Other weird things in Paraguay

• My host dad boxed up 4-5 dead, frozen armadillos to put on a bus to Ciudad del Este for his brother…and everyone thought it was normal. (Im just glad I didn’t have to eat them!)
• Don Ito (which means Mr. Little One) This host dad that is Mick Hutchinson’s Paraguayan twin! He wears khaki shorts and polos, he is the king bbq-er, he is quiet but likes to tease, can seem ruff on the edges but is a big softy on the inside.
• Instead of saying, “Speaking of the Devil,” they say, “Hablando de Roma” or Speaking of Rome (maybe that’s where the devil lives??)
• When you rub pigs’ bellies with your foot they fall over asleep.
• To Paraguayans – all the white people look the same (Funny story – the other day Lety (the ultra bossy leader of the youth group) was trying to describe someone to me and said, “sabes el Moreno, oh [eye roll] todo son morenos para vos!”)
• When my host brother came home for the weekend my host mom sent him back to college with some “groceries”, much like our mothers did when we headed back to school. However, “groceries” mean a Styrofoam cooler (the big kind) full of raw meat…cause why would you send a frozen yogurt container of chili back with him??? But I do think it says something of the universality of mothers everywhere! Food=love. Whether it comes in a yogurt container, a suitcase full of kashi cereal or a Styrofoam container full of pig legs and cow heads it all equals love!
• A man stopped at our house the other day with skinned cow legs hanging from the handle bars of his bicycle for sale. I did not buy anything.
• I really like having fried egg and corn on pizza now! (not really sure how that happened…but it did!)
• You can buy cow fat by the kilo…and we did yesterday to make soap.
• Soap is made out of water, soda and cow fat!
• Apparently ice cream makes soar throats worse (not cause milk makes flem..no because its cold!)…I have never heard this in the us.
• I see ox and carts on a daily basis and its now normal.
• I getting better at understanding Paraguayan directions, “por alli”
• Its too hot to wear underwear – and I kinda don’t mind! (This might be TMI-sorry!)
  But if it makes you feel better I am getting better at washing my underwear by hand!
  However, my jeans probably don’t get as clean as they do in the beautiful Neptune washer at home. But oh well!
• I have gotten really used to talking about peoples current state of fatness and it disgusts me!
• I get text messages from the post office when I get mail! (Id love to get a few more a little more often…send mail!)
• I bought a violin. Now I just need to start practicing!
• The germ-theory of disease has not become generally excepted knowledge.

Less fun realities:

• The Secretary of Children from my training host community was arrested for Human Trafficing – ps. Selling babies is a bad idea!
• NO ONE should be forced to have sex for money – especially if they are 12. There are amazingly harsh realities.
• Learning new things is not always easy.

Lets talk about Trash!!

Calling all Enviros, Engineers and people who like make trash into treasures! (You know you have to fall into ONE of those categories!!)

I want to talk about trash! Of course it would be better if we didnt have to...but its something that we are all excellent at creating but most of us really dont know what to do with it! And I can tell you from personal experience in Paraguay - its an international issue! So what do you do with it? Burn it, throw it over the fence, you certainly cant flush it all or feed it to your dog. So what do you do? Yes - Im asking you.

I want to know what to do with our trash, the trash of Horqueta, Paraguay. (and unfortuantley I mean more than all of the political propaganda!)

Alright, here is the skinny:

Horqueta, Paraguay has a landfill. It was created with the intentions of being a sanitary landfill. It has currently three ditches that are open and being filled. I am unsure of the contents of each. I believe there are two general ditches and one for pathological trash. In the US we incinerate hospital trash - that is not an option here - there are not incinerators. So here is what I am looking for:

Technical, here is how a landfill should run info (if you have developing world info that would be great, cause Im not sure how different American landfills are to Paraguayan landfills!)
Info on trash and recyclying programs that have worked in other places in the world.
Any sort of trash, landfill, recycling info that is out there.
Im actually not sure what I want - I just know I need to learn some more!
So...if you can help me out! Send it my way!


Thanks for your help!
I hope you are all well!
-rachel

Taking a trip to 1968

I dont think I have had the opportunity to tell you about the bi-weekly trip I get to take back in time!
To return to the year 1968 the only think you need to do is come to Horqueta, Paraguay and go to the bank. Walking up to the bank you are greeted by two security guards with very large machine guns (probably not something out of 1968...but adds to the experience!) Upon entering the bank you are suddlenly overwhelmed with the smell of old record books and the sounds of a zzzah-zzzah-zzzah printer, you know the kind that scans across the page and has the perferated edges and sometimes prints two pages together? Everything is painted tan and every cashier has slicked back hair and big glasses, most wear short sleeved collar shirts and ties (which for some reason reminds me of the past) To get your money from the teller you wait in line...one that is not well formed and you arent really sure it leads to the teller thatn you want to talk to. When you get to the teller (if you are so lucky!) you are standing in front of what looks to be more like a ticket booth for carnival ticket sales - a desk that is much less formal than what most Americna banks look like. You hand the friendly fella behind the counter your ID and your bank card, tell him how much $$ you want and he whips it out! Then prints you out a reciept, stamps it three times and off you go. You start to think that this is the end of your business transaction. Because normally, in the US, when you go to the bank to take out money - thats the end of the story, you have money. The End. In Paraguay, that is not the end of the story. Because the moment you walked in to 1968 - everyone in town knew you were there. And later in the afternoon when you are a sitting around with your neighbors drinking Terere one of them mentions a number ($) and look at you. And you think to yourself...thats weird...why are we talking numbers while drinking terere? And then he says...thats how much money you took out of the bank today....right?
WHAT? How do people know this stuff?

