So now I am officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer. On friday we had a swearing in ceremony at the US embassy in Asuncion and I got to meet the embassador. I got a phone and the country code number Paraguay is 595, then my cell number is 0975 640 110. If you use a skype account you just have to click on Paraguay and it should automatically put in the 595 number. Skype is a computer program that only charges two cents per minute for international calls. I should have my phone on and in service most of the time if any of you want to call.
I am headed out to my new site on Tuesday and am getting some R&R until then in Asuncion. Hope to talk to you all soon. It is free for me to recieve international calls on my cell phone, so don´t worry about that.

German man and one of his three giant dogs in a rural area next to Acahay, Paraguay. He took me around the area to show what is left of the forest around his land. He was a Park Ranger in Paraguay and is luckily planning on keeping most of his land forrested and setteling down with his wife.

The biggest rat in the world! A Carpincho! About the size of a medium sized dog!

Site Assignment

Found out yesterday that I am going to live in Carapegua ! It is an urban site about 2 hours away from Asuncion by bus. The city has about 15,000 people within city limits, and another 15,000 just outside the city. There has been one environmental education volunteer who has been working there for the last two years and she does a lot of great work with the school systems and teachers. I am really excited to finish training and start working there....

Pictures

Waterfall at National Park

Environmental Ed. group and trainer (top left)

Peace Corp Volunteer giving a presentation on the ecoregions of Paraguay after volunteers and the students painted a map on the wall of their school.

Nov 18 - Carapegua

Well I just got back from Carapegua yesterday. I stayed in a simple home with an older woman and her husband (or boyfriend?). They only spoke Guarani, but we could communicate the basics. We spent four of the five days there working in two schools giving presentations to the classes about environmental issues in Paraguay. We also painted an ecoregions mural on one of the school walls. It rained really hard one of the days and we had to cancel one of the presentations because no one goes to school if it rains. The electricity went out for about a day. Carapeguay is a bigger city in Paraguay with about 30,000 people, though the lifestyles in the city are quite different one house to the next. For example the house I stayed at only had the shower with cold running water, and one other water spout, open door-ways and was pretty small. Other houses close by have all the furnishings you could think of, with cars, microwaves, tile patios, etc. Etc.

We also visited a radio station where a peace corps volunteer named Nick regularly does a weekly show. He tells jokes, plays music, and talkes about environmental projects that are going on in the area. Our group of 6 went to one of his broadcasts and he asked us a couple of questions in Guarani, then him and Anthony (a trainee) played two songs together with a banjo and guitar. It had to be pretty funny to hear us all fumble around with our Guarani on the radio. Nick is going to be our EE supervisor starting in December when we swear in as volunteers.

I find out this wed the 21st where I am going to be stationed. I asked for an Urban site because I wanted to stay busy with teacher workshops, and work with non-profit organizations that have already been formed. I think it would be cool to be in a rural site also, almost everyone in my group would rather be away from the city (I think because they want open space, to be able to do agroforestry projects, gardens, and have a more relaxed (tranquilo) lifestyle. The rural areas are definitely more beautiful, have space, trees etc, but I think I will be able to educate better in an Urban setting. Anyway, we will se what happens next week.

All 40 of the trainees are getting together on Thanksgiving to celebrate and we all have the day off for training. We are all bringing side dishes, but are eating chicken instead of turkey (because there are not many turkeys around these parts.
I have a bunch of good pictures that I want to get up on the internet, but it takes about 10 minutes to upload each one so I am trying to figure out a better way to get them up. I know some of you really want to see more picutes...sorry, I will get them up as soon as I can.

Nov 9, 2007

Tonight I discovered that they have the card game Gin Rummy in Paraguay. There are also many other familiar things around , like Coke, Toyotas, rap songs and Nike shoes. The playing cards have different suits on them: swords, cups, coins and something that looks like potatoes but I have no idea what they are supposed to be. Within the familiar sights are an infinite amount of questions about what I see every day and why things are that way. For example: why doesn’t anyone drink water with their meal (or at all for that matter)...only tea during tea time (terrere time), why do people dress up in pants just to work outside or go on the bus, or what am I eating???

Tomorrow two trainees and I are giving a 30 min. presentation about compost piles to a few families in our community. We will have to talk in Guarani only, which is mostly for practice, but going to be hard. We are teaching about compost piles because trash management is a huge problem here. Most everyone either burns all of their trash in their back yard (including plastics and leaves), or they dump the trash on someone else's property. The chemicals from the burnt plastics get into the water supply, the vegetation, the soil, and case an incredible amount of health problems including cancer, and heart disease. Oh yeah, this is also incredibly bad for the air quality and the environment. One goal is to separate the trash into compostable, burnable, reusable, and buryable materials. Last weekend another three trainees organized a community trash pickup which about 30 kids participated in. They dug a huge hole, cleaned up the street and got certificates for completing the “peace corps” day program.

