In order to explain how many times I have found myself in a situation here in Paraguay where I wished I had my camera with me, I will have to try out my best Carl Sagan impression and simply say: Billions and billions. As the events of last friday night were unfolding, my first reaction was immense frustration that I couldn’t record what was happening to share with you all. I realized, however, that not having a camera might end up being a good thing for a few reasons. Firstly, not having any photos gives me the opportunity to recount, in greasy detail, a night that pictures would never do justice to. My life here is full of “you had to be there” stories, and this night may just be the ultimate example of that. To circumvent this problem which is inherent in so many stories, I will do my best to put you where I stood, see what I saw, and hopefully, be as comically confused as I was. Secondly, (and perhaps more importantly), my friend probably wouldn’t want to have a photographic record of being tarred and feathered, (or to be more precise, oiled and wood-chipped), posted on the internet.

Besides, aren’t stories more fun when you get to use your imagination?

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Some things seem to be universal when it comes to conveying our messages non-verbally: A raised-eyebrow when caught off-guard; pinching the top of the nose when tired or frustrated; flying the bird out the window when some dude on a cell phone decides to brazenly break all generally-accepted social mores and risk the personal safety of a large number of people by joining your lane without looking like a blindfolded kid doing a cannonball into a pool full of senior citizens doing aquatic jazzercise. (Side note: I do not miss driving in Southern California).

There are a few gestures here in Paraguay, some of which extend beyond its borders and are used regionally, which I had never seen before living here. Since there is nothing worse than the awkwardness that can fill a room after someone gets left hanging while waiting for a friend or colleague to give them five (especially when it is accompanied by a timorous “don’t leave me hanging”), I thought it prudent to explain some of these gestures. This way, when I get home and make a bird with my hand and point it at you, I won’t find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to explain what’s going on.

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Now that summer’s end is approaching, (at least, down in the Southern Hemisphere), I find myself planning out my activities for the coming academic year. Last year, our training group swore-in to service with the school year approaching the halfway mark, so I found myself hesitant to start any projects that I thought would need more than the remainder of the year. One such project was a school garden, which would have required a full year to educate, plant, and cultivate. I decided recently that 2010 would be a great opportunity for me to start it. To prepare, I’ve been researching what works in the soil here, proper planting schedules, etc.

In my searching, I came across an article about the usage of school gardens as a teaching tool which surprised me. I know that this blog about Peace Corps and my life here in Paraguay isn’t something I traditionally use as anything other than a personal diary, but the article I read sparked a personal response that I wanted to put into words.

The article, entitled “Cultivating Failure” by Caitlin Flanagan, was published in the January/February 2010 edition of The Atlantic. The author attributes many of the failures of the public school system in California to the widespread use of gardening in the curriculums of many of the state’s schools. Flanagan argues that the primary job of any high school in California should be to prepare kids for the exit exams required for graduation, and in turn, for college. This means using every minute of the school day for English and Math. It is an extremely pragmatic approach which many educators undoubtedly agree with, and considering the constant budget cuts to music and physical education programs, likely one that politicians and administrators agree with as well.

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Summer is now in full swing down here in the southern hemisphere; Things feel a bit like a Bikram Yoga class, except without that silly looking fat guy in front of you trying his best to do the “Backwards Gyrating Lizard at Sunset” move while wearing shorts that are just a little too revealing. The mere act of forming a sentence in your head generates enough extra body heat to soak whatever you are wearing in sweat. The heat of the afternoon turns my site into a bit of a ghost town. Siesta hour, which is already a bit of a misnomer during the rest of the year (as it runs more like two hours) extends to the majority of the afternoon in the summer. Most people here have motorcycles or mopeds, so they at least can get around without too much exertion. I, however, am stuck taking “Linea 11,” which is a reference to a non-existent bus line. The number 11 is used because it looks like two legs, so Line 11 is actually just a sarcastic way to say “walking.”

School is out and kids in my barrio pass their time shooting marbles, playing in the mud left from the frequent thunder storms, and noodling. If you’ve never “noodled,” you are likely a completely sane person who values your extremities. What is it? Well, you go to a river or other body of water, stick your hand in a hole under water that you can’t see inside, and snag whatever critter your hand can grab. I was invited once. No, I said, I think I’ll go play that knife game where you stab the table between your fingers at a quickening pace. At least that way, I can see what happened to my finger when I lose it.

