Born Running

            Thought this would be an appropriate title for this point in time in which I find myself about six months away from the end of Peace Corps service, and a few weeks from attempting to run a full marathon without dying or in least hurting my crappy ankles.

            This is the point in service in which most are at least more or less seriously thinking of extending, traveling, working, studying or bumming around for the after PC life.  I have been grappling with myself for a large part of this month on how I feel about extending for another year (or any length of time) in Paraguay, or what exactly I should do and how much time I should or shouldn’t spend researching and worrying.

            As usual, this is inspired by my random bouts of insomnia as a result of lately over self-scrutinizing, for which blogging seems to be the best solution in my lonely little straw roofed, water famished and currently mosquito infested campo situation.  I will just ignore that it’s past 3:00AM on a Thursday and have a presentation to a women’s committee in less than twelve hours.  So I pitch these thoughts into the cyber world hoping they don’t ever come bite me in the ass later.  Just writing them down and chucking them doesn’t seem to suffice.

            Earlier today, in conversation with a dear fellow PC friend, the topic of how we both generally grew up complaisant to people around us, reminded me of observing and at a few occasions having been told in high school and college that I befriended completely opposite types of people and was the one to mediate strong arguments between two opposing strongly opinionated people.  This made me think of several people I admire and regard despite them having big differences with each other.  During the conversation my friend mentioned how she attributed this to growing up constantly moving from one state to another due to her parent’s jobs, knowing that the friends and acquaintances she made she would soon leave behind.  It made me realize (well, support past ideas) that I led a similar life in my youth, though for different reasons and it could be a reason it contributes to why I will rather be complaisant to two oppositely strongly minded people in order to avoid confrontations.  I do not mean to do this to be liked by all (believe me, I have been far from the popular one everywhere I go), to be ‘two faced’ or whatever; I would rather keep quiet or avoid putting someone down (though I’m not completely innocent in every case) when confronted over petty personal differences and comportments when the opposite party is absent.

            So what the real epiphany was, that IF I extend, as some rumors have recently come back to me, for a whole year as the Environment sector’s coordinator or in any other volunteer position, or for another certain volunteer’s presence, I will have lived in Paraguay for at least 40 months (including less than 15% of that time spent on vacation).   In retrospect, only twice in my life have I lived in one place for longer than 40 months (3.25 years).  I do not include the four years of college, because just about 2/3 of the year was spent in college, where life is anything but stable or permanent.  The gist is that I was born somewhere, and moved back to join the rest of my family in another country within several weeks of birth.  I spent just under five years in that country, where I also wasn’t living in one place for the whole duration.  Just before beginning kindergarden, my family moved back to California, where though we lived in the same county, we moved around often enough that I attended eight different schools from kinder until the end of high school, so having to adjust to new schools, people and neighborhoods was the norm. 

            So through this long, most likely dull explanation irrelevant to Peace Corps life, I come to the conclusion that I feel that once that day comes, when we swear out as Peace Corps volunteers, I will probably not be excited, regretful nor extending. I have grown to love and learned to be optimistic of Paraguay.  I love the friends I have made in my community, of whom none are my age, but rather in the range of 2 to 17 years, and 35 to 86 years, giving me some of the best laughs, memories and lessons.  Though I hold very fond memories of Paraguay, I am pretty sure it will be time to move in six months.  My work here could be far from over, but feel my innate gypsy-ness is calling me to do something else and try to adjust to a new scene.  I am not sure just what yet, but at pivotal points in life like these, I have been confused, indecisive and scared; I have jumped into this unsettling darkness and managed to land on my feet, even if it hurts an ankle. As one of the first Guarani words I learned succinctly puts it, jahechata (we’ll see/vamos a ver).

            Aaaaaand enough self boasting on my part; so on that note….It is simply incredible to see and live firsthand how having the access to water is the infrastructure not only to hygiene, health, and food security, but to economic stability, education, and arguably political stability and a bunch of other varying issues.  In the little known rural community of Tapytangua Guazu, the effects of climate change are truly ‘unreal.’  This past summer was slightly hotter and a little more dry, which I hear is not completely unusual to have one or the other.  Yet, having both those variables is unfavorably abnormal, and caused over half of the families’ wells to run near or completely dry.  Just about a week from winter, and these families now have unclean water or no water at all, and are hanging on the nearly 8 year old promise of loaded government parties to install a running water system for the whole community.  It is selfish of me to know that I have the privilege to know that I will be easily moving on to places where clean water is the last of anyone’s worries, whilst many, even in Paraguay have to leave any given distance from their homes to get drinking water.   

