship for my jobs sake. I suppressed those emotions to the point in which I almost came home because I was in such a bad state. The thing about peace corps is not only the fact that job and home life is the same thing, but that we continue to go through extremes of emotions, a great amount of ups and downs, the 2 year roller coaster. The fact that my job depends on my relationships and vice versa, it was really hard for me to pack up and just leave, beyond this, it was hard to be me and speak my mind.
My solution to this dilemma was moving out because I could not bear to stay in that house a minute longer. As my search was intense to find a place of my own within my peace corps salary, I had to compromise things, but anything was better than being in that house. I needed some space that I could call mine and not worry about being constantly supervised. 5 months into living in my site and I finally got it.
Freedom is something we take for granted the way I took washers and dryers for granted in the states where now I wash everything by hand. To me having the freedom to be my own person is very difficult as I strive day to day to adjust to this culture. The freedom I have to be me was taken away and with that, my mental health. I still ask myself if this job is really worth that? Is it worth losing my identity to be here? As I go on questions persist, but I realize how much exponentially happier I am to have a place to call my own. I know this blog is slightly intense, but it is something I think about here a lot and I think it is an important part of all of our lives. As Bob Marley says, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.”
Til next time, Lots of Love from the heart of South America….

A few pics to gander...

So i have not updated my blog in awhile, but I am in the process of writing about my happenings. Needless to say, I have encountered many changes recently in everything I am getting involved in, and new challenges. I would also like to add that the earthquakes were not felt here, Paraguay is not known to have any natural disasters, but thanks for thinking of me anyways. I look forward to updating you, but here are a few pics from my trip to the Jesuit Ruins of Paraguay which are about 1 hour away from my site...

The Environmental Side of Life....

So I will dedicate this blog post to a more environmental perspective on Paraguay and my site of Encarnacion.
So, I tend to talk a lot about the heat these days whenever people ask me how im doing. I suppose this is me becoming Paraguayan because my conversations with Paraguayans usually go like this, “Its really hot today,” “Yup, I’m really sweaty,” “yup, want some terere?” “yes,” “so you really don’t eat meat? Not even chicken” “nope, not even chicken.” “It is really hot out today.” “Yea, I hope it rains.” “Its hard to function when its this hot.” “Yea, I think I am going to go walking right now for a bit.” “Are you crazy? It is way too hot out there!” “Yes, but I cant stand sitting in the heat anymore, at least I will be moving” this is proceeded by many strange looks and confusion as I walk through my neighborhood and receive long stares as I walk by in the middle of the day as everyone is sitting in the shade drinking terere. This is how they realize that my looks are deceiving and am actually not Paraguayan, but a loco norte.
Many Paraguayans believe that this year is one of the hottest that they have experienced, which means I have great luck! Or not at all…But anyways, I have heard a couple, litereally, of Paraguayans say, I heard that it is more hot because we keep cutting down all the trees in the country…BINGO!!! Let my role as an environmental educator proceed. So, I continue to explain that this is true, trees play a vital role in the climate and are making it much hotter than ever before experienced. This is interesting because Paraguay has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world for a country of its size, and continues cutting trees. My site is situated in the Atlantic Forest of the Alto Parana (BAAPA), which is a major ecological and economic resource. Sadly, little of this forest is left and on the drive from Asuncion to my site, you can see the forest islands all around with either agricultural plots taking the place, or simply grazing land. I have heard of these forest islands in my environmental classes, but actually seeing them really gave me a new realization of what they actually mean, and how devastating they look.
Another important issue here I encountered the first day in Paraguay is trash. I gasped in horror when I saw my first Paraguayan take their soda bottle and throw it out the bus window…I suppose I got used to it after this happened repeatedly when they were walking down the dirt road to throw their candy wrappers on the floor, lots of soda bottles, and plastic bags. Many of the houses where my friends lived didn’t even have trash cans. The reality is, there is not an adequate trash management system in general, so most Paraguayans either throw it on the ground, place it in a hole in their backyard, or put it in a pile across the street to burn. Burning is the most popular method of controlling trash since digging holes can be labor intensive, especially in the heat.
There are also the problems brought about by the dam. These problems are large and include things such as water contamination as the lower parts of the city become inundated, lowering of fish populations, and new climates as the river expands in size. The dam has so many problems associated with it, not only environmentally, but socially. I have been researching the history, and this dam was largely funded by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, which really makes me question the whole project. It is owned by both the government in Argentina and Paraguay, and the contract was created while both countries were in dictatorships, so they largely benefit outside companies, and a lot of the loans given by the international institutions has been “unaccounted for.” So, the Entidad Binacional was created in hopes of mitigating social and environmental problems created by the dam, such as my neighborhood, where they built all the houses for those displaced. I am pretty sure a statistic said the Entidad has actually only barely used about a third of its money with the rest being “lost.” On a side note, because I have a lot of academic interest in world institutions such as the World Bank and their “development” aid throughout Latin America, I am working to research this more and hopefully write a paper about this with the help from a generous professor at UC Santa Cruz. Needless to say, it couldn’t be more of a perfect site as I live in a displaced community as the inundations are still taking place and about a 5 minute walk from the Entidad.
So, there are a lot of environmental issues, beyond the extensive social issues, going on here in Paraguay which I am trying to learn about day by day. I know my thoughts are too radical for the politics and role of the Yacyreta Dam, in this country as Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to remain neutral, it seems like I need to help in some way to show people that not all development projects are bad and can actually help the people, especially in terms of the environment. Currently I am trying to work with the Red Cross here in the city on AIDS education and am hoping to start help leading discussions with adolescents about environmental issues and self-esteems, drug addiction, things that are affecting them currently in this border city. School will begin at the end of February, so I will have more work then as well.

