The four most important occurances
1. Swore-in
I am now offically a PC volunteer. WHOA
2.Got paid
Just made my first million, in fact I got over 3,000,000.00 in the bank right now!
3. Got my cell phone
Also sent my first text. CALL ME at 595 - 983 - 548272. I wont'be calling you because its to damn expensive
4. Got bit
Got bit by a damn dog. First dog bite.
and of corse some more delicious Ñe´éguakuera
Opa la y he´i oterereva canoape (We are out of water said the person drinking terere in the canoe) (im not sure this will totally transate into a terereless culture)
something is something said the man who ate roast hummingbird for dinner
or
something is something said the misquito that pissed in the ocean
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Nothing exciting for this post
Just been getting ready to swear in. December 11th its gonna be offical. Oh, I learned my department´s name means ´long word´ in guarani and Ypane (a small city I am in at the very moment, about 4km from me house) means stinky water. HOpefully I can get a few pics up next weekend at the PC office, although I imgine the computers will be pretty busy. We´ll see. And here´s a couple of sayings to muse over untill then (in english for your convienance)
´´This doesn´t bleed said the mosquito that bit a statue´´
´´I´m gonna spread things out said the old lady pissing on the rocks´´
´´That´s normal said the man with the square head´´
´´Let´s stay like this said the statue´´
´´I see said the blind man´´
-Steven
´´This doesn´t bleed said the mosquito that bit a statue´´
´´I´m gonna spread things out said the old lady pissing on the rocks´´
´´That´s normal said the man with the square head´´
´´Let´s stay like this said the statue´´
´´I see said the blind man´´
-Steven
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sorry its been soo long
Well I´ve not had access to the internet in a bit so I haven´t been able to update this thing. I´m gonna skip the details here and get down to the nitty gritty. I got my site. Im gonna be spending the next two years in the department of Ñeembucu about 2 hours south east of Pilar. All of this is located in the southwest corner of paraguay right across the boarder from Argentina. My intiall host family seems super cool and there are tons of little girls at my house. The littlest one got bit by a fish while I was visting and then dad came out with the machete and choped its head off. They kept telling me we were going to eat it, but never did. My community and many in the area were all given a ton of fancy beekeeping equipment by the NGO who then bounced. SO they have all the equiment they just need a little more technical training. I visited the apiary twice when I was there are some strong hives there. I also when milking everyday and hope to continue this practice when I live there with the goal of becoming half as good as the woman I go with. Also I was promised carpinco (capybara) and jakare (alligator) asados (bbq).
I can´t think of anything else right now.
OH leave comments.. I need them
I can´t think of anything else right now.
OH leave comments.. I need them
Saturday, November 7, 2009
In like another failed trasiago, out like a (hopefully) succesfull trasiago
Well I´ve had a pretty good week this week. It started out with another trasiago attempt. This hive was located in an old fallen mbocaja tree (coco palm to the unintiated). Super easy. However after busting the sucker open we found a doomed hive... Laying workers. (Laying workers means no queen and that means no new workers only lazy lazy zanganos). Another failure, however this one wasn´t our fault. We loaded up what bees we could scoop up and throw and the box and headed out. Before going to deposit out bees in the apiary we had to go pick up the trasiago the croppies got to do. Those so-and-so´s apprently had a super easy, superstar trasiago. Zero stings and one of them even caught the queen in his hands while she was flying away, and without hurting her. And insult to injury, they sweated up our suits.
The next day we had a feild trip to Asunsion to visit the university´s beekeeping program, a bee equiment store and a local food market. While I´m sure the university visit was informative, I didn´t understand a goddamn word. I did find out that it is illegal to import honey into Paraguay though. We arrived at the bee store on one of the 2 days a year when they make stamped wax, so we got to see that process, which was pretty cool. They had a huge barrel full of water sitting on a big fire and there was a smaller barrel full of melted wax inside (double boiler). Then they would take a pail and scoup up some wax and put it into another barrel. Then they would dip this board into the wax a couple of times then put it in water and the wax would harden and they´d peel it off. The market was a market. I don´t think i´ve been here long enought to appricate its variaty. OH and on the way home I saw alf cell... it was a store that sold cell phones and used alf (from the old tv show) as its mascot. I know where im getting my phone.
