11 months left of the Paraguayan life.

About a month ago I received an e-mail directed to my training group (G27) inviting us to our "Completion of Service" (COS) conference, which happens to be next week! As you all know, I am sticking around for another year (until next April) but I still had a strong reaction receiving this e-mail. First, Ahhhh I'm going to miss my group and why are they leaving me so soon?! (with the exception of a precious few, thanks for sticking around with me Courtney, Pooja, Paulette and Joan!) Second, wow the only thing standing between me and COS is training group G28 (because I will be COSing with G29). Third, this is a good time to think about what I WILL MISS ABOUT PARAGUAY so that I don't have the urge to jump on the plane with my training group... and maybe when I get closer to COS I'll start to think about what I WILL NOT MISS ABOUT PARAGUAY, so that I don't end up staying here forever, just kidding.. hehe... But it seemed like a good plan to me, so here is my first list.

I WILL MISS:

the smell of cocido being made, the brilliant colors of the red dirt, green plants, and bright flowers, drinking terere under a tree with friends, stopping by my friends' houses and always feeling invited, the rich traditions ranging from the guarani language to making chipa and even the festivals of San Juan (FIRE!!!), the humming birds, the delicious fruits and vegetables, acknowledging every person that passes, the lack of complaining and abundant laughter, getting to decide what I do everyday (FREEDOM!), thinking outside my cultural context, taking advantage of every new opportunity, reading in my hammock, feeling appreciated and unique, surprising people with my guarani skills, wiping my hands on the table cloth, hugs from little kids, working with my library committee, making my english classes laugh at me, dancing with people of all ages, constant positive reinforcement from my bosses, my beautiful home and patio, being able to walk everywhere, the sound of a motorcycle pulling up to my house, little kids looking in my windows (unembarrassed curiosity haha), walking through the plaza, boys playing soccer at sunset, people yelling at each other in Guarani (it's comforting, not sure why..), a meal waiting for me in every house, the restaurant Caipirinha when I need something to remind me of home, cheap public transportation, fried everything (you have to admit it tastes good!), constant generosity, fresh and local foods (nothing in my freezer but ice!), rainstorms, the stars in the compania, picking fruit off trees, and simplicity.

Here is a picture of one of the things I'm going to miss, working with the library committee! Here are some of the members sitting around the municipality waiting to talk to the Mayor... One of the last photos I took with my wonderful camera .... sigh..

Robbery, Power Surge and a Hairline fracture

Soooooooo as many of you know my luck has been somewhat, well.... bad as of late, but somehow I still seem to be enjoying myself. I hadn't wanted to update my blog for a while because I didn't want it to be full of bad news, which would make most people assume I am unhappy in Paraguay, which is far from the truth and for that reason I didn't want to litter my blog with sob stories... So I'm going to write one blog entry summarizing my bad luck the last couple months and then it will be promptly followed by a very happy blog entry (that is already written on paper and just needs to be digitized).

I had been planning a trip to Brazil with my friend Courtney (meeting up with my friend Holger and his girlfriend) for a while now and I had packed my bags and headed to Asuncion around 3pm on a Saturday (after the rain stopped) arriving in Asuncion at 5pm. Once we got close to the hotel I pulled the cord so the bus driver would let me off and he passed my stop by two blocks, which was slightly annoying because I had a lot of stuff but whatever, I just got off the bus. It was pretty deserted because it was a Saturday in downtown and nothing is open and no one is working. I walked a block and half without any problems, and a half a block before I had to turn the corner to the hotel a younger boy, I guessed was about 14 or 15 years-old came around the corner, about my height with tan skin and died-blonde curls and walking towards me with a mission, I started to look around me for other people and when I didn't see anyone… no one at all, I crossed the street to avoid walking close to him but of course the boy crossed the street too and I couldn't run with a huge backpack on my back and an ankle that doesn't really work anyways… As he got closer, I realized he was pushing on his belt area and below his white shirt you could see what appeared to be a gun. At that point, I was going to give him everything I had because I wasn’t going to mess with the kid, even though he was only a kid. Before he got too close to me I asked him what he wanted and he said my smaller bag (of course the bag that had everything important in it) so I gave it to him. And he ran off toward to the river and the area called Chakaritas, which is a kind of Paraguayan slum with houses made out of mostly cardboard and plastics trash.

