Sworn-in!

I’m officially a volunteer!! Yay…and now my two years begin. Training ended with a very nice swearing-in ceremony in the municipality near our training-center. Two people from each host family were invited to attend (so we got to see all of our host-mamas dressed up in their finest).We had to take some oaths (to defend the US constitution, and an oath in Spanish, which unfortunately none of the volunteers quite understood), we ate a gigantic cake (apparently you only get this special cake for swearing-in and close-of-service).We also got another chance to shake hands with the American Ambassador (who gave a speech and made a joke in broken Spanish about how Obama’s swear-in oath was messed up). Then Peace Corps took us for our final ride (in our vans that we used during training) to Asuncion, where we got our bank cards and were suddenly volunteers.

Swear-ins (which take place a couple of times a year since there are four different sectors of volunteers beginning their service after a training cycle) are also the time for volunteers all over Paraguay to meet up in the Capitol. Friday afternoon, I attended two club meetings—one for the Seed-Bank club, a free resource for volunteers to introduce green manures/cover crops into their communities, and the other—a gender and diversity club, which organizes summer camps for Paraguayan youth so that they can learn about gender, religious and other type of diversity in Paraguay as well as receive leadership training. I also went to Ahendu (“I listen” in Guarani), a concert by volunteers/for volunteers. This year Koika, the Korean Peace Corps, were also invited to attend and perform—so I watched a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers rocking out to the Korean version of “I Feel Pretty” from West Side story.

On the way to my hotel, I saw my new favorite billboard, an advertisement for Jäger Condoms! This is their website (I wouldn’t open this at work): http://www.jagercondoms.com.ar/. Yeah, way better than jagermeister/McJagger/the Jaeger menswear store.

Also, realizing that I will soon be about 4 hours outside of the capitol in the Paraguayan countryside, I decided that this Saturday would be a good time to meet/find the Jewish community of Asuncion. In order to enter the Synagogue, I had to send them a letter from Peace Corps proving that I was a volunteer and they also scanned my passport at the gate. Despite this intensive security, the congregation that I met inside the Hebraica compound was really sweet. It seems like Friday night services are more egalitarian and Saturday morning services are leaning more towards Orthodox. Since I went to the Saturday morning services, it was very small, less than 20 people, and everyone was very welcoming. I was surprised to find out that this week was my bat-mitzvah portion (va’yeshlach), though unfortunately I wasn’t able to whip out any of my skillz because of the denomination of the services. After the prayers were over, there was a small kiddish, where we all sat around a large table and talked about the Torah portion.

It was very interested to suddenly change perspectives—most of the congregants (all Paraguayan) had no idea where Misiones (my site’s district/departmento) is located. They kept asking if it was in the Chaco (the desert/wasteland in the middle of the country). This was surprising since all the people in my rural training community (who generally don’t have access to maps and internet, and also are rarely able to travel the countryside) all know where it is. Also, since the Torah portion described the story of Jacob’s daughter Dinah attempting to date/marry non-Israelites, the conversation turned to intermarriage. It was pretty interesting to listen to this Paraguayan congregation of 20 (there are only about 1000 Jews in Paraguay) discussing intermarriage/ asking about non-matrilineal descent, and generally “what does it mean to be Jewish?” The Rabbi was in a bit of a bind, since it was technically an orthodox service, but he tried to present a spectrum of Jewish-law responses to the questions of matrilineal/patrilineal descent. Hopefully as I get to know the community more, I will have more of a chance to ask them what it is like to be Jewish and Paraguayan.

Not exactly sure when I will next have internet connection since I still have to find the cyber-café nearest to my site…but hopefully I will have up some more posts later this month!!

Yerba Mate aka the Diuretic Nectar of the Gods

So, I’ve been meaning to write a little something about Yerba Mate since arriving in Paraguay. For those of you who have heard of Yerba Mate before, I’m sorry that this may be a bit a repetitive, but then again, in Paraguay, where you can have three different variations of Yerba Mate before lunchtime, Yerba Mate is intrinsically a bit repetitive. Yerba Mate is a type of tea leaves (made from a Yerba Tree) that is very common in Paraguay as well as other places in South America (so folks from/who have been to Argentina have heard about it). In Paraguay, especially since coffee isn’t really a thing, Yerba Mate is kind of a staple/how you drink water. So far I have had four different preparations of Mate.

