Birthdays, Work Site and More

Birthdays. Ok, we all know that birthday celebrations are all in good fun. Sure, I would have to agree that celebrating someone’s birthday generally brings about good times, yet do I find it necessary to celebrate at length the birthdays of every person that I’ve ever met and their extended family? No. 

Here in Paraguay birthday celebrations are on the rage. If you aren’t attending multiple birthday parties a week, then you haven’t fully adapted to the culture. 

This past week the other trainees and I all shipped out on colectivos (buses) to our future sites, which are all across the country (minus the desert part of the country AKA The Chaco). If you haven’t already heard I will be one of the few volunteers of G-35 to be working in a city. Yes, I know what you are thinking. “Isn’t the Peace Corps all about scrubbing your underwear on a rock?” My response is “Yes, in some areas.” But I’ll go into more details about my site and future work in a minute. Ok, back on topic. Where was I? Oh, yes. So I will be working in a city in the southern part of the country. Upon my arrival, I met my soon-to-be host family and got the chance to spend some time with them. Like Hermana 2 in my training town, my new sister (age 21) attends birthday parties like it is her job. She literally attended 3 birthday parties in a span of 2 days AND went out with her friends to celebrate someone else’s birthday. She invited me to tag along to these social gathering, but after I sat through a 5 hour birthday party for a 1 year old with her (that was literally decorated as elaborately as a wedding), I declined the following invites. 

Hasn’t anyone heard about “swinging-by” a party? If you are going to attend all birthday extravaganzas, why not cut some of them short? My new host mother said that sadly I would be missing two birthday parties in the coming weeks. I hate to say that I feel slightly relieved.

My birthday just recently passed and since I knew that is a nation of over doers on the birthday scene, I politely requested that my current host family keep it low key. I even went as far as to say that I wasn’t big on birthdays, which is partially true. I’m sure that my parents will be happy to hear that no birthday will ever top the ones I spent at home. Something about having your favorite meal cooked and then being chased around to receive birthday spankings is priceless.

My site and my work.

The Peace Corps has requested that we do not post our exact location on the internet. If you would like to know the name of the city simply email me or ask my family. There are a lot of pictures online of the city and it is worth doing a quick fact check on Wikipedia (this is not a promotion of Wikipedia). 

So, like I said I will be one of the few people in G-35 working in a city. When I say city, I don’t mean large city. Yes, it is one of the larger ones in Paraguay, but let us keep it in perspective seeing as there are only 6 million people in the country.  

Thus far, I have identified 3 organizations that I am interested in working for and I have heard of a few others that I plan to check out. 

My assigned organization is my school. The school has about 400 students and goes from Pre-Escolar (Kindergarten) – 9^th grade. There are 2 turnos (shifts). That means that some students come to school for the morning classes (7 am – 11 am/12pm depending on their grade), while others attend in the afternoon (1 pm – 5pm). Students only go to school for 4 hours a day??? Yes. 

There are many students at the school that have fallen very far behind the others because they cannot read. They either do not have help at home or do not get extra support from their teacher. I hope to work with the teachers to start an apoyo (help/support) program. Together we will identify the students that need extra help in reading and then I will come to the school a few days a week with the sole purpose of tutoring these students. It may not be a sustainable project (meaning after I leave it will probably not continue), but I hope to help the students advance during the time that I have. 

I was introduced by other volunteer (that lives in a neighborhood outside of the city) to some people that run an English school. They are a relatively new business, but they have already donate resources to other organizations. So, basically if I provide free labor by teaching once a week, I could possibly strike a deal to receive books and/or materials for someone else.

Lastly, I feel like I struck gold when I was introduced the director of a girl’s orphanage.  My school has a special population of children that are living in orphanages in the area. I went with the director to the girls’ home (as she calls it) and it is not what we think of as an orphanage. Of course I am sure that there are terrible orphanages out there in the world, but this one was well taken care of and only had 13 girls. I had been introduced at the school the previous day and had observed a few classes, but what came next really surprised me. Although the girls could not have heard my name more than once, when I walked into the building, I was welcomed by 5 girls yelling “ELLIEEEEE!” The director and girls showed me around the building. They were excited to show me their stuffed animals, where they slept, cooked and played. The building has a “library” with many books, but it seems to mainly consist of reference books and small children’s books. I hope to look for resources to obtain books for older ages in the near future. The director explained that the orphanage receives funds from the government, donations and fundraisers. She also told me that the girls do their own separate projects in order to have extra spending money. The girls showed me things they had sewn, beaded, etc. I promised that I would come back to play and work with them in the upcoming weeks. 

So, what now? A week and a half of training left, our swear-in ceremony and a bus ride out to begin my official work as a Peace Corps Volunteer. 

P.S. I would post pictures if my camera battery wasn´t shot. Hopefully I will find a replacement soon.