Que paso de vos?! means, What the hell happened to you, man?

Shame, shame, shame, verguenza! E'A!

It's been a long time but I promise to make up for it.

This is just like when I don't go to visit a family for a few days and then I'm so ashamed I don't go for another fews days, then it's a month and by the time I have mustered up the strength to walk past their house I am ablaze with red, hot shame. They will scream at me, Ingrate! You are shameless! But they will love me again.

So ask you, readers, love me again? You can throw rocks at me, as Paraguayan children tend to do when they're having trouble expressing their emotions, or you can whip me a little with a stick as my host mother has done once or twice after I scandalize her. Just love me again.

"This is not who I am!"

As ex-patriots enduring hardships, as fish out of water, as people trying to stay sane- as Peace Corps volunteers- we tell ourselves a lot of lies. We tell other people lies: Lies to get through the week, the day, the meal (do fried pig intestines count as a meal?). 

But which is it? Do we tell little lies to make the day easier? Or do we forget who we are?

We talk in the Peace Corps about adjusting your standards as a volunteer and living with an altered set of expectations. For example, if I walk into my new site expecting a ceramic bathtub and air conditioning, I may be disappointed. If I walk into my new site expecting to bucket bathe and live without the luxury of a fan, the fact that I have hot running water becomes the highlight of the month. Lower your standards, raise your average. However, that little tactic for staying happy and sane can quickly become a slippery slope of floppy moral values and self-efficacy. "I could go without running water," becomes, "I never really liked deodorant anyway," which becomes, "It's alright if he doesn't have teeth- he speaks spanish." Hake! Now we're fishing low. But how do you ensure you're traveling far enough down the path of alternate expectations without slipping down the landslide?

Like Roxette said, listen to you heart?
(insert <3 emoticons, wink wink, smiley face, exclamation point!)

Maybe.

Listen- if I told the truth about everything to the people I live with I would have no friends. Having no friends in Paraguay means you also don't have any coworkers. No separation exists between work and home, between family and business friends, between peluqueria and class time (wait... what?). This is why we spend the first three months in site not doing anything. Anything, of course, being the very American notion of shuffling papers, sending emails and producing tangible, touchable evidence of our labors. What we are actually doing in those three "idle" months is making friends - which can be a heady task- and hopefully making people love and trust us, thus enabling a work environment.

Would people love me if I told them I was of the (shhhh) Judaic persuasion? Supported (quiet!) same-sex civil unions? Didn't like (what?!) beans?!?! Meat?!?!?! Paraguayan men climbing through my window at night?!?!?! Shut up! Of course none of that's true!

So we make tiny little concessions to sneak stealthily into this very contradictory but navigable culture- if you've got the right compass. And once we are established- once someone loves us- once we find our mother number two, father number 3, indispensable next-door neighbor señora- then we can start leaking out whole-truths, big juicy life secrets instead of the watered down half pint we've been feeding people.

That's how it was for me. And now? Now I laugh and tell people that beans and I are not friends, that I don't like to eat a lot of red meat because it's bad for the heart and that I don't dig on the overwhelming culture of infidelity spread among Paraguayan men (and women). And people get it. Because they're humans and so am I and it's hard to hold yourself back for so long and present an altered version of your personality just to please other people.

BUT- am I 100% here? Bragging about my political stances on medical coverage and welfare?

Hell. No.

That would be a social and professional death sentence. Even though we've been here a year now and myself I feel integrated into my community- I have people I genuinely trust, feel relaxed, at home- I still do and say things that do not reflect the person I believe I truly am. This weighs on me.

But it's not possible for most of us to do otherwise.

Four days ago I was walking with a friend on an isolated dirt road, no one around, no traffic, no houses, no nada, and we threw an empty cardboard chocolate milk container into the bushes (guilt of physical tossing of container will remain unplaced). Neither of us said anything for a moment. Why? Because throwing sick trash into a lush green ambiance of tropical plants and fauna is normal. Then she laughed and so did I. Who are we?!?!

I've always been one to vilipend littering. Fiercely so and to the irritation of most everyone around me apart from my tree-hugging sister (hug on, Jin). But look around us. Imagine the image we are trapped inside of- and not just physically but culturally. We have just passed by a series of burn piles dotting the side of the road, still smoldering and letting off just a wee bit of toxic gas into the air we breathe. The flora is already scattered with plastic bottles and used diapers. Pieces of flip flops have been ground into the road, half buried under packed red dirt.

What are we doing throwing trash into the bushes? Integrating.

What am I doing eating more chipa so'o then is healthy for me (that equals one piece by the way)? I'm looking normal.

And what the hell am I doing peeing into a plastic bag on a campo bus full of strangers? What my mama told me to do. Relax.

We adapt. We figure out what things we can do without comprising our morality and what pleasantries have to be sacrificed to maintain our dignity. We lay down. Or we fight. But the choice is singular to each of us and the results may define our service. Or we may define it ourselves regardless of our circumstances.

Some volunteers worry they won't be able to find the road back to their starting point, their embarkation, their arrival gate- back to their original self- when service is over. What if you can't recover the parts of yourself that you sacrificed to get the job done? To get through the day. To finish the meal.

Sometimes it's hard to pull back the oppressed parts of my personality. Sometimes I feel so myself that I'm suddenly weightless and the world is good. And sometimes I can't remember who I used to be so how do I know which rope to grab on to anyway?

Well, so what if you arrive in a different place than that from which you began? So what? If you strayed from the path of yourself? If you picked.... the road less-traveled?

I think that's called finding yourself.

Just don't go crazy, lose yourself completely and kill a cow for eating your last pair of underwear.

Ouch- and it hurts when you hit the bottom

You can only ride that wave for so long I guess and then it crashes.

There are some things happening here. I mean, mostly inside my head. Outwardly summer drags on, men continue to be pitifully machismo and projects develop. But in there.... in my cabezita I am moving slowly but surely toward insanity. I am feeling lethargic and anti-social. I feel the overwhelming and yet I know dangerous urge to explore medical schools online and fantasize about what my life will be like there- IT'S TOO EARLY!!

This dangerous endeavor causes a discontinuity in my space-time relationshipper and I am unable to focus on the present- Paraguay: heat; poverty; beasts and children everywhere; people thinking I'm a spy; over abundance of starches and animal fats- and I walk around in a haze. Mentally I've been transported to the beautiful lush campus of the Medical University of South Carolina or MSU: The lawns are well-tended, ethnic food is nearby and the educational material is peer-reviewed and open to everyone. But physically. Oh boy. Physically I'm sitting at Ña Jacinta's house discussing the logistics of getting them a fogon so she can stop breathing in so much smoke every time she cooks while five barefoot little boys run around making toys out of empty pop bottles and sand from the road. I love them. And I love my work. But I have hit my wall.

We are careful to emphasize in the Peace Corps that every volunteer will have a distinct experience, even if they serve in the same sector in the same country in similar towns. It depends. That's the catch all answer/advice for everything. But in spite of that, most volunteers follow a very similar path in emotional adjustment. 

Observe.

Month 6 was no fun whatsoever. Month 7 or 8 we received this little gem that- if nothing else- justified the struggles I had been through in month 6. Little late. But okay.

The last week or so I've been 'struggling' again- that's putting it lightly- and last night I found myself desperately searching through my gmail for the copy of this chart to justify my feelings (I'm not crazy, right?!) and when I couldn't find it I resorted to typing things into Google Image like, "emotional progress of peace corps volunteers". Oh, it was a sad night.

What's wrong Carly? 

Is it the refusal of new people to speak directly to you but instead pretend you're deaf/incoherent/invisible/can't speak spanish/can't understand Guarani and ask everyone sitting next you personal questions about your life and then refuse to listen to the answer I give?

No.

Is the almost physically painful loneliness brought on by an emotionally and physically trying and particularly solitary year without the tiniest hint of romance due to geographical isolation and incredible male/female ratio in Peace Corps-Paraguay which is about 1:5, the majority of males being either married or otherwise sexually inclined? 

No.

