A Note For the Thirsty RPCVs Out There

Che ha!
For those Paraguay RPCV who, like me, were unfortunate enough to break the glass flask in their mate thermo, do not despair! The website latinoyes can come to your rescue! I can tell you from personal experience that their replacement glass flasks fit any normal Termolar termo.  The photo (on their website) makes it look too short, but it dose in fact fit the normal 1 liter matero termo size.  Also, if your running low on your preferred marca of tereré yerba, they also sell Kurupi, Campesino, Pajarito, Selecta, Colon, etc.
Their prices are moderate, and the shipping cost was reasonable.  The package arrived very fast and in good condition.  Overall I am very pleased with the site and happy that I have found a way to continue my tereré and mate habit in the States.
Nde ha!

EDIT: A friend sent me a link to Go Yerba Mate which has Paraguayan yerba as well and some very interesting tereré equipo for people on the go.  They have a large selection of guampas too. So it looks like there are several options out there!

Reverse Culture Shock or My Final Blog Post (probably...)

Snow!

It’s been nearly two weeks since I have been back in the states after finishing my Peace Corps service.  This is likely to be my last blog post, but who knows, maybe something else will come up.

I got off the plane in Indianapolis in Chaco sandals and t-shirt… not the best clothing for Indianapolis on the day before Christmas Eve.  I dug some wool socks and a raincoat out of my suitcases and sprinted to the car with my Dad.  There was lots of snow on the ground. It was COLD.  Christmas and New Years are always socially and culturally intense times of year, so its only now, after the holidays that I am really beginning to adjust to being back in the States.

Christmas Eve with my family (photo taken with my new fansy-shmancy phone).

Christmas Day meal.

Playing Settlers of Catan.

There have been more than a few conversations where I felt like the topic was totally incomprehensible (mostly regarding social media and B level news stories) or utterly unimportant (mostly overwrought concerns regarding germs and catching colds).  After a few minor social faux pas, I have been trying to be more careful; just because my initial response to something is to view it as extraneous or irrelevant doesn’t mean it IS so.  Perhaps I need to give the topic the same gravity and consideration I gave the topics discussed in my community in Paraguay.

My Paraguayan snow man. Notice the tereré, belt, and PCPY hat. 

My first really fuerte moment of “reverse culture shock” was in the grocery store the day after Christmas.  I had been sent on an errand to pick up leeks and I got really overwhelmed in the produce section of the supermarket.  I still can’t pinpoint what rattled me so much, but it started when I was staring wide eyed at the greens section, and the sprinkler system turned on.  I jumped back in alarm only to find myself face to face with pineapples. Pineapples were the main crop in my community in Paraguay; they become ripe in the height of summer. But here I was, stuck between not only the pineapples, but mustard greens, oranges, lettuce, avocados and Brussels sprouts.  There was snow outside and yet all this diverse food available without any regard to its growing season or how far away from Indiana it must have started its journey.  This, and the utter, incomprehensible scale of the supermarket, flabbergasted me. I finally managed to grab the leeks and leave while unsuccessfully attempting to dodge the checkout clerk’s insistence on small talk and holiday greetings.  The whole thing was a very uncomfortable experience.  My plan now is to shop at Bloomingfoods and work my way up (although, why would I ever want to go anywhere else)!

Three of my most helpful “reintegration to American culture” activities have been:

• 1. Dancing! On my third night back (and every Wednesday since), I went to the weekly contra dance held by the Bloomington Old-Time Music & Dance Group.   I have been dancing with them off and on since high school (I show up after about 45 seconds in the video I linked to. Can you spot me?) .  Everything from the bluegrass and old time music to some of the gender bending, role switching dancers, was a wonderful reminder of so many of the things I love about the Midwest and Bloomington in particular.  I also went to a swing dance class held by my friend Josh at Rachael’s Café.  Dancing with him and the other students helped me realize that I haven’t lost any of my partner dancing skills in the past two years, and have probably (somehow) gotten better.

My new dance shoes!

• 2. IU Basketball!  A few days after Christmas, I went to an IU Men’s Basketball home game.  I have been going to games since I was just a townie kid, so everything, from the crowds, to the band, to the cheerleading was just so comfortingly familiar.  Plus, the Hoosiers are having an amazing season.

Hoosier Basketball game.

• 3. Food! My Dad has slowly been making some of my favorite foods that I have gone without for the past several years.  Flank steak, lemon veal, Brussels sprouts sautéed in butter, asparagus, fingerling potatoes, spicy green beans, barbecued salmon, curry, turkaleeky soup, etc.  Also, to reacquaint me with the other end of comida Americana my cousin David took me on a fast food crawl.  We went to several fast food joints around town, the highlights being Taco Bell quesadillas, soda, 5 Guys Cajun style French fries, and more soda.