Many months later, and just a couple more.

It’s been over seven months since my last post, so maybe it’s not worth my rant, but I still have a couple of people who want to see me blog. So I thank you for the love; I am alive, and really well, xoxo. I skimmed through my last posts and see that it is indeed dangerous to write when unhappy, because that’s the impression that lasts on you guys at home. I confirm that there are times of frustration and have once bursted in anger, only to spend hours apologizing to my incredibly kind host family for having to witness me at my worst. That was when I blogged about the cows tearing down my garden and water pump. I’ll try my best to do a recap of the short seven months that have passed for those who I have been worst at keeping in touch with.

In August, I ventured back into the holy city of Cusco and Machu Picchu with a handful of female volunteers, which means it was incredibly fun, but at times the hormones flew from one mountain peak to another in the Andes. We decided to be cheap (since booking a four day trail hike to Machu Picchu is both incredibly expensive on a PCV budget but more so worth it) and traveled all by terrestrial means. Now, if I may jog your memory of middle school geography, remember that Paraguay and Peru are NOT adjacent countries, so we had to cross a couple of international boundary lines. Well, little did I know, Bolivia doesn’t like US citizens, in particular a rambunctious group of eight twenty something year old females. I don’t particularly blame them however. If I was Bolivia I probably would not like us either, sapyaite (sometimes). Needless to say, the two nights spent on excruciatingly painful bus rides were only exceeded by our acrimonious disputes in obtaining visas (though all our paperwork was straight) both at the Paraguay-Bolivia border and immigrations office in La Paz, and again on the way back with a particularly villainous yet comical immigrations officer at the Paraguay-Bolivia border. Such a short time was thus not pleasantly spent, and though some would say that Bolivia sucks, I honestly can’t wait to give it a second chance and enjoy the beautiful city that is La Paz at the foot of the Andes, and visit its charming salt flats and whatever else is out there. I at least won’t have to include a visit to the evil, evil man from Immigrations in La Paz, who chased me out of the building as I tried to retrieve a fellow PCV’s passport they wanted to confiscate overnight.

In September and through most of October, I think I spent more time running and enjoying actually satisfying work. I recall, I actually had running water most of this month, and my garden somewhat recovered from the cow ambush. The high school’s library was taking form as I picked up a few boxes of books donated through different national and international orgs. I worked most contentedly with the elementary school on basic animal taxonomy, with families in trying new green manures in their fields, and started up a tree nursery with the women’s group (a total disaster), with the elementary school (somewhat successful until they thought I myself would plant all 300 tree seedlings), and with two individual families (mostly successful). In this month, my rabbit got knocked up and gave birth to 9 bunnies on the very same day of my niece’s 9^th birthday (my host family’s pig also gave birth to 9 piglets that same day).

In late October, I received a most pleasant visit from new trainees, a married couple from our sister group who had just a few weeks in country. They spent a few nights in my community as I showed them around the school, presented them to a handful of families, and planted a green manure in someone’s field using rudimentary planting tools (hoe, stick, hands and feet). They were a wildly hilarious retired couple in their 60s who have a TON of impressive work experience, and who together decided to spend a couple of years of their retirement in international development with the Peace Corps. It is utterly romantic.

At the end of October I also tried out my very first race! It was a 10km race in Asuncion, and I thought it would be only appropriate to use the 0.4mm soled, handmade LUNA sandals that I used to train in on the dirt roads in my community. Not only did it turn out to be pretty painful on my feet (the sole of my foot bruised), I attracted unsolicited, unwanted attention like a poufy llama wearing a rainbow vest and ear tassels (It makes no sense, but it’s a reference to a miserable little, colorful llama I saw at a parade in Cusco, and all eyes and flashing lights were on the wretched thing). Nonetheless, the race was thoroughly exhilarating and my time was not so bad for a slow 1^st timer and foot injury, at almost exactly 10min/mile pace.

In November, I continued on, planting, sharing lots of information about rabbits and producing a little work from it, and sometimes at home because it actually would rain full days at a time. It is also the month in which my community celebrates a patron saint, and there are at least seven people with birthdays this month, including me, so almost every weekend was spent at some party eating a kilo of sopa and milanesa and a sliver of cake.