And finally, yesterday. Yesterday was our 4th ´dia de practica´. Me and my buddy Caleb have been doing a bee oriented dia de practica thing, which so far had been talking with a copule of folk. However the plan had always been to make a TBH and use it to do a trasiago with Caleb´s grandmothers godson. And yesterday was that day. When we wolk up in the mornging all we had was a dream and a bottom board. We managed to scrounge up some scrap wood from a construction site to bulid the sides with. Then we got some bamboo to use as top bars. Luckly after lunch Alberto came over and helped make the box. After it was done we terered and played cards untill 5 when we planed on doing the trasiago. At five johnathan (out tech trainer) and patricia (one of our language proffesors) rolled up and me, caleb and caleb´s mom hoped in the van, Jaha trasiago hape! (lets go to the trasiago) (oh by the way johnathan and patricia were only there to judge us). We got there, Alberto expertly hacked the tree open, in about 2 or 3 wacks and we began pulling out the comb and ataching it to our bamboo bar (which work awesome for attaching comb). We searched in vain for the queen for awhile (everybody helped with that), but once it started geting dark we decided to go for the crapshoot and just try to smoke ´em all into the box, which actually seemed to work. Me and Caleb are going back over there this evening to make sure they stuck around and also to move them to their new, perminate home. (by the way I also got stung in the nose durring the coarse of the trasiago. For those of you no in the know, a bee´s sting smells like bananas, so all i could smell was bananas for about a minute.)
Oh and one last thing some of the bulls here have these huge fat humps over their sholders and i´ve been dying to grope one. Today I got that chance... It was great also I got to fondle the bull´s droopy neck fat, ESSO!. I have pics of all this and more, which I will upload once I can get virus free internet access.
The next day we had a feild trip to Asunsion to visit the university´s beekeeping program, a bee equiment store and a local food market. While I´m sure the university visit was informative, I didn´t understand a goddamn word. I did find out that it is illegal to import honey into Paraguay though. We arrived at the bee store on one of the 2 days a year when they make stamped wax, so we got to see that process, which was pretty cool. They had a huge barrel full of water sitting on a big fire and there was a smaller barrel full of melted wax inside (double boiler). Then they would take a pail and scoup up some wax and put it into another barrel. Then they would dip this board into the wax a couple of times then put it in water and the wax would harden and they´d peel it off. The market was a market. I don´t think i´ve been here long enought to appricate its variaty. OH and on the way home I saw alf cell... it was a store that sold cell phones and used alf (from the old tv show) as its mascot. I know where im getting my phone.
And finally, yesterday. Yesterday was our 4th ´dia de practica´. Me and my buddy Caleb have been doing a bee oriented dia de practica thing, which so far had been talking with a copule of folk. However the plan had always been to make a TBH and use it to do a trasiago with Caleb´s grandmothers godson. And yesterday was that day. When we wolk up in the mornging all we had was a dream and a bottom board. We managed to scrounge up some scrap wood from a construction site to bulid the sides with. Then we got some bamboo to use as top bars. Luckly after lunch Alberto came over and helped make the box. After it was done we terered and played cards untill 5 when we planed on doing the trasiago. At five johnathan (out tech trainer) and patricia (one of our language proffesors) rolled up and me, caleb and caleb´s mom hoped in the van, Jaha trasiago hape! (lets go to the trasiago) (oh by the way johnathan and patricia were only there to judge us). We got there, Alberto expertly hacked the tree open, in about 2 or 3 wacks and we began pulling out the comb and ataching it to our bamboo bar (which work awesome for attaching comb). We searched in vain for the queen for awhile (everybody helped with that), but once it started geting dark we decided to go for the crapshoot and just try to smoke ´em all into the box, which actually seemed to work. Me and Caleb are going back over there this evening to make sure they stuck around and also to move them to their new, perminate home. (by the way I also got stung in the nose durring the coarse of the trasiago. For those of you no in the know, a bee´s sting smells like bananas, so all i could smell was bananas for about a minute.)