At that point, I was thinking, oh well, take my stuff, I don’t need it…. But as I got closer to the hotel I realized, I probably wouldn’t be able to take my trip to Brazil without that stuff and I really do need it!! Stolen stuff included: camera with extra camera battery and memory cards, ipod, cell phone, 2 million guaranies (450 dollars), my personal and official passports with a 250 dollar visa to Brazil that I had bought 8 days before and had never used, my plane tickets, bus tickets, credit cards, Paraguayan ID, American drivers license… basically everything necessary to leave one country and enter another country. I was in denial that this little boy had effectively ruined my trip and on Monday as early as I could I went to the American embassy to see what they could do for me, but they confirmed the worst. They could only issue me an emergency passport to go back to the United States and they wouldn’t issue me an emergency passport to take a vacation in Brazil. I would have to wait the 10 business days to get my passport, and after the 10 days I would have to get my Paraguayan visa ( a probable 20 days) to be able to get back into the country and then my Brazilian visa (at least 3 days in Asuncion) to enter Brazil… So the trip, for me at least, had to be indefinitely suspended.

So, you may ask, what happened to the boy? Well, he was found by the cops robbing another lady and they called the Peace Corps director to take me the police station to “identify” him… When we got there, the boy was lying on the floor passed out from drugs. I told them I believe that is the boy, but it’s hard to tell because I can’t see his face that well or his height or hear his voice… but from what I can see of his face pressed against the tile floor, it looked like the kid. They proceeded to explain to me that because he was under age there isn’t much they can do because he didn’t have anything on him when he was arrested and they can only hold him for three days, which to me sounded like, ‘we already took everything of value from the kid and we don’t plan on giving it to you because you are a rich American….’ But I have nothing to prove my theory.

I decided to take a mini-vacation in my house, which included very little cleaning and a lot of movies, until one day there was a lot of heavy wind and all of a sudden my power went out and there was a weird smell all over my house… When the power came back on I realized that everything that was turned on when the power went out burned… including 3 fluorescent lights, a light bulb and my computer charger. The most tragic, of course, being my charger for my Mac computer, which in Paraguay costs 120 dollars to replace and about two months of waiting for it to be in stock.

A month later things are starting to come back together… I have both my new passports, Paraguayan ID as well as my Paraguayan visa in the process of being made …. New phone and finally got a new charger for my computer and I’m feeling like things are falling back into place when, I was running a little late for a meeting and as I was leaving my house I thought I forgot my phone on the table and I ran back in the dark house to get it and on my way out I kicked the small table in front of my couch and it hurt a lot…. I ended up getting on my bike anyways and going to the meeting, thinking that I had a broken toe that I would deal with later. I got to my meeting and it was really hurting but it had only swollen a little bit and that night was one of my “host-mom”’s birthdays so I just went to her house to celebrate… The next day I had a really important meeting with the mayor first thing in the morning so I decided I would go to the meeting and then go to the hospital to get my foot checked out. I went to see the mayor, which was a disaster to be explained in a entry about work, and then went on my bike straight to the hospital. The x-ray showed that I didn’t have a broken toe, but a hairline fracture of my foot. They put a half cast on my foot and called me crazy for having come on my bike to the hospital and that I would have to find another way home because I couldn’t walk on my cast for 2 hours until it dried completely. A friend of my host-family, Hugo, picked me up and took me to my house and the next day I took a bus into Asuncion (not fun) to see the Peace Corps doctor and they gave me a walking boot, which makes it a little bit easier to walk. In total, I have to wear the boot for about 3 weeks and I have 10 days left so I hope it feels better in 10 days because it still hurts me if I step on it wrong!