It is one of the great mysteries of Paraguay!

I am off to 1968!

The adventure continues!

A bit of a review from the past weeks!

Since the last time I blogged many wild and wonderful things have happened. Today is Thursday the 11th of October! (When did October happen?) I got back late Tuesday night from Buenos Aires. I was travelling with the youth orchestra from my city, Sonidos de la Tierra (Sounds from the Earth). It was INCREDIBLE!!! I fell in love with Buenos Aires! It is an amazingly huge city with a metro, lots of people, crazy trendiness, good food from all over the world and cultural activities everywhere you look! The speed of life is SO much faster than my current speed of life – it was a fun change…but it wore me out! People power walk so fast it is like they don’t have time to put one foot in front of the other!
We played four concerts. I unfortunately only know two songs so I sat and listened a lot! But it was very exciting to have a violin on my shoulder again! And wonderful modivation to practice more!
Travelling with 90 Paraguayans definitely tested my abilities to be flexible and go with the flow. There was no direction or greater agenda. Well maybe there was but no one knew what it was, where the next activity was to take place, how to get there, what their phone number might be so we could call for directions or really what time we should be there! We did a lot of hanging out! There was only really ¨time¨ for one morning of touristiness. I was able to slip away while the orchestra was practicing for the big concert Monday night (I did not play cause they weren’t playing either of the TWO songs that I know!) I got to shop, power walk and take myself out for a glass of red wine. It was delightful! While drinking my glass of red wine a group of 22 retired Irishmen entered the resturaunt/bar and I swear they were NOT so distant relatives of Micks! They were hysterically funny! They were in BA for two weeks playing golf. They go to a different continent every year to play golf. They gave much advice about the world and told me to take good care of myself for my mum n´ dad. I said I would and wished them well!
I definitely have the travel bug to go back! Which is ok because………BONNIE IS COMING TO SEE ME! And we have great plans to have 3 weeks of non-stop fun together! And visit BA (which will be included in the non-stop fun!)

Other great things!
Joparadio: last night we has our second official radio show! Our topic was deforestation! Pretty exciting, huh? Jill has an Mp3 player that can record directly from the radio so we have been able to record our shows and eventually can pod cast them…so stay tuned for that!
Going To A-town: This weekend (actually tonight!) I am headed to Asuncion to meet my dad and marsha who are coming for a long weekend! (And I have a dentist appointment) I am very excited to have visitors and show off Paraguay a bit! They unfortunately wont be able to come and visit Horqueta and see my real life here – but coming to Asuncion is way better than nothing!
Hotter than all get out: I think I might die. It is soo hot! You know the feeling you get when you open the oven to check how your chocolate chip cookies are doing and there is a huge blast of really hot air? That is what its like every moment outside…except NO chocolate chip cookies!
New family that has air conditioning! My new host family has an air conditioner in my bedroom – saving grace!
Painting my house to look like watermelon: Many houses in Horqueta are painted two colors on the outside. A bottom color that is usally oil based paint so its easier to wash the dirt off the bottom of the house and then a top color that probably starts between your knee and hip. Alright so my new really bright idea is that I am going to paint my house (that I don’t own yet, or know where it is!) to look like a SLICE OF WATERMELON! Dark green on the bottom, bright pinky-red on the top with great big watermelon seeds! It is going to be ridiculous and wonderful!
Naming a dog Fulano: which wont be very funny to the rest of the world but I find it hysterical! Fulano is the name that people use here instead of saying, ¨Whats his name¨ or Joe Shmoe or Jane Doe. And they always refer to this imaginary person when talking about hypothetical situations…so its going to be my dogs name! Genius right!
The answer to the AGUA DULCE dilemma! There are many, many used American clothes here. I was asked on more than two occasions if we wash our clothes in the united states? And on the last time I pressed the issue a little bit to figure out why in the world people don’t think we wash our clothes. And here is the answer I got: There isn’t any water in the united states, it is more expensive to wash your clothes than it is to buy new ones. So instead of reusing we have disposable clothing which explains why there is so much American clothing in Paraguay and why the Americans are here….to find the Agua Dulce (Sweet Water). Dilemma solved.

As always....there is more to come!
cheers!

Two pictures to capture your interest...and keep you coming back!

I have MANY more pictures I will be uploading soon...it just takes so darn long with the internet connection here! But...no complaints because there IS an internet connection!


Me and my littlest sister from my very first host family. It was taken when we went to visit my host grandmother-when they tried to marry me off! We are going to visit them this weekend when my dad and marsha come to visit! I am VERY excited to see them!

This is my former host dad, Don Adolfo and his nephew, Diego. They are welders and have a big workshop next to our (my former) house. This is them taking a semi radiator out of the front of their VW bug. (This is a standard form of transport)

More to come! Get excited!