So then maybe the language thing? The 5000 miles from home thing? The 'no one understands me!' thing? The where is my life going thing? No, no, no. You know what? 

I think it's the Paraguayan government in conjunction with 1-year blues. 

Two nights ago I went with the host family to a wedding, first time. I tried, I tried, I tried to focus on the joyous event but every thought I had spun around and turned bitter in my mouth. The dresses- the cheap material, the low quality of products in Paraguay and the fact that no one cares enough to improve the market. The groom- what were the chances he would actually be monogamous? In this country- almost zero. The food at the reception- four starches and two kinds of meat. Zero vegetables, zero fruits. We couldn't get water served to us - the waiters were baffled. The bathrooms- I asked my mom where they were. She asked the woman next to us who asked the woman next to her. I stood up and said I would ask someone who worked here and everyone had little spaz attacks in their seats at the inherent danger presented by that proposition. Similarly, our table was given one too few plates when the food was served so my mom said she'd would stop a waiter when he walked by. One walks by. She starts at him anxiously but says nothing. Two walk by. She and my sister stare anxiously. My brother smacks my mom's arm over and over but again - no one says anything. Well, I gave them their chance so I stand up, find a waiter and ask for another plate. Everyone at the table and in the near vicinity is shocked by my outward behavior, having tiny chisme seizures in their plastic chairs. They would have gone hungry.

I unknowingly hold my breath. 

I get stuck inside my own head. 

The passing of time warps with every day. 

The customs of the culture here are alternatively endearing and infuriating and after a year their intimacy makes them issues not easily brushed off. These things are integral, inescapable parts of life. As volunteers we're forced to stare down their throats and love it or hate it but rarely can we accomplish a point of view that isn't totally ethnocentric. Every single day we confront the absence of women's rights and male domination both inside the home and out. Every single day we see the consequences of a post-dictatorial culture that is terrified to confront any issue head-on and so goes on, day after day, week after week, year after year, lacking basic human rights and unable to ask for the things they need and want, both from each other and from their government. Every. Single. Day. The overbearing integration of superstition and myths restricts activity keeps peoples minds small and their presence limited.

But the very worst of all are the people who want to learn and are denied the resources. People who tell me openly that their culture is "low" and their people are ignorant and they don't understand how it happened. And that's the most frustrating part of all. Never at any point is it the people who are irritating. You can't be upset with Ña Fulana or her seven illegitimate, parasite-ridden children who want to steal your clothes and tell everyone you're there to steal the aquifer. I want to be mad at them but I can't- my anger would be completely small-minded and ill-placed because it's the government that keeps them intentionally in the dark, fostering their ignorance, ensuring that a threat can never materialize. And the government isn't something I can beat as a Peace Corps volunteer. 

If we try really really really hard maybe in another 50 years we can beat illiteracy or malnutrition in children. It's highly unlikely but hopefully we can at least reduce the numbers. But corruption in the government which ultimately is the bedrock and the potential solution to every problem the country has? That's not something we're allowed to affect. 

So we trudge on against the unbeatable opponent, sweating it out, falling into poop holes, pulling 12-inch worms out of our butts and having our reputations destroyed for having more than one boyfriend in a year, among other travesties.

Sometimes I get stuck  thinking about all the unbeatable obstacles in these dog days of summer when my temper, one year in and feeling the weight, is dangerously paired with a thin store of patience and sharp pangs of homesickness. And I think.... What the f@#$ are we doing here?

Two years of your life so people can accuse you of being a spy and spread rumors about you. Two yours of your life so people can tell you, You would have quit by now if they'd put you in the campo. Two yours of your life so people can cancel meeting after meeting or just never show up at all after you worked all night to prepare.

Remember, remember, remember- there's a point. Change one life and it's worth it. Improve one life and it's worth it. And like I've said before, I've already changed and improved my own if no one else's so it's got to be worth it already right....? Those were the honey moon days! 

Oh, JFK, give me strength.

"Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary and allowances will be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and meet basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed—doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language.

But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps—who works in a foreign land—will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace."

John F. Kennedy1961 - 1963

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

Or new ones made. Why isn't that part of the song?

A discovery, a juicy one: A person can be reinvented without changing a single thing about themselves. Just change location. A change in surroundings and in people suddenly throws your same borrowing old personality into a new light and you are at once a bright shining new human and your same old same old, one in the same.

Listen: Google maps can't find a way to get from Paraguari, Paraguay to Hudson, Michigan but it seems to be just under 5,000 miles as the crow flies (ask my Mom, she knows a more specific number to which she cries herself to sleep every night). In spite of that seemingly insurmountable number and lack of driving directions, I'm closer with my parents now then I've ever been in life and luckily for me that also goes for a couple of bright shining little stars of friends who are practically family as well. That should be it. My luck should be run out because relationships like I've harbored in the last year are priceless.

But, alas! Look at me in Paraguari. I've reinvented myself as this mysterious norte who at least a few people seem to love. The l word I'm using and I mean it. I am at once a different person here and absolutely myself. I'm my father's daughter and somehow yet 100% the granddaughter of an 86 year-old Paraguayan abuela who I take naps with in the afternoon.  She tells me about birthing her children like they're my brothers and sisters. And I think they are.

Two days ago my host mom was staring off into the south (AKA the side of abuela's house), letting the wind hit her face and looking worried. "La yvytusur," the southern wind, she said, "ombohasyta enteroveva." It's going to make us all sick. That's just how it is, she told me. The southern wind always does this to our family. She asked me if I couldn't feel it taking my spirit away? Yeah, I could feel it. The next day I was feeling down (psychology!!) and she took my hand between hers while we were eating lunch and said to me, as she has before more times than I can count, "That's how I know you're my daughter. We feel the same things in our hearts."

Somehow, when the sappy, emotional, spirit-of-the-earth things are said in another language I don't mind them so much. Somehow when a woman who was a stranger 9 months ago tells me she knows I was meant to be her oldest daughter I don't feel disloyal to my own mother, I just feel incredibly lucky to have two moms. Who would have thought?

To catch up on the 23 years she missed before I popped up on her doorstep, her much-anticipated long-lost first-born, Matchi often asks me about my infancy and my habits as she already knows Jessica and Alvaro's. She now knows when I was born, how long it took, that my mom had an urge to make pasta before she went to the hospital and plenty of anecdotes from the years in between then and now.

To catch up on the years I missed, my body and mind are both syncing up with the family. When abuela has a headache so do I. When abuela gets dizzy so do I. When abuela has the hiccups so do I. Of course I rarely realize that it's happening until later and I say, "Mama, my head hurt all day yesterday," and she tells me without surprise that it was because of abuela. Oh. Of course.

I don't know if I'll teach my future children that the south wind makes us sad and spiritless and that the north wind makes us feel crazy and listless but I know this stuff's too important to lose. And should old acquaintance be forgot..... wait, no! I'm absorbed in my life here but that's the crazy part: I haven't forgotten my old acquaintances nor have they forgotten me. Well, the few faithful and dedicated anyway. It turns out they are the rock upon which this kingdom of dreams is built upon. So thank you old acquaintances. You allow me the luxury of making new ones with some stability waiting behind me. And thanks for not forgetting me because even though I'm in a totally new setting with new people doing new things- I'm still me.

Auld Lang Syne

Tapeguahe poraite 2012. Bienvenidos. Welcome.

If you're in a hurry to get this year under way you might want to come back to this entry later. It's a bit introspective and blah blah blah.

The New Year has arrived: This means reflection upon the Old Year; upon auld lang syne, or times gone by (I never knew). Yet as I advertise that very sentiment on the radio in Paraguari, spreading the word about the very non-Paraguayan tradition of making resolutions and looking back on the year gone by, I find myself hesitant to dive into the pool of memories. I'm afraid to get wet again. Maybe because I don't know what hell just happened. Or what's still happening right outside my front door, just under the surface.... it's all little too close for comfort. Or maybe it's because the 'old' one is inevitably a predictor of the 'new' one.... and the last one didn't exactly handle us gently down here. Or anywhere.