1. Mate—a hot drink. All you need is a thermos of boiling water, a cup (guampa), about ½ a cup of Yerba Mate leaves in the bottom of the guampa, a metal straw (bombilla), and two or more people. To serve, one person pours the hot water into the guampa containing the Yerba Mate, then dealing to the right, passes the guampa. The receiving Mate drinker/participant, sips up the boiling serving, and then passes the guampa back to the server. Server drinks last. There is a special verb for this type of Mate in guarani: Akay’u= I drink mate. This type of Yerba Mate tea is had first thing in the morning (while still picking sleep out of your eyes) and is more of a cold weather tea.
2. Cocido—this is Paraguayan tea. Take a metal spatula/fire mini-shovel. Place a couple spoonfuls of Yerba Mate on the shovel and in some cases sugar. Place coal from the fire on top of this mix and burn the Yerba Mate/caramelize the sugar. Dump this mixture (including the coal!) into a pot of boiling water. Pour 1 part water through a strainer into one part milk (preferably the milk should be straight from the cow, that you milked after drinking Mate) and eat with cookies or some other breakfast bisquity things. This is a breakfast drink!
3. Terere—this is Paraguayan ice-tea. Extremely essential in this hot country (last week it was about 110 degrees out and nobody has AC). Pull out that guampa (cup) with ½ of Yerba Mate leaves, bombilla (straw), and thermos of icy water (preferably with some mashed up remedial herbs mixed in). Server deals to the right (in the same manner as Mate, except this time the gringos don’t burn their tongues). Terere also has its own verb in guarani: aterere= I want to drink terere. Around nine am, Paraguayan snack time, is the traditional terere drinking time, but any “coffee break,” hangout time with family, or boring class, also qualify as good times to start passing the guampa.  Terere is both meant to relax (essential to the Paraguayan slogan of “tranquiiiiiilo”=everything is chill man) and to perk you back up (with the help of some remedial herbs like mint, lemon grass, etc).
4. Mate Dulce--this is a winter drink/its been raining for for days and it could be winter I'm so cold drink. If you take the instructions for Mate (category 1) and replace the thermos of boiling water with a boiling milk+sugar combination, you've got Mate Dulce. The combination of the bitter/earthy flavor of yerba mate and the sweet/creamy flavor of some fresh frothy milk is definitely my favorite, however, drinking boiling sugar through a metal straw (if the hot sugar doesn't burn the top of your mouth off, the blazing hot metal straw will) is not my favorite. A bit of a give and take situation. Luckily there are only two months of winter in Paraguay!!

In addition to the four different preparations of Yerba Mate, there are about three bazillion and seven traditions related to drinking (some form of) Yerba Mate in Paraguay. For example, the youngest person in the family is technically the server in the case of Mate, Terere, and Mate Dulce (which all involve passing the cup) and the order of serving is always to the right with the dealer last.

Here are two of my favorite traditions/stories of Yerba Mate that I have encountered so far in Paraguay

1. Santa Tomas (Saint Thomas)--the first serving of Terere (that's the "ice-tea" one) is traditionally reserved for Saint Thomas (and nobody gets to drink it). Since this serving is the first time the yerba mate leaves have had any water in them (they've just been scooped out of the tea box and placed in the bottom of the cup), the liquid produced is pretty bitter. In that case "Saint Thomas' Serving" is sipped through the straw and then spat over the shoulder. Sometimes, the dry tea leaves absorb all of the first serving of water as they rehydrate. In which case, it almost looks as if someone (perhaps a Saint) has drank all the water. Why Saint Thomas (and not Elijah)? It's a pun. In Spanish, "toma" means "he drinks" therefore Santa Tomas (pronounced Santa Toma) can also mean "The Saint drinks."
2. Terere + Watermelon = death by stomach explosion. A large part of Paraguayan food traditions have to do with bad mixtures, aka don't drink cold water while eating hot soup, don't eat hot dogs and ice cream in fast succession. The idea being that certain extreme opposites of temperature or types of food will cause a stomach-ache or fever. In terms of Paraguayan food tradition, watermelon is a very volatile fruit and is best had alone. But no matter what, one MUST NOT mix watermelon with Terere. Of course, after 3 months of intensive training and attempting to learn guarani (a language where at least half of the letters are pronounced nasally, and if you switch two letters you end up cursing someone out) a Peace Corps volunteer may begin to rebel/crack and purposely eat Terere and Watermelon together to annoy the language teachers/ wait to see if an explosion will actually occur. The results where definitely disappointing because a. no one exploded b. this seems to be breaking point which occurs with every group of PC trainees, and therefore the language teachers had a very "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt" sort of reaction.

