How did this happen? I literally remember sitting in a room on campus submitting my application to the Peace Corps (procrastinating for finals studying of course) as if it were the other week. Now I’m sitting in my bedroom on the other side of the hemisphere, an official trainee of the Peace Corps.
What.
I’ve recently just passed my one month mark in country and it still hasn’t actually hit me yet that this is for real. I think the hardest part is that we’re going into our sixth week here, but we still have absolutely no idea what we will be doing for the next two years. Where will I be living? Where will I be working? Am I going to be alone in the Chaco for the next two years?? Will my community even speak Spanish??? Will there be a super market that sells real cheese near my site????
There are so many unknowns, and so we just attempt to prepare for all of the knowns. We do a little bit of everything in training, we learn a little about composting, how to make your own baby food, how to lead an exercise class, what causes diabetes and hypertension, what history led to such a machismo society, how to garden, how to make home remedies for a cold, and so on and so on and so on. This gets me so amped to be sampling out all of these really fun things that I could be doing, but it also stresses me out that my community could expect so many different things from me, and what do I really know about caring for new borns?
Training is pretty much a mix of emotions. I usually wake up (late) with a Whatsapp message from a family or friend asking “how’s it going” and then I think to myself, you know what, today is a new day, its going good. But I don’t actually respond because of course I’m running late. Then during a break between language class, I glance at the message again and think of responding with something like “holy shit, everything is so difficult and i’m exhausted and I’m stupid because I can’t speak Guarani.” But of course I don’t respond because I’m too busy trying to get all of the coffee into my system as possible while on break. By lunch time, my mind is completely blank and I haven’t even realized that I still haven’t responded because I can’t speak or think in any language. In the afternoons we usually have some sort of technical class on a public health topic, and usually I’m super amped about it and I want to respond to the message saying “hell yeah this stuff we are learning is awesome and I love everything about what the Peace Corps is doing!” But since we just have a short break, I decide I’ll wait until after class to respond and give them a full recap on how great everything is. Another lecture later on safety and security or some topic like that, and I’m completely dead. At this point I’m thinking of responding, “training is so long! I just want to be put in my site already and start doing things instead of listening to lectures!” Then I get home from class and my mom is speaking Guarani and I literally just want to cry because WHY CAN’T I UNDERSTAND HER YET? But then dinner rolls around and I’m sitting at the table with my family talking about life and love and why the world has brought me to Paraguay and I just feel so content in those moments.
So how I do put all of those feelings into a single whatsapp message? I still haven’t found a language that I’m able to do that in.
Now, if that made any since, I think that explains why I’m so slow at responding to whatsapp messages and also how emotionally exhausting a single day of training can be. How honestly, it depends on the hour of the day how I’m doing, and just because I can be frustrated or bored or angry in one moment, it doesn’t mean I’m not happy or I’m not enjoying what I’m doing here.
Alright sorry this has all been reflecting and ranty and probably boring for everyone reading this. Let me attach some photos that you all will probably scroll through and write about some embarrassing/funny things that have happened.
Story #1- Remember how I mentioned that going to soccer games is a huge thing here? And we would yell things at English at times? Yeah, that definitely hasn’t changed at all. I think one of my favorite pastimes now is going to soccer games and screaming in English at them. Some of the Paraguayans want to join in too, so we tried to teach them some good things to yell when players mess up. Our go to is always “BE BETTER!!!!” However, the Paraguayans pronounce it as “BE BUTTER!!!” and we tried to explain it to them that they are saying bUtter instead of bEtter…but they don’t seem to worried that they are yelling at all the players to turn into butter. So if for whatever reason, you come through Paraguay years from now and hear screams of people yelling "BE BUTTER" at soccer games, you’re welcome.
Story #2- Also takes place at a soccer game (obvi, that’s all I do here). We were trying to explain the difference to a family of Paraguayans the difference between calling someone a “bitch” and the use of the word “betch.” After first explaining that the word bitch is bad, we explained that people use the word betch to talk to their close friends. Before we could get any farther into the explanation, the Paraguayan mom places her hand on her host son’s shoulder (another PCT) and says “Matteo, mi hijo, mi betch!” (Matt, my son, my betch!) And we all literally laughed so hard we were crying.
Story #3- So this story requires just a tiny bit of background knowledge on what chipa is. So chipa is this magical bread made from yucca flour, fat (vegetable or pig) and cheese. Its very hard, dry and dense. For Semana Santa the moms spend a whole day making chipa, and then they pretty much “go on strike” and all you eat is chipa all week and just relax with your family and eat chipa. At first, I was not a fan of chipa and I was not excited about this. But the more that I ate chipa, the more it grew on me, and now I’m actually craving chipa. The rest of the volunteers hate chipa after being forced to eat it all week. Not me. ANYWAY, this is right after Semana Santa so everyone is sick of chipa, but me, and the director of the health sector for the Peace Corps in Paraguay is giving is a lecture on maternal health. In a small silence between slides, we hear the chipa man (a car that drives by selling chipa, similar to the ice-cream man) drive by and I gasp and yell “CHIPA!!!” Everyone, including the director look at me like I’m absolutely crazy and I immediate hate myself and my love of chipa.
