Great Expectations

Currently sitting in the Cooperative of my future site pondering the next few years and all the ideas, hopes, and challenges that await me. The last few weeks have been a changing of the guard. So much has gone down and my thoughts are in a million places but I will try to recap. After coming back from long field practice in a barrio of Asunción, I had the week off spending time with my host family and community members for Semana Santa, the week leading up to easter.It was a pretty tranquilo week. I saw my family members make the infamous chipa which is a type of special Paraguayan bread that is made every year at this time. We had asado aka bbq and got a lot of quality time in. I also got the chance to play quite a bit of basketball. In the center of our town a bunch of guys from the area come and play and it´s surprisingly decent competition. It´s pretty hilarious playing ball with these guys and talking trash in spanish with lines like en tu cara, basura, and yo tengo vos en mi bolsillo.It was a much needed rest from the rigors of training. I got to study a lot of guarani and continue to get better.

The following week was one of much anticipation. We were finally going to get our future sites. I was pretty calm about it up until the day where we actually found out. It was nuts to think that the place I´m gonna call home for two years was a decision out of hands more or less although they take into account our preferences and ideal projects. I received my site on Wed April 7, my sister Sam´s 21st bday. I was handed a folder that said Encarnación, Barrio Ita Paso....

My initial reaction was shock. A bunch of my friends were really happy with their placement laughing and getting alittle rowdy. I on the either hand was quiet and trying to let it register. Somehow I had it in my head I would be in Asunción the capital or somewhere near because of the rough neighborhoods they have and what my experience has been. i knew nothing about Encarnación except that it was far away and on the border of Argentina. It was pretty apparent to everyone I was a little thrown off because I am known in the group for my positivity and constant smile. The director of placement came over and talked to me and asked me if I was disappointed.I told her that I was a little surprised and didn´t know anything about the site. She proceeded to explain to me the history of Barrio ita paso. It´s a poor neighborhood that was displaced form its original location due to the flooding of the river about 13 years ago. It´s an often forgotten part of Encarnacion because it is on the outskirts and has a lot of needs. She told me for the last 5 years she had been pondering in putting someone there but didn´t think she had found the right match. She told me it is a pretty daunting task with a lot to do and that she picked me because she felt I had the drive, charisma, skills, and work ethic to impact people. Anyone who knows me knows what a sucker I am for a motivational speech haha. Needless to say it helped put me in good spirits about where I was going and being far away from my host family in Villeta.

After finding out about our sites on Wed, we travled to a retreat the following day to get to know our community contacts. We stayed at a beautiful religious retreat center. All of us in Urban youth dressed for the occassion, busting out ties, sports coats, and dressing to impress. A shor ttime after we arrived, the contacts began to pour in and greet us. One by one hands were shaked, people kissed on both cheeks as Paraguayans do and the ice was broken. There was one problem... my contact was nowhere to be found! I spent the whole day hanging out with my friend and her contact who I had met on long field practice in Asunción and is a good friend. It was cool but a disappointment that my contact wasn´t there to hear about the process of Peace Corps and all the expectations in our partnership. I was under the impression that he would arrive the next day in the morning but he couldnt make it. I traveled to my site in car with some other volunteers that will be working near by. Luckily I have a bunch of volunteers in my region. A good 3 or 4 are within 15 min to an hour of me working in various projects.

I arrived to my site and met some of my contacts. One named Jorge and another Herbierto. Jorge is 30 yrs old and head of he nieghborhood commission, he is very politically connected and ambitious. Herbierto is a pastor at a local church that I did not have the chance to spend much time with. I also spent a lot of time with a man named Elvio who is 33 and heads the community Cooperative, a place that handles a variety of community needs like microfinance, help with economic development and seeking to expand to educate the community on various issues. Jorge and Elvio are both guys that have good hearts and really want to see a change in their community. It has been impressive to see how hard they work and how they defy a lot of the stereotypes about laziness or watercooler talk here. They expect A LOT out of me. At times I have had to be clear about how the Peace Corps works. Because of where and what I studied along with the Peace Corps name and our contacts they have lofty ambitions of community change. I think they are head on in a lot of ways but we have to be careful about how we go about talking to people and not making false promises. We have started a plan of needs assesment for the community where we are hoping to identify major issues placing the community in various sectors. There are the obvious problems of education, environment, too much free time for youth and so on. From there we are trying to look into all the resources and human capital the community has to offer. Right now we are planning on starting English and computer classes after my first month here. We also are working on reforming a youth commission that once had great ambitions in the community. I have had meetings with principals, youth leaders, and various community members about ideas and projects we hope to start. Today I got to meet the intendente of all of Encarnacion which is the equivalent to the mayor in the states. He has a lot of power and can make things happen. I have been working pretty hard already, trying to reach out to NGOS about potential partnerships to do vocational training in the community along with health, environment and many other workshops. I´ve been looking into grant writing processes and the requirements to receive funding for sustainable projects. I hope to reach out to current and former volunteers who helped establish community centers and recreation areas. We will be starting our classes sometime in mid June with a few computers in a small space. We will also be hosting meeitngs of various youth groups, neighborhood ocmmissions to be on the same page about planning. The first month and a half from may to mid june will be a time for us to organize our thougths, create curriculum for training, and organize potential contacts in the community, paraguay as a whole, peace corps, and internationally. I want to compile a solid list of people to reach out to for different things and take advantage of all available opportunities and information.

Some ideas that have been runnning through my head and normal urban youth programs are, charlas in schools, youth group meetings and fundraising, parenting workshops and meetings, english, computer training, community partnerships with other ogranizations like red cross and ngos with clout, and support from the local and national govt to assist us in implementation of projects.

Lofty goals I know and I dont want to get too far ahead of myself but they are all things worth thinking about. 2 years isnt that long and I really want to make sure projects are successful in the long run. The idea is to help people in the community learn things so that they can transfer those skills to the community at large.

Thankfully my contacts Elvio and Jorge are very trusted and liked in the community. The political thing worries me a little but I am coming to see that on some level it is necessary to get things done here. So much here is about who you know. I know we have a lot of that in the states, but it is paramount here. I am heading back to training tomorrow for another 2 weeks and I swear in as a volunteer in the US embassy April 30. I will have a few days to hang out and soak it all in in the capital b4 i head to my site. I hope to reach out to a few contacts in the capital while I´m there as well. I feel a lot of pressure to get things done and on some level it´s refreshing to have such a challenge in front of me. Since I graduated I have kind of been out of the game and I´m glad to be back on the grind with a job that I love doing. In bed at night I think about it, when I wake up I´m running possibilities through my head. Passion is a funny thing.

On a lighter note I played a pretty hilarious game of 2 on 2 volleyball the other day. I was a lot more athletic than some of the players but they were fundamentally sound and I got my butt kicked. I told them give me 2 weeks I´ll be the best in Paraguay. It has been fun meeting so many new people and learning about their lives. In my community we only have running water a few hours a day and the style of life is so different. People are friendly and eager to chat. This will be a wild ride and I´m looking forward to it.
Till next time...