What am I saying? Oh, yes, hallelujah! Como siempre, I tell you, Paraguay has provided me the omnipotent gift of personal development and lead me, albeit at times blindly and through pothole-puddles, toward the road called, "Self Discovery" - cue angels singing. I have found myself. At the bottom of a long, dark lake from which the climb to the surface is grueling but- so the gente say- totally worth it!

To figure out what exactly went on in the last year (was that a cow utter I just ate? did you say dog meat? i didn't agree to marry anyone), I have to go farther. Another year, another one, two more. Let's go to Roanoke College, 2007.

I had a professor my junior year who had the unsettling ability to create ethical gray areas from your most grounded beliefs. He could logically and inoffensively question the moral righteousness of any action until you were 180 degrees flipped on your head with your trusty Boy Scout's guide turned inside out, haven fallen out of your pocket in the process. Should've been a lawyer. This same man taught me a valuable lesson. I selfishly wish it was an easy or less painful lesson but that's not the case. L'sigh. The right things rarely are the easy choices and I very begrudgingly admit this while rolling my eyes. Damn life and it's things.

"The unexamined life is not worth living," my professor said. Turns out Socrates said it first but he conveyed the sentiment well enough. This profe-o-mine talked about the pains and heavy costs of living an examined life and then about the concurrent benefits, immeasurable by any standards of man and describable only by those few ethereal, always-elusively-defined words: Bliss, satisfaction, tranquilidad. 

I mean, I feel blissful and satisfied when Moose Tracks hits my face but I'm a cheap date. I think he meant something a little more profound. So I commanded myself to look- to really look, look, look damnit! at my life. To examine it, scrutinize it- to buoy up even the murky dark half-truths that keep pushing down from the surface each time they bobbed up. Down, down, down they went and up, up, up I'd have to drag them, into the harsh light of day where they are not distorted by the bend of water or the capricious rippling of waves.

So I look.

I see some stuff. As a well-adjusted and driven 20 year-old, I have the unsettling realization that I'm pretty indifferent to my life. I'm indifferent to my college education. I'm indifferent to my sorority. I'm indifferent to the foods I eat and the parties I pop up at. There are a few shining beacons of excitement in my life at this point- a couple of friends, the thought of graduation, Mexican food on Thursdays. Asi era. Over the next two years, through graduation and graduate school alike, I begin to realize that nothing in my life was really precipitated by me. All the things I wanted to happen, the things I dreamed about and planned for, well they fell through. And the rest happened as matters of consequence. I know Harry Potter whined about a lot of this B.S. in the fourth book so, please Anna, just stay with me a minute. I do have a point.

I applied for the Peace Corps. Granted, I didn't know what I was doing and the act was half the consequence of finals procrastination and half fantastical indulgence. But there I was. I kind of did it on purpose. Kendrick was sitting next me on the computers; first floor of the library; Abril 2009. I started a crazy 9-step process to take me into the middle of nowhere so I could get real with myself and then start doing some stuff on purpose. Thank God it finally worked. I've never spent 11 and a half months   examining my life with so few breaks in between to rest the mind and soul (yah, falta two weeks and I'm one year in this country). Normally work distracts a person; family distracts a person; hobbies or the TV or a vacation distracts a person. But here in the wild wonderfulness of Paraguay the hours roll into each other and time is abundant enough for even the moot, sunken mysteries to be signaled ashore. What washes up isn't always pretty but this guy Socrates told me it's always worth it to have a look.

You know, I think I gave Zach Grigsby a similar talk at the ripe all-knowing age of 21 (24 is a lot better, eh? I obviously know it all by now. Psh.) and was baffled when it didn't take. I guess I get it now. A thing as intimate as 'examining' your life is something a person's gotta come into on their own. And maybe I thought I was doing it before- and maybe I was. But I didn't have the strength to take action  until the US government dumped me unceremoniously at the corner of Ruta 1 and the Petrobras to begin service last April. Un poco a poco, I'm finally doing it. Take a deep breath. I can see the surface.



What do you want? Looking back at the last 12 months, were you skimming the surface and avoiding the pain that might have come with staying under water too long? We you floating? Were you wearing Buzz Light Year floaty wings, good God, get a grip, man. Maybe getting sunburnt occasionally but, hey, it's better than drowning just to see what's down there. Or is it? I don't want to float anymore. I want to dive- like, scuba, not snorkeling. I want to feel the pressure on my lungs because I forgot to come up for air. That's living. And maybe it's hurts a little but I've decided for myself it's better than never seeing the fauna on the seabed. What if there's a treasure down there....?

Come on in: the water's great.

And then she finds you

Death is an unfair mistress. She lurks behind corners until a bounce accompanies your step and then she trips you. She watches your parties, your invincibility, your recklessness for the laws of man and nature alike and she pulls the rug out from under you as you dance upon it with a drink lifted high in your hand. The drink spills. The dream dies. You fall down.




After a three-day HIV/AIDS workshop in Asuncion, the seven hour bus ride to Encarnacion commenced. I was on my way to a much-anticipated pool-side Thanksgiving celebration with other Peace Corps volunteers- three days with no community development (whatever that is), no Guarani headaches and no house calls. Vacation time. VACATION TIME!

After hours of sweaty, running-out-of-gas, no-I'm-not-married-but-no-we're-not-going-to-date-mr.-bus-driver, we arrived at Hotel Tirol. Upon entering the property, we were greeted by a pool full of slightly crispy Peace Corps volunteers, floating face-up in inner tubes, hues reminiscent of Life Saver candies, wearing over-sized sun hats with quickly-mixed drinks in their hands, electronic pop blaring from a borrowed sound system and a volleyball net set up on one side. We had arrived.

The next two days were a blur of slathering on layer upon layer of sun screen (still missing spots, of course), floating in an array of creative positions in the inner tubes and then ravenously eating catered food like cows called home by the bell three times a day.

Even though we were in this Shangri-La of generously provisioned food and poolside volleyball tournaments, there were tensions. Here we were: A large group of our friends together in one place for the first time since training activities. You might think we'd be overjoyed to see each other again, to be reunited and have it feel so good. But, being over-emotional women in a unique circumstance outlined by life-defining challenges and exhausting personal development, things become more complicated than that. It seems that in our own isolated communities, talking everyday (or close to it) on the phone, we have become accustomed to having our own friends- all. to. our. selves. And to share becomes something of a trial. So the underlying passive agressive jealousy that we would never admit ourselves capable of because we are good people trying to do good in the world and eliminate poverty, world hunger, teenage pregnancy, parasitosis, cavities, bad fashion choices, ingrown toe nails for God's sake! it starts to creep up in totally novel ways. Things are fun! For certain. But things are tense as well. We are doing our best to ignore the problems and take in as many cosmic rays as we can before it's time to leave Zion.

Thanksgiving dinner rolls around and I find, mysteriously, that I've lost my ability to over-eat. After living without a refrigerator and surviving on popcorn and watermelon for the last month, I can hardly choke down my first plate of delicious, so-authentic American Thanksgiving food before I am nauseous and wondering how long it will take for this dinner to become a scary trip to the nicer-than-usual-but-still-doorless bathroom at this joint. But don't worry yall. Like I've said before, I can get at some desert like Mike Tyson at a fresh plate of ears so I obviously destroyed four different options after declaring it impossible to eat another bite. The night and day that followed the feast did well to prove itself worthy of it's forebearing fodder: Turkey (Juuuui-cy), mashed potatoes, yams with marshmallows, green bean casserole,  mac n' cheese, stuffing and a fresh salad which I didn't touch.

Mm.

Saturday afternoon everyone packed up their sopping wet stuff, trying not to wonder if it was beer, pool water, sweat or some other unmentionable and ate our last lunch at the hotel. As things were winding down and we were talking logistics, a few people came into the dining area to make an announcement. We had been making a lot of announcement these last couple of days: Beer pong tournament starts at 9; stop dropping bottles into the pool; thank you's to so-and-so, you get the drift. This one was different. This one wasn't good. The girl talking wasn't smiling at us. Her voice was shaking. People were frantically shushing other guests at the hotel who were still mumbling in spanish or other languages. This one wasn't good.