Oh and one last thing some of the bulls here have these huge fat humps over their sholders and i´ve been dying to grope one. Today I got that chance... It was great also I got to fondle the bull´s droopy neck fat, ESSO!. I have pics of all this and more, which I will upload once I can get virus free internet access.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
rolling along
Well I´m back in Ypane for my weekly blog update. Not to much of note happened this week. Things are setting in to a little routine of class, food and sleep, with the occational excersizing happening. But on friday night and saturday we went out for a tech excursion. We went to visit a volunteer who is living a little comunnity outside Altos. This is just an hour or so (rupi) from assunsion (paraguaý). It super pretty out there, in fact there are even paraguayan mountans (we might call them hills). When we got there on friday, we started out with a little terere (which if I haven´t explained yet is cold mate, and the national drink of paraguay). After terereing (and yes it is a verb too) for about an hour or so we went out to the kokue (feild) to harvest avena negra (black oats) and plant some macuna and some other green manure which I can´t remember the name of. After all that hard work, we needed more terere. Two hours later we set out to capture a wild hive. This was another hive that had set its self up in an old termite mound. However as opposed to our other (failed) attempt this one was text book. The termite mound was hollow on the inside and the bees had filled it full of comb. We kept at it well into the night, some of us more into it than others, but eventually around eight andrew (the volunteer we were visitng) foudn the queen a captured her. Hooray. Our first sucessful trasiago!
Upéi (then) we marched home with our spoils and had a victory dinner, chicken and rice, with mandio of corse. After a bit of dancing and a bunch of yelling (its kinda like yee-haw but distinctly paraguayan, i´m still working on mine) we retired for the night. The room I got had no fan and was like 90´s. Also the window had been open all night before I got there so the room was full of beetles which crawled all over me all night. I didn´t get much sleep before waking up at 5 am (truth be told i didn´t acctually get out of bed untill about 6). After some mate and cosido (another type of mate, made with charcoal burned sugar and usually drank mixed with alot of milk) we listen to 2 charlas (which are just little talks). Then we drank some terere had some lunch drank some more terere and then looked at some farmers pond. After all that it was finally time to go. ON the way back to costa alegre we stopped off at some american style dinner and sweet shop. I got a mini peacan pie with soft serve ice cream and a brownie. Heterei (muy rico ( very good)). Im late for lunch so i gotta go.
Upéi (then) we marched home with our spoils and had a victory dinner, chicken and rice, with mandio of corse. After a bit of dancing and a bunch of yelling (its kinda like yee-haw but distinctly paraguayan, i´m still working on mine) we retired for the night. The room I got had no fan and was like 90´s. Also the window had been open all night before I got there so the room was full of beetles which crawled all over me all night. I didn´t get much sleep before waking up at 5 am (truth be told i didn´t acctually get out of bed untill about 6). After some mate and cosido (another type of mate, made with charcoal burned sugar and usually drank mixed with alot of milk) we listen to 2 charlas (which are just little talks). Then we drank some terere had some lunch drank some more terere and then looked at some farmers pond. After all that it was finally time to go. ON the way back to costa alegre we stopped off at some american style dinner and sweet shop. I got a mini peacan pie with soft serve ice cream and a brownie. Heterei (muy rico ( very good)). Im late for lunch so i gotta go.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
1 month down
I have started makeing my self little notes on whats happend over the past week, so I hope this post goes michimi (Guarani for a little bit) smoother.
Last sunday was another trainee´s birthday, so a bunch of us went over to his house in the afternoon for a little fiesta. I drank a little beer and a little wine, ate a little fruit salad (a must for parties here), kicked the soccer ball around with some little kids, and talked in spanish, guarani, and english. After that party there wound down we decided we should move it to the disco club. About 17 of us piled into the bed of an old truck (with some sort of break problems) and made the trek into Ypane. It was fun, although we were all hurting monday morning. And that was the first time I met my neice who (and I think we´re all a little jelous here) speaks spanish, english and portugese fluently. Addtionally she also speaks chinese, korean and french a little bit. Jeez. oh and understand Guarani, but doesn´t speak it ´so well´.
Things did not go so soomthly on the bee front this week. On tuesday when we went into the apiary to do a hive division, I got slamed by the bees. I had forgotten my suit, so I had to borrow another trainee´s (who brought a suit from home). Unfortuanly she wears a med, where as I wear a lg. So the veil touched my nose, and a bee found it. That was the most painful sting i´ve ever had, it made my eyes waterup. After that I kept getting slammed and 3 bees found their wayinto my veil. I was able to kill 2 of them before they got me, but the 3rd nailed me right on the forehead. Also it took me about 20 min to shake the rest of the bees following me trying thier best to sting me.