We are also learning about tree planting practices, teaching strategies, gardening, integration techniques, soil erosion prevention, nonprofit work, the government organizations which are not completely corrupt, community groups, etc., etc., etc. I am going to find out which site I will be staying at for the next two years two weeks from today. I am looking foreword to preparing for exactly what I will be working on, and have a break from the busy training routine.

Next week our Environmental Education group is traveling to a city called Carapegua, where we will be staying close to a volunteer there who does a lot of work with the school systems. There is a school which has a special education program there (one of the few in all of Paraguay), and I asked if I could sit in on a couple of classes to try to compare US Special Ed with Paraguay’s. Most children who have special needs simply stay home 24/7.

The other day I minority skinned up my leg playing soccer and when I got back, my host family instead on putting a “remedio” (home remedy) on it which the told me was cows blood...turns out they were just messing with me though. Heather sent me some chili powder and I am planning on cooking some spicy Mexican food for them soon (not sure what they will think).

Oct 30

For those of you who asked: no I will not be home for Christmas. I would, but I am not supposed to leave my site for the first three months after training and not supposed to have visitors until then either. Actually, I am not sure where I will be, but I am getting my two year assignment in three weeks from now or so. About half of my group is going to a rural area and the other half to an urban area. Yesterday we took a 20 min oral exam in Guarari which was pretty intense, but I think I did about as well as the rest of the group.

Anyway, I am still planning on coming home for Joe’s wedding next July, but likely not before then. Any of you are welcome to come to Paraguay or surrounding countries anytime after March. I know Greg and Kyle were talking about a ski trip sometime, but might wait a year.
In case you were wondering about the other people I work with every day: the environmental Education group that lives in the same community as me consists of 11 people who are pretty diverse and interesting. All of us are 22-28 years old except one woman who is in her 50’s. She has a law degree, was a teacher, and is fluent in Spanish due to her Cuban heritage. Yesterday she moved households because her host family did not really seem interested in having her in their house and did not really interact with her at all.
Other Peace Corps Trainees in my community include a Southern boy who plays the banjo, a Hawaiian, and a few Midwesterners. There is a girl in the group who went to Grad School at the University of Denver. Many of the group have some sort of science degree. Only one person has been sick so far. He had stomach problems (likely from food poisoning) and could not go to the National Park that we visited, he is fine now. Lots of us have various mosquito or bug bites. There is an insect called pika, that lives on floors and burrow into the skin of your feet then lays its eggs. It sounds gross, but most people just have a nurse pick the eggs out or do it themselves.
Besides language, we have been learning about a wide variety of topics including, farming practices, teaching techniques, forest ecology and biology, integration techniques, alternative gardening practices, and anything related to development.

Oct 22

Today I played soccer with a few other trainees and all the kids in the neighborhood. I really like all the kids, and they all know me by name saying “ESCOT, ESCOT”. I never thought I would like kids so much, but after working for Imagine and knowing these kids I know that I will always have fun working with them. I am excited to work on environmental issues with them and am hoping to help plan a short summer kamp as soon as I get sworn in as a volunteer.
I have a 40 minute presentation to give to our group on Friday that I have been prepairing for for the last couple of weeks. The presentation is on potential reforestation projects in rural areas of Paraguay. Last weekend I went with my host familiy to their extended familie’s house and stayed for the night. The bus ride took two hours and we were jam packed the whole time and standing. My face was close to pressed against a glass pannel that read “maximum capacity 42 people”. For fun I decided to count the people I could see standing up on the bus and I counted 48. With the kids sitting on thier parents laps and three people sitting on each two person seat I guessed the bus had about 120 people on it...an we were still picking people up!
Anyway, we arrived at our stop and walked about 20 minutes to the families house past green pasture, horses, bulls, goats, pigs and chickens. All of the forest had been cleared for farming except a few palm trees “because they look pretty”. I met a German couple that were neighbors of the family who moved to Paraguay to live a simple life, build a house, and get away from the hustle and bustle of Germany. They bought 36 hetares of land (which is a ton) and are building a huge house equipped with internet, a giant freezer, and are keeping about half of thier land as natural forested area. This is extriemly weird and abnormal by the surrounding communitie’s standards. The German’s neighbors who I stayed with don’t have hot water, use a fire pit to cook their food, and have one board game and a flat ragged soccer ball that the kids play all the time. They have one small TV that gets ok reception, oxen that they use to plow the fields, about 10 chickens running aroud the house, two very skinny dogs, and electicty that always goes out when it rains. They were very hospitable, cooked a big meal for the group, and always went out of thier way to make me feel comfortable even though I usually had no idea what they were saying. I also found out that one of their neighbors is a distant cousin of Saddam Hussein and their family has been in Paraguay for 3 generations.

