Month 3: In Site!!

 Hello all!

Happy holidays, and welcome back to the next installment of my Peace Corps experience.

I'm finishing my third week in my site as I write this. However, before we get to that, let's recap what's happened since the last time you heard from me.

I finished my training, so I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! 

As we wrapped up our last week of training, it was full of exams - what to do in an emergency, who to call, how to record your in-site projects, and also what types of trees are monkeys afraid of? Thankfully, I passed them all and was allowed to swear in. For those of you wondering, monkeys are so scared of "Yvyra Ju," and it's also a pioneer species of a tree down here.

The swear in itself was a very emotional morning. We heard speeches from multiple Peace Corps officials and even an inspiring few words from one member of our cohort (big props to Andrew; you rocked it; I was in tears). After a beautiful ceremony during which we took two different oaths to uphold our duties to both the Peace Corps itself and to "serve alongside the people of Paraguay…with an open heart and open mind", we went through the gut-wrenching act of saying goodbye to our host families who had housed and cared for us for the past 3 months. Tears were shed, promises to visit were made, and in a cloud of empanadas and pieces of cake, we boarded several buses and were whisked off to the city of Asuncion for the night.

Here in the city, with volunteers from our cohort and previous groups (shoutout to C4, C5, and C6), we celebrated our official service start. As if that wasn't enough to celebrate, one of our fellow volunteers (hi Leila) had her birthday the following day, so we had a lovely rooftop dinner.

Asuncion is one of the greenest cities I've ever seen. While it is an urban place - tall buildings, lots of shopping, museums, movie theaters, the whole nine yards - you can't go more than a block without running into expanses of trees and beautifully shaded public plazas. It's also one of the oldest cities in South America, with lots of rich history to complement its modernity.

The following day - Friday, December 6th, 2024 - the 45 of us who had grown so close scattered to different parts of the country. Although most of us had a travel buddy or two to accompany them for the ride, we were indeed on our own once we got to the site. My friend Riley and I caught a 3-hour bus from Asuncion to Caacupe, which would have been perfect for getting to our respective sites. Unfortunately, Paraguay had other plans. December 8th was El Dia de la Virgen de Caacupe. 

El Dia de la Virgen de Caacupe is a religious holiday that dates back centuries to the year 1600. In the original story, a Guarani-turned-Christian sculptor named Jose left his house to collect firewood. As he worked, he was approached by members of a rival tribe who had not accepted the religion of Christianity at this time. Jose feared his life was in danger and began to pray. Legend has it La Virgen appears to him and tells him to hide behind a tree in order to escape those who wish him harm. Jose vowed that if he lived, he would carve the image of la Virgen out of the tree that hid him. Due to divine intervention, the members of the other tribe walked by without noticing Jose hiding. He then kept his vow and carved two statues, a larger one that found its home in Tobati, and a smaller one he brought back to his community. Today, this benevolent apparition of la Virgen - or the Virgin Mary - has her temple, the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Miracles in Caacupe.

Now, you may be wondering how this holiday affected Riley and me getting to our sites in a timely manner the day after the swear-in. The answer is: to celebrate this holiday every year, thousands of individuals pilgrimage on foot from Paraguay to Caacupe. This means that not only was the city swarmed with people waiting to celebrate the holiday, but buses were not allowed to enter the city at all.

This last fact was, unfortunately, not revealed to us until we were about 5km outside of the city itself. The very kind man working on the bus approached us and let us know that - change of plans - they were instead going to drop us off at the "rotonda" just outside Caacupe. 

What was the rotonda?  A roundabout. 

Where did they drop us? 

On the side of the freeway. 

With all our bags. In 95-degree heat. It was exactly as fun as it sounds. A few of the Peace Corps's core values are adaptability and flexibility; I'd say we exemplified them on our first day on the site.

After I finally made it to my site safe and sound (my lovely family came to pick me up), it was time to settle into my new way of life.

"But wait!" You might say, "What about the holiday? Didn't you make the pilgrimage? Did you celebrate El Dia de la Virgen de Caacupe?"

I did.

That Sunday - December 8th - was a horrific rain storm. It was miserable weather all day, and I spent most of it introducing my host sisters to American card games - their favorites are Spoons and Bullshit, the latter of which I have since renamed "Mentira" (liar). As night fell and the rain stopped, my two host sisters, Susana (10) and Samira (15), my host brother Jose (27), my visiting host cousin Ami (15), and Samira's father all prepared to make the 15km trek to the center of Caacupe. When the rain started again, we had just gotten to the main route, swarming with thousands of others making the same journey. It poured the whole walk there, only stopping when we finally entered the city. A bright spot in an otherwise less-than-ideal-weather night, on the walk there, I ran into my friend Kate, who had just gotten to her site not too far away from mine. 

