Wednesday, August 29, 2007

To Future PC Paraguay Trainees

To G-25, G-26….ect: Staging and Arrival

You all have little more than a month to go before you head down here to begin your training. If you have found this you have obviously be scanning blogs because you are curious what your life for the next two years will be like. Frankly, I have no clue, but I can go through how our training process went so that you can have some sort of picture about the staging and training process.

About me: I am a 27 year old Master’s International student working in the municipal development sector. I my Spanish was basic, think hola, casa, burrito, when I arrived (and I am still alive so don’t worry if you can’t speak a lick). I had traveled to Latin America on previous occasions. I like Paraguay, even though it wasn’t my top choice placement, in general the people are very welcoming and friendly, which is critical if you are going to live with them for two years, but I digress.

Staging: You can read my previous posts about staging. Staging is mostly tedious. You sit in a boring hotel conference room in Miami and listen to the same information that you read in your information packet. Fortunately our staging coordinator had a sense of humor and that made it bearable. I hope that you get that lucky as well. Unless you have money burning a hole in your pocket, don’t go clubbing in Miami Beach, save the $140 they give you for Miami and use it in Paraguay. Take the shuttle that comes by and takes you to the hotel, that is another 15 bucks, which translates to 15 liters of beer. There is a place across the street from the hotel that serves up a solid Cuban sandwich. Eat those and save your money. Buy beer from the gas station. You’ll be glad you did. They give you less than $4 a day to live on in Paraguay, which is sufficient, but less than ample, especially if you to go out. Another tip bring a blank voided check to staging (if you are maintaining an account) so the can direct deposit your readjustment allowance, also steal as many hotel pens as you can. They tell you not to bring your laptop to Paraguay, but if you want to, bring it. I have no idea what the hell I would do all day if I did not have my computer here at the Muni, I use it to do all my work on as our Dept. has only one computer with an early nineties vintage, think floppy disk. I know your projects will be different, but digital photos, typing emails so you don’t have to do it in the one time per month you might get internet, it can be a great thing to have…I bought a used one, and I was glad I did.

Arrival: The will have you board a bus and take you to the airport, where you will then take a red eye to Buenos Aires. I was up the whole night long, and a wreck the next day. One of our group snuck into first class by being the last to board and just sitting down in a seat up there. That was pretty slick I do have to say, even though I couldn’t have pulled it off for a minute. When you land you are usually met by Jason Cochran, the Vice Director, Michael Eschelman, the Director of Peace Corps Paraguay and Lana, the Director of CHP, the company that runs the training of volunteers for Paraguay. They will take you to the CHP training center in Guaranmbare, an hour or so from Asunción. Pretty soon after arrival they will serve you a Paraguayan lunch (we had chicken, beans, rice, salad, the ever present mandioca (cavassa or yucca a starch tuber, like a potato but not, you are going to get more than enough of it) and salad. You will get your fill of ‘comida tipica’ so you don’t have to worry about going out of your way to try new things, they come to you. After that CHP gives you your family interview and some pep talks: don’t put tp in the toilet, how to work an electric shower…ect.; they load you into a van and drive you off to meet your host family. Meeting your host family is, in a word, awkward. They line you up across from the host families and your name gets called out and you go stand next to them, as everyone claps. It felt like I was buying a Saturn. CHP seems to believe that personal growth comes from unpleasantly inept moments. I grew tremendously during training.

You’ll get to your new home, and don’t go into your room and shut the door and pass out like I really, really wanted to do. Your family will think you don’t like them. Sit up and talk to your family until at least 8 or so, then go unpack and go to bed. Even if you don’t know what they are saying, smiling and nodding goes a long way.
Tip: Often checked bags don’t make it from Buenos Aires to Asunsión, like mine. With your group of 43 it is guaranteed that some of your bags won’t make it. So make sure that you have a change of clothes in your carry-on, along with a stash of TSA approved toiletries in the mandated clear plastic one liter bag. Or just flip your undies inside out and brush your teeth with your finger, not as refreshing but better than nothing. Also pack a towel because your host family is most likely not going to provide one for you.

I’ve got bad news for you guys, they are pulling an experiment and starting off teaching you Guaraní. If you don’t have any Spanish, go to your public library right now and burn some language CDs and check out a book on grammar and study at least 3 hours a day for the entire month or else you are going to have one hell of a time. Guaraní is hard. The grammar is easy, but the pronunciation is tonal, like Chinese. I have no clue what people are saying when they speak Guaraní to me; I can only pick out words. I am at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to language learning ability, plus I am tone deaf, so I am sure you all will do much better than I did.

