My G-29 training group recently had its first IST meeting back in Guarambare. The three days back in CHP consisted mostly of language touch-up lessons. Learning Spanish in Paraguay is sort of like learning English in Alabama; you can certainly learn to be fluent, you just might have a few serious gaps in your vocabulary. The reason for this in Paraguay is the inherent polyglotism, which often causes them to fill in these vocabulary holes with words from Guarani. I spent the IST learning some of the more advanced verb forms.
After the two days of IST, we all went into Asuncion. I spent more time in the capital than I had originally planned because of the exhaustive process of acquiring a new bank card. I lost my original one during my last trip to the capital for the Fourth of July. If you lose your bank card in this country, you cannot get money out of your account regardless of how much ID you bring to your local branch. I am talking about drivers licenses, passports, birth certificates, vials of blood, etc. You have to go to the capital; phone calls do not suffice. Its like living in Boston, losing your card, then having to go to New York for a new card, all without being able to get money from your account to finance your trip.
Asuncion is simply a strange place. Nowhere else in the world have I seen such a striking fusion of affluence and poverty. Any large city in the world has its filthy rich areas and its devastatingly impoverished areas. Asuncion has almost no separation between the two. A fancy shopping mall full of clothes that 99 percent of the population cannot afford may sit next to abandoned buildings. A mansion that looks like it belongs in Beverly Hills can be flanked on either side by low-income apartments. One of the nicest hotels in the city is located across the street from a plaza which is currently occupied by hundreds of people who are forced to use black plastic garbage bags for makeshift tents. The city just may be the one exception to the old real-estate adage “Location, location, location.” The stark contrast between development and stagnancy is striking as well: You can see a brand new Mercedes with a driver who is holding an iPhone to his ear, driving behind a horse-drawn cart full of fruits and vegetables.
Every trip into the capital offers its share of interesting new experiences and usually adds a good anecdote or two to your ever expanding repertoire. The funny stories almost always share the common setting of a city bus. Every bus I get on has a vendor selling something that I would never expect to be sold on a bus or a performer doing something that is made more difficult by the fact that they are on a crowded bus moving down a horribly uneven and busy road. I used to think the New York City subway was a weird place, until I saw the veritable QVC that is the Asuncion bus system. Passengers can shop from the comfort of their seats, and choose from a wide selection of leopard-print men’s thong underwear, pirated movies, candies, back-scratchers, yuyos, pastries, umbrellas, perfume, fruit, and kitchen knives. The kitchen knives guy was one of the scarier salesmen – First I didn’t realize he was selling the huge butchers knife that he put in front of my face. The original thought that I was getting robbed quickly gave way to the realization that we were driving on one of the more seriously potholed roads in the city, and he didn’t seem to have the best balance in the world.
On Sunday I met up with my host family at the airport. My sister found a family to live with as an au pair and study english for a year, and my enormous family was there to see her off. She had never left Paraguay or been on a plane, so the culture shock that she is going through is probably immense. She arrived in New York, a city whose population is greater than that of Paraguay, and will be living with a family in New Jersey. As I had expected, my family here was extremely emotional when the plane took off. There are only a few flights in and out of Asuncion’s rather small airport, and you can go up to the roof to watch these flights take off and land. As the plane taxied to the end of the runway, took off, and disappeared into the clouds, my host mom started weeping.
Life in Barrio San Antonio has become very busy of late. I am now juggling a hand-full of different projects here at my site.
Youth Program
I am working with a local supermarket to create a home where youth who have parents that work all day can get a meal and learn some life skills. Students in Paraguay do not attend school all-day like in the US; they go either in the morning or the afternoon. This means that they have nothing to do for whichever half of the day that they aren’t in class.
Leadership Class
A local high school has a class of kids that are all pre-med, and I am working with them on leadership activities so that they can, in turn, do these activities with the rest of their school.
English Class
There is a ton of interest in my site to learn English. Paraguay has been trying to become a more tourist-friendly country, and having the ability to speak English will certainly help in finding a job with decent pay.
Parents Workshop
Teachers in some of the schools I work at complain about truancy and behavioral problems among their students. I am starting a parents workshop where I am using the experiences from my job with AmeriCorps to teach some basic parenting skills, since many parents that I have spoken to feel they have absolutely no control over their children.
Self-Esteem Initiative
Teachers have also complained about the lack of self-esteem in many of their students. There is almost no creative thinking or group work done in these teachers’ lesson plans, and I have started to do charlas and group activities to get kids to start doing creative thinking.
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