Christmas meal: turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, stuffing, asparagus, and crescent roll. 

My mother, at my Bienvenido Hape, trying to enjoy maté.

I am spending most of my time searching for jobs.  Ideally I would like to work for the Federal Government on the East coast in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or New York.  I’m also looking at some grad schools, but I’m hesitant to go back to school unless I am very enthusiastic about the program.  Plus, despite my intelligence, I tend to do very poorly on tests.  I haven’t taken the GRE and I am frankly afraid to do so.  I said this in an earlier post, but if anyone has leads on jobs on the East coast, please let me know.

Me, looking dapper on New Years Eve.
Note: the earrings are Paraguayan ñandutí.

Farewell for now.  I hope my blog has been interesting, useful, and entertaining.  I’m always eager to talk about my Peace Corps experience to anyone who will listen.  If you are a prospective Volunteer, don’t hesitate to contact me (just leave a comment on any of the blog posts).  I’ll probably have more insight for prospective Volunteers who are heading to Latin America, agriculture Volunteers, or LGBT Volunteers.  I’ll be especially excited to talk to you if you’re lucky enough to be heading to the wonderful and unique country of Paraguay.

It's good to be home.

Shock: Culture, Food, and the Potential International Appeal of Tereré

In Ann Arbor, on an industrially awesome swing.

After being out of the US for 20 months, I went on a two-week vacation to the States, spending a week in Bloomington, IN and a week in Ann Arbor, MI.  I head back to lovely Paraguay in a few days.

A few things about current American culture that I have learned about during my vacation:

• Instigram
• Siri
• Indiana's political mess, locally and statewide
• Occupy as explained to me by participants (not just news sites)
• Groupon (still unclear on this one)
• Dubstep
• Flexing
• The sad state of Wisconsin

Also, I forgot what its like to be surrounded by people who are JUST like me (family). For example, when we went out to eat at restaurants, we all ended up ordering the same dish… this happened three times, in three different restaurants.

In Bloomington, on my way to Contra Dance.

Aside from getting confused about where to put leftovers and empty containers, I have also been surprised by how much time people spend indoors.  In the US, our houses are much more enclosed than houses in Paraguay.  This is absolutely necessary due to the differences in climate and occupations (most people don’t have a bunch of farm animals to attend to).  But the stark divided between Indoors and Outdoors was something that I had not been cognitive of before living outside of the US.

One of the greater challenges I faced during my vacation was my inability to tune out other peoples conversations.  In Paraguay, because I actively have to work to understand Spanish or Guarani, it is easy to tune out other peoples conversations when on the bus or in a store.  But in the US, I can’t just opt-out of overhearing and comprehending a conversation I have no interest in.  I don’t WANT to know about some stranger's awkward faux pas with a coworker, but I have no choice in the matter.  It makes my brain a much nosier place.

The last cultural shock thing I’ll mention is about the difference in scale.  Walking around Lowe's, Target and Kroger's completely blew my mind. They are just so BIG and full of stuff.  It was really overwhelming and not in a good way.  Walking around a Supper 6 in Asuncion after being in site for a month can sometimes be trying, but it doesn't feel as needlessly massive as these other stores.

Flank steak with my Dad's homemade hot sause, local green beans with spicy mustered sause, and local new potatoes. Yum. 

OH, one more thing: FOOD.  Dang I love food in the USA.  I have been eating well and often in the US!  I had delicious home cooked meals made by my Dad.  He basically cooked all the foods that I have been really missing (mushrooms, flank steak, mixed greens, potatoes, etc.), and my friends Emily and Micah have been taking me to some of the incredible restaurants that Ann Arbor has to offer…. including South Indian food! Yum!  However in between my various delicious flavorful meals, I have been drinking plenty of tereré.  To my delight my family and Micah and Emily have been joining in as well… just in time for summer in the States.

In a few days I head back to Paraguay where winter has apparently arrived with a vengeance.  Guess Ill be switching from tereré to mate ….

Fiesta Patronal, Semana Santa and Chipa

Its been a busy few months at site, so I don’t have a proper blog post for you.  This will be a blog post in photo form, with a few clarifying comments for each photo.  The first 6 photos are from the Fiesta Patronal (Patron Saints Day) for my community.  San Jose, March 19th.  The other 8 photos are from Semana Santa (Holy Week).  Thats they week leading up to easter, which in many Latin American countries, is actually more important than Easter Sunday itself.

Fiesta Patronal

I included this photo because of the grain plants on the priest's stole. Super appropriate for such an agricultural society.

