1 Year in Paraguay

As of September 24th I have now been in Paraguay for over one year. I had always imagined that by this time I would be speaking near fluently, Ha. Those dreams died out months ago, but this weekend I will have opportunity to reflect on how far I've come. As the seasons come and go so do new trainee groups (Here in PC Paraguay we refer to them as G's due to the fact that our training community is called Guarambare, for example my group was the 31st to train in Guarambare so we are called G31) This weekend the newest group, our sister G (because we're both ag sector groups) will be taking their first foray out into the 'real world'. All of us that can will be hosting a trainee for the weekend to show them a 'real' peace corps experience. I hope to put mine to work, revising hives with the bee committee and also doing a wild hive capture with an aspiring beekeeper named Carlamino. Other planed highlights include drinking lots of terere and me catching up on the latest American news from a native.

In other news it's the planting season and I've been desperately trying to secure some land of my own, both for demonstration of some of the techniques and plants I try promoting and for my own auto-consumption. It seems I've been able to get two plots one for each of my aims. One will be a smaller plot right next to the road in the centerish area of 'town' (my demo plot) and the other will be much bigger and not so close (my personal watermelon supply plot). Once I actually get something in the ground I'll have a bit more to report.

I think it's the little things which really give life its great flavor; here are a couple of little things which make me happy

1. Humming bird nest: I'm not sure if I've already mentioned that Paraguayans have an extensive knowledge of medicinal plants and from my point of view it seems like every weed here is a 'poha' (medicinal herb), most of which have some sort of vague medicinal property but mostly (to me anyway) are just used to flavor terere. With that out of the way, on to the meat of this little note. Last time I was in Asuncion me and my buddy Caleb stopped by one of the hundred of poha stores to see what was selling and we noticed that they sold humming birds nests. We thought, even hoped, that this was another terere delivered poha, but it turns out that what you're supposed to do is burn it, then take the ashes and put them on a cotton ball, heat this up somehow and then put it in your ear to cure an ear ache. I still want to drink some terere with a humming birds nest in it though.

2. Pique: In Guarani its called Tũ, and its a common problem here in Paraguay. Well generally they're not a problem, sorta like a foot pimple. You take them out with a needle, its fun almost. For some people it becomes a bragging right thing, like "I had 4 pique on one foot all at the same time" "That's nothing, I had 4 pique in just one toe", and in that vein I tell my story. A couple of weeks ago I noticed a pique on my little toe and took it out, thinking that was the end of that, but my toe kept getting more and more sore and was starting to swell a bit and was a nice pink color. I assumed that the pique I had taken out had gotten infected and once that puppy started hurting real bad I was on the verge of going in to Asuncion to get some medical help, when my family asked me why I was hobbling around I showed them my toe and the informed me that its as in fact, not infected but that I had missed a second pique right next to the fist one. They took it out for me amidst much stoic grimacing on my part. For me it was a great bonding moment with my host family and, at least to me, super Paraguayan. And finally, here's what gives me bragging rights for this story, it seems that the reason it hurt so bad was that the swelling was displacing my toenail, which now that the swelling has subsided, will be falling off any day now.