Adventures in the Campo

My cat, Perejil.

I was going to do a "The Long Goodbye" part 2 post.  But I'll save that for next week.  For now, here are a few short tidbits about my adventures in the campo.

A TREE NEARLLY FELL ON MY HOUSE.  

There was a series of storms that knocked the electricity and water for three days. Shortly after the first storm hit, and in the brief calm before the second, my neighbors came over and asked if I was ok.  I assumed they were concerned because in a storm two days previous, my roof had nearly blown off (we had nailed it back down securely earlier in the day), and they knew that I was afraid of thunder.  Unfortunately there is no where to hide during a storm, other than under the covers, which end up getting soaked by water blowing in through the three inch gap between where my walls start, and where my roof starts.

The part of the roof that nearly blew off.  Also, note the lack of tapa-junots in between the boards, allowing the sun to shine and the wind to blow- inside the house.  This is the room that actually has SOME tapa junots.  Some day I'll post a photo of the other room that lacks them all together.

Look at that lovely gap between the wall and roof! This is what I call air conditioning! 

However my neighbors then said I should come outside and “mira un poco!” (take a little look).  And there, illuminated by flashes from distant lightning, was a tall, formally upright tree with half its base uprooted, leaning precariously over my little cabin… in fact right over the spot where my bed was.  I considered my options, and decided I would sleep in the kitchen, so if the tree fell on my shack, the coming storm at least I wouldn’t be in the direct line of its fall.  However, my neighbor got a long strong rope and tied it to a pieces of thick bamboo.  With another 20 foot bamboo pole, he wedged the line into a fork in the branches.  As the next storm started to arrive, he tied the other end of the rope to my peach tree, and pulled the line taunt. As far as we could tell, as the rain started to fall harder and the lightning illuminated his work, it looked probably that IF the tree fell tonight it would pulled from its path enough to land beside the house, or possibly just knick the corner of the kitchen. The storms also resulted in three days without electricity or water.  Asi es la vida.

The tree, formally upright, leaning precariously over my bedroom.

The oh-so-strong peach tree thats stoping the other tree from falling on me.

Also, here is a photo of a different tree, from an earlier storm, that managed to miss both my house and my latrine, but just barely.  Doesn’t look like we are going to have another drought this summer!

Thats my latrine in the back ground...

In other news, here is my day from my life about 2 weeks ago: 

Part One- My chicken had apparently been stuck down a dry, unwalled well for several days. After attempting to lower several children into the well (ignoring my pleas not to), my neighbors lowered a homemade ladder and an adult sort of repelled to the ladder and climbed down. The chicken was retrieved, and my neighbor made it back up too. He requests a 5mil bottle of caña (sugar cane s

You'll never run away again...

piret as payment.  I ate the chicken a few days later with two visiting Peace Corps trainees.

Part Two- Our Women's Committee meeting is interrupted when a kid comes to inform us that the town drunk is hassling the town hothead/owner of the allmacen (a "store" that sells alcohol, onions and toilet paper). Several señoras literally run off to manage their husbands. Later in the day, three of the drunk's six kids come by my house... and hang out for HOURS. I don't have the heart to turn them away...

Part Three- My neighbors fixed my garden fence that blew down in the storm last week. I'm very grateful, but they also "cleaned" the garden, thus hoeing down the red onions, thyme, and broccoli.  The next storm blew it down again, and seeing as how I'm leaving in December, I'm not going to bother fixing it.

Part Four- The water from my spigot (can you BELIEVE that is the right spelling) has returned to its normal semi-cloudy color. It was running "Paraguayan dirt" red this morning as I attempted to do my laundry.

This is the color of the "Paraguayan dirt red."

Bigots Deserve Access to Development Workers Too

Ña Annastasia showing the abonos verde carnavalia intercropped with mandioca (This photo is completely unrelated to this blog post... but I like it anyways).