Death is an unfair mistress. She waits until your belly is full, your body is satiated and then she starves you of air. She watches your parties, your invincibility, your recklessness for the laws of man and nature alike and she pulls the rug out from under you as you dance upon it with a drink lifted high in your hand. The drink spills. The dream dies. You fall down.

I barely recognize the name but I feel acutely the fear and the loss, like the prick of a hot needle at the nape of your neck. I feel the stomach-churning, discomfort of losing someone who is supposed to be untouchable. Someone who is blond and beautiful and smiling, exploring the world at 24 can't be- dead? Can't be dead. But death is unfair. Death is unfair. And people fall down.

For the rest of us, we can pour another drink, dream another dream and stand up again. But not if it's you. Not if you're the one she found.

So what are we supposed to take away? Are we supposed to forget all the inconsequential tensions of the day and love each other unconditionally?  I would like to do that but even though she died I still feel irritated at things I know are inconsequential. So what? I don't get it. I'm in Paraguay sweating bullets surrounded by people who love me but I know I'll still be irrationality irritated at stupid things so what? Am I broken because I can't see the divine light that death has shed on the ugliness of the world? I don't get it.

Death is an unfair mistress. She is inescapable and unrelenting. The only thing for it is to live while you can and see what happens. Is that true?

You Want Me To Do What?

I can do anything.

In Paraguari, a major city center, situated about 3 kilometers from my town, there rests a pleasant little building titled, Regional Hospital Paraguari. In this hospital there sits a special area designated for youth titled, Zona Joven. The Young Zone. An obstetrician who works in the Zona Joven heard through the grapevine that I possessed the triple threat of youth obstetrics: Yoga, teenagers and pregnancy experience. I've only directly experienced two of the three but had pretty intimate contact with the third. Lots of blood and screaming. Anyway, this obstetrician named Laura rooted me out in my little town down the road and asked me to lead a yoga class for pregnant youth. 

You might be wondering... Is Carly certified to instruct yoga classes? Then again, you might not care enough to wonder. Either way, the answer is...  In what context? .... okay technically in the United States well no not really. I'm not licensed or anything. But hey- this is Paraguay. And my mere access to Google makes me an infinitely better resource for yoga classes than the overwhelming majority of the gente (people) around me. So ah ha! The answer now is yes: I'm certified. Don't worry about it. 

Obviously I said yes and after about a month we have organized the group. Se llama Mama Felices, Bebes Sanos: Happy Moms, Healthy Babies. Hopefully by increasing the mothers' awareness, we can increase the likelihood of a healthy, educated upbringing for the child.

This morning I had my first class. But let's back up because the class is important- it was a huge moment for me- but even before that a huger moment presented itself to me for which I'll be infinitely grateful. And that's a for real statement. An un-exaggerated-yes-I-mean-it-life-changing kinda' thing.

So it's 10 o'clock this morning. I've just finished the first in a sequence of radio broadcasts on the topic of women's health with my dear friend Anna Banana Sanger. Hey- we spoke in another language on the radio. I'm kind of proud of myself. Anna and I are eating unhealthy food on the way to yoga class because that's how we roll. I got a sweet tooth that would put Cookie Monster to shame and I am not messing around with that statement either. You're shameful Cookie Monster. Anyway, I'm thinking to myself... I'm thinking... after all this managing spanish, it must be so nice to go willy nilly and teach classes in your native language. What a breeze!! What a break!! 

Thinking this I feel a little bit ... what...?....  a little bit like my hubris has up and abandoned me? Like I'm flourishing my bravura a little too brazenly? I don't care. I can feel the power of my thoughts welling up inside me and I've got to say them out loud and hey, there's Anna, a fluent English speaker and the ever-present sounding-board of my sometimes frightening thoughts so I say to her, "I think I can do anything," and before I can even finish tacking on, "after this experience," an ambiguous statement in itself, she's already nodding her little head and pointing affirmatively at me. "Yeah!" We both say how relieving it would be teach a class - on anything- in our native language considering we frequently teach classes in Spanish and Guarani on topics we knew almost nothing about 10 months ago. I can't imagine ever being very nervous for a job interview again- unless it's going to be in Russia.

Considering this incredible feat- having acquired the confidence to tackle any obstacle- the two years are worth it. Two years away from friends and family, two years of not 'climbing the corporate ladder' or advancing academically are suddenly worth it when weighed against the backdrop of personal development that comes from constantly living outside of your comfort zone. If the Peace Corps dropped me off in April of 2013 with nothing more to show than this confidence in myself, the two years are worth it. 

Now consider this, my friend. Add on top of the personal development and leaps and bounds in self-worth the fact that I am affecting other people live's positively and -WOAH- the two years become more than worth it. Pile on top of that the fact that I'm learning a set of personal skills that will benefit me the rest of my life- for example, I can now do anything by hand- and top it off with the cherry of life-long friendship.... uhhhh. I would have paid a lot of money for this junk. Hey. Maybe they should put me in a commercial. As much as the bureaucratic stuff is stupid, I kind of love this.

So let's re-focus on what's happening. I'm in town preparing to lead this group of medical professionals in their first ever yoga class. I've just finished a radio program with Anna on the importance of exercise. We have declared the importance of the ever-elusive-to-define "Peace Corps experience" in our lives and affirmed our ability to rock out job interviews, university lecture halls or Broadway stages. It's whatever. But here we are preparing for yoga. And I have a strange feeling. It's a somewhat familiar feeling but I can't identify it, like a smell in the air that takes you back to a specific place in time but you have no idea what the smell is. It smells like... it smells like.... It's creeping in around the edges of my consciousness and I can almost identify it but there's something out of place... something missing. 

Anna and I grab our power health bars from GNC and we're off. We're picking our way through a poor excuse for a sidewalk in a major city center along the country's most well-known highway. In my head, I'm reviewing all the words I looked up last night to make the yoga narrative as eloquent as possible: Let your arms relax; the head hang; the bones to sink; the muscles to melt... and there's that feeling again. Like a twinge of something in my stomach. A little light-headed maybe? I don't know.

With the hospital in site, a large-ish one-story building painted a dull yellow but well-maintained, Anna and I cross the street, once again miraculously not plowed down by any manner of "vehicles" on the highway. I'm always waiting for the impact. Anna spotts a familiar old man drinking terere on the sidewalk so we stopp to chat for awhile. He mistakes me for another white girl in the area (per usual) and after much confusion and correcting, I'm starting to get anxious to move on and start this class already. 

BAH! 

That was it. Anxiety!

Anxiety!! How stupid! My old friend! It wasn't until that moment when this old man whom I'd never seen before was chastising me for leaving his wife waiting (who was she?) and thinking I was some other white girl who lived 20 miles away (that's you, Stephanie) that my foot took on a very American life of it's own, started tapping, tapping, right there on the sidewalk and I identified my anxiety. My stomach! My head! My foot! I was nervous! I was feeling anxious and the feeling was so incredibly foreign that I had lost my ability to even identify it. You're a weirdo, Carly.

This is what Paraguay has done to me. I have to say it again, if the Peace Corps left me with nothing but my ability to relax the two years would be worth it. 

Class went beautifully. I spoke in spanish. Sometimes I messed up. That's life.

FAST FOWARD

It's 2 o'clock. I'm sitting in my house after running around Paraguari all morning. What have I done today? I have transmitted a radio broadcast to the departamento (county) in Spanish. I've taught a yoga class in Spanish. I've created a calendar of events for the hospital in Spanish. I've reviewed the plan of submission for our pregnant yoga class. In Spanish. Hake! (Watch out!) I speak Spanish!

I find myself a little tired. A wee bit sleepy. It's hot out and I've walked 6 kilometers today which isn't that much but it's nothing to scoff at in 90 degree heat either. I feel-    full. I feel satisfied. I feel physically and mentally exhausted for the moment and if I had the energy I might be blushing with pride but for now, it's just sweat tinging my hairline. I've done what today needed and tomorrow can wait for tomorrow. This is life. And we can do anything.

