Its Official!

Hey all! Last time I posted, I was a mere Peace Corps Trainee....and now? I can happily say I am a Peace Corps Volunteer! Hopefully I can recap a little of what has gone on in the past few weeks:

Swear in was an amazing opportunity for all of us to celebrate finally completing our at times painful training. The actual ceremony took place in the US Embassy in Asunción, and was short but sweet. We even got our photo taken for the local newspapers! However they wrongfully described our group's work as being in the areas of Health and Education...oh well I guess you can't have it all right? After the ceremony, we walked two blocks over to the Peace Corps office and finished our paperwork, as well as prepared to relax a bit! We had four days free in Asunción, and you better believe we made the most of it!

Almost all of our group was staying in the Hotel Chaco, which is in the heart of central Asunción, close by to several restaraunts, bars, and night clubs (or discotecas as they call them here). Over the course of four nights, we ate out at Mexican, Spanish, Korean, and Lebanese! It was incredible to finally have some variety in our diet, and prepare ourselves for the upcoming months with lots of repetition in the food lol. We also had a chance to hit up both a British and an Irish Pub, as well as a whole host of nightclubs. It was really great to go out and dance to reggaeton (the music thats popular with kids here; think American pop meets Latin beats) and have a great time, and most of the training staff as well as our coordinators joined us!

By day, we also got to explore the city of Asunción, which has a lot to offer from expansive malls and movie theaters, to an open air market the size of which I had never seen in my life! In the market (Mercado Cuatro) they sell anything from vegetables to shoes to electric appliances. Basically anything you could ever need to find is here, most of it cheap knock-offs and Chinese imports. Also, you can buy virtually any movie LONG before it comes out on DVD. Piracy of movies and video games is rampant.

In addition to the malls, we also scoped out the supermarkets (for me at least it is not so out of the question to go into Asunción to buy things I can't find in my site; its only an hour and a half by bus). One of the supermarkets near to the mall has a HUGE American foods aisle, and you bet that I spent some time there shopping! Mostly I was obsessed with the sauces (Barbeque, A-1 Steak, Terriaki, and others) that you quite literally can't find anywhere else. If you really want as well, they sell boxed mac and cheese (Velveeta brand) for probably twice what it costs in the US (no thanks, I'll wait until I visit home lol).

When we weren't exploring the city, we were lounging by the hotel's rooftop pool sunbathing or watching the sunset. I know, stop me now, because to be quite honest that weekend did NOT feel like Peace Corps. It was, however, an incredibly relaxing weekend and got me ready to dive into my service, which I started just over one week ago today!

Now a little taste of what I've been up to lately, and what I hope to accomplish with my service:

All of our trainers and coordinators told us to relax, and take the first three months easy. They said we would be bored, sitting around not doing much. They said we would need to bring books and magazines, and just get used to talking and drinking tereré. I don't know what Peace Corps Volunteer they were talking about, but it certainly has not been my experience!

In my first week, I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, working in the cooperative as well as attending meetings and talking with local schools. Every morning (Monday-Friday) I head to the cooperative between 8-9 in the morning. There its a toos-up of who gets me; I started out working with the Comittee of Education, and have more recently been working with the Accounting Department, helping them go through their records and balancing the books. This has been an incredible opportunity because I have had the chance to observe and ask specifically how the cooperative works from a financial perspective. Though I will admit its a little strange, and I feel like the new inturn in a bank. The only difference is all the guys are making jokes in Spanish, and talking about going to Octoberfest (yea they have that here, gotta love the Germans) and the Linkin Park concert that (they say) is coming to Asunción in October, even though their website only lists Buenos Aires as a tour stop... Anyways, it has been an interesting experience to say the least.

My afternoons have been more variable, with a myriad of activities. I have been running around to local schools and institutions, trying to see where the need really is and what I can do to help. I have already identified two schools that I hope to work directly with developing small classes on Civic Education (one of the four pillars of my sector) and possibly basic business skills (another one of the pillars). In addition to this, most schools are interested in English classes. Looks like my schedule just filled up. Most of these classes it will be very difficult to start until after their summer break, which ends in the beginning of February. That gives me a bit of time to work on some side projects and do some serious planning.

On September 13th, I will be starting a World Map Project with a local school, helping them to paint a world map as well as doing mini-courses in world geography. I have tweaked this a little from Peace Corps' original model, as the school also wants to incorperate something for Paraguay's bicentenial (at the end of the year). For this, we will also paint exploration routes going to the New World from Spain, with the biggest exploration route going to Paraguay (the most important to Paraguayans, of course). I also have a meeting on September 10th to start planning a youth summer camp with some of the school teachers. I will of course advertise this to the other schools, but sometimes it is difficult to travel across town for little kids. I have heard from several sources that there is not much for kids to do in the lazy summer vacations, so this is a great opportunity to get to know the community while at the same time incorperating aspects of civic education, and having a little bit of fun! I have already attracted the interests of the schools director, as well as the art teacher. With one more teacher, I think I might have enough local help to actually pull the summer camp off. Only time will tell for sure, but hopefully this can be an early success for me.

The evenings are a bit different, and can vary. Recently I have been attending educational classes that my cooperative offers for its members, usually traveling to nearby towns for these. The course subjects have ranged from social responsibility of cooperatives, to public speaking, to leadership development. It is a great way to gather firsthand exactly what it is the Comittee of Education does for its members. Its also a bit of an excuse to travel and get to know some of the surrounding cities (where other Peace Corps Volunteers live).

Tonight I have a meeting with a Neighborhood Comission to discuss potential projects. Some ideas that have been brought up already are cleaning up the trash that seems to be everywhere on the streets, and working on a project to sell mangoes. They apparently have some strategy, so hopefully I can help them develop this from a business perspective.

Other than work (which honestly takes up a lot of my time), my home life is great! The family I live with is everything I could ask for, my host mom even calls me her hijo nuevo (new son) and always tells me to be careful when I leave the house because she worries about me. On a more comical note, she can't pronounce my name so she calls me Fred or Frederico, depending on her mood. I just kinda go with it. All these factors have come together to make my integration into the community of Eusebio Ayala a little easier, though there definitely still are tough days. My hope is that with more time here (and more time in the language) things will get easier and easier and I can finally feel like a part of this culture.

Until the next blog post, chau!