Weekly Bulletin 8-30-09

I’ve just added several more posts to Michel’s exciting tales of Paraguay and the Peace Corps.  Check it out under Michel’s Musings.

Thank you to all who have so generously contributed to our school supplies outreach.  Last year we helped 65 kids. This year it looks like it is going to be almost 120!  We have been able to provide most supplies through your donations, with cards left from Christmas outreach, and from recent financial gifts.
Next Wednesday we will be giving out school supplies to the last 23 or so kids.  The one item we are lacking is back packs.  I am going out shopping for the other small stuff (highlighters, erasers, batteries,
etc.)  Oh, another big thing is the thumb drives and calculators, since about half or more of the kids are grades 6 and above.  If you are able to help, let us know.  This is a great community!  And I wish you could see the happy faces on the kids who came with their parents and walked out with brand new things to begin their new school year.
Gail

Weekly Bulletin 8-23-09

8/24/09

Instead of numbering these by week, I´ve decided just to number them consecutively. That way you´ll know if you missed one (unless, of course, I misnumber).

Some observations:
I love my mosquito netting – If you look at the picture on Facebook, you’ll see that my bed looks just like a princess’ bed (well, almost).
Sure does make you sleep better not having to bat at dive-bombing mosquitos.
If you don’t have a mirror, you can use your computer monitor to see how you look. I’m not sure if this works with all monitors but it does with my laptop (though it is a black and white image, at least I can see if my hair is fairly decent). A mirror is on my list of things to buy at the supermercado on Colonel Oveido.
I hate being without running water and not knowing the rules – do you pour the whole bucket down the toilet or just a partial? We have a well so we’re not entirely without water but none of it is running at the moment and the well water isn’t exactly potable (drinkable – or even clean).  I even got to bring up a bucket from the second well (rather yellowish water). The water is down around 30 feet but it was kind of fun (one bucket only).
Never buy a hotpot made in Russia. The first one simply didn’t work so Digna took it back the next trip to Colonel Oveido. The second one burned out two adapters (at 5 mil each). Occasionally it would get the water warm and then cut out. I’m off to Colonel Oveido tomorrow and am taking it back again and buying another brand.
You can’t play pirated movies on your laptop. Unfortunately, Digna doesn’t have a DVD player so the 5 mil (about $1 U.S.) that I spent for Ice Age 3 will remain a bad investment until someone I know has a DVD player. Since Ice Age 3 is the only movie I have at the moment, I’ll go movieless for now. I stored all my other movies in long term storage so I wouldn’t have to pack them on the bus (with two other suitcases worth of stuff that Elisa and Betsy will bring out on their site visit in September).
Living near a radio station is not the most pleasant sound experience in the world. In Paraguay, the radio station broadcasts outside the station. Since we live less than one block away, we hear every bit of sound that is played. I heard some scratching, scraping sounds and I said to Digna, “What is that!?” She replied that it was the radio station playing electronic music. However, it is just like the weather. Wait 3 minutes and the whole focus changes – we hear everything from Paraguayan Polka to hard rock to ballads to scritch/scratch. When it gets too much I put on my earphones and listen to my own music on the computer.
Electric sandwich machines are great (fortunately, this one was not made in Russia – I didn’t even have to use an adapter to plug it into the outlet).
I need a good recipe for carrot cake. I’ve made it twice already but neither time did it taste like carrot cake. The first one was served after the rosary to all the people who came to pray on the third anniversary of Digna’s husband’s death. Unfortunately, there were more people than cake and we didn’t get a piece so I told her I would bake another today. This time I put in less oil, more sugar, apples and more flour. It turned out much better but still not the carrot cake we are used to.  And I’m buying Digna a new grater because hers is in pieces!
The post office in Carayao seems to be a mystery for most people in this town. When you ask where it is, people just point or say to ask someone else. I needed to mail a sympathy card and it turned out to be quite an adventure. First of all, I tried to purchase a sympathy card.
The local store that sells everything had some Christmas cards and some mother’s day cards. I found a mother’s day card that had a nice cover, glued a blank piece of paper over the inside message and wrote my own. So far, so good – now I needed to find the post office. I was directed to a block by the church (which is about 6 blocks away from my house). I asked around there and was told, I needed to go over by the plaza (which is right next to my house) and look for a store.
Well, there are two or three stores connected to houses on every block. I stopped at one on the corner and she told me that I was close – just keep walking down this street for a couple of more blocks and check at the store that is connected to the post office – so off I went again – stopping at each store along the way to be directed another block. Finally, one girl came out to the street and pointed to a house – “That’s it.” Well, that was it – the post office is kind of connected to someone’s house (and their store). The elderly lady invited me into her front room (I checked and there really was a sign outside that said post office). I had to take off my shoes. She invited me to sit down and took out a scale (I’m sure it was made during the U.S. Civil War) and a receipt book. She weighed the letter and started looking through the receipt book. That didn’t satisfy her so she took out another receipt book and looked through it. I finally realized that she was looking for another letter that had been sent to the U.S. I told her that the postage I usually pay is 7 Mil (about $1.40 U.S.). She said that it would be 8 Mil because she had to take it into Colonel Oveido to the post office there. I agreed and paid my
8 mil. For some reason she had to write the receipt again but I have my copy that proves I paid for this letter.  I have changed my mind about having my address changed to Carayao though I should try and see how long it takes. Right now it takes about 2-3 months for packages and about a month for letters to get to the Peace Corps Office in Asuncion. I guess that it will take a lot longer for Carayao but I wouldn’t have to go into Asuncion to get my mail.