Guilty as Charged

It may come as a surprise to some of you that I suffer from a moderate to severe guilt complex, instilled in my sub-conscience sometime between the childhood phases of, "Lying to your mother puts black spots on your heart," and, "Those tiny wooden elves are watching you and they will rat you out". And, I mean, I don't know, I guess the persistent phase of, "There are poor, suffering children in China who would really appreciate that food you just threw away," might have played some role as well, but it's really hard to say in hindsight.

This complex results in deeply-rooted feelings of guilt. Sometimes it's legitimate: White lies, ex-boyfriends, divorces, people dying. Sometimes it's not. I used the choke chain on my Dad's dog Isabelle. God, she loved to chase squirrels and I just couldn't stop her unless I really pulled hard and then I would get really irritated (!!!! anger problem, next post maybe !!!!) and then she was choking and coughing and people were staring and oh God why did I do that to her?!? I'm sorry Isabelle. I miss you quite a lot and I'm sorry for using that choke chain, but I didn't know what else to do.

With so much free time on my hands, guilt that I've been carefully harboring for a half decade-ish, pruning and shaping it just so, carefully tweaking the edges and gripping tight-tight-tightly to the bulk of it (ooo, my knuckles are turning white), just pops up again! These feelings... they come bubbling up to the surface like a dreaded case of heart burn that you stupidly brought on yourself- it was a double-fried cheese stick, you idiot. But it looked so good! Now you have to suffer. But, wait- it gets worse. In addition to the physical shame- a burning in your chest, the inability to open your mouth without embarrassing yourself and a rumbly- you're also kicking yourself for doing it in the first place. What the hell?! You knew this would happen!

Double whammy.

The sudden excessive free time is to blame here. Look. I'm considered a 'busy' person in the context of this culture: I teach 12-24 classes a week; I organize/take home/'grade' one big project for my students every week; I visit at least two families a day; I help out with an exercise group and I'm starting a project with the regional hospital to teach pregnant yoga to teenage mothers-to-be (which will hopefully develop into a don't-get-pregnant class). And yet- with all of this- I have an average of 8 hours a day where I. Am. Doing. Nothing. As you can imagine, the mind wanders.

I have to thank my lucky stars (thank you, lucky stars, thank you) that I have the network of friends and family that I do. They not only keep me sane during these mental meanderings, but they are helping me to become a better person through the tiring, frightening task of facing my emotions. Emotions- woah. Hang on a second. Let me introduce you to my emotions: These days, they are my constant companions and although they demonstrate definite signs of Multiple Personality Disorder and/or bipolarity/manic depression, they are not to be under-estimated as sources of personal growth and development, okay? Be careful not to insult my emotions: They're very sensitive. Highly explosive, even. What? Oh, well, yeah, it's true that they have a rebound rate of approximately 16 seconds but that doesn't mean you should go tromping all over them like an abandoned garden project. They have potential. I'm serious.

What do I do with all of these emotions? Well, we enjoy long walks on the beach (stumbling lost through the campo), firelit talks that last until the wee hours of the morning (mate by the brasero) and just relaxing and having a good time (crying)! You know!

No really, while those things are true (I don't cry, don't worry, Dad- I'm just making my readers feel better about how much they cry into their pillows made of other people's moldy old t-shirts stuffed into a ripped and re-sewn sack that gives them rampant, almost painful and certainly embarrassing allergies every night and morning), my emotions take part in much more constructive activities lately. It's called: Talking It Out.

Talking it out goes like this. I find a friend. Their name might be Emery, or Herre, or Anna, or Taylor or Kendrick. Sometimes they have more exotic names like Matchi. It just depends on the day or the tema. Then I hit them with a, "What's up?", "How's work?" or "Mbaecha'pa". It just depends on the person. I follow with something that will hopefully steer us in the direction of my most current guilty feeling. It sounds something like, "I've been thinking," or, "Dude I. Am. Freaking. Out." or, "Ay, mama, che corazopohyi!" It just depends. And then, you know, I just have to drop the bomb. I gotta let it out. The last couple of times I've done this it has resulted in this gush of emotions comparable to the levees after Katrina, and we all know they were not built to withstand storms of that magnitude. Well, neither was my heart y'all. This shit (sorry) is getting serious.

My fellow volunteers will agree that throughout most of our previous lives (pre-Paraguay lives, that is) we were not conditioned to withstand such a barrage of emotions in such a short period of time. Was anyone? We don't know what to do with them. What resources do we have to handle this? We're sitting here in the middle of some strangely-half-way developed third-world country looking at people pooping in holes in the ground while they facebook their brother-in-law from their Blackberry being told to 'help the people' and do the 'sustainable development' and hey, here's a stick a paperback book to do it and by the way, we forgot to tell you, you're about to experience the ultimate mind-f*ck. Our resources are each other and some God-bless-you-thank-you-Lord-in-Heaven-for-existing friends and family and, if we can dig it out from the rubble, our own inner-strength. That's the hardest one to find. Dig past the guilt, the self-doubt, the confusion, the loneliness- pull that one out because the others are no good without it.

Whew, I got pesada on myself! Revelations! Confessions! Forgiveness! I am not in church, I am just preaching my life! Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!

To leave you with a heavy lightness, it is my pleasure to give, you once, the genius himself: Dr. Seuss.


- "I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you."

- "Be who you are and say what you feel. because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

Oh, darling, I don't wanna grow up

It's the inevitable conundrum of the human experience: We are young and we want to grow up, we are old and wish we were young.

 In the Peace Corps, this ongoing battle against age takes on a new light against a backdrop of cultural mysteries and struggling to focus on the 'right now'. But 'right now' is rarely as important as the 'just a second ago' and the 'two years from now'. The battle of time and age take a back seat to the actual war we're fighting: The War of Where.

In Paraguay, we honor a couple of go-to questions on the road. It's guaranteed that each time you step outside the house in this country (whether 'you' are a seventeenth generation local farmer or a recent US import such as myself), two questions will affront your sense of privacy, if you still maintain one. 1- Where are you coming from? and 2- Where are you going? Many times, these questions precede even the globally mandatory, How are you?

Why?

Well, the people in Paraguay seem to require some sort of space-time continuum to cement each person in an ever-expanding grid. To be unaware of someone's location immediately before or after an interaction is a risky business and seems to blow an air of uncomfortable mystery upon the interaction. To insinuate that you are simply walking, aguata, no mas, is likely to cause a bit of distress in the ever-worrying heart of your new Paraguayan friend. To be sure of you as a person, it's necessary to first establish your geographical place on the grid.

Also included in this placement system are your marital status and age. These two factors seem to be inextricably connected. To incite one without mentioning the other is a possibility only after many months of friendship and shared hours together not speaking. I mean.... to be married indicates an entirely separate line of your grid of life. To be married insinuates another half to the whole that you might have been and links you not only to another human being but to that other person's entire grid as well! Things can get messy.

Age on the other hand seems like a fairly straight-forward issue but of course, in the unwavering tradition of the Peace Corps, the people here have found a way to make it depend. Depend on what, you say? It's your age for God's sake, how much more straight-forward could it be? Age is a  number changeable only by time itself- time! Unfortunately, age is also a number that can be used as a basis to judge all accomplishments in life and to anticipate the impending accomplishment of your dark, uncertain future. That shadowy, uncertain road I mentioned on which people keep rudely pushing you forward.

The issue of age depends greatly on whom you are speaking to. If I say, "I'm 24," to my 86 year-old abuela she inevitably comes back with "Jovencita, todavia!" - translated as, Still a young little thing! She means to say that my entire life is ahead of me and feebly reinforces my cries that now is the time for work, for gaining new experiences, for making new friends! She agrees that love will come later. I mean, hey, she's got 60 years on me - been there, done that.

However, when I reveal my age to a campo man of 55, he is quick to tell me that time is running out, I must hurry! What am I waiting for?! If I don't buck up and find a Paraguayito soon, it may to be too late! All of the sudden, I'll find myself living in a hut in some beaten-down border town all alone, with only my pigs to comfort me when I cry at night because, as we all know, it is impossible to either travel or find the will to live without a man to push us forward.


