Christmas in Paraguay

Hello everybody and Merry Christmas! Following this link you can see pictures of the holiday festivities that went on down here in Cruce Guajaibi.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=77614&l=6dfd8&id=713136527

I was invited to spend Christmas with the family of a teacher that I have worked with, Profesor Jorje. Nearly all of his 11 brothers came, plus their children and wives and cousins making for a big party. As you can see in the pictures, we had plenty of food for all. Christmas Eve morning they slaughtered a cow and a pig, and a turkey.

The tradition here is to have Christmas dinner at midnight on Christmas Eve. We spent the time before dinner sitting by the grill and enjoying beer and clerico (fresh fruit salad drink with wine and sometimes Sprite).

After dinner, we went to bed, I was given a place to sleep there so I wouldn't have to ride the 30 minutes back to my house on my bicycle. I woke up on Christmas day planning on thanking them and then heading home. Instead, I stayed and ate possbly more meat than ever in my life (see picture of cow ribs).

Finally about 2 in the afternoon I thanked everybody and slowly headed home to rest up and cool off before my evening invitation on the other side of the community. That family, another teacher I know, is a little more poor but no less generious and kind.

For new years I will be up at the San Rafael reserve spending some time with a Peace Corps buddy. More pictures to come.

Some new photos

I have uploaded some new photos in Picasa.

http://picasaweb.google.com/austin.durr/BloggerPictures#

Holiday Plans

With the holiday season in full swing, I have to keep reminding myself that it's December not July. The weather has been near 100 most days, and we just got our first rainfall in about 40 days down in my part of the country. Unfortunately it came a little too late to save the corn crop for a lot of farmers, and a lot of soy is in danger of failing also.

I am on the homeward swing of a 5 day trip that has included an open mic night (I played Rocky Top on my charango with a mouth harp finish) and a going away party for a group of environmental volunteers in Asuncion. That going away party marked my 1 year mark in country as a sworn in Peace Corps Volunteer. It would be more overwhelming except that time is going so fast that I don't think much about it these days.

Last Tuesday the son of my community contact family died suddenly. Though it was sudden, it wasn't unexpected as he has been completely dependant on the care of his family from a very young age after a doctor overdosed him on anesthesia. For 13 years his family took excellent and loving care of him and it has been a testament to what kind of people they are. He died on Tuesday, and was buried the next day after a night in which the entire family stayed up all night with the open coffin in the living room on a table surrounded by flowers and candles. This Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday they will hold afternoon prayer services for him. It has been a sad time but also a time for the family to get closer. I feel lucky and honored to have been included as a part of this process of dealing with a loss in a family that I have only known for a relatively short time.

I will be home in my site for Christmas, and then travel with my contact family to visit their extended family in another part of the country to celebrate the birthday of Rocio, their youngest daughter. While there, we will tour a nearby ecological reserve. It is a rare example of eco tourism in Paraguay so should be very interesting.

After Rocio's birthday, I will return to my house, and then ride my bicycle out to the San Rafael forest reserve to spend new years with some friends, one of which will be launching his cross-continent bicycle ride to raise money for that reserve. My plan is to ride out with him as the rode will take him right by my house on his way out.

Full vacation photos on Picasa

From now on I will be putting photos on Picasa for everybody to see so that nobody has to sign up for Facebook that doesn't want to (it seems like you need to be a member or have a special invitation to view pictures). You can look at pictures individually or see a neat slideshow. Put on your choice of relaxing music and enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/austin.durr/ArgentinaVacation#

Argentina 2

Tafi del Valle was very exciting because it marked the first stop in the part of the country that we came to see: the Andes.

Unfortunately, at this point in the trip my camera was not working yet so I was not able to capture the amazing trip up the mountain, following a winding white river rushing in the opposite direction, switching back and forth on a narrow road while overloaded trucks rushed past, finally over the pass and down into the valley. It was a trip worth doing over again just for that.

Upon arriving in Tafi, some friendly people from local hostals were waiting to welcome us to town, and invite us to their hostals. We thanked them, took their fliers, and struck off on our own. Pretty soon we met up with our Eurpoean friends Carlo and Sara. Not wanting to waste any time, we dropped our backpacks off at a hostal, ate some empanadas (and a delicious bowl of humita) and went out to hike the nearest peak. We were told that from this peak we would be 8530 feet above sea level, and 1000 feet above the town.

After we got back from the hike, Carlo made us a pasta dinner to celebrate Brandon's birthday. He had been craving pasta anyway, saying that back home in Italy they never go more than a day without eating pasta.