Greetings!

1.  Wednesday evening Mass at 6:30 pm.

2.  Pantry items:  we still need deodorant and dish soap

3.  Be sure you get your tickets to Late Nite Catechism before we start advertising to the neighbors.  One of the children in the parish asked why anyone would want to pay to go to a catechism class!  So I hope you know this is a show, a very funny show, and lots of fun.

4.  All Church Picnic is September 13 after the second Mass.  If you can come, be sure to sign up!  Suggested donations collected at the picnic to cover the cost of the award-winning BBQ made by our Knights of
Columbus:  $10 per adult; $5 for children under 12; kids under 5:
free!  Great food, games, prizes, music and more.

Gail Dimock
Holy Innocents

Week 11 8/19/09 Toad’s Wild Ride
Well, this is it – the final week of training. Already it has been a hard week because we are tired of going to school and attempting to learn a language. We thought that we would just get to sit back this week and let the training people pour information into our minds.
Unfortunately, they wanted us to research the topics and do the training ourselves. And yes, I do understand that this is a much better way to learn something.
Tonight I have to pack up everything so they can take it to the Peace Corp office on Thursday. We need to divide it into three groups – what you need for this weekend, what you will take with you (on the bus) to your site on Monday or Tuesday, and what you can leave behind for Peace Corps to bring on the site presentation (which in my case is the second week of September so I don’t have long to wait for it). I’m still of two minds about getting a bicycle – am I really capable of riding one (fortunately, the area is very flat where I live) or should I just walk everywhere – or will I fall off the darn thing and break my neck. We’ll see. They are very nice bikes.
So time to tell of another adventure – which does involve buses but not getting anything stolen. Bambi needed to go into San Lorenzo to get money out of the ATM. This is about an hour’s ride from Guarambare where we had class yesterday. I said that I would go with her. Now, you have heard me speak of how terrible I am on getting the bus to stop for me. Buses pass me by all the time (which is really weird because once I get on the bus, I always get a seat, no matter how crowded it is – Bambi calls it the old and infirmed reason). Believe it or not, we got a bus to San Lorenzo within 5 minutes of waiting at the bus stop. Best yet, the bus stops right in front of the supermercado Salemma. This is truly our day for buses because this morning we arrived at CHP 45 minutes early because all the buses were on time and not even crowded. So we did a little shopping in San Lorenzo and feeling so good about the buses, went out to catch the #50 or the #32 back home. That’s when our bus luck ran out. We waited about 15 minutes and saw bus after very crowded bus passing us by (not our buses). Finally, the #50 came. And it definitely had the Kilometer
23 sign in the window. Unfortunately, it was the wrong #50 bus. I was watching out the window when we passed by our turn. Immediately, I yelled to Bambi, “Wrong bus – time to get off!” So we did. We have often walked from Kilometer 23 to our house. It is only about 4 kilometers. However, we were kind of tired and it was late so we decided to take the next bus that happened along. The next bus was extremely crowded, so much so, in fact, that we were not able to get on the front. The designated “pusher” yelled for us to come to the back of the bus. Now you must remember that I had a shopping bag in one hand and a very full backpack on my back. The step was very high (because this is a very uneven dirt road) so I needed Bambi to push me up onto the bus. This bus had a turnstile so I couldn’t go any further than that because it turned toward me not towards the interior of the bus. So each time someone wanted to get off, Bambi and I needed to get off the bus and then back on. And we weren’t the only ones standing in the stairwell. The designated “pusher” would give me a shove to help me get back up the step. The shove also came with sound effects “ooofph” or “updah.” By this time Bambi and I are dissolved in laughter because the sound effects are so funny. It’s almost as if we are on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Everyone in the back of the bus watching us is also laughing because it is funny and since we’re laughing, they can now laugh too. By this time at least 20 people have left the bus.
Once we tried running up to the front of the bus but no one in the front is moving toward the back so we had to race back to the rear of the bus to get back on (Fortunately, our pusher yelled to the bus driver to stop and not leave us as we are racing back and forth).
Finally, after another 3 or 4 stops, the pusher decides that it is time for us to go to the front. No one in the front has moved even an inch towards the back but we jump onto the steps, hold on for dear life, and the bus takes off. They do not shut the bus doors and I actually didn’t feel in any danger but it was an experience I don’t care to repeat with my rear (and my backpack) hanging outside the bus as we travel down the road. We did finally manage to get inside the bus, through the front turnstile, and with my usual luck someone gave me their seat. It was only later that we discovered that Diana was on this same bus. I think she was just keeping a low profile so that no one would know that the crazy old American lady lives with her.