So I have had an eventful last couple months, but fortunately nothing is too serious…. I lost some valuables, but they were luxuries…I hurt my foot, but I can walk without requiring surgery… I am a little bit poorer after all this, but I’m still one of the richest people in the world. So no biggy, right?

So you really want to know?

Most of my updates are related to social events or random life happenings, but I figured I should dedicate at least ONE blog entry to the actual reason I came down to Paraguay in the first place, to work as a Peace Corps Volunteer:

To be honest, most of what I'm doing right now is setting up/preparing for projects in the future because everything takes preparation and it's hard to just jump into a project (and probably not recommended if you want your project to be successful) without discussing it first with a counterpart in the community.

Primary Project:

>MUNICIPAL LIBRARY
This is by far what I spend my most time working on and the project I am most passionate about. I always say that there is no better investment than in education (and health) and what better way to educate a community than by bringing them resources in paper and digital form. In the end, the hope is to have a library that can serve as a community center, a place to check out books, learn computer skills, connect to the internet, hold community meetings, display community art and event information, as well as a quite place to read or study. But first, we need to remodel the building in the plaza to make it safer so that all the books and computers actually stay in the library.
> CURRENT PROGRESS: 850 dollars received from the Bill Kelly Funds, partnership formed with the US Embassy for future resources as well as a handful of books that have been donated by them, local architect who is willing to do the building plans for free, library committee formed and in the process of forming a neighborhood commission to be recognized by the local and state governments (unfortunately every week we are 3-4 people short of being able to form at commission), application for 5,000 dollars through USAID is completed and awaiting construction plans from architect, Multiple non-profits who have assured me book donations after the formation of the neighborhood commission and formal solicitation.

It kills me that there are so many organizations willing to donate materials and the part that has been the hardest is getting enough community members to show up at the meetings! We are going to try one final time to get the commission formed this Thursday and if it doesn't happen then we have no choice other than to wait until after the holidays to try again. ugh...


This is the front of the building that we want to remodel and put glass where the fencing is so that we can have a super huge space for the library/community center... still deciding what to call it.


This is the location of the building, in the middle of the second plaza and right in front of the elementary and high schools!!


Secondary Projects:

>TEACHING ENGLISH
Right now my english teaching is more like English practicing on an individual basis. A couple times a week a few high school and college students come to my house and we drink terere and I practice speaking english with them and answer the questions that they have from their homework. I like this system because it is fun and very informal but pretty soon I will be starting something a little more concrete.

> For the summer break (in paraguay, this is January and February) I will be teaching a English class for ages 12-19 (but honestly who ever wants to come is welcome, but it will be at a slower pace than classes would be for adults). This project I am doing at the woman's center in Altos "Kuna Aty" by request of the President of the woman's group. I have had so many pleas that I figured it was time to give in to the English Gods and give the people what they want, even if it's not technically my project area.

> Last year, before I hurt myself I was just about to start going once a week to the school (Luis Alberto de Parana) to teach them songs and play games to learn English. English is the cool thing to learn these days so everyone wants a piece of it! So this year we are going to try again, given that I don't fall in another water canal, and that will start with the school year in the end of February.

>CIVIC EDUCATION CAMP
This camp is what I had talked about in my last blog update that takes place at the end of January and I super excited to go expose these two amazing girls from Altos to a new perspective on their role and responsibility as a citizen of Paraguay!

>AHECHA PARAGUAY
("I see Paraguay" in Guarani)
This is a super awesome project that was invented by CoCoMu, the organization within Peace Corps that promotes artistic and cultural events. The project begins with a photography workshop with Paraguayan youth which culminates by lending them cameras for 30 days to allow Paraguayans the opportunity to express their creativity and practice the photography techniques they were taught in the workshop. The principal of the school and I decided we would do the project with her sixth grade class of 15 students and we have yet to find out exactly when the cameras will be available to us. For more information on this project, check out their blog!
http://ahechaparaguay.blogspot.com/


The Ahecha Logo, so cute.

SO that's what is on my plate for the next couple months, as well as a couple community clean-ups, random presentations and a library workshop that I am planning to attend with a community member. But I'm still trying to set-up some more stuff to occupy my time because this go around I really want to make the most of my time here in Paraguay!