Haikuepete! What I am doing here?!

I must tell myself... Resist, resist, resist.... from telling these panic-enabling farmers of an alarming trend that connects developed, first world countries with a higher number of women in the workforce and a lower average age of women marrying for the first time. Such a chuchi statistic seems a little pish-poshy, riff-raffy anyway ... or some Guarani equivalent of such.

So, do I want to be young or old? I DON'T KNOW! But it's impossible to stop thinking it as we are constantly reminded of our age and beat down with the question, What are you going to do when your two years are over?

Hey, didn't I come to stop thinking about the future for awhile? Wasn't one of the points of inserting myself into a foreign culture, a much slower culture, to focus on the here and now and stop worrying so much about the future?

What am I going to do when I get back? Do I have to think about that now? Do I have to remove myself from the reality of my current situation to start planning for a future that seems completely disconnected from the cow-poop, sand mortar wall in front of me? My life is suddenly full of allusions to that shaded, dangerously windy road of the future. Allusions full of pressure... and high expectations! Bah!

I'm 24. I'm single. I'm surely on my way from the market and probably headed home to hide out for awhile. Hide from all these people probing into my future which is supposed to be sitting on the back burner while I focus on myself and the present. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Nobody knows... the trouble I've seen...

The normal cycle is as follows: You leave high school to attend a college and whether that college is near or far away you begin socializing with at least a few people who have no idea of your past. Your first car, first kiss, family history, high school experience- all of it's a total mysterious to these strangers who wander in front of you. Eventually, people get a good idea of what your life is probably like in that 'other' place - your home. Then you leave college and you go- where? To work somewhere? Alright, good job finding work first of all and second of all- isn't it daunting to imagine?!- you have to explain your ENTIRE.LIFE. to a new group of strangers with whom you share cubicles, lunches, stories about your significant others, etc. You share such a prominent chunk of your time with these people and yet, this is not your life, is it? There is a mysterious entity floating just beyond the reach of what these used-to-be-strangers could possibly comprehend because they float around in the realm completely opposite of it- your home life.

This process of explaining what has happened before, the actions that carried you forward to the place where you stand now, literally becomes longer everyday, doesn't it? Our histories stretch out behind us in a winding trail with every step we take forward toward the future. Every minute, every second, that slow and laborious (although certainly entertaining) story of our past stretches on and on and the eventual re-telling inevitably becomes less accurate, more exhausting.

Now, what makes this relating of your past so much less daunting is that the people with whom you interact, those would-be-strangers would gradually acquire the titles of co-workers, friends, lovers, spouses, likely have similar backgrounds. Thus it becomes unnecessary for you to dive into the tedious details of how your family ate dinner (with what utensils, in what room of the house, consuming what food) or what high school was like (were there desks? what time did you start and finish? did you have summer vacation?). Instead you can float on the surface of those experiences, including only the really moving or entertaining details that catch your eye from a distance.

However, imagine if you moved to a far-off land where those similar backgrounds disappeared into the abyss of the cultural grab bag that threatens and simultaneously enhances international travel. Really, you don't have to expend the energy to imagine the situation. I will describe it for you vividly as it's happening to me at this very second. Now you can use that saved brain power to do something productive like pulling the stick of Congress's ass or complete a Rubik's cube. Good luck.

Here in Paraguay, most people I meet assume that it's impossible for us to share any common history beyond the physically evidenced fact that we are of the same species both breathing this stuff called air. What luck! We're both humans. But honestly, there aren't really clouds in the US are there? No, no, that's not right. Do you really celebrate Christmas there? And you go to high school too? Well that's poppycocks!! Surely two continents so spread apart couldn't have developed in such a similar social fashion.
Well, remember, Paraguay, it isn't so similar as you think but, yes, we also indulge in weather patterns, education and family traditions - even in the US.

But honestly, back to the point. These would-be-strangers from a different country who now comprise the majority of my social life have no inkling as to my 'past life,' as I like to think of it. Not the past life where I desperately hope I was a lady-in-waiting for Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth as this would explain my abnormal interest in the time period, but my past life where I shopped in downtown Philly, got professional hair cuts and ate fat-free frozen yogurt all at a moment's notice. These aspects of my life, along with my family, friends and education, are all beyond the realm of the people around me. They did not experience them with me and therefore I must begin the re-telling. The differences this time? The re-telling is done in another language, an automatic point deduction from the categories of clarity and accuracy. Secondly, the re-telling is done in the setting of a different culture; there go points from realism and relatedness. Finally, many of the pictures I'm trying to paint with my Guarani and Spanish words are non-exist in this place (e.g. la-z boys, bunk beds, maple trees, smores, Ghostbusters, sledding) and so the re-telling of my life becomes a fanciful story of made-up objects and mutant plants, not unlike a Dr. Seuss book.

Por eso (for this), I often feel as though my strings have been cut and I might easily float off into the void where no one knows who I really am or what I come from. I'm ungrounded. In this first real opportunity for me to completely re-invent myself and plant my strings again, attaching them to whichever foundation I see fit, I find myself desperately trying to pinpoint the exact locations from which my strings were cut upon disembarking the plane in Asuncion: In Hudson, Michigan; in sipping hot chocolate after rolling around in the snow; in my grandparent's lake house; in learning to drive with my Dad on back roads. I tell anyone who will listen in any language available to me every scrap of past I can remember. I babble on to strangers on the street about, Oh Che Dios! My Mom does the same thing! I joyfully recount my life in a series of mythical Dr. Seuss-like journeys around places that surely don't exist in the real world (do they?): Mackinaw, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Sleeping Bear Dunes (yes, she's talking about a Dr. Seuss story, for sure). Because I suddenly realize, staring into a blank future and a present that- I'm serious now- is a Dr. Seuss hybrid with an episode of the Twilight Zone, that all I really want are the simple things that I so despised before. I'll save the world for now but after that I want what's simple. I want a rocking chair, a faithful dog, Sunday dinners and yes, I want to live in a country song. So what? If I chose to take extravagant vacations twice a year to satisfy the burning itch that is the travel bug (is that what that is? I was looking at pamphlets...) you don't get to judge me. Because I know what I want- and that took long enough.

To sign off, a quote from the One-and-Only, the most appropriate inspiration in my present life (not my past): Dr. Seuss (only minimally related to the topic above).

"You have brains in your head. You have shoes on your feet. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go."
-Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Love all around

It's a small world.

I never fully appreciated that statement until I came here and started finding third and fourth degree connections back in the states. Then yesterday I played the One Degree of Carly Waterstraut game with a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) from 1988 who happened to be walking past my house...

Picture it: 

After church on Sunday morning. The town is fully awake by 9:30am and people are walking in and out to the pueblo to recharge for the week: Their saldo, food supplies, visits to the family, gas for the stoves and the rare purchaser of dog food. My host family's house sits right on the edge of town and anyone coming or leaving has to pass in front of it. We are the gatekeepers. 

I had resigned myself to drinking terere for the morning and generally just being really tranquila- something I'm getting better and better at every day- when it happened. I was siting in the shade of a mango tree when a woman walked by with a strangely stylish teenage girl in tow. She asked if I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I replied in an off-hand manner, weary of those prowling Paraguayans who seek to exploit our facetiously-reported monetary supply. She introduced herself and her daughter (who, in typical teenage fashion, glared at her pink Converse ((too clean)) sneakers in lieu of initiating verbal contact) and told me her husband was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguari 22 years ago and they have since been living in the United States. 

My brethen! She commenced to speaking in perfect English, dotting our conversation with endearingly American terms such as 'freaking out' and 'whatever that thing is'. My heart was flying. 

