The volunteers are arriving tonight at midnight and I´ve been so busy. Last week I went out on survey and showed up to four different towns and figured out a place for people to stay, told them about AMIGOS, meet key community members and drank a ton of terere, which is mate served cold. Most people only speak Guarani but I managed to communicate with most people. I´m even starting to learn some Guarani myself. Everyone in my communities is nice to me and I love huddling around the fire at night passing around mate and talking about strange Paraguayan stuff.
It´s also been challenging. Right before I left for survey I twisted my ankle and had to walk about 2 hours a day to find my communities. Once a horse-drawn carriage passed me and gave me a ride though so that was nice. I´ve also already been sick for the last few days. Not being vegan plus eating only yuca, meat and weird egg patties they call tortillas has not been so gentle on my body.
While I was in my communities I noticed people have a LOT of land. One of the host-dads has 100 hecrtars even. Most people farm corn, sugar cane, yuca and feed these to their cows and horses or sell them. Almost every house has a garden too of peanuts, tomato, oranges, onion and other fruits. This came as a surprise to me because I haven´t spent much time in rural South America prior to this and am curious about how people sustain themselves.
I dream of my trip to Argentina and it is finally FREEZING. Good thing I brought all these layers, mom!
Gah, meat, eggs and yuca everyday..probrecita. But the vols. are finally there, so I imagine it will pay off in poco tiempo. Our vols. have been in their communities for a lil' over a week now, and they are loving it (even with the diarrhea ja ja. As a P-Sup, I am absolutely loving it, and am sorta thinking one day maybe we could be on staff together ;)
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, (I am not sure if you have internet at Staff House-we don't but if so) you can peruse our project blog si quieres: amigosintibuca.blogspot.com e meu tbm: multigrained.blogspot.com to see everything that is going on here in Intibuca, Honduras.
Juliana chegou no Brasil uns dias atrais, e tudo e bem legal ali, pois parece demais. Quando vai voltar menina?