And then we tried another wild hive capture (trasiago). This one was located in a living palm tree (which by the way have spines and make little tiny tiny coconuts which they use to make coconut oil). So we hacked a hole in the tree, breaking one ax in the process. Then we pulled out the comb and atached it to the frames and began the search for the queen. She was as the say ´runny´. We were never able to capture her and eventually all the bees swarmed and landed in some 15 feet up in an extra spiney palm. Bee´s- 2 Us- 0
Also I got sick for the first time this week. A little 24 hour number which had me throwing up and with fever. Luckly the next day was a ´dia de practica´ so we didn´t have actual class. After sleeping most of that day, and all of the night , I was back to my old self. Unfortually while I was down, my fellow beekeeper Caleb had his birthday. All us beekeepers went over to his house for a party, of which I mearly observed. However I did get into a good fight with his 3 year old nephew, who dissapointed after being out manuvered, sucker punched me in the back.
And on a possitive note, we finally got to visit pigfart farm. In one of our frist sessions here we went over some of the things we´d be doing durring training, one of which was visiting a farm where they boil their milk with pig farts. We´ve been waiting for this eversince. It was a super cool farm, located right next to assunsion and only on one third of an acer. They had cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, quails, dogs (with puppies). Also a couple of awesome composting systems, one of which produced biogas which they used to boil their milk. They made cheeses and youghert and ice cream. I´m running out of time so this will have to do for now..
One last one. NO more pics untill I can get to use the peace corps computers. these internet cafe ones are way to virusy. I had to format my camera last time i plugged it and and lost everything I had already taken..
Last sunday was another trainee´s birthday, so a bunch of us went over to his house in the afternoon for a little fiesta. I drank a little beer and a little wine, ate a little fruit salad (a must for parties here), kicked the soccer ball around with some little kids, and talked in spanish, guarani, and english. After that party there wound down we decided we should move it to the disco club. About 17 of us piled into the bed of an old truck (with some sort of break problems) and made the trek into Ypane. It was fun, although we were all hurting monday morning. And that was the first time I met my neice who (and I think we´re all a little jelous here) speaks spanish, english and portugese fluently. Addtionally she also speaks chinese, korean and french a little bit. Jeez. oh and understand Guarani, but doesn´t speak it ´so well´.
Things did not go so soomthly on the bee front this week. On tuesday when we went into the apiary to do a hive division, I got slamed by the bees. I had forgotten my suit, so I had to borrow another trainee´s (who brought a suit from home). Unfortuanly she wears a med, where as I wear a lg. So the veil touched my nose, and a bee found it. That was the most painful sting i´ve ever had, it made my eyes waterup. After that I kept getting slammed and 3 bees found their wayinto my veil. I was able to kill 2 of them before they got me, but the 3rd nailed me right on the forehead. Also it took me about 20 min to shake the rest of the bees following me trying thier best to sting me.
And then we tried another wild hive capture (trasiago). This one was located in a living palm tree (which by the way have spines and make little tiny tiny coconuts which they use to make coconut oil). So we hacked a hole in the tree, breaking one ax in the process. Then we pulled out the comb and atached it to the frames and began the search for the queen. She was as the say ´runny´. We were never able to capture her and eventually all the bees swarmed and landed in some 15 feet up in an extra spiney palm. Bee´s- 2 Us- 0
Also I got sick for the first time this week. A little 24 hour number which had me throwing up and with fever. Luckly the next day was a ´dia de practica´ so we didn´t have actual class. After sleeping most of that day, and all of the night , I was back to my old self. Unfortually while I was down, my fellow beekeeper Caleb had his birthday. All us beekeepers went over to his house for a party, of which I mearly observed. However I did get into a good fight with his 3 year old nephew, who dissapointed after being out manuvered, sucker punched me in the back.