Her husband soon caught up to us, my host mom came out of the house, and in some strange act of serendipity, everyone reunited as though the meeting had been planned 22 years earlier when this guy left post-service. It turns out this RPCV's wife lived next door to my host mom as a child. Accordingly, I was invited to lunch/social hour at these people's family's house in the next town. Of course I accepted, grabbing my..... nope, didn't take anything.... and headed into the unknown. Me, one RPCV, one would-be-Paraguayan-turned-U.S.-citizen and one mysteriously sullen 14-year-old who somehow complained about the heat while in the midst of one of nature's most impressively temperate days.

I spent 7 hours at the woman's family's home who naturally welcomed this white stranger with open arms and even included me in the family photos. Ah, Paraguay! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: Fruit, insta-family, spontaneity, Guarani grunts.... The list goes on and on! 

After a walk home in the twilit tranquility that only the campo can provide, my host family greeted me as though I'd been gone a year, saying things like, "We thought you forgot about us!" and "You just left us here!!" I was kind of irritated at the time but writing it down I realize how awesome it is be welcomed into a new family one hour and the next to be lamented by the one you've just left, if only for a few hours. 

Feel the love, anybody?

pueblo- the town; the city; an area bigger than the one you're currently in.

saldo- credit for internet and cell phones

terere- the national cold tea... drink... thing; cold water mixed with medicinal herbs is poured from a thermos, or termo, into a smaller cup, or guampa, which is packed with tea leaves (sort of?), and drank through a metal straw, or guampa.

tranquila- tranquil; relaxed; Paraguayan.

campo- countryside.

Excerpt on Guarani

This is an excerpt from a volunteer who served in Paraguay during the Bush era, Megan Wood. She's currently living in Belize as a free-lance travel writer. Check out the whole story here: Megan Wood's Story

" “And how is your Guaraní coming along?” she [Juanita] began our monthly meeting.

I sidestepped her inquiry by replying in Guaraní, “Little.” This joke went over well in Paraguay, and I used it to hide the fact that I zoned out anytime Guaraní was being spoken.

She smiled patiently, “And what about the vulgarities of the language? Some volunteers can find it off-putting.”

Off-putting? Vulgarities? What was I missing out on?

“We Paraguayans are mostly bilingual and sometimes I think we switch personalities when we change languages. Spanish is the language of business and work. Guaraní is the language of the home and family. In Spanish, we speak like poets with sweeping adjectives and rich descriptions. When we switch over to Guaraní, it can be a bit crude,” Juanita explained.

Was she trying to tempt me into learning dirty words? ....

I phoned one of those self-righteous, Guaraní speaking volunteers for verification. “Do you know how to swear in Guaraní?” I asked her, getting right down to it.

“Obviously,” she replied, “my host mother calls me a slut almost daily. Lovingly of course.”

“I need you to teach me everything you know,” I demanded. She rattled off a list, and I was in awe, fully inspired to start zoning in whenever I heard Guaraní.

Over the next few days, this is what I learned: “Go jerk off on a cactus” is used freely between siblings. “Devil’s crotch!” is the “Shoot!” of Paraguay.

In America we say, “I don’t believe it.” In Paraguay they say, “About your vagina.” Teachers affectionately call their pupils “devil’s children,” and a mother reprimanding her child sounds like a scene from The Exorcist. 

Nde rasóre! Devil’s crotch! Shoot! I had been missing out because of my own stubbornness. As soon as I began dropping Guaraní into conversation, I saw a whole new side of my host family and Paraguay. "

Ciao, Julio

July is gone, gone, gone and that's probably a good thing because it was weird, weird, weird. I lived in five different places during the month of July, not including a hostel/hotel in Asuncion, and I was feeling pretty disoriented- geographically, emotionally, ecumenically... You know what July: The only good thing you gave me besides an intimate relationship with Anna Sanger was HARRY POTTER. Yes, I got to complete the journey in 3-D with Spanish subtitles and I cried the whole time.

Now, on to August. What shall we do?

This month, I start teaching! My friend Anna and I "successfully" completed a winter break camp in July, so I now have some experience teaching in another language. Of course, the classes at our camp only had between 3 (rough day) and 15 kids in them and the classes at my school have more like... 15-20, depending on the weather. It turns out rain or temperatures below 60F just aren't conducive to teaching.  Ridiculous, right? Makes you want to spout some of that oh-so-classic "I-walked-to-school-in-3-feet-of-snow-uphill-both-ways-with-holes-in-my-boots-and-a-baby-on-my-back" nonsense that grandma gave us, right? Well hold on because in reality I wouldn't go to school either. The classrooms are uninsulated, some have windows (swinging wooden doors) that don't close and the profesoras will be feeling equally as kaigue as the kids which translates to painting their nails, drinking mate dulce and cooking mbeju. Considering those factors- seriously, inclement weather just doesn't allow for productive classes.
So I will do my best and hope this overcast, gray, soulless weather clears up before next week so I can start teaching nutrition. I will teach every Wednesday, 15-20 minute sessions with each class in the morning group, afternoon group and the high school group at night. Entonces, Wednesday's will be busy but guapa points should be quickly piling up.

My puesto de salud is just rocking their socks off! The walls are stretching to hold the number of patients everyday and my doctor and I have organized two support groups: One for pregnant women and new mothers and a second for people with metabolic syndrome (obese, diabetic and hypertensive). Once every two weeks these groups meet and the doctor runs a short meeting, covering a different aspect of health: Cooking healthy meals, exercising, correct breastfeeding tactics, etc. Additionally, the doctor has taken it upon herself to conduct a study of all the people in our town with metabolic syndrome (about 20% of the adult population at the first count) and is utilizing a snazzy new computer program she conseguir-ed to enter and track data such as HDL/LDL levels, waistline measurement, weight and blood pressure over time. She wants to publish the study afterward and, hey, if I could get published internationally I wouldn't really mind it.
Hello, med school? I'm knocking. Actually, I have battering ram with a team of Paraguayans behind it. Can I come in?

Hey, by the way, who's a single, independent duena-negotiating firecracker? It's me! And after six months of sharing homes with incredibly accommodating locals, I have my own house! I moved in two days ago and am currently feeling the ulcer-inducing stress of negotiating with my landlady, Mercedes, in another language. It turns out my refrigerator is actually a freezer (rock-hard carrots, anyone?), my stove is out of gas and only the stovetop functions, not the oven, and I do not have hot water. I'm going to work on either conseguir-ing those things or getting the rent lowered in lieu of them. Another problem... or maybe it's more like a prize in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box, not a problem... my duena is planning on staying with me once a month or so and she's going to bring her quickly disintegrating mother. Should I take this as an interesting opportunity to cuddle up with a stranger in bed and share my food/utilities/patience/space or should I demand that I have my own space? I'm not really sure. Ideas?

In response to a few demands from family and friends, I have left out all SAT-size words from this blog and have instead replaced them with Spanish and Guarani words. See below for the magic decoder list.

Until next time- thank you all for your love and support without which I would surely be in a boneless, undignified puddle on my dirt floor.


kaigue (Guarani)- lazy; can be used as a chronic or acute term
mate dulce- a milk tea drink that is drank with a straw (bombilla) and poured into a small cup (guampa) which is filled with shredded coco.
mbeju (Guarani)- a traditional Paraguayan food made from corn meal, cheese and animal fat.
entonces- so, well, then, therefore, etc...
guapa- super hard-working; the best compliment you can receive. In other Spanish-speaking countries, these term generally means good-looking.
puesto de salud- health post
conseguir- to acquire; to get; to materialize magically from thin air
duena- land-lady

Si Dios Quiere

Thanks to a few too many years of dictatorship in the 20th century, the Paraguayan culture is steeped in apathy, indecision and acquiescence like a vanilla hazelnut tea bag that went from bitter to sweet after you forgot to take it out of the cup. On the brightside, that also means the people are incredibly accommodating and really... down for whatever. Nobody seems to mind if a vegetarian, white girl moves into their house for a month and requires a daily menu change because she doesn't like eating meat or fried food. No problem- they'll just eat stuff they don't like for a month. "Ndai pori problema." --There is no problem.-- Or is there a problem? Because I can't seem to make any concrete plans for the future that don't depend on the ever-changing, enigmatic will of The Almighty.

