Santa Ara

Happy October 24^th! What is October 24^th, you might ask…October 24^th is the day of Saint Rafael, the patron saint of my community Ysypo Potrero. According to the 2002 census (and according to Wikipedia) 89.9% of the Paraguayan population is Catholic. However, this doesn’t mean that everyone is “practicing.” In many ways similar to the Israeli experience of Judaism, in many cases this means that Catholic traditions are part of people’s identities, an underlying narrative, but not necessarily “commandment” status. In my community, there is mass once a month, weekly first communion classes run by volunteers from the community, and a pro-Church committee that raises money for maintenance fees, organizes when the traveling Father is going to come, and keeps the keys to the building.

Despite the chiloni (secular/cultural) flavor of Catholicism in my community (even when there is mass, most community members don’t attend), Ysypo Potrero like most communities in Paraguay has a patron saint, a Catholic saint (intermediary with god) who watches over the community. Ysypo Potrero’s saint is Rafael archangel—a seraph/angel who appears in Jewish tradition as well (c.f. short songs section of Anim Zmirot bencher). 

As the name (in Hebrew) implies, Rafael is specifically connected with healing. In Catholic tradition, every saint has a special day that is their festival, and since Rafael is the patron saint of Ysypo Potrero, that means we have a special mass/celebration here on the 24^th of October, the santa ara (Saint’s Day in Guarani). 

Everyone gathers at the church and listens to the army band

Because it is a special mass, it is common for families to baptize their children on this day.

Milena looks a bit nervous.

Getting Saint Rafael’s statue ready for procession (sorry for the blurrr).

Marching with the Saint. Unfortunately this march was pretty short because it’s been raining a lot and there was a ginormous puddle in the road.

Fireworks…

Baptizing Milena…does it count if she’s asleep?

Post-baptism, note Trader-Joes box recycled to hold brownies. Erminio, I am told, was a fan. 

What I´ve Been Up to For the Last Month

Green Manures:  The Real Magic Beans

                Hello once again from Paraguay! This week has been a walk down memory lane as I got a visit from a volunteer-in-training. That’s right my “sister-G” the next round of Agriculture volunteers, have been in Paraguay for about two weeks. As part of the training they get to visit current volunteers twice: once for a short visit by themselves (that was this week) and then again with three other trainees and a language teacher (in November). The idea of the first visit is just to take a rest from the hectic training schedule, get to see “what volunteer life is like,” and learn more about Paraguay. The second visit has more of a language focus—trainees stay with a Paraguayan host family for three days, give a presentation in Guarani or Spanish, etc. Anyway, it was pretty fun to have a visit from a trainee “fresh off the plane” and remember how nervous I was back then and how new and different everything was in Paraguay. Also my trainee visitor was awesome and she taught me how to play rummy.  It was a great week!

                Last week I just finished up a five week class on green manures which has been my biggest (successful) project so far in site. During my “needs assessment phase” when I went and talked to many of the families in the community, it became pretty clear that people had noticed a lack of fertility in their fields. Or rather, they weren’t getting an ideal amount of produce from their fields. Many of the families here have been farming their land constantly for decades, so it’s not surprising that the soil is a little low on plant nutrients. One of the ways of fertilizing fields (organically/low cost) is with manure. While many families do put cow and pig manure in their fields, they generally don’t have enough manure to really provide enough fertilizer for all their fields (most people have 3 cows or less and same with pigs).

As I have mentioned previously, another way to return nutrients to the soil is through the use of green manures/cover crops—there are plants that cover the soil fast and when they are cut down, the rotted remains add nutrients to the soil (like a large scale compost pile). Cover crops related to beans (such as vetch and clover commonly used  on organic farms in the states) actually make their own nitrogen, one of the most important nutrients for plant growth, and add it back into the soil. Since my site is very near a city with a branch of the Department of Agricultural Extensionists, of course many people have heard of green manures. However, most of the farmers in my community have not tried using green manures in their fields or they aren’t familiar with many varieties. There are perhaps a hundred reasons why people don’t use green manures in my community. Two reasons I could address: lack of familiarity/education about soil (why it would be important to use cover crops) and lack of a consistent source for seeds).

I decided to teach a five week class (meeting once a week) about green manures, where participants would receive seeds for seed production after attending three classes. I didn’t have enough seeds to give people for a whole field, but if they planted and produced seeds this year, the farmers would be able to plant a whole field of green manures next year. The classes were really fun. It was a great way for me to see who was excited and interested in green manures and get to know some community members a bit better. It was definitely a challenge to present in Guarani for an hour (because I get stage fright in English!). Sometimes, I would look at people and realize that while I believed I was speaking in Guarani, they clearly had no idea what I was trying to say. But I also watched people learn new things about their soil and crops, and through repetition and review, they seemed to retain the concepts—such as plant families (did you know that tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and peppers are all in the same family?!), nutrients in the soil, etc. During my favorite class, I had participants draw their fields and throughout the class, they marked where they wanted to plant green manures and what variety would best serve there.

Next step: visiting all the participants to see if they planted the seeds/have any questions…stay tuned.