Pre-note: Important Vocab for this Post
Campo--spanish (aka castellano) for countryside
--pe--guarani for "to"
departamento--state-like divisions in Paraguay
Chipa--a corn + yucca flour biscuit flavored with cheese and anise
Sopa Paraguaya--paraguayan cornbread
Milanesa--shnitzel made with chicken or meat
Empanada--stuffed dough pocket, generally containing meat, eggs, or
And now for another type of Paraguayan moment: wiping the red dirt of my shoes, pulling any leaves out of my hair, taking a short ride on the mini-bus, and arriving at a very good imitation of the Natick mall. Ok, so the Asuncion mall where I'm now typing up this blog post is not actually the size of the Natick mall, but every store here is truly brand-name. They have a radio shack. Headphones may or may not cost 50 dollars each. Three weeks out in the country has made this switch very jarring. There is just such a huge discrepancy between socio-economic status of the people here in the mall (living in this area) and those with whom I am currently living. And my current community is campo (rural) on training wheels.
This week I got a bit of a sneak-peak into campo life. As a trainee, I get to take a couple of different trips to visit current volunteers who are currently serving in the agriculture extension in Paraguay. These past few days, I went on my "short trip." I traveled (mostly alone) by bus to Cordillera, another departamento, where I visited Sam, a volunteer who is working with her community on soil recuperation.
Mini-lesson on soil: organic matter, aka decomposed plants, leaves fallen from trees, decomposed animals, decomposed wood, is a very important component of soil make-up. Although healthy soil needs to be only about 5% organic matter, that 5% is crucial. It serves as plant food (unlocking crucial minerals so that plants can use them and providing additional nutrients) and gives the soil texture to help prevent erosion. Because Paraguay is generally a very hot and humid country, organic matter in the soil deteriorates very quickly. The nutrients that plants need to grow tall and delicious leech out of the soil very quickly during heavy rains. Additionally, while it takes many years for organic matter to build up naturally, farming without any efforts to replace organic matter also causes speedy deterioration.(( I will definitely have a little more time to explain this issue a little further on in my service. ))
Paraguay has a huge problem with erosion but as an even more pressing matter for the rural community which is dependent on agriculture as a source of income, each year, the crops on a given field get shorter and shorter. If farmers don't know how to replenish/recuperate soil, their profits plummet and they begin to panic. Burning fields in attempts to replace nutrients (providing a temporary carbon-boost), planting a different, but more destructive crop, or slashing/burning forests in order to open new fields are all (extremely) unsustainable, but possible reactions when the farmers notice the corn getting shorter each planting. Sam is currently working with community members to teach courses on how to replenish organic matter in the soil--making and adding compost to garden soil, and using different crops in the fields to add nutrients to the soil (cover cropping/abonos verdes--more on this later!! I think i can only do one mini-lesson per blog), and trying to convince farmers NOT TO BURN their fields.
Sam's site was described as truly "Campope." I took a four hour bus ride out to the country, then reached a small town center. From there, 45 minutes on a dirt road. Close call with a cow in the middle of the road. Yikes! The view: very flat land, not as red as in my current community, lots of grasses and termite mounds (stay away, those ants are truly evil), cows, and scattered trees with orange-colored limes. Sam's community is very spread out, she needs a bike to visit most of her neighbors. But, despite being way-out, her community had indoor bathrooms!!!! Anywayz...I got to see and sample her vegetable garden, met her host family (volunteers must stay with a family for 3 months once they reach their permanent sites), talked with some community members about their personal fields and livestock, and practiced my machete skills by helping Sam "mow" the lawn.
A note about Paraguayan farming: while this may be a surprise to some and completely obvious to others, most of the Paraguayans I have met have fields, gardens, and animals for personal consumption. A family that has a cow is not necessarily selling milk, they may only occasionally sell extra eggs from their chickens, and while it may seem like they have rows and rows of yucca in their backyards, they only use this crop for dinner. While soil recuperation works to provide secure income for families, on a basic level it also assures that they have food on the table.
And...now onto some more "Paraguayan Moments"
1. After everyone turned off the lights in my house, around 9pm, I could hear my host family in the adjacent two rooms calling back and forth to each other from their beds and laughing.
2. buses in paraguay can become moving stores, as coca cola, sandwich, fruit, juice, and chipa (hella good cheesy/anise corn biscuits) vendors push through the aisles of the crowded buses. I really appreciated this around lunch time on the bus home. I really did not appreciate this when the juice vendor spilled juice on me as he was passing the cup to my neighbor.
3. Paraguayans do a "shiv'a"/memorial service for family members who have passed every three months for the first three years after the death. I attended a 1.5 year ceremony for the family that lived behind my house. The family had set up a room in their house with a white shrine (candles, flowers, and a picture). Half of the neighborhood arrived and sat in a huge circle of chairs in the front lawn. After a short service led by one of the sisters (in Spanish, hail mary's i think??), family members came out with gigantic plates of cookies, everyone grabbed a few. Then they passed out mini-plates with a tiny piece of milanesa (fried meat, in this case chicken), chipa, a small piece of sopa (corn bread), and an empanada (fried dough pocket stuffed in this case with eggs and parsley). Then they passed out coca-cola and nuts (for the kids). Since it was right before dinner, most families brought this home to eat at their own houses. After stopping in to talk quickly with the mother of the deceased, we went home. More investigation is necessary to figure out why these foods are associated with funerals...
4. My host mother had me stuff the empanadas for lunch today so that I could learn how to make them (she is very worried that I am going to go out to the campo, stop eating meat, and waste away).
until next time...I promise I'm working on the pictures...
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