An amazing week in Lima

So the traveling has begun and it is great to be back out there. I just got back to Buenos Aires from an amazing and relaxing week in the crazy city of Lima Peru. The plan was to go there find Jaron, a friend of mine from LC, and then head off and see other things. But in the end the week flew by and I did not leave the big city for even a moment. Being in Lima was totally crazy because it is the polar opposite of Paraguay. The city of Lima has a population of 7 million people and the country of Paraguay only has 6 million so I was a little overwhelmed at first. I also stayed in a really ritzy part of Lima called Miraflores which was full of American fast food restaurants and had an overall western feel. It was really crazy at first but a really nice break from heat and differences in Paraguay.
I spent most of my week doing nothing at all which was really nice. I ended up meeting up with Jaron which lead to a lot of hours just sitting and catching up and also finding a coffee shop with Scrabble which occupied the majority of our time. I was also able to meet up with a couple of other connections which lead to a lot of time just relaxing wathcing pirated movies, wandering the streets and talking about life and other things. It was the perfect way to spend a week. I did get an opportunity to see some of the sites such as the historic downtown with beautiful old churches, the cool hip neighborhood of Barranco, the art museum and the beautiful beach front cliffs of Miraflores. A lot of people have bad things to say about Lima but I loved it. It is a big city but full of parks, friendly cab drivers and a lot of cool history. Lima reminded me more than anything of how much I love and crave the comforts of home. I found myself with amazing people with whom I felt totally comfortable and it was such a nice feeling.
While discussing home I have big news... I got a job in Portland so I know where I am going to be for at least the next year. I am going to be working with an organization called Adelante Mujeres which works with women Latina immigrants on econoic empowerment and education. I am really excited about the opportunity to work with a small nonprofit in Portland and to use my spanish. So for those of you in Portland I will be back around the 20th of January. For those of you in MN I am going to be back there from the 7th until about the 20th so please be around because I would love to catch up and for those of you in other places come to one of those places so I can see you!!!!
Right now I am awaiting the arrival of the whole Brown clan. They are all somewhere in the air en route to Buenos Aires. We are going to spend a week in Patagonia seeing the sites and then a couple weeks cheering on Zac in an international soccer tournament here in Buenos Aires. It is going to be a wonderful couple of weeks. Happy holidays to everyone and I hope to hear from you soon.

So in general I have been bad about writing about my experiences here in Paraguay. I find when you live in a place and the majority of your actives are day to day and relatively boring it is hard to write in the blog so I decided that I am going to do a recap through my top moments. Hopefully it will give you an insight as to what it is to live in this hot hot hot country. There is not real order to these they are just things that popped into my head when I was looking back over my experince.

1. When I was returning back from Villa Ygatimi I watched the sun set over the fields with my boss Hugo and it was amazing. The sun was huge and it was one of the most dramatic sunsets I have ever seen. Also it reminds me of spending time with my boss, he is amazing. We could spend hours talking about everyone from same-sex marriage to Sex and City. He also has the lowest voice I have ever heard in my whole life, remind me and I can do an impression for you.

2. Going dancing in Villa Ygatimi. I already talked about this in the entry on the Red Cross but it was simply amazing. To get inside a culture like that and to just dance the night away with my new best friends that I had just met that day.

3. Having lunch spaghetti lunch with Alicia's whole extended family. As with many south American countries family is the cornerstone to life here in Paraguay. Alicia is a friend from Minnesota whose family lives in Asuncion so I have spent a lot of time with them. This day in particular was amazing because I got to just spend the whole afternoon relaxing with her family and talking about this and that and everything else. The people in Paraguay are amazingly friendly and have kept me happy when the 100 degree heat tries to bring me down.