Another side note, there was another Churro siting as I was on the bus and the man next to me was selling them…Yes, I bought one, it was fate….

Also happy birthday to some people I wish I could be celebrating with: my dad, Chuck Norris!!! Wahoo, A certain Peace Corps Volunteer in Bulgaria who goes by the alias of Tobias Highlander Hewitt, and a new adult to the world, Dempsey.

Killing me Softly...

So, on this blog post, I have decided to include various lyrics of songs and song titles because well, I have a lot of time, and music is close to my heart these days as I am by myself in a foreign country with more time than I have ever heard before.
The heat in Paraguay…Killing me softly, even though this probably isn’t what The Fugees were talking about when they wrote this song. The heat is beyond my wildest dreams of anytime I was in Tahoe praying for the snow to go away, well, I would gladly sit in that coldness. Lets talk about the heat, it is about 95-100 degrees everyday with lots of humidity on top…Well I know everyone probably is thinking it must cool off in the evening, well, no, it gets to about 90, and lets just say, I cant sleep many nights because it is too hot. Also, we must remember that this temperature does not seem all that bad when it occurs in the U.S….the difference in Paraguay? There is not air conditioning in every building you walk into, actually air conditioning is a rare commodity, as most cant afford the expenses, so most sit outside hoping for a breeze and drinking ice cold terere or sit under their fans…Something I cant go to sleep without. In other news, since I go on long walks, after about 20 minutes there is usually sweat dripping down my face uncontrollably with a rather moist shirt and on occasion, some sweat through my pants. Life is fun, but it would be better if Jimmy Buffett delivered me a nice cold Piña Colada. So this is why Paraguay has made me fall in love with ice, carrying a sweat rag everywhere to wipe down my face, and my fan.
The Smashing Pumpkins smash hit, The Beginning is the End is the Beginning pretty much captures my first month in Encarnacion. I came here extremely eager to start my work as a Peace Corps Volunteer, meet new people, and integrate into my new community…One obstacle….the dreaded holiday season. So I arrived in site December 15th, perfect timing to move in with a family you barely know, to share Christmas and New Years, two extreme family holidays together. Bring on the awkwardness. As I sat, Christmas Eve finally came, I was told to bring my own food because Paraguayans just eat meat, usually, but especially for the festive dinner at midnight. So I prepared bean salad in my tupperwear to bring and baked apple empenadas for everyone. Paraguayans eat lots of empanadas, but they usually consist of meat, eggs, cheese, or mixtures of those three, so I was going out on a limb here. When we arrived, I don’t think I have ever seen that much in my life…I thought my mom’s family and others from mexico were carnivorous, well, Paraguay makes them look vegan. There was a lot of awkward moments as people just stared at me because clearly im an outsider at a all family dinner.
Random moment of Paraguay that makes the world small, and a break in my awkwardness. So, after finding out that my host moms family have traveled to several places in the world, I was talking to their daughters, and one kept asking me the city I lived in in California, well I finally was like a small town in the mountains with snow and a big lake called Lake Tahoe, as if she would have no idea where it is. WELL, little did I know, last year she was one of those foreigners that comes to Lake Tahoe to work at the ski resorts for about 4 months. I couldent believe it, she talked about Cabo Wabo, Vex, the street she lived on in Stateline, it was so surreal. Who would of thought…
So anyways, after a HUGE meal at midnight, champagne, pan dulce, and lots of kissing and hugging at midnight, it was about 2:30am and we went home. The next day, Christmas, nothing is celebrated so there is lots of sitting in the heat. It was a really hard day for me the moment I woke up as I couldent smell the delicious breakfast my mom makes, my dad blasting Mexican music, and my brother saying how he has perfected my mom’s recipes. And last but not least, there was no smell of a pine tree, or a decorated tree and no SNOW!!! I couldent down the minutes for the day to be over, and talked to my Peace Corps friends to reflect on our homesickness and how much happier we would be the next day.
New Years was quickly approaching and I didn’t think I could make it again in awkwardness, so I arranged to visit my friend Jessica about 2 hours away in Ayolas for about 5 days. This made my life complete. So much english to be spoken, homemade tortillas for tacos, French toast, pizza, bruchetta, That 70’s Show, life was good. We celebrated New Years Eve with her contact’s family with another large dinner at midnight. This was nice to just have a friend to celebrate with, and get some texts from home with a New year message.
So now, I sit around, so happy the holiday season has ended at last, even though the heat will continue for a few more months. As The Beatles said, I am gonna get through all of this with A Little Help from my Friends.