Weekly Bulletin 8-16-09

8/14

Today we had our swearing in ceremony at the U.S. Embassy. The Ambassador was there as well as the country director of the Peace Corps. Best of all, the temperature was in the 80s. It was a lovely event. President Lugo was unable to make it because this is also the feast of Ascunsion (the city) and he had too many official events to attend.

Of course, just to embarrass myself, I had a stupid coughing fit in the midst of the ambassador’s speech. I’m just recovering from a small cold and made sure that I had kleenex and cough drops. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough cough drops and just couldn’t stop coughing. How embarrassing! One of the reporters went to get me a glass of water and the country director brought me another one. I needed them both!

However, coughing aside, we all swore in and are now official Peace Corps Volunteers. We’re spending the weekend in Ascunsion and will be off to our sites on Monday. The amount of baggage I’ve gathered in three short months is amazing. Besides the stuff we brought with us, the Peace Corps has given us tons of books, a mosquito net, a medical kit, and a machete. The machetes are not sharpened but sure enough one of the guys cut himself on it. We have pictures!

When I originally packed, I used the vacuum bag method where you buy the bags, put your stuff in and use a vacuum to suck out all the air.
It was wonderful because you can take 12 inches of clothes, blankets, and pillows and collapse it all to 2-3 inches. Unfortunately, a vacuum cleaner is an unknown commodity in Paraguay. I put my pillow in one of the bags and sat on it to try to get out all the air. It kind of worked but not really. So now, I had to try to stuff what was compressed to one suitcase back into that suitcase. I can tell you now that it didn’t work! I ended up having to purchase a Paraguayan bag (a huge Paraguayian bag) so I could pack the rest of the items.

I did give my host family the book of Bonita. I also presented it at the talent show on the last day and won third prize. Anyone who is interested can e-mail me and I’ll send you a copy of it as a pdf. It is in Spanish but I will also have an English version once I get to my site. Let me know whether you want it in Spanish or English (or both).

Eladia loved the book. I also gave her a DVD of the pictures I had taken of her family. She liked that too but not as much as the Bonita book.

I need to go get something to drink before I have another coughing fit.

Michel

Greetings to all you holy and sometimes innocent ones!

1.  The obligation to attend Mass on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (Aug 15) has been dispensed because it falls on Saturday.  So there will not be Mass here on that day.

2.  Late Nite Catechism:  be sure to get your tickets to Late Nite Catechism. This is an all new “LNC” called Until Death do Us Part.  So if you have been to a Late Nite Catechism before, you know how much fun it can be and this is a brand new production.  It will be here at Holy Innocents, Saturday, October 24, 7:30 pm.  Tickets are $30 each.

3.  Pantry item of the week:  deodorant or dish soap.

4.  Sign ups have begun for the Church Picnic, September 13 after the second Mass.  Food will be provided by our Knights of Columbus who will be making their Award Winning BBQ.  Please sign up so we know how many adults and children to plan for.  Donations at the picnic:  $10 per adult, $5 per child under 12, children under 5 free.  There will be games, music, and good fun for all.

Gail