4. Traveling with the Swedish journalist to help them write a story about charcoal on the Brazilian Border in Villa Ygatimi. The production of Charcoal which goes hand in hand with deforestation is a huge deal here in Paraguay. The price of agricultural crops is dropping and there is a great market for charcoal in Brazil so a lot of producers are focusing their energy on charcoal production. In order to make charcoal you need to chop down trees and then burn them in these special ovens for about 8 days. We visited two types of production facilities. The first was an industrial complex where they had 20 ovens and it was run by a Brazilian company. People would simply come and work for the company. As you can imagine the conditions are really bad and they get paid minimally for the work they are doing, but it is the only way they have to make money so they do it. After this we went to a local producer's home that produces charcoal. They simply have one oven back out in their fields and they started to do it because the dad got sick and they needed the extra money to pay medical bills. We spent almost the whole morning just sitting around their house talking and taking pictures and seeing what they life is like. It is amazing how hard people are willing to fight even when everything in the world is against them. Overall this was amazing an experience because it was totally different and also opened my eyes to a very real and important issue here in Paraguay.

5. Spending a weekend with Stephi in Reserva Mbaracayu- this is the second largest nature reserve in Paraguay and it is located right outside of Villa Ygatimi. We decided to head out there for the weekend and it was great. We stayed in a guest house made for a king and got to explore the beautiful untouched wilderness. I thought that Ygatimi.

6. Working the Front Desk at the first annual Conference on self-sustaining agricultural schools. The Fundacion put on an international conference and I got to run around working out the details for the whole week, but I also got to meet amazing people. This includes Anthony from Kenya who works with bees and is really passionate about economic development, Warren from Utah who is teaching his students about the non-profit world and how they can make a difference. Mary from Chile who runs a holistic school for children outside of Santiago and oh so many more. It was great to be able to spend a week talking to people who stimulate me so much academically and who have done such amazing things in their lives. It was a great way to end my time here in Paraguay and be able to start dreaming about the future and all the differences that I can make all over the world, really exciting.

7. Counting down the hours with Marcos at Cacupe!!! Every year on the 8th of December Catholics from all over Paraguay come to the town of Cacupe to celebrate a saint and this year I went and worked the Cruz Roja to see the event. I spent the night sitting around with a bunch of Paraguayans and Keith talking about everything and anything and helping people with their exhaustion and blisters. One time there was a woman who felt really weak and couldn't walk to the tent so we went and got here on a stretcher and brought her back. The crowds were totally intense, imagine Grand ole Days times three. So on the way to get her I had to grab onto someone's shirt in order to not loose them and then on the way back they put me in front so I dropped my shoulder and literally had to push people out of the way and people were blowing whistles and the whole deal. It was a really unique experience. Overall it was just amazing the lengths that people went through to participate in this event. People slept on the concrete and cried during the masses, religion is a really powerful thing that I am not sure i will ever understand.

This is just a snapshot of the things that I had the opportunity to do while living in the Heart of South America. This country has taught me how there are a lot of amazing things to see and do even in a place that is pretty boring at first. So now I am heading out of the oven and back to the traveling thing for a while!!!!

Living in Villa Ygatimi

So I spent 10 days living out in the campo and now I am going to be living there part of the time in Ygatimi and part of the time here in Asuncion. It was amazing to get out of the city world for a while but I found that the campo life is just a little too tranquilo for me. They do nothing out there and we are talking nothing. When it is really hot outside they dont work because it is too hot and when it is raining they dont work because it is raining and all the streets are destroyed. So while I was out there I did a lot reading and nothing in general. One day I was sitting around the office reading my book and Patricio (he is the groundskeepers and was like my father) came inside so I asked him if there was anything I could do to help out. He said very excitedly, yes Ven Ali Ven so I followed him outside where we decided to sit on the porch and drink terrere for the rest of the morning, a pretty nice life but in general a little too mellow for me.

I have taught a couple of my classes which is nice but hard. It is hard because I don't speak Guarani, which means that I am trying to teach these campesinos about business in their second language which they don't really understand. I would give my class and try to ask for participation and they would stare at me with a blank gaze. I realized how hard teaching in general is and on top of that trying to teach a very unfamiliar topic in a second language.

In the end I decided that I was not going to be able to and did not want to live in Ygatimi for my whole time here. It was a great opportunity to see what real Paraguay is all about but as all of you know I am very social person who feeds off the energy of the people around her and that was not happening. When groups of people would get together they would speak to each other in Guarani even if everyone knew Spanish, a little frustrating and limited the types of relationships that I could develop with people. So I decided I would go back and forth a couple of times but that my main base is in Asunción. But if anyone ever gets the chance to live in the rural part of any country I highly recommend it, it is something that cannot be described with words...

