I have not made peanut butter since that last time I posted. I have about 3lb of peanuts I have already shelled and toasted and half of which I already pinched off the skin…but it’s so time consuming and I haven’t had movies or TV shows for about a month to spend the tedious time in making peanut butter. Last time, I also left the vestiges of the peanut butter in the blender with water to soak for an easy clean the next day, but forgot I had to go to Asuncion for errands and the Shakira concert, turning into a three night stay and returned to nasty stinky rotted-fermented peanut butter water. DISGUSTING. I will be making peanut butter with what I have this month, since the nights are much longer.
Peanut butter is only one of the American foods I have learned to actually enjoy while in Paraguay. Previously I preferred cream cheese and jelly sandwiches and thought of peanut butter as the gross lard consistency food you have no option of eating but on long hiking trips. I like olives and blue cheese now, which I used to detest…though I think it has something to do with the scant choices in cheese in Paraguay, and the plague of olives in Argentina.
Tomatoes, bell peppers, onions are the only staple vegetables available year round, so I appreciate that I learned to make caramelized onions during Senior Week at Trinity, because I eat those almost every other day with my amazing home made flour tortillas. But now I see my garden, the tomato plants that have grown bigger than I can handle, I see the garlic, onions, scallions, bell pepper, lettuce, cilantro, basil, oregano, carrots, beets, eggplant, jalapeno, cucumber, sunflower, broccoli, and my heart warms of the thought that I could soon make salad and salsa from stuff in my own garden. My sister sent me an awesome rosemary cracker recipe I was eager to try out, but the only thing that has not germinated AT ALL is the ROSEMARRRYYY!!!!!! Ah well, I will try again and play the waiting game.
Work has been fluctuating in productivity and though sometimes frustrating, is really rewarding. In March and April I learned a little bit about beekeeping, getting to use one of the bee suits with fellow volunteers on a hive transfer and was so elated and excited I wanted to bring it to my community. So I read the whole manual given to bee keeping volunteers, learned a lot, and tried to get others in my community to be interested in it too, especially since some already have hives. Yet two people basically told me I had to give them the suits and did not like the idea of making a beehive when other organizations have given them away in the past. Others just politely told me they had no equipment but where interested or I was told it was dangerous business and left it at that. There is much more to talk about this frustrating topic involving previous organizations that did a bad job of teaching others to keep bees and literally just gave people hives without adequate instruction or equipment and no follow-up so these have been under appreciated and neglected to rot. It makes me sad to realize that without equipment, if they venture to harvest honey, they just build a large fire under and around the hive, and likely deplete the honey storage necessary for the bees to survive the upcoming winter. This is one of many things I wish I knew more, and could do more.
Just before my much needed vacation to Buenos Aires, I spent a couple weeks preparing materials and lessons for both a reading club for elementary school kids and an English class for teens. I wanted to do the reading club, and the English class was something I felt much more insecure about, but after several nagging high school kids asked I gave in. So for both these, I announced at one of the PTA meeting in the elementary school just three days before hand, announced it to the kids at both the elementary and one of the high schools, and even sent text messages to most of the teens, especially to the ones who attend the school that’s further away and didn’t get to visit. So the time rolls around for the two events, and NO ONE shows up for the reading club, and only one of my closer neighbors comes to the English class. I was subsequently disillusioned and frustrated, my vacation couldn’t come sooner. I still wonder what it is that I did wrong, and a few women who I occasionally visit sadly assure me that the community is just lazy, and that many children live too far away for parents to want to send their kids to school again on a Saturday morning.
On the other hand, I’m working with the principal of the high school and a couple teachers there to start a library at the school. This woman is refreshing to work with, because she seem organized, and seems to really get it. She has done a lot to renovate the school and even has some bookshelves ready, a computer, all that lacks really, are books and order to the library system! This work was going smoothly until the week of the bicentennial followed by my vacation have really slowed it down, but I’m feeling optimistically about this one project.
Paraguay celebrated 200 years of supposed independence, though about two thirds of this time have not been really independent, more like dictatorial neocolonialism. But nonetheless EVERYONE was hooting and tooting for this "big" event. There was supposed to be a parade on the 13th and stuff going on through the weekend, so I made sure my vacation would be after the weekend of the 15th in order to not miss all this stuff that was to go on. So less than a week in advance, they changed this parade to the 20th, after I would be gone for Argentina. During May it was impossible to follow up the work started in the school tree and vegetable garden that I am certain they did not water it properly and then was asked what was wrong with the seeds that I got donated from agency. I would go into the school to finish labeling a world map unfinished by the last volunteer, and they were busy holding meetings with parents, and making decorations for the parade that took up most of the three-hour school day for at least a couple weeks.
The best worst singer is native to Paraguay, and goes by the pen name K-chorra (like puppy girl in misspelled spanish) (you should find her on Youtube to enjoy her whiney high pitched, off key voice and bad dancing) and preformed on the eve of the bicentennial in La Colmena, a nearby town! It was an awesome time to hang out with volunteers from my group in the area, as well a old and new, and a great time to meet locals of the area, including an awesome woman who lived in New Jersey for about 10 years, and just moved back with her adorable daughter and son.
Well, the bigger things I have upcoming are the continuation of starting a library, tree nursing on a small scale at the elementary school, world map activities since the map labeling is nearly done! The rest is hoping that I have the confidence to plant some green manures with a couple families who I picked cotton with, and the patience to work with the women’s group that is usually not apt to do things that require manual work like worm composting and raised bed gardening.
I know this post sounds really negative, and the last thing that I would ever have imagined I would want to say about my community is that they are lazy and not open to new ideas. But I remain optimist because I know that from their eyes, work and investing in anything that ha no immediate benefit is often a huge risk when money is so precious.
I went to some awesome waterfalls twice, since last posting. Salto Cristal as it's called, is a waterfall about 80 meters high that forms a nice, serene pool at its base that is perfect for swimming. We last got to hang out there just after the bicentennial because a friends of a fellow PCV friend were visiting and wanted to see it before they left. It is one of the most beautiful places I've been swimming in! I couldn't describe it fairly, nor could pictures do it enough justice. A friend posted pictures on facebook, and I think I will soon as well.
I am happy to report that I have been quite healthy. No colds, flu, pneumonia, dengue fever, not even abnormal bowel movements for a while. I thank my family’s genes and upbringing that I am strong and healthy like a horse…with a little bit of osteoporosis maybe. Knock on wood I don’t fracture any limbs here!
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