The babys of the community got baptized.  Their families are so proud

The women of the community cooking lots of food for everyone.  They were really flattered that I wanted to photograph them while they worked.  Cooking is something they take pride in, but it is not very frequently acknowledged.

So much food!

Na Oheniea and some of her grand children.

Now on to Semana Santa... and CHIPA!

We made the traditional food for Semana Santa: chipa.

      

Look! My name in chipa!

This is a tatakua.  Basically a brick oven especially for Paraguayan specialties... like chipa.

Baking the chipa.

More chipa...

On the Thursday of Semana Santa (the biggest meal of the week), I ate dinner with my favorit host family.

A modest but delicious spread of bbq chicken, sopa paraguaya (not actually a soup), mandioca (yucca) and soda.  After lunch we snacked on... you guessed it: chipa.

Love is Sopa Paraguaya

Today was on its way to being a bad day. I stopped by a neighbors house and told him that the English class (that had been canceled last Wednesday due to a freak windstorm) was rescheduled for today at 4. I had been telling people in the community the rescheduled time sense Wednesday evening after the windstorm. Finally, this neighbor told me “you can’t have class today. Esquella San Jose is having their graduation this afternoon. No one will come to your class.”

Despite the fact that I had told several families about the class, no one had mentioned that it conflicted with this important community wide event. No one even told me the event was going to happen. I had several people say “yes. Ill be there” when clearly they wouldn’t be able to.

This happens frequently. People don’t want to disappoint or be rude by saying they can’t come (or they don’t understand a word I’m saying)… but that doesn’t mean there are going to show up. Honestly they same thing happened when I did turn-out for events in the States. However in the States I was able to culturally and linguistically interpret the responses better and fairly accurately gauge how likely someone was to turn up. In Paraguay, not only is it more difficult to interpret the responses people give me, but I’m also ignorant of important community events that could influence attendance.

Anyway, I thanked this neighbor for telling me and told him that the class was NOW rescheduled to Monday. I walked home incredibly frustrated and angry. Sometimes things just build up, and today was one of those days. No one in the community respects me. No one even bothered to invite me to the graduation. No one wants to be involved in the things I do. Why oh why is life so hard? I was emotionally over reacting to the whole thing.

Shortly thereafter, I decided go ahead and go to the graduation that was causing all the trouble.

It was great. The families were proud and the kids were excited. The children preformed traditional Paraguayan dances. Afterwards as the families split up into groups at various tables, a señora brought be a paper plate of food. Moments latter, another señora another plate…. By the end I had five or six separate plates of empanadas, sopa Paraguaya, and mellinasa.

It made me feel better about everything. My community cares about me. I’m awkward, I’m ignorant of things everyone knows about (and so no one thinks to tell me), I’m constantly doing strange things. But people are happy I’m here, and they want me to know that by giving me more sopa Paraguay than I can possibly eat.

I left the graduation with my heart (and my bag of food) overflowing.

Standfast, Buenos Aires, and other news.

Now that I have regular and reliable internet access, I am going to try updating this blog similarly to a journal. Before I was just posting copies of my massive emails home to friends and loved ones. This will be a trial run. If, by treating this more like a journal and less like CC on an email, I end up writing in my paper journal less, I will have to reevaluate. But it should mean that my updates will be much more frequent.

Now, for the hot topics I’m thinking about and dealing with currently:

• I just got back from a Buenos Aires vacation with other volunteers. I’m exhausted with good food, good wine, and amazing tango. I’m also vaguely trying to plot a future that has me living in BA for a while.

• Departmento San Pedro volunteers (like myself) are on an extended Standfast (meaning PC says we cant leave site or travel) due to the State of Exception President Lugo ratified last week. A State of Exception “provides civil and military authorities broad powers to detain any individual that they suspect of wrong doing. The military and National Police have been mobilized and are currently patrolling San Pedro and Concepcion Departments.” This sounds way more serious and scary than it actually is. Not much has happened, and the Standfast will probably be called off next week. For me, the biggest downside of this is that I don’t get a volunteer visit from the new group of PC Agriculture trainees. I think a trainee would have gotten a lot out of a visit here seeing as how I am:

1. happy
2. in a supper authentic campo house
3. have a great garden
4. have golden nuggets of wisdom to bestow upon them
5. have a chuchi new bed and mattress

• My garden has exploded with more vegetables than I can possibly eat. It has also exploded with more weeds than I can possibly pull.

• I have successfully made banana bread several times now. It is delicious.

• My house doesn’t have mice, just finches that flit in and out. I think its rather nice.

• My land lady finally moved into a house they have been building for months. Unfortunately its located about 8 meters from my house. I planted a small fence of trees to create a sense of separation. Alas they are only about 4 inches tall right now. Maybe I have nothing to worry about. Vamos a ver.