details of my new universe

Ok! What a great couple of days its been! Here´s the latest...

The ¨retreat¨ with our contacts went well. Alfredo showed up from Guayaivi and he´s the ingenero, which basically means he does the technical side of the coop instead of the labor side. He actually lives in the capital, Asunción, and commutes the 3.5 hours to work there during the week. His brother is actually the mayor of Guayaivi, so I´m sure it will be good to keep up with the two of them! Although my official contact is the President of the coop, I think I´ll be working more closely with Alfredo since he knows all of the logistics including commercialization, communication with the members, financial info and exporting details. The retreat was a lot of fun to interact with excited Paraguayans anxious to get a volunteer of their own. And the best part? During a rousing frisbee game a managed to RIP my only pair of khaki pants right down the butt! Luckily only my American friends saw and, oddly enough, I was the third of our group of trainees to split pants during random activites like frisbee!!

Last Wednesday morning Alfredo and I headed off to Guayaivi. The bus ride was cramped, as usual, because the drivers literally pack passengers in like sardines. In fact, on my ride back this morning, I actually stood in the isle for 2 hours of the trip! As we got to the town, we walked a few yards down a street made of rocks and stopped at the house of Alfredo´s brother for a quick terere (the green tea-ish beverage that will be mentioned a lot throughout the next 2 years!) break while we waited for our ride. His brother´s house is huge and modern and I started to think, this is going to be a lot more chu-chi than I had anticipated! However, when our ride came and we started the 15km trek into my real home base reality set back in. Its all dirt, BUMPY and open. All of the houses have a lot of land, and although I am used to seeing brick homes... almost all in this compañia are wood.

After about 15 minutes in a truck, we finally hit the ¨compound¨ of the Bogado family. Behind a sturdy 5 foot wall is a set of 4 houses. This was the first time I had ever seen a wall like this considering 99% of all other homes in this country just have a fence if they´re lucky, and mostly just a giant yard. The homes belong to my new hosts (Raquel and Pablino), Paublino´s parents and two homes that are empty. His sister is living in Argentina and I´ve been told I´m going to be given her house. Sweet!! Paublino´s house is SUPER nice though, which was somewhat of a relief. He´s the treasurer of the coop and knows his farming business! Its sometimes difficult to convince farmers to invest in fertilizers because they don´t believe the investment will improve the quality of their product that much. Pablino definitely understands though and has stacks of fertilizer bags all around and his increased economic status is apparent too!

First thing is first though with a guest in Paraguay...what´s for dinner? Raquel decided chicken would be ideal, so we headed to her backyard. I was super excited because their yard is filled with all of the fruit trees I´ve come to love here... passion fruit, oranges, lemons, grapefruit and mangos. What tasty real estate! She grabbed a chicken and asked me to do the honors. I didn´t know what do to!! Luckily, I can still play the dumb card on that one because I haven´t killed a chicken yet. She laughed and gave me a lesson and made me promise the next time would be me doing the work! And, as is custom, the guest gets the best part. For me, it was a part I didn´t even know people ate... her sack of eggs. I choked it down, but all I could think was someone eating MY eggs! Random connection, I know... but what a welcome!

We also OFFICIALLY changed my name for the LAST time (I promise!) My other PC trainees and I had been joking about Beva since we liked Eva but should keep the B. I kid you not, the first thing I asked my new hosts was to give suggestions and the FIRST name out sans my suggestions was Beva!! So... Beva it is!

The only bathroom in the house is through Raquel´s and Pablino´s bedroom. My bladder could tell I was worried about this and of course, needed relief around 4am. I spotted a latrine outside during daylight hours so I found my only source of light (my travel alarm clock!) and made me way outside. The next morning, Raquel said she heard me get up and that it was silly. I should just walk through their room! But also, I needn´t worry because her husband was out that minute buying supplies for a bathroom. Yep, they´re building me my own bathroom! How crazy! They have two great kids... Romina (8) and Yony (3), pronounced Jonny in español. Romina immediately fell in love with me and holds my hand everywhere we go. She´s very intelligent so I can tell we´re going to have a great relationship over the next 2 years!

Yony´s a character and his relationship with Romina reminded me of the spats Jarrod and I used to have. He actually did a pretty Jarrod-esque move the other day too. In the middle of an open field where his mom and I were digging up mandioca (the potato family staple here), he just started pushing me. I looked down and couldn´t really figure out what he was doing as he was screaming MOVE BEVA MOVE! Then he said the only words you need to hear from a 3 year old... peepee!! Surrounded by nothingness I was forced to relocate to he could relieve himself where he wished. Oh the graces of being recently pottytrained!

My days were spent talking with the Bogado family and meeting other members of the coop. We´ve agreed that my first month, more or less, will be spent with their family. After that, I´ll rotate for a few weeks just to get to know some of the other members and their families. The VP actually asked me over for lunch on Sunday, and he and I had an at length conversation about exporting situations, communications woes, and how quality means everything when selling fruits. He´s a talker but he has a lot of passion when he speaks, so I´m gonig to enjoy his company a lot.

My outlying street of Guayaivi is pretty much what I expected. Two buses come in a day (5am and 11am) and the nearest place to buy and resemblence of groceries is a solid 20 minute walk. There is, however, a health volunteer about 7km on the road out to the Ruta. She wasn´t in but I´m excited to talk to her too and do a lot of collaborating since originally I wanted to be a health volunteer. There is a school very close to mine so I´m already beginning to entertain the idea of having cultural classes. There is so much these people are cut off from, so I´d like to bring it to them with a monthly lesson about a specific country including music, dance, and of course food! I may be calling on some of you to contribute info, but that´s a ways off. First I need to speak better Guarani!

So what´s next? Not much actually. Two weeks of sparse classes and excursions, then its swearing in on the 17th. Its the 40th Year Anniversary of PC volunteers in PY, so the Chair of PC is coming down from Washington and all the PY dignitaries are supposed to show some face too. Should be VERY memorable! After that, my friends and I will spend 4 wild nights in the capital city indulging in all that we can. I heard a rumor that the food I´m missing most is available, so I will be on the hunt for hummus! There is also a zoo that is apparently similar to stepping into the wild and a few movie theaters too. We´ll be doing it all before all we have to connect our lives is a text message.

I´m loving this but I´m still missing all of you! Please email if you can and continue to enjoy this great world of ours!