December, around the most holy day of the 9^th, when millions pilgrimage by foot or colectivo to visit a church that houses the Virgin of Caucupe, the mercury in my thermometer was at the brink of overflow, and the basil in my garden started to look kangy (sad and withered). There was talk everywhere of the evident lack of rain, and my well was one of the first to let us know. The well in my yard has a very narrow opening, covered by a water pump motor, so it’s generally pretty clean and convenient, but considering that three families and myself were using it (a total of about 15 people, including two very dirty little girls who generate buckets of dirty laundry every hour), dried out. It was the beginning of my year early Armageddon, because as I recall, by solstice, I was getting at the most a liter of drinking water out of the damned well. It was easy to feel down on the month that work abruptly ended with the school letting out the month before and the women’s group deciding to take a hiatus for the summer. I had to gather bathing and cleaning water from my neighbors well, that though only about 40 meters from my door, I had to cross a fence, and usually at least of couple of thirsty cows that would vie for access to the water in my bucket as I had to kick them out of my way. Since the water in their well is not clean enough to drink, I had to go to the school about a 7-10 min walk for clean water if the well wasn’t putting out enough.

January and February was much of the same slowness, and more so with higher temperatures and everyone just sitting in the shade not working, talking of the heat and taking three-hour siestas. It was so hot, I cut down a lot on running, and would too often give into the siesta culture. It rained much less. I attended two camps, with girls’ leadership and environmental themes, accompanied by a couple of youth from my community in these two months. I was excited to see them out of their element, and being pushed a little to talk and be less shy, and even more to later know that they really enjoyed themselves.

And in the first week of March has passed. The heat continues, the rain gods teased us with only a couple days of rain. The water situation has degraded to me having to go to a dirty cow watering hole about 200 meters away to “wash” clothes in, and just recently to get water to bathe, since the neighbor’s well is inching closer and closer to the very bottom.

Nonetheless, I have been having a great time, and am very happy. Work is starting up again with the schools, and women’s group. It is exciting to see how much the women’s group is accomplishing, and I act only as a facilitator in the big picture. They are getting more formal recognition because they want to someday have a place for each to raise chickens and pigs. I have a more structured lesson plan on environmental education for the little ones and somewhat in the high school. More so, I am looking forward to continuing the library development in the high school, and very possibly doing a nutrition and PE class, and a self esteem/sex ed lesson series. Even though in the past couple of months, about half of my rabbits escaped while at the care of my neighbors while I was on vacation and away (too often I admit), I am getting some more interest in rabbit raising.

By no means do I mean to sound pessimistic or spiteful. I in fact really love my time here and happy to see how things are going into my second year of service. My faults in person and writing are that I’ve become more sarcastic, cynical and my English is faltering. Though sometimes I do think it’s a drag to have to go out of my way to get water and the heat is unbearable, it is the way my communities lives and thus so do I. I knew that signing up for the Peace Corps meant that I could possibly end up living in a hut in the middle of nowhere without internet or phone service, let alone electricity or running water. Yet here I am, in my cozy and adorable hut in the middle of nowhere, blogging, emailing and facebooking while I wash dishes and myself out of buckets of water from a 10 min walk away, excited to what the last nine months of service may bring. I have grown very much, and just when I thought I couldn’t be more humbled from my own upbringing, I find myself in a beautiful country where families with nothing are eager to share a sip of terere, a laugh, food that is solely from homegrown ingredients, drips of sweat as we work in their fields, and any bit of knowledge they happen to recall. This obviously has taught me how good we ALL in the states have it, but most importantly almost all human beings have the ABILITY to give and help, but those who have the WILL to give and help are simply the ones who matter. I feel like when I say this, I mean to include all of Peace Corps and myself, but I refer to the people I have grown to love in my community and other host country nationals in Paraguay. Unfortunately there are some volunteers who are here for the wrong reasons, and most unfortunate that there is little regard of the impression they make as representatives of the US, the lack work ethic and effort from them, and no way they can be properly checked and kicked out.

From the time that we had a 10 minute spotlight in training to share our history and explain our reasons for being in the Peace Corps, I was unsure as what a straight answer would be in my case. I realize I have known it all along, and it’s the only quote I have posted on facebook, and the only one I knew by heart when I first put it up there, sometime early in college and remember first hearing it sometime in childhood:

"When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines the kind of people we are."

-Cesar Chavez