When planning on seeing people later, you better plan on not seeing them too. It just depends on what God wants. Si Dios quiere, literally translates to, "If Gods wants it," and it's one of the most frequently used terms in the culture in addition to "Ndai pori problema," and "Igual, no mas," --It's just the same, or, It doesn't matter. Each time a conversation dwindles down to, "Well, see you tomorrow," or, "Okay, we'll meet Wednesday, then...?", the inevitable response comes that, while you may be set on your future appointment, it just won't happen if God doesn't want it to. Sometimes, bafflingly, conversations go something like this:

"So you're going to fix the well next week? Is it broken?"
"Yes, it's infested. We don't have any water."
"Who is going to fix it?"
"My brother, if God wants it."

And the running aside in my head which is both exhausting and keeps me sane in the most Paraguayan of situations, goes something like this:

"If you want the goddamn water, make your brother fix the well!!"

But in reality, we really can't control any of the billion factors outside of our own personal, nearly non-existent realms of ascendancy and this is a fact that the American culture tries fervently to deny. You can accomplish anything if you just try hard enough. Well, I kind of believe that when in any of the 48 contiguous United States (Hawaii and Alaska are questionable), but here, in this third-world sub-tropical semi-paradise the idea that just trying harder will give you a better result comes across as a Polly Anna solution for a complicated culturally-ingrained roadblock. Sure, I want to fix my well so my kids can drink water again and I can wash the red dirt off their little Paraguayan faces, but what if that dude who's supposed to do it never shows up? I don't know how to fix wells. I might have learned to do it in school if I had finished school but I seem to remember my Dad loosing his arm and my Mom having 12 kids due to a lack of contraception and women's empowerment so I had to quit school when I was 11 to start working in the fields and bring my family more money. How am I? I'm so good!! No problems!! There are no problems here and life is good!!

Yet, in spite of the inability to commit due to constantly unreliable circumstances, the morale in this country is high. People are aware that their culture is abajo, or low, but they have food in their stomachs and their family is healthy. Or if their family isn't healthy, that's the way it is so why complain? Life is life. Maybe it's a mindset caused by Stroessner and his oppressive 35-year rein as a corrupt dictator, imparting poverty and ignorance on a population full of possibility and potential, but it's a mindset that will not change any time soon. And so instead of raging against the helplessness of, "Si Dios quiere," tal vez it's better to admit, at least a wee little bit, that we really do only have partial control of our own futures; we are only partially in charge of our own fates. Thinking that, I leave you with the juxtaposition of two very wise, very influential poems. Paraguayans are only familiar with one: Guess which.

Invictus, by William Ernst Henley

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance	5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,	10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:	15
I am the captain of my soul.

The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Neibuhr

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Chasing the Doctorita

Every Monday and Wednesday I walk down to the puesto de salud- the health post. The puesto is a reverted two-bedroom house that provides free medical care to about 2,500 people. Staffed by one doctor (two days a week), three nurses (five days a week) and a tecnico (kind of like a nurse's assistant in the US), the puesto handles everything from prenatal check-ups to, "Oops, looks like I shot myself." My town is lucky enough to have the regional hospital less than 4k away but the wait is long, up to 7 or 8 hours, and the care is impersonal and hurried. Thus, gunshots, bunyons, preggos and all report to the puesto. 


The doctor that works at our puesto is the only one in the area and ultimately provides basic care to somewhere between 2,500 - 7,000 people from Monday - Thursday. She is 26, tiny and kind of moves around like a cyclone, asking the patients their names 5 times in a 10 minute visit. She studied in Cuba and speaks some basic English and is known to the people around here as the 'doctorita' - The Little Doctor. And me? I now go by, la doctorita's ayundantita- the little doctor's littler helper.

While I'm still trying to focus on helping the community, well, uh... I can't deny that I'm sucking up these one-on-one medical classes conducted in Spanish- sucking them dry. I didn't think I would be doing much job shadowing in the Peace Corps but if it lands in my lap with a resounding, HOLA!, what am I supposed to do?

And so, my recent activities include getting to know my community (still), planning classes with the professors and directors, working with the youth group to do STI-awareness activities and hanging out with my doctorita on Mondays and Wednesdays. Soon we'll start planning town meetings for specific subjects like : Tips for New Mothers, Managing your High Blood Pressure/Diabetes and Healthier Cooking Techniques. Though unfortunately, we won't be doing any of that until it stops being so cold outside. It turns out people stop leaving their houses/going to school when the cold sets in. And it has set in!

Two nights ago the temperature got down to 0 C and we had a frost in the morning. This might be a refreshing change from the sweltering heat if it weren't for the lack of insulation, HVAC systems, windows, doors, etc. Generally, the temperature is lower inside the houses than it is outside, especially if the sun is out, leaving you to see your breath while you take a shower and relieving that wearisome sensory burden of feeling your toes and fingers. Personally, this inescapable cold has given me the gift of bronchitis. As a rebuttal to the antibiotic I'm on, my body has, in return, given me the gift of vomiting. Some people are just too generous.

In short, I will never again complain about the heat in Paraguay or the healthcare system in the US of A. Wish me luck not catching my synthetic polyester blanket on fire while huddling next to the burning charcoal pit!

Culture Clash

What do you see when you picture Paraguay?

Millions of people here are still without running water and use latrines or simply squat behind a 'curtain' that blows in the wind and you're lucky if there is toilet paper even in the public restrooms in schools, hospitals and restaurants. Yet, my neighbor has wi-fi and a pair of Converse All-Stars. That's Paraguay.

How did it happen?

25 years ago, the average citizen in PY was still without electricity, running water and shoes: In 1986. The infiltration of the developed world happened quickly and within a few years most of the population had lights, televisions, and landline phones but the technology- and fashion-forward cultures of the US and Europe bombarded Paraguay too quickly to provide supplemental education. This is common in third-world countries: We bring the goods but not the knowledge. As a result, the latest generation in Paraguay wants everything the US has because they've seen in in movies. They know exactly what they want: Gucci handbags, Bluetooth cell phones, bottle-blond hair. However, most of them do not know where the US is on a map, let alone that New York City has a greater population than their entire country (a lot Paraguayns think this is total bullshit, by the way: Norte liars!). They have MP3 players but do not know how to work their computers to download the music. Why? Their computer programs are all in English, including the instructions.

My host Mom has a washing machine and a Dell but had no idea that sugar caused her son's cavities.

So, here I am preaching dental health and nutrition to a generation of people who consider themselves well-educated and not in need of assistance. Their parents before them would have (and probably did in 1975) happily admit that they were falling behind globally and needed a lot of help. However, I run into people here that don't believe there is anything wrong with their health or education systems and are resistant to foreign aid, Peace Corps included. This comes in part from being located in a semi-affluent area by local standards. I was told a week or so ago that I couldn't change anything here because I didn't have any more knowledge than the people I was working with. Just to clarify, here's what I'm working with.

The team at my health post doesn't put any stock in the 'Germ Theory.'
95% of the country has multiple cavities........ 95.
Commonly-held beliefs of.... pretty much everyone:
-Taking a shower after you've worked out will make you sick.
-Wearing a wet shirt will give you a stomach ache.
-Eating citrus then milk will kill you.
-Leaving your upper chest uncovered will give you a headache.
-Men can do whatever they want.
-If God doesn't want it, it won't happen.

It's rough trying to be a health-worker in a country full of people who don't believe in your witch-doctor science theories, like coughing on people spreads bacteria and sneezing into your hand is generally a bad idea. I wanted to tell that nice man who told me I didn't have any more knowledge than him that I in fact had a BS and a Master's but I didn't. Instead I just kept saying, Jahechata. We'll see. And when he asked me what was so bad about Paraguayan I spit some statistics at him about diabetes, obesity and giardia.

Well, I'll do what I can and leave the rest to TV.

Speaking of TV- Paraguayans love the Simpsons!

At least I can feel useful when, while watching Los Simpsons, random English words pop across the screen and everyone screams, "What is that?!" "And that?!" "That?!" Who's smart now? I speak English, suckers!