I looked at my facebook page recently, and I realized just how… well, gay it had become.  Well over half the links I post are about equal rights, and lgbt news stories.  It didn’t used to be that way.  In the States, due to my open-minded community, loving family and accepting college town, being queer was not something I thought about that much.  It simply wasn’t a big deal. I rarely considered if and how being queer influenced my interactions with people, my safety, or my future.  Liking women (and men) was part of who I was, but it wasn’t a big part. Occasionally I might sign a petition or speak up in a conversation if it seemed necessary, but all-in-all I was very casual in my lgbt identity. Because it was rarely something I felt ostracized for, it was never something about which I sought support.  But as a Peace Corps volunteer, I have to be closeted in site in order to productively do the development work I came here to do.  So now, perhaps due to being closeted, if I’m lucky enough to have an internet signal, I find myself trolling Huffington Post Gay news section for hopeful or shocking news stories.  I have started to closely follow equal rights issues in the states (ex: repeal of DADT, North Carolina amendment banning same-sex marriage, President Obama public support for marriage equality). I have become more interested in the advancement of equal rights and acceptance because I now feel the lack of them.  Ironically, having to hide my sexuality has made my sexuality more central to my identity.

One of the absolute most important reasons to be out, is that people begin to revise their bigoted opinions, when they realize they actually personally know someone who is gay.  When it comes to votes, and rights, they realize that their actions will directly affect someone one they know as a person, not just as a sexuality.  One of the questions I struggled with for a while, was why doesn’t this apply in Paraguay?  Shouldn’t I open here for the same reason I’m open in Indiana?

I realized that it doesn’t apply because as an agriculture volunteer, I am here to work with everyone who has degraded soil on their farm.  Bigots deserve access to development workers too.  There are already so many barriers to over come to get someone to try something new on their farm, why add something else?  I’m not Catholic, but I don’t advertise that to the community for the same reason.  In order to work with as many people as I can, I want to present as few barriers as possible.  If I were to come out at the end of my service, or several years from now when I come back for a visit, the community will know me as a person.  They will know the work I did.  They will have to reconcile, the person they know with the sexuality they object to.

By not being out, I am able to reach more people and be more effective.  But it means I am not able to be a resource for the lgbt youth and adults that live in the community.  No one is out, but I have my suspicions about a few folks.  I can’t be a role model for them, because they don’t know what we have in common.  I can’t come out to them, because it could compromise my position in the community (one well-worn strategy for deflecting suspicion off your self is to become an out-spoken homophobic ass (ex: Ted Haggard, George Rekers, etc).  This is the hardest part about not being out in site.

There is gay rights movement in Paraguay.  Things are changing especially amongst the youth and in the larger towns and cities.  But out here in the campo, there is still a long way to go. Poco a poco, I guess.

I am about to head back to the States for a much needed vacation.  I had heard it said that things pick up in the second year, and that is definitely what has happened for me.  I am involved in things at site.  There are things I wish I spent less time doing (English classes), and things I wish I spent more time doing (abonos verdes, gardens).  But I’m just glad to feel kind of busy for once.  Every so often there are mile stones, that I don’t always write about.  For example, an old host brother of mine, shyly ask me for information on STI and condoms.  I was delighted that he trusted me enough to ask for the information, and did my best to bombard him with the information I had (especially sense health isn’t my sector).  Its been 20 months since I came to Paraguay and I have undergone many changes here.  I know my two week vacation is not enough time to really find out, but wonder how those changes will effect my interaction with American culture.

See you soon America.

(Sorry, this is not my best written or focused blog post.  I promise I’m full of ligament excuses.  But I figured I should post it now, and take advantage of the good internet while I could).

Dont Look Too Closely or The Story of the Horse Spider

It all started calmly enough. I was sitting on my bed, messing around on my computer. I was enjoying the guilt-free lazy day created by the rain. Normally during the summer, we get plenty of these days where everything grinds to a halt due to rain. But thanks to the drought, this was only the second one I had had in months. It officially fall, so I doesn’t really count as a lazy summer day anyway.

So, as I said, I was messing around on facebook, reading news articles on various websites, and trying to find PCVs in Peru who I could visit on my planed vacation in July/ August. Out of the corner of my eye, about three feet away, I see something crawl out from underneath my rompero (dresser). I assume, of course, that it is one of the frog/toads that have been infesting my house by scores for the past few months, or at worst it might be a mouse (although it was moving far too slowly).

Oh how wrong I was.