New Mailing Address...

Hey! here is my new mailing address...I will also update my blog soon! Happy Holidays!

Jessica Wackenhut Lomeli
Correo Central
Encarnacion, Paraguay
South America

The long pilgramage to Caacupe...

About a week and a half ago on December 7th, my friends Jessica, Brenda and I decided to go on the pilgramage with Brenda’s family to the Basilica de Caacupe. Caacupe is the most important religious symbol in Paraguay and the dedication to the Virgin de Caacupe resembles that of the Virgin de Guadalupe in Mexico. This is one of the more important days in Paraguay, which is why most people get off work the 7th at mid day and have the 8th off. December 8th is the holiday and when the actual mass is held at the Basilica. However, since this is the beginning of a ridiculously hot summer in Paraguay, everyone begins walking for miles and miles from their towns on the 7th to arrive in Caacupe for the morning mass. We began our journey at 9:30pm on the 7th. Guarambare on a bus to the basilica would probably be about 2.5 hours, but we took a 2 hour bus to a city called Ypycarai which is where most people begin their walk. All of the buses were extremely packed and there was barely room too breath…Soooo happy it wasn’t as hot that night as it had been the previous nights. So we arrived in this town at about 11:15pm and began the long walk.
We started out happy as the streets were completely packed with people, and there was plenty of food to be found along the way as were medical and health checks. Around 2am, we began to get tired from continuing walking and the crazy younger kids who were jumping around with reggaeton blasting and beers in hand. Yes, weird many people were drinking heavily on a pilgrimage to see the virgin. We stopped to rest at a gas station and sat against a gas pump in pure joy to rest our feet. Brenda’s mom saved our lives as we gained much more energy with the Trader Joe’s Energy Trail Mix we brought with us. So we began again, more delirousness as the walk went on…and then we saw a Churro stand….CHURRRROOOOOS IN PARAGUAYYYYY!!!! Never thought that would happen, I thought it was a mirage until the 3 of us ran up to the stand at about 4am and stared at the man selling them to see if they were actually Churros…They were…at this point, I had never been happier. As we indulged in the Mexican goodness in Paraguay, we continued to walk up and down many long hills and begged to rest as Brenda’s Paraguayan family marched on.
They kept telling us we will rest very soon…Yea, we should of known that when a Paraguayan says that, it means 1.5 hours later when our feet are numb from walking. I guess the wait was worth it as we arrived in the city with hundreds of thousands of people at about 5:45am in a park with free bread and cocido. Never have we been happier. After this, we walked into the city to look for a random sidewalk in front of someones house to sleep. It was so random that since there are no hotels, everyone brings a sheet with them to lay on and take naps in front of people’s houses…So there we were, Brenda, Jessica, and me and cuddled to sleep on the sidewalk for about an hour and a half, with many blisters on our feet and tiredness. Never has an one hour nap felt so relieving. People who actually live in the city basically rented out their showers and bathrooms for all the people walking in to use because there are soooo many people there. We didn’t bother getting close to the basilica as it was impossible due to the amount of people who had been there for days, so we began our journey back to Guarambare.
When everyone who walked into one city and then all try to leave the next morning, there is bound to be major bus problems. We waited for about 3 hours after walking to random places, talking more impromptu 5 minute naps on sidewalks in hopes of seeing a bus with space, or just watching people hang out the doors of the buses just to be on…soooo not safe. Out of sheer luck, we finally got on a bus, although we were all basically on random Paraguayan men standing, it didn’t matter as long as we were heading back to Guarambare. After 2 hours packed like sardines in the heat on the bus, we got off to take one last hour ride to our town. Never have I wanted to sit down so bad. When we arrived in our town, we were too tired to walk the 25 minutes home, so we sat in a plaza to rest. We were so happy to be back because we hurt so bad, but it was a great experience to be had as it was amazing to see the sheer amount of people walking such a large distance to this church.
Also, I would like to wish everyone Happy Holidays in the U.S. as Christmas begins, and hopefully a busy tourist season for the sake of jobs in Tahoe. I also want to tell Kelly Wysong, Michelle Aguilar and family, and Bruce Doherty, that I am thinking about all of you a lot and hopefully the new year brings you happiness and health.