Computers

Well I have been writing on my laptop from my host home, but the files are not transfering to this computer at an internet cafe. I have a bunch of info that I will try to upload next week or so. Sorry I have not posted anything lately. I really only have a few minutes every wednesday to use the internet.

My host family and some of their cousins drinking mate (tea that everyone here drinks). This is the portch where I am living for 3 months

When you are living on a three dollar per day budget money does not last long. I really have to start learning to live off of no money, because that is about the payment we are going to get for the rest of the time. Everything is very inexpensive here though. We walked around Asuncion and found a nonprofit organization and a couple of other sites, then talked about what we saw with the rest of the group at the main peace corps office. The main office is really nice. They have a pool, library, computers with Internet, and a phone line that is cheap to use for US calls. We can only use that phone after business hours though. Anyway, I am off to visit another volunteer tomorrow and excited to see a different part of the country. I am not going to be very far outside of the capital, but I think it will be very removed and old fashioned. I think they only speak Guarani at the site I am going to, so I am a little worried about communicating with people, but atleast a volunteer will be there. (He has been there for two years now).

Today we had our normal language class in the morning, lunch, then had a guest volunteer speaker talk to the group after lunch. She works a lot in the school system in her site which is interesting, but I am a little worried that I don’t really want to work that much with the school system, but they might expect me to. Afterwards we all got together and played soccer for half hour or so until it got dark. It is nice not having anything to read or do tonight so I watched TV for a while with my host family. They watch these crappie Brazilian soap operas all the time. I saw Al Gore on the news, but could not understand what they were talking about.

Oct 11 - Living situation

I have a small room (but I guess a little bigger than my last one in Boulder) with a double bed, two tables and two small book stands. The floor is concrete; I have a single uncovered light bulb hanging from the ceiling, a mosquito net (that is too small for the bed), a clock, and a window without a screen. The stuff I brought from home is on top of the chairs and tables with nothing on the floor (so creepy crawlers don’t get into them). My average meal is pasta or rice with beef or pork in a broth and a simple salad. It tastes pretty good, but I know I will like more variety before the training is over. Sometimes we eat empanadas that are great. I have been craving cheese and chocolate lately (neither of which we eat in the house...not sure why).
Just about every night I have a homework assignment for Guarani class that my host-family helps me with. They always laugh at the goofy way I pronounce words (like neko’e which means morning). Tomorrow another trainee and myself are going into Asuncion by ourselves on a project to find a nonprofit organization and interview one of the leaders of the organization. Neither of us have been to Asuncion before and part of the reason the Peace Corps is doing this activity is so that we will get to know the bus systems and get to know the city. On Saturday each trainee is going out to a different rural area to stay with a volunteer for 4 days. I do not know which area of Paraguay I am going yet, but am sure that it will not have Internet or international phones. It may not even have electricity, but I am looking foreword to seeing another part of the country and likely more like what my permanent living situation will be for two years.

Oct 5 - General Paraguay Info and Training

baby goat that was born next door to my house yesterday. It is adorable!

Well for those of you who do not know much about Paraguay that is understandable, I did not either. It is not exactly the first place people look at on a map. So first of all, it declared itself a bilingual country and almost everyone speaks either Spanish or Guarani or a combination of the two. Guarani was the language the native Paraguayans used before the Spanish moved in. Now there is no separation between the Spaniards, and natives...everyone is just Paraguayan. Though there are some German influenced towns, and some Asian communities...oh yeah and Mennonite communities also. Many Germans moved here after WW2, some were Nazis who wanted to excape punishment.

Paraguay is a very interesting place. It is hot now, and will be incredibly so in a couple of months. The small town I live and am training in is called Nueva Espiranza and is an adjacent community to a larger town called Guarambare. Guarambare is about 1 hours drive from the capital city Ascuncion. Guarambare has a couple of main paved roads, but the community I live in is all dirt roads. It takes about an hour to get to Guarambare from my house, either by walking or taking two buses.