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A holiday season without sleigh bells, red-nosed flying creatures and alarmingly-obese home intruders with a penchant for leaving knickknacks and sharing adulterous kisses with your mother was surprisingly refreshing. Christmas here was less about getting company profits out of the red and into the black, and more about family, (and of course in a country as religious as this one, it was also about Jesus). Some things carry over, like Christmas trees (although Pine trees don’t grow here, so you get creative). Other stuff like stockings, reindeer, furry green creatures with pointy shoes and high voices, and everything else that we associate with December, are all absent from the whole experience here. Instead, families wait until midnight on Christmas Eve and eat dinner together, then firecrackers, sparklers and a whole range of 4th-of-July-like explosions go off in the streets. Actually, between the asado (BBQ), the firecrackers, and the mind-numbing heat, the entire night felt more like Independence Day back in The States than Christmas.

After spending Christmas with some host-family relatives in Asuncion, I headed back to Peace Corps’ training community to spend the rest of the weekend with my first host family. I learned on my way out there that my host-mother’s sister who lived down the street passed away on Christmas night. Her funeral was all set to take place right as I was getting into town. The rest of the afternoon was, as one would expect, extremely emotional for my family in Guarambare, and I found myself learning a lot about a new aspect of the culture that I had previously never been so closely exposed to here.

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After a week in Buenos Aires, I bid farewell to Colin and Shawn and caught a flight to Lima, Peru. A quick aside regarding that flight: If you are in South America, and you happen to be looking for a cheap flight around the continent, I would advise you splurge on a slightly more expensive ticket and avoid Aerolineas Argentinas. Even the cab driver was surprised to hear that I was flying with them. I won’t list all of my complaints, but if you ever flew on the now not-surprisingly-defunct ValuJet airline, you may be able to conjure some idea of what the flight was like.

I met up with my parents and sister in Lima. At the end of our trip, I think we all felt the same way about the city; It was nice to see, but if given the chance to plan another trip to the country, we would have skipped it and spent more time in Cuzco. Lima may have solidified its place as the silver-medalist in the competition for the title of our favorite place in Peru on the very first day when a bicyclist attempted a crazy-horse mugging on my sister. (”Crazy horse” is the name given in Paraguay for the bold grab-the-loot and run style of street theft). Luckily he didn’t get the camera he wanted, but did leave it damaged and in need of repair. Otherwise, Lima, for me, felt like a bigger, marginally more interesting version of Asuncion (which isn’t saying much).

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My trip started in Asuncion right around the time Americans were lining up outside of Wal-Mart and limbering up for some riot-style Christmas present shopping. Rather than drop-kicking the old lady who was about to snag that last 90%-off Tickle-Me Elmo or whatever it is that’s hot on the streets this year (I think I may be a decade or two behind on that one), I had a decidedly calmer day on a bus. The trip between Asuncion and Buenos Aires was just shy of 20 hours, with the only stop being customs at the border. Luckily, they keep a steady stream of free booze coming to stave off what would almost certainly lead to mutiny aboard the bus. I think pirate ship captains used a similar tactic of appeasing their sailors.

I arrived in Buenos Aires with a sore back and a hangover, and had no funny story to show for either. I got into a cab and did my best Argentine accent to avoid getting the standard tourist-tax that is commonly charged of us travelers, but the driver wasn’t buying the charade. I think he may have been tipped off by the fact I was going to a hostel, which, I guess in retrospect, was the weakest link in my plan to fake being Argentinean. That, or maybe it was that Guarani greeting I offered as I got in. Or maybe I am just really white.

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I just got back from about a month traveling, and I’ll be sharing all of those stories as soon as I can devote some time to telling all the great stories. I just wanted to update the situation here in site since I left. As I mentioned earlier, there was a kidnapping that has spooked the folks at Peace Corps here and in Washington. The guy that got kidnapped was a rich landowner, and now it’s been a few months since any news has emerged about him. There is some debate among people here as to whether or not the group that took him, (the Paraguayan Peoples’ Army), should be considered a “terrorist organization” or not. At this point, Paraguayan officials are saying they are, and have begun military operations to catch them.

As you may have read in my last post, all of this business – the kidnapping, plus the ensuing game of hide-and-go-seek in the woods with automatic rifles – is all going down in my part of the country. At first, this only meant putting volunteers in the north on stand-fast, meaning we were to remain in site and avoid travel while the government soldiers formed a big circle around our area and moved inwards to try and find the kidnappers. However, the US Embassy here began pressuring Peace Corps to move volunteers out of the area. The US State Department website now even recommends Americans avoid the north of Paraguay altogether. Shortly before I left for my trip, volunteers from my VAC were called into Asuncion for a security briefing. What basically came out of that meeting was information about the group, and why officials were worried about us. Volunteer security relies heavily on your community members offering their protection. The fear now is that the PPA will be acting like a mafia, which is to say selling “protection” to Paraguayans, which would undermine Americans’ security if we were sold out to the group. Peace Corps expressed their beliefs that Americans would not be targeted by this group because the PPA would not want the repercussions of any American military force. In that same breath, however, they also reminded us about the American non-negotiation policy with terrorists, which makes how the government would classify the group that much more important.

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