All of that flashed through my mind as a turned my head slightly to the left to see what it was. It was NOT at frog, toad, or mouse. It was, in fact, a TARANTULA. A very large, very hairy, tarantula.

I am not afraid of much, however spiders (and snakes and loud peals of thunder) terrify me in a profound way. I screamed (loudly) several times, and as soon as I unfroze myself I ran next door. I shakily clapped my hands (clapping hands outside a house is equivalent to ringing a door bell), and when my neighbors immerged I stammered “hay un ñandu kavaju en me dormitorio!” Which translates in jopara (Spanish Guarani mix) to “there is a horse spider [tarantula] in my bedroom!” I was literarily shaking, and clutching my sweatshirt up by my neck with both hands.

“Did you kill it?” my neighbor, Heronimo, asked. I shake my head.

“Do you want me to kill it?” I nod my head. His señora laughs as he grabs his machete and we head back to my house.

I give him a flashlight, mumble something along the lines of “abajo de el rombero” (beneath the dresser), and point a trembling hand in that direction. Heronimo, peers underneath the dresser, and suggests we move my suitcase and banjo case, which are wedged between the rompero and the wall.

I say “Oima, pero, no puedo ayudarte. Tengo demasiado miedo” (Okay, but I can’t help you. I am too afraid.) . And its true I can’t make myself go near that corner of the room, and its not a very big room to begin with. Hernonimo moves the items and placed them on my bed.

I, not wanting to be touch the floor incase it runs out from beneath my belongings, crouch on a chair by the other corner. This perch allows me to see, what he is doing, but stay relatively safe (or so I convince myself).

“Ah, there’s the horse spider” he says in Guarani, and delicately chops the thing partly in half. Heronimo picks it up with the tip of the machete, and takes it outside. I remain quaking on my ridiculous chair perch, as he fills in the hole it probably entered through with brick, and puts my belongings back in the corner.

He grins and says “they can’t kill you, but they are dangerous.” I am so grateful, that my thank you don’t seem like enough. I don’t have much food in the house (I’m planning doing a shopping in town tomorrow assuming it doesn’t rain), so look around and finally give him a bug repellent incense spiral that his señora likes to use sometimes. I’m sure they think I am crazy, but I am just so appreciative that that thing is gone. I ask Heronimo if he things there are more tarantulas in my house. His eyes dart underneath my bed, and he says “ikatu” (there might be, maybe), and he heads back to his house.

I think the last time I was this scared was when I got stuck at the top of a double Farris wheel (picture an “8” going around in circles), by myself. I was probably 12 years old. I’m not nearly as frightened of spiders as I was when I first arrived in Paraguay. I am able to kill most of them with out to much fuss using a shoe. But ñandu kavaju, are just a different class of terrifying.

In many ways, I feel like I am fairly tough by both American and Paraguayan standards. I am not afraid to travel in foreign countries or to cities by myself. I have no problem living by myself, and I’m not afraid of the dark (two very common earnest questions from my community). I can smash or sweep out (almost) all manner of bugs, and will pick up and toss into the yard frog/toads without even thinking about it (many Paraguayans seem to fear, or be discussed by, frog/toads). I am not afraid to swim and no longer have a fear of heights. I can kill and prepare a chicken. I’ll eat anything once, and don’t have a problem dealing with blood, vomit or other bodily fluids. Roaches and bats hardly make an impression on me at all.

In other words, I am normally not a cowardly person. But dang if that “horse spider” didn’t humble me. Its been two hours and my heart has finally stopped racing and the adrenaline has left me. I feel the blood running back to my extremities. I’m still a little twitchy. My eyes are darting to any shadow that seems to move, and I definitely gave a little yelp when my dog sneezed, and another one when a frog/toad jumped into the room.

I’m trying not to think about the fact that they can climb (a fact I hadn’t thought about until a friend, trying to sympathize, mentioned she had found one on her pillow, a few months ago). I’m trying not to think about the fact that if I need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I’m going to have to cross the path where the “horse spider” crawled. In fact I cant physically put more than a yard and a half between me and the rompero from whence it came.

Sorry there is no photo with this post. It would have been bleary anyway.