P.S. Happy Little Virgin of Ca'acupe Day!! I think I'm going to use this national holiday to clean house because tomorrow my bosses from Asuncion are coming for a site visit, because I wasn't here when they did the "one year in site visit." woot!!

Ñande Ha'e Tenonderã: Cambiando el Futuro con la Fuerza Juvenil

"We are the future: changing the future with the power of youth!"

Hello Friends and Family,

As you know, I am a municipal services volunteer and all the volunteers from this sector have decided to host a civic education summer camp for Paraguayan youth from all over Paraguay. The camp will last 3 days and will be held at this great location close to the town of Tobati. This is a great opportunity for Paraguayan youth to travel, meet other youth from other parts of the country, and learn about their civic responsibility and the resources that are available to them through their local government. I have chosen two girls from my town, one, age 19, and another, age 20, to attend the camp with me. They are both super sweet young women who, in one way or another, have shown me there desire to help their community and better their own lives in the process. They both come from humble backgrounds and haven't traveled more than two hours outside of our town. I'm super excited to give them this opportunity to have this experience because I think it will really open their eyes to the opportunities they have in Paraguay if they dig a little.

Our goal is to have everything be free for the Paraguayan youth that participate in the camp and this is where you all come in! I try not to ask for help too much because, as a volunteer, I have probably over-stepped the "mooching" line a time or two, but this one is easy and cheap! I would like to raise a minimum of 36 dollars to cover the transportation costs and a camp t-shirt for both of the girls from my town! If you are able to donate a couple bucks please e-mail me at juliebe8@gmail.com and I will let you know where to send the money/check. We are going to organize it so one of the volunteers who is coming back from a christmas visit can bring the money back with them!

I hope life in the states is treating you all well! I'm always the most jealous of you people in December because there is no place like home for the holidays!! :)

<3
Julie

p.s. here is the camp shirt for those who are curious!

Whether You Like it or Not...

I'm back in Paraguay!

You know that feeling when you think you are literally going to die before a major event takes place because THAT is how unlikely it seems? This has happened to me a lot... I thought I would die before I got my driver's license or before I went off to college. Paranoid? Maybe. But I think it's mostly that the particular event seems so spectacular that you think, "No, that could never happen to me!" Well it happened, and I'm still alive!

In some ways it seems like I was gone for a week and in other ways it seems like I have missed out on so much. Among Peace Corps volunteers, there has been a lot of fun events that I did not partake in. My friends have been to this amazing site called Villa Florida so many times that most are not going back this week for the Halloween party because they have been there done that. Me, on the other hand, have yet to venture to the amazing lands of Villa Florida and so I'm preparing my Halloween costume for my venture to the south of this little country!

In Altos, things have changed as well, no matter how similar it may appear to the foreign eye. Six months later the grocery store the Santa Maria has been renovated and actually looks like something besides a warehouse, my neighbor (who I didn't even know was pregnant before I left) has popped out a beautiful baby girl, my friend Adriana has left to work in Spain, the fiesta patronal and the san juan festival have come and gone and the location where I was GOING to do my library is now a pedagogical center for teachers from Altos, Loma Grande and Nueva Colombia.

Well, this Thursday I am organizing a meeting among some of the active members of the community to give me their input about the best alternative location for the library, how to raise funds for a librarian, and the kinds of books we should request from a few organizations who have expressed their willingness to send us books among other things. Hopefully we can get this project going here pretty quickly, we've all waited 6 months already!

<3 Julie

Despedida!! aka Going Away Party

One of the cutest things I've ever seen, my cousin Daniel.


the new tallest cousin, Alex.


Family shot!

23rd, yes 23rd!! Birthday

Virginia Tech vs. Nebraska game. We won in the last minute of the game 16-15 and the students rushed the field!!


One of the peaks of Otter on the way home from Smith Mountain Lake!


Yes, the exit I have passed at least a billion times on my way to Blacksburg and back and it was my birthday so we stopped!


the moment I had been waiting for!