I have a diverse diet of beef, beef and more beef....pretty much for every meal. Actually today was the first day I had another sort of protein (pork), which I woke up to the pig being slaughtered this morning by our neighbors. I then watched them pour hot water over the pig and to clean it and take of the hair. Today (Oct. 4) is a special holiday for the Catholic church (San Francisco) in my community so the whole town had a parade, decorated the town, and attended mass...and of course many families ate the pork from my neighbors recently deceased pig. I thought my host family and I were going to go, but I guess they decided not to because they went the night before.

My host family owns a 6 month old pig, about 13 chickens, 2 hamsters, and a garden. We have electricity and running water (though it is not hot). I am still getting used to taking cold showers every day, but it is pretty refreshing after a hot day. In the morning it is pretty awful. The house has open windows...insects and small frogs come and go as they please.

Though communication is hard between my host family, we usually just end up laughing at each other and joking around. They are all very nice and fun. Benito works as a merchant and construction worker. A couple of days ago he went to Argentina and I think to trade a thick sugar that is made with honey. I think it is often used instead of chocolate in deserts.

If anyone wants my mailing address it is:

Scott Burgess, PCT
Cuerpo de Paz, CHP
162 Chaco Boreal c/Mcal. Lopez
Asuncion 1580, Paraguay (South America)

Mail takes three to four weeks if not more, and about %20 does not make it. Paraguay is rated the third most corrupt country in the world, but people joke that it is really #1, but they lied about it so they would not be #1.

We lost our first volunteer yesterday. She said that she was too homesick and though that she would continue to volunteer in the US where she could still follow her ideals, but also be close to her family and friends. The last class that finished its service had about half of the volunteers leave before their two years was up...though that was an unusually high rate.

Personally I think volunteering is going to be the most influential, hardest, and incredible thing I have ever done. I am excited to go to training every day to learn Guarani and about Environmental Education practices in Paraguay. They are very long and intense training days, but really great information. Today we are talking about previous environmental projects that groups in Paraguay initiated and why they succeded or failed.

I am now at the closest internet cafe to my house which is about two and a half hour round trip walk away. I think I will be able to make it here about once a week to write e-mails on the weekend. I have training all day every day during the week and a half day on Saturdays. I think there is one place in the neighboring town that has an international phone, but we have not found out where, or how to use it yet.
I am in a completely different world already! We got off the plane, got picked up and the first gas station I saw had a horse right next to it. It is hot, and there is wildlife everywhere. I am living with a family of three: Benito (father), Elsa (Mother), and Delia (their 18 year old daughter). Delia seems to be the only one who speaks fluent Spanish and I can make out what she is saying about %10 of the time. Comunicating is frustrating, but they are very nice.
So far I have learned about four sentences in Guarani. The lectures we recieve during training are taught in Spanish, by Paraguayans who don´t speak English. It is tough, but I hope to learn fast. I am extremely excited about being here, and learning about Paraguayan culture and language. Unfortunately I do not get a phone for three months (when we are sworn in as volunteers), so writing back home will be tough. Delia has a phone, so I may be able to recieve calls from home, but I have not spoken with her about that yet. Hope everyone is doing well!

Day 2 - Miami Orientation

Today I met the 42 other Peace Corps volunteers going to Paraguay this week. Only a handful of them are participating in the same environmental education program that I am in. The other programs are: crop extension, agro-forestry, and bee keeping. Yes bees as in bumble bees. Don't ask me what exactly they do, because I am not sure yet. Something about training people to run honey producing businesses.
Anyway, the trainees are from all over the US, but Colorado has the most representatives from one state (5 trainees). Others are from New York, Florida, Cali, Oklahoma, etc. etc (with about equal men and women. All but one of the volunteers are in their mid twenties (except one ~50 year old woman).
Today we spent meeting the rest of the volunteers, going over logistics, anxiety's and aspirations, and safety. Tomorrow we fly to Buenos Aires, have a 10 hour layover, then off to Acuncion, Paraguay.

Sept 24, 07 - Day 1 - Miami, Florida

I am in Miami about to start orientation for the Peace Corps. I will move to Paraguay on Thursday and start a 2-year, 3-month volunteer job in Environmental Education. I have a roommate Michael for the next three days who is an Environmental Studies major from Atlanta. It is nice to know that he has packed just as much as I have and has little Spanish language experience. My personal email is: ski9crazy@gmail.com, or you can most messages for everyone to read on this site.


So I am trying out this site, and hoping to post blogs every time I get a chance. Let me know if any of you have used a different site that may work better. The address for the site is http://burgessscott.blogspot.com. Here is a nice picture of my motorcycle for your viewing pleasure. It is one of the few pictures I have on my computer and I wanted to make sure I could upload onto this site. I sold my Explorer and thankfully my mom and Russ agreed to help sell my motorcycle.