My Weekend with the Cruz Roja Paraguaya (Red Cross Paraguay)

My weekend with the Cruz Roja Parguay (The Red Cross Paraguay).

My first weekend in Villa was way more action packed than I ever could have imagined it and it also opened my eyes to a lot of things and allowed me to experience things I could never have imagined. The region of Paraguay that I am living in has been stricked by a six month long drought and recently horrible wild fires that destroyed forests, the crops and homes of many people who were already fighting to get by. Therefore the Red Cross Paraguaya working with the European Comission and the Spanish Red Cross established a program to distribute food, medical supplies and conduct trainings on firts aid and fire prevention. I came right in the middle of the first food distribution in the region which was awesome. I spent two full days riding around either smashed into the front of a truck with at least two other people, in the back of Land Rover Ambulance or in some other truck driving around awful dirt roads in 100 plus degree heat giving out food to campesino and indigenous families around Villa. It was a great way to be able to see different areas around the region and do my little part to help people, I also got a really cool t-shirt and hat (talk about unique souveniers). We gave out over 50 kilos of food (I have no idea how many pounds that is but I know that it is a lot because I had to carry the bags around). These bags had the essentials of pasta, rice, beans, flour, sugar, salt and a Paraguayan necessity Yerba for Terrere. Yeah that is right they gave people over 2 kilos of Yerba to make sure that all Paraguayans can keep up their crazy habit of dirinking Terrere (cold Mate) all day long. We also gave them kits with different hygenic products such as soap, detergent, tooth paste and toothbrushes which I think is really cool. Through this experience I also got to learn a little bit more about Paraguayans and meet some cool people. Overall the communities we went to were very accepting and gracious they would always offer a chair some terrere and a smile to crazy sweaty white girl. There were also children everywhere, this country really needs to do something about birth control. I met one woman who had 16 children under the age of 17!!!!! This is something that I will never be able to understand. I have trouble imagining having one child let alone 16. I was talking with another volunteer about how they have a full soccer team, with subs, a medic and some fans. Another interesting element was how the people signed for their food. The Red Cross being a large organization there was obviously a lot of paper work that went along with simply helping people. A lot of people in the campo are illiterate and therefore do not sign for things but use their finger print. They have it on their national ID card and everything. Not knowing how to sign your own name is something totally outside my realm of thinking, it have been doing in my notebooks and credit card slips since I can remember. So yeah it was interesting to meet the people in the communities we visited but also amazing to work with the other volunteer who were all Paraguayans.

Throughout my time in Paraguay I have not had the best luck finding cool Paraguayans who I can actually relate to and simply shoot the shit with and I finally found it in this group of volunteers. We would work hard all day and then at night just sit around and chat about things, drink beers have Asasdos (in my first week here I ate a sheep, pig and cow that were killed that day but I haven´t yet seen an animal killed but it will come soon I am sure). Within hours we were joking around like old friends and they really loved the American girl with a funny accent (but anyone who has ever heard a Paraguayan accent knows that they have no ground to stand on). Saturday night we even decided to go dancing. Yeah that is right there is a ¨dance club¨ here in Villa. It was an outdoor lot that was much too big for the amount of people that were there but it was a very interesting cultural experience. We walked in and there was a line of couples dancing in a very 1950s kind of way and then along the sides there were a bunch of men just watching. I came in with my crazy new friends and we had a blast dacing like fools. We were no questions asked the entertainment of the night but it was probably the most fun I have ever had a dance club. Throughout the night I saw what seemed to be a five year old child drinking beer next to a seventy-five year old, it was a cultural experience to say the least. It was great to have people to enjoy this amazing place with. Their project is going to bring them back here almost every weekend which will be nice and hopefully lead to more adventures.

