Photo location

I will no longer be putting a lot of photos on this blog because the process is long and tedious! However I do have a lot of really awesome photos for you to look at, check out my Facebook album. I will put a link here when I figure out how to!

Is he Russian or German?

The age old question "Who am I?" can get blurred sometimes in this wild and crazy slip'n'slide they call Peace Corps.

People often ask me, or the Paraguayan I happen to be with, where I am from. Surprisingly the many people don't guess that I am a North American. It seems these days I could pass for Brazilian, German, Russian, and sometimes a strange sort of Norté.

By the way:
It might be a good idea if we stopped referring to ourselves as Americans outside of the U.S. In the middle of Kansas or Iowa it is easy to forget that the U.S.A. does not take up all of North and South America and there are millions of people without social security cards that also have a legitimate claim to the American title.

When people do realize I am from the U.S. there are a handfull of general reactions:

• "Want to buy this (random thing I don't want)? No? Can I have some money anyway?"

This is not uncommon when visiting the big cities.

• "Why are you spying on us and why do you want to steal our water?"

Paraguay sits on part of one of the largest fresh water aquifers in the world. Somewhere somebody got the idea that we have plans to pipe or ship or otherwise transport that water thousands of miles north to quench our ravenous thirst.

• "Nice to meet you, how did you learn to speak Guaraní? How long will you be living here?

Many people are genuinely happy to meet me and hear about what I am doing here. I get all kinds of questions about the states, about my family, and whether I am happy here.

I am a full time ambassidor to the U.S. working at the grass roots level to repair the damage done to our reputation by 8 years of Bush trying to run the world. People are sometimes surprised (and 100% pleased) to learn that I do not agree with all of the policies of my government. A good volunteer friend who lives near my community had a great breakthrough recently. He became acquainted with a man who lives in a lesser developed area on the outskirts of his town. "Sam" he said, "before I met you I thought you were just like all the other Nortes trying to take advantage of us, but now I know that you aren't like them at all!" This guy may have never met a real Norte before but he was certainly biased against us. This is a big invisible benefit that the Peace Corps brings. It is a stated of the goal for cultural exchange, but this sort of thing can't be measured. Without a doubt we are making a difference in this area if nothing else.

Sometimes I am a teacher, in a school or outside of it. I am an outsider and an insider simultaneously. I am a lot of things down here. A lot of them I could also be back home, but from a different point of view. And a different language.

This 2 year experience in Paraguay is showing me more than I can ever hope to record through photos or writing. Essentially, it is teaching me to live in a deeper, fuller, more meaningful way. Im not becoming American, I am becoming Human.

More pictures

A soccer game in my town. These guys are serious.


A fellow volunteer and I put together my first teacher workshop. Integrating environmental education into the classroom. It was a huge hit and hopefully a source of future work.


This is a grapefruit. It was almost as big as my head. I turned it into delicious grapefruit cider.



These photos are from a cultural festival a couple of weeks ago. These kids are doing traditional Paraguayan dances at a elementary school.

Pictures!

My bed.





There is no gold over there, just soy.










Gigantic garden toad as big around as a frisbee.















Rocio, 100% photogenic.

A storm, A day, Pictures.

I was awoken at about 4:30 in the morning by a big mouse (or small rat) scampering in my kitchen. What followed could have been a scene out of any whacky comedy. Me with a flashlight and a broom chasing a mouse as it ran from room to room through my dark house. As usual, the mouse won the race and escaped to its hidden lair deep within the bowls of the Earth. Already being awake, I put some water on my little gas stove to boil and put a chair out on the front porch to watch the sun rise as I ate my breakfast of oatmeal followed by a nice tranquilo matè session. I had planned to catch the bus to Encarnacion that morning. Fate had other ideas and as I sat sipping my matè a lid of dark low clouds slid over the sky from the West, obscuring the finalé of my sun rise. The storm came in so fast that my eyes were barely used to the sudden dark before the wind started up tearing leaves from trees and even snapping a few limbs. I still had a vague hope of catching the bus so I put my bags together, and got out my squeege mop to take advantage of the rain and clean the constant dirt off my porch.

(A huge double rainbow following an afternoon storm. The plants are called cameroon and are used for cattle feed and to protect soy crops from the constant dust clouds drifting off the dirt roads)

I spend the rest of the day reading, writing, musicing, and even got a little bit of cleaning done.
(Here is my kitchen. I use a big tub for a sink and dump the water out the window. The light in this room is broken, so I often cook and eat dinner by candle light. It would be romantic if I didnt live alone!)

Just as it got dark I heard a familiar voice call from my back yard (where my gate is). I was shocked at the timing. Nobody ever goes visiting after dark out here, and any bus that would have gone through (none did that day) would have been long gone. It turned out to be my buddy Nick from a few downs down the road. He got a ride by his community contact to a big party at my site (being given by my nonfunctioning contact who didnt invite me).

(Nobody in my town has running water. The lucky ones have pumps like mine that suck water from the well up into a tower where it can be stored and used just like running water. This is the back of my house, behind me as I took this picture are some trees, my garden, and way over to the right a little church.)

We went to the party where I got a sheepish late invitation from my contact, and we were invited to partake in a dinner of cow innards. Despite my very true claims to have already eaten dinner, I found myself sitting at a big table with a big bowl of every internal organ you can think of. It had obviously been boiled in its own fat for a long time, and as I took the first bite of mucus-like unidentafiable cow slime I reflected a bit on the things I feel I must do for the sake of acceptance by my neighbors. Then I almost gagged. I took a quick bite of mandioca and swallowed the whole thing down. This was just the first bite and I had a whole bowl to go, luckily the rest was more solid than whatever I had just swallowed. I could identify a piece of heart, some sort of valve, and what I swear looked like a sphincter. For the sake of science and world peace I moved, piece by piece, the innards from the bowl to my own innards where they mixed and danced in a great gastro- cultural integration.

(Better than cow guts! I am eating my dinner of tasty carne de soja, textured soy, over a pile of rice. The spices you see were mailed by my grandmother. Pure love in a tasty powder form.)

The night ended with live music, Polka Paraguaya. The day was one more experiencial grain of sand in my expanding beach of memories.

(Did I say I live alone? I do have tarantulas (horse spiders here) to keep me company. George here was part of my house welcoming party.)

Peace,
Austin

Elections in Paraguay

Hi everybody,

Things are going great here and life is tranquilo as always. I am heading back to site after a heavy week back in training working on advanced language topics in Guarani. If you don´t hear from me for several weeks (would that be abnormal?) here is why...

Elections are coming up here in Paraguay. This weekend the Colorados will battle the Liberalés in the first real close contest they have had since the start of democracy in the early 90s. Because of the political fever sweeping the country, we have been advised by PC headquarters to stay home for the couple of days before during and after the election to see what happens. While we don´t expect violence (the dictatorship fell overnight with barely a struggle) you can never be too careful. Keep an eye on the news though, because they say this is very important election and a number of international election watch groups have been invited to make sure there are no shenanigans or "lost" ballots.

As for me, I will be spending the election weekend reading War and Peace in my hammock and drinking maté to keep warm.

Cool Guaraní phrases...

itranquilove ýposogui (its more tranquilo than the water in the bottom of a well, which is very still).

itranquilove bakova cachogui (its more tranquilo than a bunch of bananas, this one I don´t fully understand)