The next day, we went for a long walk/hike that looped way out into the country, through a tiny community, around through a larger community where we had a look at a bunch of "huancas" or big rocks that have been carved with faces or symbols. I don't have any pictures, but here are some excerpts from the handy (english) pamphlit I got.

"Huanca" is a Quechua word that broadly translates as "the benefactors or guards
of the place they are in". In this case we refer to the monoliths as "huanca
protectors", who are favorable to the crops and the cattle. They were
probably idols representing different Gods, and placed strategically so as to
provide benefit to their immediate surroundings. Archaeologists say that
the stones found in this area were probably created around 2000 years ago.

Here are some pictures from that day.

After two nights in Tafi del Valle, we were ready to move on. An easy bus ride took us to our next stop: Amaicha del Valle.

Argentina 1

I recently spent a 2 week vacation traveling Northwest Argentina with my friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer Brandon Kobashigawa. It was a fast paced and exciting time in which I saw and did hundreds of new things, and made a few foreign friends along the way. In the next few posts here I will put down some of my experiences and a few photos to go along.

Locations:
Formosa
Tucuman
Tafi del Valle
Amaicha del Valle
Cafayete
Salta
Tilcara

Formosa was only a place to switch busses on our way from Asuncion to Tucuman, and back from Salta to Asuncion so I won't say much about it other than that they have a nice but terminal.

Tucuman is a large city of about half a million people. When not sleeping in the filthy but cheap Hotel Florida, we walked around the central area and explored the shops and restaurants. I ate my first baked potato since leaving home, it was a sign of the great food to come.

My best memory of Tucuman is one evening when we were looking for a place to drink terere. We sat down on a bench near an outdoor restaurant seating area. Almost at the same moment, a man walked up to the bench across from us and pulled out a red trumpet. He played for us (and the outdoor diners) for about 20 minutes, including some decent Louis Armstrong classics. I think I saw just about everybody there give him a few pesos for his performance.

There is an amazing restaurant in Tucuman called El Portal. Near the plaza. The owner is a friendly (and beautiful) older woman who speaks British English and will have plenty of suggestions on where to go and what to do in this part of the country. She also treated us to a free lunch on our final day in the city. They serve a great regional dish called humita. Humita is, as far as I can tell, made from fresh corn, cheese, and spices. A treat for vegetarians in an otherwise big meat eating country.

The day before we left Tucuman we met some European travelers, Sara from Spain and Carlo from Italy. We were all traveling in the same direction so we decided to meet up the next day in the next city, Tafi del Valle.

Some kinda normal

In contrast to my previous post.

Life here is never normal. Or if it is, I have to redefine the word. Maybe normal means not being constantly presented with new situations and encounters. In that case, maybe things are becoming kind of normal. I am no longer surprised when school is canceled for a national soccer holiday. I am no longer surprised when drunk men want to talk to me for hours, repeating the same things over and over (although I am surprised when the subject isn't US politics). Maybe It could be called normal, but never routine.

Last weekend a trainee from the latest group of environmental volunteers came to visit me for 3 days. It was interesting to see reflections of myself a year ago. After sleeping for most of the first day he was sick in the night and the following day reluctant to walk around in the heat looking at the community. I understood, PC training is probably the most intense learning experience most people will ever go through and it is exhausting. He just needed a vacation.

In fact, life here is exhausting. So many factors contribute to a constant humm of stress that builds and builds. Foreign culture. Check. Language. Check.
Then:

• Chickens constantly plotting to invade my garden.
• Never being sure if a project will pan out due to weather, politics, and other numerous factors beyond my control.
• Being taken advantage of.
• Not being taken advantage of (people not understanding my function)
• Being the object of daily gossip.
  
• And the object of giggles from 16 year old high school girls (flattering, but sometimes scary)
• Being charged the "Nortè" price.
• Are those pesticides being sprayed 30 yards from my house getting into my well water?
• Is any of this really going to do any good, are they really interested in what I have to say?
  

These things, and others, aren't that big of a deal to be honest. Just like having little rocks in your shoes, this stuff wont kill you but it may eventually make you throw your shoe through a window. Well, I wouldn't, but there are people who do end up a little weird from all the unexpected little stresses that come with life as a PCV. A lot of people deal with it through alcohol, or through healthier exercise and self betterment (reading, writing, meditation).

It is two years of sink or swim that provides the conditions for the type of personal growth that can and will direct and define the life of anybody who gets through it sane.

Sane...