My work with the Red Cross got me thinking about Humanitarian Aid especially in comparsion to the work that I am doing with Economic Development and micro-loans. The first day it was really hard for me to accept the idea that we were just going to give these people a bunch of food because I knew that when the food ran out they would be in the same place that they were. But my biggest problem is that I am not sure what can be done. The micro-loans that the Fundación Paraguaya gives out requires a base of capital (not much but something) and a lot of these people do not have that base. We need to try and find a way to help people get from receiving food from the Red Cross to a place where they can start to work with loans and create a way to make a living. Anyone have any ideas because as of now I´ve got nothing. I also had a really great conversation with one of the employees of the Red Cross about what other work they are doing to help with actual development and they are doing some cool things. They have different projects throughout the country making factories to allow rural farmers to process their goods and sell a finished product rather than raw materials and also all the food in the kits that we gave out came from within the region in order to support local farmers. Overall I support the work that they are doing but I would rather work in the economic development realm than humanitarian aid because I think that it allows people to help themselves rather than fall into a dependence on aid from outside.

My introdcution to Villa Ygatimi

So I am actually back in Asuncion for the weekend but I made the journey out to Villa Ygatimi and met a lot of people and saw a lot of things. I am heading back out on Monday for good but I thought I would use this opportunity to give you a taste of where I am going to be. Getting there was a little more complicated than anyone could have planned. The last 50 km of the journey is down a dirt road and it was raining really hard so the dirt road was a like an ice skating rink. We watched oil trucks slide backwards down a hill and countless other cars slip and slide around. Then about 10 km before arriving we spun out and got full on stuck in the mud. So we spent over an hour trying to get the truck out of the mud and finally with a little pushing we were free to continue on. Once arriving I moved my stuff into the room that I have at the Fundacion Moseis Bertoni where I will be living. I have a nice little house with a kitchen a full bathroom and anything else I would really need. It is a much nicer place than I was expecting which is exciting. Then we went to get some food and drove through the town. It is very small but there are a couple stores, a couple of restaurants and a school. It is very small but seems nice. There are two really funny things that I have already learned about it. #1 there is no cell phone reception for at least 30 km and most people have cell phones and there is even a cell phone store. I asked a couple of my co-workers about it and they use them as watches and alarm clocks, I just think they could buy watches or alarm clocks but hey it is Paraguay and I have learned to stop questioning things. #2 Everything shut down with the rain. Everyone just sits on their porch and watches people walk by (but there are many people walking so they just watch the street). The school was even shut down because of the rain. Imagine if that was the case in Portland, we would never learn anything.

Later than afternoon we went out and met the comites that I will be working with. There are five in the area around Villa, three of men and two of women. They all seemed like wonderful people and I am really excited to get to know them better. Also Hugo (my supervisor) told me that everyone spoke Guarani but I didnt really believe it but in the end it was the case. I am going to have to learn Guarani which is exciting. Overall I really excited about being able to live there but it is going to be a change in life style for sure. There is really nothing to do and the world stops at about 7 pm. So i am going to be reading a lot of books and a friend of mine in Asuncion loaned me her guitar and I am going to learn. As most of you know I am a busy person so this will be the ultimate deprogramming and I think that will be really good for me. If anyone wants to give me a call there is a land line in my office (the only type of technology for 40 km) and the number is 59548210556. You should all get Skype and call me. So yeah that is the first update and I will let you know what is going on when I have a chance but please send emails so that i know what you are all up to.