And on a possitive note, we finally got to visit pigfart farm. In one of our frist sessions here we went over some of the things we´d be doing durring training, one of which was visiting a farm where they boil their milk with pig farts. We´ve been waiting for this eversince. It was a super cool farm, located right next to assunsion and only on one third of an acer. They had cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, quails, dogs (with puppies). Also a couple of awesome composting systems, one of which produced biogas which they used to boil their milk. They made cheeses and youghert and ice cream. I´m running out of time so this will have to do for now..
One last one. NO more pics untill I can get to use the peace corps computers. these internet cafe ones are way to virusy. I had to format my camera last time i plugged it and and lost everything I had already taken..
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Well its been about 2 weeks or so since my last post. Last weekend I went to visit a volunteer who lived down south in a little community called Isla Ro´y, which means cold island. And it was cold at night. We didn´t really do to much, but I did find a legless lizard which lives underground and looks like a huge earthworm. Unforutually I found it while hoeing, and I broke its back, accidently, while hoeing. I had some bus trouble getting out there (and getting back). The bus we were going to take to Pilar (the closest large city) so me, justin (my host volunteer) and another trainee who was going to stay in Pilar had to stay the night in Ascuncion. We stayed in this hotel called the alps in a special PC room, called the attic which is just a bunch of beds in an attic room. It came with a bathroom and free breakfast (with cake and pie) all for only 500 mil Gs.
Some other things I´ve been up to. We tried to do a wild hive capture last week. We found one that was located underneath a termite mound. We showed up with an axe, a shovel, a top bar hive (a bataea) and lot of determination. Unfortuanlly it was all for not. Eveytime we thought we had found where they were, they moved into some other chamber. We only found about 8 pieces of comb, and it was all empty, but there were lots of bee. They must have had some huge chamber like 10 feet underground, but we never found it. We´ve found a couple of other wild hives to capture, so we should be doing that soon. Also there are these stingless bee´s which live here and we´re gonna go a wild hive capture with them too.
I think thouse are the main highlights for right now... oh, I won´t be able to upload any new pics untill next week. And here a map i´m working on.. ( ok we´re not suposed to show where people are living publicly (for safty reasons), so if you wanna see my map, email me)
I hope that worked
Some other things I´ve been up to. We tried to do a wild hive capture last week. We found one that was located underneath a termite mound. We showed up with an axe, a shovel, a top bar hive (a bataea) and lot of determination. Unfortuanlly it was all for not. Eveytime we thought we had found where they were, they moved into some other chamber. We only found about 8 pieces of comb, and it was all empty, but there were lots of bee. They must have had some huge chamber like 10 feet underground, but we never found it. We´ve found a couple of other wild hives to capture, so we should be doing that soon. Also there are these stingless bee´s which live here and we´re gonna go a wild hive capture with them too.
I think thouse are the main highlights for right now... oh, I won´t be able to upload any new pics untill next week. And here a map i´m working on.. ( ok we´re not suposed to show where people are living publicly (for safty reasons), so if you wanna see my map, email me)
I hope that worked
Saturday, October 3, 2009
A Shot at Pics
I can´t figure this out...
maybe later untill then go here..
http://s632.photobucket.com/albums/uu45/stevenpy/
I´ll finish adding pics soon and get nice labels and everything
maybe later untill then go here..
http://s632.photobucket.com/albums/uu45/stevenpy/
I´ll finish adding pics soon and get nice labels and everything
Settling in
Well it´s saturday, so I have half a day off from classes. Time for a brief update. Things are starting to settle into a routine here; Guaraní class, lunch, bee class, dinner, sleep. We have a half day saturday and nothing on sundays. Luckily so far my family is always doing something fun un sunday. Last sunday we went to a birthday party for my brother (who lives in san antonio, paraguay). This sunday we´re going to a belated Karai Octubre party and then after that to an eight year olds birthday party. For those of you no in the know Karai Octubre (or Mister October) is a big lunch held oct. 1st for to ward off Mr. October and his month of bad or no harvest. People eat a jopara (mix) soup. We didn´t actually do anything on the first, so I hope we make up for lost time.
For those of you intersted here´s a bit more cultural education. Some gestures. My personal fave is the emongaru, which has the same heart as our ´high five´. For emongaru you put all your fingers (including thumb) together and touch tips with your buddy. one person goes from above and the other below. After contact you point your fingers towards yourself. When inniciating the emongaru it is important to take the top position, so that nobody thinks your telling them to fuck off, which your fingers together pointing up means. Another new one is the ´moto´, which is making a gesture like you were reving a motorcycle. THis is to indicate your desire to have sex with a girl. There are others, but those are all I can remember right now.
