Camp and Composting

After nearly a month of living in Ayolas, my first host family returned from their three week vacation to see family this past week. While I was very excited to see both Marite and Carlos after the three week absence, I also knew that their return was the sign of coming changes to my life. Marite is currently 8 months pregnant and when they returned she was interested in preparing the room I was staying in for the coming baby. AKA you need to move out as soon as possible. Getting to know a community has not been the easiest this past month. Without a constant host family to introduce me to people or take me around town with them, I have definitiely struggled to make new friends. So I was excited and a little nervous to move on to a new family. The biggest problem was that nobody wanted to host me in their house. My contact called a few families who all said no. And after spending almost three hours walking the streets of my neighborhood in Ayolas one Saturday morning, asking different families if they could host me, and all of them sending me on a wild goose chase to ask another person that might be better suited to host (I mean who wouldn´t want to let a foreigner who just clapped outside your house one morning covered in sweat live with you for a week or so). I ended up calling on my greatest assist here- Mandi (the current Peace Corps volunteer also living in my site). After a day of text messages and phone calls to some of her friends, we were finally able to find me a new family.


Señora Susana and her 7 year old granddaughter Camila were gracious enough to open their home to me for one week. (Luckily I already knew with whom I would be living after them.) The week I spent with Susana and Camila was very refreshing. Susana treated me just like a daughter and while Camila definitely got on my nerves at times when she would dig around in my bags to look at all my stuff, I appreciated feeling like one of the family. Susana was also very interested in putting my environmental education skills to use in the neighborhood while I lived with her. I told her about some of the information that we learned while in training and she was interested in holding a neighborhood meeting to learn about compost piles.Since it is mid summer here, it is the perfect time to get started on a compost pile to use in their gardens next year. On Monday morning we walked up and down the street inviting all the neighbors and their kids to the presentation Friday evening. Luckily that gave me the rest of the week to prepare my materials and what I was going to say for about 30 minutes all in Spanish about compost piles.

While I prepared my materials that week, I also got to attend Paraguay´s version of a day camp. The camp was funded by the Yacereta dam that is located in my site and was led by a group of teacher and neighborhood volunteers. The camp ran for two weeks, from 8am to 11am with a break for the kids to go home for lunch and then started back up again from 2pm to 5pm. The morning hours were spent playing sports, which meant soccer most days, and the afternoons were craft and dance preparation time. Unfortunately I did not learn about the camp until Tuesday of the last week so I only got to spend a few days with the kids and volunteers. However, I spent most of the time walking around talking to some of the kids and volunteers, and just trying to get my face out into the community so people start to recognize me. My hope is to help out more with the camp next year, and perhaps use some of my camp skills I acquired while working at Lutherwood for three summers to make it a little more organized and entertaining for the kids.

After attending camp for the week, Friday finally came and so did my compost presentation. That morning I walked one more round of the street reminding all the neighbors and hoped for the best. I baked an apple bread cake as a snack and Susana made some delicous acerola (a mix between a cherry and an apple) juice of the occasion. As with most things Paraguayan, although the plan was to start the presentation at 6pm, most people didni´t showed up until 6:45pm. There ended up being 6 neighborhood women that attended the presentation. We talked about why we should make compost piles, what can and can not go in those piles, and how to make one. We then got some practical experience and made a small demonstration compost pile for practice. The women were all friendly and sympathetic to my still struggling Spanish skills. However, the true test is to now see if the women made their piles or not. I plan to make a trip back up that street this next week to check up on them or to help them start their own at their house if they are still unsure how to construct or maintain their own compost pile.

I am so glad that I got the opportunity to live with Susana and Camila. While it was a short stay, they were very welcoming to me and my work here. I also met some great neighbors and kids at the local day camp. I have definitely come to appreciate the importance of living with a good family here. While I am still excited to live in my own house here, I now know the importance of making these connections with families in the community. And I am looking forward to the next few families I that will be living with in Februrary.