Comité de Mujeres, so cool

So I am still in Asunción because in Latin America things never really happen when they are supposed to or when people tell you they will. But it looks like I will finally be moving out to Villa Ygatimy next week but who knows. As of now I have been in the office creating a lesson plan and visiting Comité de Mujeres meetings. I am going to tell you all a little about them because I think it is one of the coolest things that this organization does.
These comittees are groups of 15 to 25 women who are receiving a loan from the Fundación as a group rather than as individuals. They receive the loan as a group and they need to make all of the payments as a group. Therefore if one woman gets sick for a week the other women have to/ get to support her by helping her make her payment. They receive three or four month micro-loans and have to pay a their dues every 8 days. This a way to make sure that all the women are going to be able to pay the loans and also helps the women in that they will start to learn about investment and credit. Along with receiving loans the women go through a training about fiscal responsibility, the details of running a business and setting goals for the future. In the past week I have been able to visit a couple of these training sessions and they were amazing. There is also a savings element. Each time they make a payment they have to put a percentage into a savings account.
Both the meetings where held in front of one of the women´s house underneath a tree and we were all drinking Terere (this is a cold version of Mate that people drink here constantly. We are talking on the bus, on the street and even in the gym it is another element of Paraguay that is a mystery to me). I was sitting there immersed in these women´s lives and talking about how to maintain a budget (something I need to learn more about than they do probably). The women were very interested in the trainning and joking around and giving each other crap about going to the hair styler too much. It was great to get out of the office and experience real people. A lot of my time thus far in Paraguay has been spent in a office and you forget about how that really does effect real people and their lives. These Comités are amazing because they bring together many different elements of development and allows for the better of quality of life, my ultimate goal. It empowers these women to have their own business, work directly with loans and other financial institutions but it also creates a support network. They instantly have 14 women who are going to support them through the good times and the bad. The Fundación is currently working on using this Comité as the base for youth projects. One is teaching the children of the Mujeres how to play musical instruments and the other is teaching them how to start saving now at a very young age. It is a way to further establish the sense of community that goes hand in hand with the loans they are receiving. Overall these comités are very interesting and uses a combination of the different elements of development.
One of my new plans for the future is try and spread this idea through the United States. There are some big changes that would have to be made but I think that the basic idea can go work in both places. So if you know of any micro-finance organizations in the Portland area you should let me know.

A little about the Fundacion Paraguaya

So while living here in Asuncion, Paraguay I am working with the Fundacion Paraguaya which is a local non-profit that works on three main things: urban and rural micro-finance, a self-sustaining agricultural school and a junior achivement program. Overall this organization works to help people become entrepenuers in different phases of their lives. The organization does a lot of amazing things. It is a little different, more business like and capitalist, than the work I was expecting to do during this time of my life but overall it is great and I am going to learn a lot. I will explain a little bit about each of the different programs to give you a sense of what I am working on. Also their website is Fundacionparaguaya.org.py and you can get the information is english or spanish if you want more information.
First the AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. This is a pretty amazing program. It is a full functioning boarding school about an hour outside of Asuncion but the really interesting part is that the students dont need to pay to attend but they sell the agriculture and other products they create at the school to fund it. It is a business as well as a school and the students play a key role. The school sells all different kinds of fruits and vegetables as well as grains, dairy products and meat. During their third year students have the opportunity to take on a leadership role and actually create a business plan to sell their corn or mandioca or cows. I really like this type of education because it is teaching them skills they wlll need and be able to use in their real life. There is a large percentage of Paraguayans working in agriculture so being able to teach them to do so in a profitable way is much more beneficial than making them memorize the Presidents of the US. The school is also certified by the country of Paraguay so they are receiving the same basic education as everyone else but also learning about agriculture and entrepeneurship. The Fundacion is really proud of this model and they are trying to share it with other organizations and countries throughout the world so if you or you know would be interested in this type of school you should let me know and I can get you in touch with the right people.

JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT. I am not very familiar with this element of the organization. But it is a curriculum that is taught in schools throughout Asuncion that focuses on entrepeneurship and business skills.


Finally the largest program is MICRO-FINANCE and this is where I am working. They have 18 regional offices across the country and they give out tons of lones to all different types of business in urban and rural areas. One way to check out what they are doing is through another website called Kiva. They have a website of Kiva.org where you can actually give loans to micro-finance clients throughout the world. It is really cool and I think that everyone should check it out. You agree to a certain amount of money and you can choose the clients that you want to support. It is a great way to be involved with international development even if you cant leave the country. So yeah check out this website. Also a lot of the loans given out to Comites intsead of individuals. This increases their returns because if you are not able to pay your cuota you are letting a whole group of people down rather than just yourself. They have recently establish a program called Comites de Mujeres. This is when they bring a group of at 15 women together and give them a loan. It is a cool program becasue they have also used it to establish community and now they are creating musical groups and giving classes on health to the children of the women in these comites. I like that they are not simply giving out loans but they are trying to better the life of the people receiving loans through the establishment of social networks and teaching classes. Overall it is a really cool program and I am excited to keep learning more and more about it. So that is the basic explanation of the Fundacion. I really like and I have learned so much in the last couple of weeks and I know that I will just be learning more and more as time goes on.