We also had our first bee work this week. It went good. The bees are definatly more aggressive (a lot of veil ´pinging´), so i´ll always be working in full gear. I´m trying to upload some pics right now, so I´ll make another post with them and some captions. Its gonna have a castration I saw today.
For those of you intersted here´s a bit more cultural education. Some gestures. My personal fave is the emongaru, which has the same heart as our ´high five´. For emongaru you put all your fingers (including thumb) together and touch tips with your buddy. one person goes from above and the other below. After contact you point your fingers towards yourself. When inniciating the emongaru it is important to take the top position, so that nobody thinks your telling them to fuck off, which your fingers together pointing up means. Another new one is the ´moto´, which is making a gesture like you were reving a motorcycle. THis is to indicate your desire to have sex with a girl. There are others, but those are all I can remember right now.
We also had our first bee work this week. It went good. The bees are definatly more aggressive (a lot of veil ´pinging´), so i´ll always be working in full gear. I´m trying to upload some pics right now, so I´ll make another post with them and some captions. Its gonna have a castration I saw today.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
My First Post
mba´echapa
We´ll I´ve made it here to Paraguay, Guarambare to be exact. I don´t even know how to explain getting here except that it was 42 excited and nervious people waiting in an airport for 4 hours, then waiting on a plane for 8 more. After that we waited in another airport for 4 more hours and finally 2 more in a plane. I didn´t sleep a wink on the first flight, but was able to slip in an hour or so on the second. When we finally got to paraguay we met our tech trainers and a couple of PC staff and then we were off to Guarambare, our home for the next 3 months.
I am still experinanceing what they call the ¨honeymoon high¨. Everything I see, hear and do is so great. I love the animals, the food, the people, the plants, even the smells. My spanish is not very good (and that is putting it lightly (not like those who humbly say their spanish is bad, but in reality its good)). So that is a bit of a challange, but its also a great motivator, por eso my spanish is constanly improving. Speaking of learning new languages today was my first class in Guaraní. At least with Guaraní we are all in the same boat.
Here in Guarambare I am living with a host family, and they are all great. I´m not totally sure of all the relationships (or names) right now, but it´s coming togethere. I can speak most easily with the 2 daughters, my sisters. Mostly my new dad just tells me Guaraní words for diffrent things. It is important here to imphasize how much I really like all of them, they are the nicest people I´ve ever had the opporutintiy to be ´nuevo hijo´to.
Hopefully next time I´ll be understanding a little bit more of what is going on and will have a bit more to write and I´ll bring my camera to upload pic too.
nos vemos,
Steven
We´ll I´ve made it here to Paraguay, Guarambare to be exact. I don´t even know how to explain getting here except that it was 42 excited and nervious people waiting in an airport for 4 hours, then waiting on a plane for 8 more. After that we waited in another airport for 4 more hours and finally 2 more in a plane. I didn´t sleep a wink on the first flight, but was able to slip in an hour or so on the second. When we finally got to paraguay we met our tech trainers and a couple of PC staff and then we were off to Guarambare, our home for the next 3 months.
I am still experinanceing what they call the ¨honeymoon high¨. Everything I see, hear and do is so great. I love the animals, the food, the people, the plants, even the smells. My spanish is not very good (and that is putting it lightly (not like those who humbly say their spanish is bad, but in reality its good)). So that is a bit of a challange, but its also a great motivator, por eso my spanish is constanly improving. Speaking of learning new languages today was my first class in Guaraní. At least with Guaraní we are all in the same boat.
Here in Guarambare I am living with a host family, and they are all great. I´m not totally sure of all the relationships (or names) right now, but it´s coming togethere. I can speak most easily with the 2 daughters, my sisters. Mostly my new dad just tells me Guaraní words for diffrent things. It is important here to imphasize how much I really like all of them, they are the nicest people I´ve ever had the opporutintiy to be ´nuevo hijo´to.
Hopefully next time I´ll be understanding a little bit more of what is going on and will have a bit more to write and I´ll bring my camera to upload pic too.
nos vemos,
Steven
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