The next day they take you back to CHP for language interviews, health and safety information and all kinds of things like that. Usually you go to CHP every Wednesday. They teach you how to ride the buses on the second day, which is a little intimidating, but it is easy on day three. There are three cool things in Guarambare/JA Saldivar. 1) Guarambare cheeseman. He is an old French dude with a glass eye who makes decent cheese (which you will start to crave as there is only one type of cheese in Paraguay) 2) The zoo, I have never been but my G swears by. (It is a BYOB zoo. I have to go at some point on principal) 3) Copetin Tres Bocas/asadito man, great place to spend a night after training catching up with the other sectors in your G, yet far enough from home that your host family won’t think you are a lush. A little dangerous late at night, one of my Paraguayan neighbors got rolled in that neighborhood, he didn’t have much money so the stole all his clothes, all his clothes. But just leave before 11 or so and you will be fine. (Also, Lomito man is delicious; ask Perry)

You will leave before eleven because you family will be in bed by 10, at the latest, and you don’t want to be that host daughter/son. Your typical day will go something like this:
Wake up a 6:15/6:30, tiny breakfast (think cup of instant coffee and a little stale-ish white bread), walk to the training center and be in class by 7:45. You typically have language class for 3 hours in the morning. I really loved the language staff at CHP, Pabla, Ramona, Silvia, if you’re reading this know you’re my ladies (and congratulations on learning the English language within the past two weeks). All of them are great.

You will then walk home and have lunch with your families at 11:30, which is the big meal of the day. My host mom was a smoking cooking. Others were not so lucky, luck of the draw I guess. After lunch you walk back to the training center for your technical training from 1 to 5. Then back to spend time with your host families. That is your life for the next three months.

You do have other “field trips”. Your second week you visit a volunteer in your sector, this was one of the best things we did. It makes you realize you really want to be doing this. You have five “Dias de Practica” where you are supposed to go out in your community and practice being a volunteer and giving charlas (talks). This is one of the worst activities you will have to endure. They pretty much give you no support or direction and tell you to go forth into your community barely speaking the language or having a clue what the hell is going on. I suggest you find your local school, ask the director what you should talk about in your charla, the next DdP give the charla and spend the next 3 DdP drinking Terrere and practicing your Guaraní. You will also have long field practice, which is the same as visiting a volunteer but for a longer term and more structured. There will also be random tech excursions and days to get to know Asuncion and the Peace Corps office.

Well that pretty much sums it up, if you have any questions leave a comment and I will be happy to get back to you.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Training is done at last

Aregúa

Well y’all, I made it through Peace Corps training unscathed. My Spanish is markedly better and I have some idea how municipal governments in Paraguay function. My Guaraní (the mother tongue of 90% of the population) still leaves much to be desired, as does, frankly, my grammar in Spanish. We had site assignments about three weeks ago, and I received a municipality called Borja, near Villia Rica (for those with an inordinate knowledge of Paraguayan geography). The town was really poor, made up of sugar cane farmers, and only had 325 residents where they spoke mostly Guaraní. I was a little daunted by the challenge but got excited to go. I was wondering why they were going to send an urban planner to a town with 325 people, but a German NGO had requested a Volunteer with planning experience. Unfortunately the mayor did not show up to our meeting, and my boss Ruben had tried calling him several times, and his family. His family did not know that I was coming, and if you don’t know a Yankee is coming to a town of 325 people where everyone is related, you have problems. It was less than ideal being the only trainee who did not have a Paraguayan counterpart. So they decided to move my site, and I really lucked out because they moved me to Aregúa, Paraguay.

Aregúa is plush, I really don’t feel like I am a real Peace Corps volunteer given my living situation. Aregúa is on lake Ypacaraí (which unfortunately is contaiminated), 45 minutes from the capital of Paraguay, Asuncion. It is a resort community and artist colony that is know for its strawberries and ceramics. It has beautiful colonial homes. I am living in an old colonial mansion across the street from the municipality, which is also an old mansion. We have a servant, we take high tea, have a computer, and coming soon, internet. We we came for a visit during training, we could not believe that we were still in Paraguay.

My life is pretty tranquillo right now. I wake up at 6:30, take a cold shower (my showerhead is broken) and have a cup of coffee, walk across the street and I am in the municipality by 7:30. There is not that much work for me right now so I am working on translating my Spanish workbook from training into English and creating a database of their public works from the past two years. It is going to take at least six months before I can develop projects of my own, but I am going to be teaching English pretty soon and on Sundays leading tours for visitors. I guess that is about all I can expect before my Spanish and Guaraní improve. I am also beginning to catalogue their historic buildings for preservation and restoration.

At 1:30 I go home for lunch, at which point I am starving as all I have had is a cup of coffee with a little milk. The food isn’t as good here as it was at my last house, and I also miss my training host family, they were awesome. Then I take a walk, read out in the garden, update my blog at the internet cafe…I have come to terms that I am a Paraguayan yuppie. I feel like I am not working hard enough but I will get there, every volunteer has told me that I need to take time to get to know my community first. I just need to keep studying Spanish and Guaraní!