Two hours, 15km, and quite a few stops to rest and wring out our soaking wet clothing later, we finally arrived in Caacupe. We saw the beautiful statue of the Virgen, walked around all the beautifully lit streets, ate delicious food, watched the fireworks at the Basilica at midnight, and went on a carnival ride! It was such a beautiful experience, and my family told me the history of the holiday and introduced me to all the friends and family members they ran into throughout the night. We finally made it home (in a bus this time) around 2:30 am, and I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a bed. Below is a photo of the cross that marked the edge of the city, however unfortunately my phone was too soaked to get pictures of the basilica or the statue of the Virgen itself.

After that day, I started to adjust to my new routine. I wake up, run, do some yoga and exercise. I eat meals with my host family and play many card games. I would go for walks in the afternoons and introduce myself to my neighbors. As I'm the first volunteer this site has ever had, a big part of my job is simply showing face, building relationships, and establishing myself as a part of the community. 

I've been to many church events, graduations, and birthday parties. As the only American in town, I've found that I rarely need to introduce myself, and instead, I get approached by people with questions who want to ask me about my country and the work I'm doing here. 

I've said it before, but I can't say it enough: Paraguayans are some of the most generous and friendly people I've ever met. From constantly bringing you food and refreshments to offering to help however they can, or simply just helping me work on my still developing Spanish and very basic Guarani, there hasn't been a moment where I've felt uncomfortable or unwanted in my community. 

After about two weeks of tranquility and slow integration, I needed a project. It's summer break for the schools here - classes start back up for my sisters on February 24th.  Since it's summer vacation and there's not a lot of stuff going on in the community, it's not always the easiest thing to meet new people. Because of this, I decided to start summer English classes as a way to meet the kids I would be working with in the school in the coming year, and introduce myself to the parents in the community. 

I had initially planned to have just two classes of English, one for younger kids (7-12) and one for older kids (13-18), which would meet twice a week. I quickly discovered that most of the parents in my community and a decent number of the kids were very interested in learning English. Because of the waitlist, I needed a whole second section for my younger kids. It's been so fun teaching them words and phrases, learning how to lesson plan, and developing games and ways of practicing to keep everyone engaged and learning. I'll continue these classes at least until school starts for under two more months. I've already seen a difference in people recognizing and talking to me more publicly, so it's been a great way to integrate further.

And finally...the holidays!

I waited until after New Year's to post this update to fill everyone in on the cultural traditions I was blessed to be a part of.

To get in the spirit of Christmas, we went to a Church service to celebrate the "pesebre." This is the story of the first nativity, during which children from the community came to play the role of the animals, Mary and Joseph, the wise men and shepherds, and even a baby that couldn't have been more than a month old to play the baby Jesus. It was a very wholesome and beautiful celebration with tons of delicious food and fruit salad. Then, we went to organize our pesebres. These are nativity scenes that every house has; in my community, it's essentially their version of the Christmas tree. At my host grandparents' house, we made it with some branches and twine, putting the nativity figures in last, along with tinsel, ornaments, and fruit such as watermelon and pineapple. For Christmas itself, the 24th is the big day of celebration. That night, we went over to my host grandparents' house for a lovely dinner, lit a LOT of firecrackers, and stayed up until midnight. You can't go to sleep until midnight. Otherwise, you're known as the Kure hũ 

/chancho negro (literally "black pig"). At midnight, everyone gave hugs and kisses and said Merry Christmas, set off even more fireworks and then retired to our own homes for the rest of the evening.  

Christmas Day was full of adventure. My host mom, sister, and I, accompanied by another cousin and her husband, left just after lunch. I was just told to bring clothes I could get wet in, so I had no idea what was in store. We first visited different communities to look at Christmas decorations, then settled in a natural reserve for a little picnic. Not only was the nature here beautiful, but there was a lot of history in the form of old war boats and memorials to those who had lost their lives in the War of the Chaco. After our picnic, we went on several hikes, saw some beautiful views, and still had time to visit the Arroyo (stream) and climb some trees after swimming around. We ended the day with delicious pizza and soda and got home just after dark. I was so grateful to my mom and sister for showing me new places nearby. It was such a beautiful day overall. New Year's was a little more calm. We had a pretty mellow evening, just spending time at the house dancing to music and eating delicious food. I recently taught my host siblings "American dances" - the Cotton Eyed Joe and the Cupid Shuffle - and they LOVE it. I'm thinking of other dances to teach them along these lines, so let me know if you have any suggestions. At midnight, we hugged again and said Happy New Year, and we all had lots of fun.

It's wild to think I've been on my site for almost a month. It is starting to feel more like home every day. The people are so kind and welcoming, the nature is so beautiful, and I couldn't be happier overall. I'm very excited for school to start and to dive into teaching environmental conservation.

Thanks for following along; check back next month for more!!