Well, I have moved in to my own house in Carapegua that I am renting from a family across the street. It is big for one person with two bedrooms a living room, a kitchen and a patio with a huge mango tree outside. I even have a refrigerator and hot shower which is a luxury for many volunteers here in Paraguay. There is a two burner propane stove, but no oven so it looks like I will be frying lots of food. The tap runs and indoor sink leaks onto the brick floor so I have to dump water outside once a day if I dont want the floor to be wet. There are holes in the wall through the paint and I asked the family if they would repair them and paint, but they do not have the money for paint right now. I will probably just pinch the bill and paint myself in a couple of weeks. It is about a 5 minute walk from the center of town (with the plaza, restaurants, the market and many schools).
This week is a national holiday called the week of the saint which celebrates Jesus’ death and rebirth. Every family prepaires a special kind of bread called chipa because you are not supposed to eat meat or cook on Friday. I am still not sure if everyone will die easter eggs on Sunday like we would in the states, but I will let you know tomorrow...
In case you are wondering what types of projects I am working on here is the majority:
- Helping a national AIDS education program called 1X100. 50 highschool aids are supposed to help each teach 100 others about HIV and AIDS.
- Tree planting projects in the school systems
- Trash education in the schools
- Exchange program with a friends class in the US
Really on a daily basis I meet with teachers, principals or educators and help them plan class activities that integrates environmental education into their lesson plans. Every once in a while I will go into the class or organize a workshop with only teachers. It sometimes seems comical that I am giving advice to teachers when I have little experice with things like didactic materials, yet I have time to do a lot of research to prepare and just growing up in the US school system teaches a lot. Many of the teachers here simply write lectures on the board then the students spend the whole class copying the materical (not the best way to learn anything).
I am still close with many of the firefighters and trying to get them a new radio antennae installed so they can communicate with their trucks when they are out at an accident or at a fire. A tech. from the embacy came out to look at their building last week. Only one staff out of 35 is paid so they have no money to spend on equipment. All of their old equipment including their two trucks are donated and are laughable compared to American standards, yet somehow they get the job done. I am hoping to find a group who will donate the equipment to them, but we will see...
In the exchange program the students ask eachother questions and last time they asked me these questions. Here are the questions and my responces:
- Why is the government so corrupt that we can not send you things?
This is a tough question that involves a lot of history and politics in Paraguay. First of all, it is not just the mail system that is corrupt here. Pretty much anything that is handed to the government from other groups often disappears. Money, electronic equipment, construction materials, books, cars, anything you can imagine has been stolen in the past. Some people take things because they have little other choice to feed their family, others want money and power.
Actually this also relates to many of the people I know here in town. I have now lived with 9 families so far to get to know the people in the city. I will tell you a short story about the family I have been living with for the last two weeks. A few years ago they built a “panadaria” (a factory that makes bread) for schools in many parts of Paraguay. They built this factory out of bricks that were supposed to be used for poor communities in the northern desert of Paraguay called the “Chaco”. They secretly took the bricks and other materials from Asuncion to build the factory. After they built the bread factory, the family I am staying with was working for the government to sell the bread to all of the schools and the government paid for everything. The government paid $2.00 per bag of bread when it only cost the family $1.00 per bag to produce. For two years this family sold bread to schools in Paraguay while charging the government too much money, and the family made a ton of money. In this case the family got caught by the police and the father of the family almost went to jail for a very long time. It was later decided that he could pay back the money he owes and not go to jail, and today the family is still paying back the money they stole from the government. I am guessing that they paid people in the court and police system to make this decision to keep him out of jail too.
This type of corruption is very common in this country, from small things like taking a few dollars to feed a family, to big scams like this one which has a nickname in my town the “galletitas de oro” or the “little cookies of gold”. Yet the people here are not all corrupt, it is just more common and more accepted than in the US. For example, when this family got caught they were still accepted by the community. The mom still works with the government. The family is friends with many politicians including one who will very likely be president in a couple of months. To me the family is very nice, and do not seem like crooks or bad people, and I feel safe with them. Though the whole city knows about their scam.
As for not being able to send me things, the same type of thing happens. If you send something in the mail, if it is valuable a person from the post office may take it and use it for him/herself. 80% of packages get here though, so it is still possible to send things.
- How will you and us make cleaner water and take care of the trash?
This is another good question. People burn their trash here all the time! Not only does it smell bad, but it makes the air darker, and makes the soil and water dirtier too. At first I thought, I could just start trash cleaning projects and, with enough help, we could pick up all of the trash in the city. Then I realized that this would not be enough. If we picked up all the trash this week, then the next week it would get dirty again because people would just continue to throw their trash in the street, or burn it. Then I realized that we would have to teach the people in the community to take care of their trash to make a difference. That is one of the main reasons I am here with the Peace Corps...to TEACH as many people as possible about what they can do to make a difference with environmental problems.
- We are studying about recycling all of our lunch trash. Do you recycle?
I recycled everything I could when I lived in Colorado, and believe reducing, reusing and recycling are some of the most important things every country in the world needs to do. Though I do not recycle in Paraguay. Why? Because there are not recycling programs and factories here that will accept materials to recycle. This country is very poor and behind others in development and though many people want recycling programs here they do not have the money and materials to start the programs yet.
Though, I am still working with schools to manage the garbage problem. For example I am working with students to divide their trash into 4 separate bins: plane paper, organic trash (food), reusable glass+plastic, and “other”. This is to teach the students about the different types of trash and what we can do with them. I am going to show them about building a compost pile for the organic trash, and we are going to use some plastic and glass for class projects after we wash them. The plane paper is OK to burn if it does not have any plastic in it and the other will go to a dump. My city is luckily to have a dump to put there garbage. There are many places in Paraguay that do not have garbage dumps and simply burn or bury everything in their back yard.
If you all want to help me in my mission here in Paraguay you can do many things.
1) You can help me teach the people here about the environment and about what it is like to live in the United States by participating in this exchange, and share environmental ideas and our culture in the US with your pin pals.
2) You could also raise money or classroom materials for projects here (though some materials may not get here).
3) You can also share what you know about Paraguay and other countries with your friends and family to see if they can help.
Waterfall in Ybucui National Park. We visited and swam for the day.
Group of friends that went to the National Park
Malnourished boy living in a rural area close to Carapegua
Woman and her common woodburning stove and chimney. Some stoves don´t have the chimneys and the smoke simply saturates the room. Other families have gas stoves and ovens, others cook on the floor with wood.
