This week has been BUSY-even by American standards. First some back ground: the comedor is a soup kitchen that serves lunch and breakfast, Monday through Friday, to about 60-70 kids a day. It is run totally by volunteers from the community (mothers mostly) and is headed by a commission that is elected by the people of the community but has been historically problematic and dysfunctional. There had been some stirrings of drama before I had left for Fourth of July but since there are kind of always problems I didn’t think it was anything worse than any other drama that I’d seen before. However, when I came back I found out that the entire commission had quit due to some conflicts between the community members and as a result of this, we had lost our funding from DIBEN- the government entity that supports these types of soup kitchens all over the country.
I had previously been talking to the municipality’s director of local development about working with the commission in order to help them work more effectively as a team, use their resources wisely etc, and we had been planning on meeting with them the in the coming weeks to do so. Now that there was no commission, our objective changed to forming not only a new commission, but also smaller sub groups to work on more specific tasks thus making the work load smaller and more stressful for everyone (and trust me, there is A LOT of work that goes into 10 meals a week for 60 niños). At this same point, por suerte, the neighborhood commission of the third phase (where the comedor is) contacted me about getting involved in the project as well. This is great news because 1) they are a well-known and well established commission in the barrio and people respect their authority and 2) quite frankly, the situation needed a little testosterone to create some equilibrium in the group dynamic. So I went to meet with them with Mari, a mother from the comedor who has been involved from the beginning and is very trustworthy (her son is also the leader of the youth group). We talked about the work plan and decided we would try and go get the funding back asap in order to keep the comedor running, commission or no commission.
However, the director at DIBEN was less than helpful and to be honest quite rude to both myself and my contact from the neighborhood commission who accompanied me. She was very unwilling to accommodate any suggestion we had and so we were forced to leave there without the funding once again. However, we still had the meeting planned for all the parents and were hoping to have a big turnout. I had additionally invited some of the people from the church as well, which is located in the first phase, in an attempt to bring awareness community wide to the comedor’s cause. Unfortunately Sunday, when I had made plans to meet with the group from the church, it POURED and on top of that the Paraguay Copa America game was on so that meant attendance=zero for my meeting. Additionally the group leader, Diego, flaked out on not one but TWO messages that I sent him. Not ok Diego!
So Tuesday came and the tensions were running a bit high. The municipality, DIBEN, and the neighborhood commission all wanted different things and I was a bit nervous about presenting the new work plan to the group. There was initially a bit of bickering but eventually we got everything ironed out and hopefully we are going to seguir adelante and make some changes. The turnout was actually half way decent despite the cold and imminent rain and we all decided that we would meet again tonight to continue organizing and smoothing over details. Stay tuned!!
In other news, Ahendu (“I hear” in Guarani), the tri annual volunteer/Paraguayan concert is coming up in a couple weeks. My closest PCV neighbor just happens to be the coordinator of it so I’ve offered to help her with some of the planning and I will also be singing a song with Rodrigo! It is my first time singing in public in QUITE some time but I’m hoping it will be fun and not too scary. I’ve also invited some other people I know from Villa Madrid to come perform which I am really excited about.
I was invited this week to go back to Guarambare to talk in a training session for the new group (G36) it was a nice day to be back there and Johanna was invited too so we had a good time. It was nice to meet some of the newbies as well. They are a smaller group and seem much closer than my training class was, they asked a lot of really good questions and they seem like they are all going to be super guap@.
My english class is coming to a close (thank dios!), just three more weeks left. The attendance was over all exceptional I think for a class like this which was nice but also a lot of work. I have told some people that I’ll be continuing giving classes but to be honest not only do I not really enjoy it, I see it as probably the least sustainable work that I have been doing. Studying a language takes a lot of time and effort as well as someone who has had real teacher training (not me) and while I’m sure learning english for these kids could potentially open doors, I just feel like that this isn’t really my role here in this community.
Mom and Dad’s trip is rapidly approaching and so I’m beginning to make some of the plans! We are going to be visiting Iguazu Falls via rental car, the Argentinian side. We are also planning on spending some time in Guarambare, Asuncion, and of course Villa Madrid. It is going to be a whirl wind but I think a great trip.
My birthday is Friday (23?!) and some of my lovely amigas are coming to visit me so we can eat some good food and drink some good drink before we all have to go back to Guarambare for a couple days of training. I got my patio cleaned and cut just for the occasion and I may even give my puppy (who is so not a puppy anymore by the by) a bath as well.
Saturday after my English class I noticed that the carpenter on the ruta was selling wooden chairs for just 23000 guaranies each! So, I went up there and hauled two of them home. I’m going to paint them orange, the same color as my house because I have SO much paint left that I don’t want to go to waste.
The Copa America has been all the talk these past couple days. Sunday night was the Paraguay vs. Brazil and the barrio was filled with fireworks, horns, pots and pans, screaming, drinking, and general debauchery. Luckily, the debauchery lives to play another day because Paraguay WON! In penalty kicks! Viva Paraguay!
This week I also got to head to Caacupe for the day with some other PCVs to have some delicious lunch and stroll through one of the more famous cities in Paraguay. Why famous, you ask? Well, this is the city where the virgin of Caacupe resides and every December 8th, many many MANY Paraguayans take the pilgrimage, on foot, overnight to the church there as a show of devotion to their faith and the virgin. Because of this, the town is a bit touristy but beautiful none the less. The café we ate at is run by a swiss man who was very funny and charming with his thickly accented english and nervous manerisms. Lunch was good but what was perhaps even more rico was the ice cream brownie sundae and various flavored muffins that we picked up at this little roadside place on the way home. I realize I tend to write a lot about my food consumption here, but the thing about it is because my day to day diet is so very very plain for the most part, any sort of excitement is quite literally, something to write home about. Anyway, the day was very pleasant- meeting some new PCVs and catching up with some old ones. Also I found out I am going to get a dresser (por fin) from another volunteer who lives close when she leaves in December-score!
Villa Madrid has been described as “relatively safe with the some petty theft and the occasional homicide”. Well, the past couple weeks have seen some of both of these crimes and so I made the decision to finally walk my lazy trasero around the corner to ask the herreria (iron workshop?) to come and put bars on my windows. I have five windows so it was going to be a bit expensive but por suerte Peace Corps reimburses things like this so I went ahead with it anyway. The senor told me he’d be coming to start the work on Monday since it would take more than one day but Monday came and went sin reyas. Tuesday as well came and went with nada. We’ll see what Wednesday has to bring but it’s raining AND there is a bus strike so it’s looking like I’m going to go another week bar-less.
Well, that seems to be all for now. I will be thinking of you all this weekend as I celebrate my birth!!
Love you and miss you all, como siempre
Jaim
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