That's all for now...

--Emily

Women's Comite and Change of Address

                In just under two weeks I will be moving out to my new community in southern Paraguay (aaah!). It feels a bit strange to be packing up again. Training is winding down (today we presented our Aspirantes en Accion projects—where I had worked on building a sun-shade with my neighbor) and the minute that the training community has started to feel familiar, we are beginning to say goodbye. On the one hand, this does give me some hope for my new community that after the first three months it will begin to feel like home. On the other hand I am going to miss my host family a lot!

 One of the things that has been kind of funny/taunting all of us agricultural volunteers is that here we are surrounded by trees and vines heavy with fruit that will be ripe the week after we move to our new site! I am talking mangoes, tons of grapes (“when we can’t eat anymore, we make it into wine”) papayas, guayabas, pears, peaches, pomelos etc. Last night my host sister was joking that I will be able to eat the grapes and watermelon with them by text message. Obviously there will be all these things in our future sites as well, but it’s difficult to have so much communal anticipation of the bumper crop (here it’s in January, think late July in the States) without being able to experience it with the community.

Yesterday we visited two different volunteers in the Cordillera region of Paraguay (kind of middle of the state, towards the east). In the morning we learned about banana farming (a bit of new territory coming from New England) and in the afternoon we did mini-lessons about chicken raising for a women’s comité. In Paraguay, one common way for groups to organize to do projects and receive municipal/government funding is through the formation of a comité. Though I am still learning the exact rules and regulations of a comité and how it is formed, the general idea is that they must consist of twelve or more individuals, they generally have presidents, VPs, and treasurers, they are registered through the local government and as mentioned above, comité members often work together on different projects.

Many communities have “women’s comité”s (my community has two) and one common project is raising chickens. The women each receive a certain amount of chicks sponsored by the government and occasionally a small starting amount of feed (in my community, the women receive 15 chickens and 4 kilos of feed, and they need to buy the remaining 20 kilos). While most families have free-range or “casero” chickens, the chickens they receive through the projects are bred to be meat chickens (they don’t live very long, they get big and juicy as quickly as possible, and have some other genetic tweaks). While the traditional method for raising chickens in Paraguay falls under “free-range,” the meat chickens require slightly different techniques (using chicken coops, balanced feed, etc) to achieve maximum deliciousness and (in the case of the women attempting to sell their chickens) the best price at the market. Our mini-lessons covered topics such as vaccination, keeping a clean chicken coop, and making feeders/waterers from recycled materials. I was really glad to have the practice because I will very likely be giving similar mini-lessons in my future community.

Since I am no longer going to be a trainee after the next two weeks, my official Peace Corps address is changing slightly (if any of you who promised me letters would like to send them by snail mail).

Emily Jaeger PCV

Cuerpo de Paz

162 Chaco Boreal c/Mcal. López

Asunción 1580, Paraguay

South America

 

Mail sent to this address goes to the PC office in Asuncion, about a 3.5 hr bus ride from my site. Therefore, I will have access to this mail no more than once a month (possibly much less often). This second address is for the post-office in the nearest city to my site, which hopefully I will be visiting more often.

Emily Jaeger

Av. Monsen˜or Hojas

No. 664 c/Martin Maríallano

San Juan Bautista, Misiones, Paraguay

South America

(for some reason my computer does not know how to make a normal “enya” on the word monsenor…sorry!).