That’s about it for now. The wifi at the training center has been down for the past couple weeks. I just got back from an amazing week called LFP (long-field practice) I'll start working on a post about that and brag about all the sick nasty things we did!!!
What.
I’ve recently just passed my one month mark in country and it still hasn’t actually hit me yet that this is for real. I think the hardest part is that we’re going into our sixth week here, but we still have absolutely no idea what we will be doing for the next two years. Where will I be living? Where will I be working? Am I going to be alone in the Chaco for the next two years?? Will my community even speak Spanish??? Will there be a super market that sells real cheese near my site????
There are so many unknowns, and so we just attempt to prepare for all of the knowns. We do a little bit of everything in training, we learn a little about composting, how to make your own baby food, how to lead an exercise class, what causes diabetes and hypertension, what history led to such a machismo society, how to garden, how to make home remedies for a cold, and so on and so on and so on. This gets me so amped to be sampling out all of these really fun things that I could be doing, but it also stresses me out that my community could expect so many different things from me, and what do I really know about caring for new borns?
Training is pretty much a mix of emotions. I usually wake up (late) with a Whatsapp message from a family or friend asking “how’s it going” and then I think to myself, you know what, today is a new day, its going good. But I don’t actually respond because of course I’m running late. Then during a break between language class, I glance at the message again and think of responding with something like “holy shit, everything is so difficult and i’m exhausted and I’m stupid because I can’t speak Guarani.” But of course I don’t respond because I’m too busy trying to get all of the coffee into my system as possible while on break. By lunch time, my mind is completely blank and I haven’t even realized that I still haven’t responded because I can’t speak or think in any language. In the afternoons we usually have some sort of technical class on a public health topic, and usually I’m super amped about it and I want to respond to the message saying “hell yeah this stuff we are learning is awesome and I love everything about what the Peace Corps is doing!” But since we just have a short break, I decide I’ll wait until after class to respond and give them a full recap on how great everything is. Another lecture later on safety and security or some topic like that, and I’m completely dead. At this point I’m thinking of responding, “training is so long! I just want to be put in my site already and start doing things instead of listening to lectures!” Then I get home from class and my mom is speaking Guarani and I literally just want to cry because WHY CAN’T I UNDERSTAND HER YET? But then dinner rolls around and I’m sitting at the table with my family talking about life and love and why the world has brought me to Paraguay and I just feel so content in those moments.
So how I do put all of those feelings into a single whatsapp message? I still haven’t found a language that I’m able to do that in.
Now, if that made any since, I think that explains why I’m so slow at responding to whatsapp messages and also how emotionally exhausting a single day of training can be. How honestly, it depends on the hour of the day how I’m doing, and just because I can be frustrated or bored or angry in one moment, it doesn’t mean I’m not happy or I’m not enjoying what I’m doing here.
Alright sorry this has all been reflecting and ranty and probably boring for everyone reading this. Let me attach some photos that you all will probably scroll through and write about some embarrassing/funny things that have happened.
Story #1- Remember how I mentioned that going to soccer games is a huge thing here? And we would yell things at English at times? Yeah, that definitely hasn’t changed at all. I think one of my favorite pastimes now is going to soccer games and screaming in English at them. Some of the Paraguayans want to join in too, so we tried to teach them some good things to yell when players mess up. Our go to is always “BE BETTER!!!!” However, the Paraguayans pronounce it as “BE BUTTER!!!” and we tried to explain it to them that they are saying bUtter instead of bEtter…but they don’t seem to worried that they are yelling at all the players to turn into butter. So if for whatever reason, you come through Paraguay years from now and hear screams of people yelling "BE BUTTER" at soccer games, you’re welcome.
Story #2- Also takes place at a soccer game (obvi, that’s all I do here). We were trying to explain the difference to a family of Paraguayans the difference between calling someone a “bitch” and the use of the word “betch.” After first explaining that the word bitch is bad, we explained that people use the word betch to talk to their close friends. Before we could get any farther into the explanation, the Paraguayan mom places her hand on her host son’s shoulder (another PCT) and says “Matteo, mi hijo, mi betch!” (Matt, my son, my betch!) And we all literally laughed so hard we were crying.
Story #3- So this story requires just a tiny bit of background knowledge on what chipa is. So chipa is this magical bread made from yucca flour, fat (vegetable or pig) and cheese. Its very hard, dry and dense. For Semana Santa the moms spend a whole day making chipa, and then they pretty much “go on strike” and all you eat is chipa all week and just relax with your family and eat chipa. At first, I was not a fan of chipa and I was not excited about this. But the more that I ate chipa, the more it grew on me, and now I’m actually craving chipa. The rest of the volunteers hate chipa after being forced to eat it all week. Not me. ANYWAY, this is right after Semana Santa so everyone is sick of chipa, but me, and the director of the health sector for the Peace Corps in Paraguay is giving is a lecture on maternal health. In a small silence between slides, we hear the chipa man (a car that drives by selling chipa, similar to the ice-cream man) drive by and I gasp and yell “CHIPA!!!” Everyone, including the director look at me like I’m absolutely crazy and I immediate hate myself and my love of chipa.
That’s about it for now. The wifi at the training center has been down for the past couple weeks. I just got back from an amazing week called LFP (long-field practice) I'll start working on a post about that and brag about all the sick nasty things we did!!!