Acuna Batata

My life in Paraguay as a peace corps volunteer. Check out pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/donjulio/ And this blog does not represent anything official from the Peace Corps.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

progress

June 27th, 2006
When it’s dark I always find myself ducking about 10ft early for the upcoming barbed wire clothesline (that's right, barbed-wire-clothesline). I know where it is, but I can’t see it at night and it’s just right at head level. I keep waiting for it to stick me in the eye or something. I walk under it many times everyday. It’s part of the reason I built a bathroom, as to not venture out at night and risk losing an eye just to take a crap. That and I had to dodge the oxen and all their crap too.
My two most played songs on my ipod are Comeback by Pearl Jam and Si Te Vas (If You Go) by Shakira (one song says, “If you go, don’t come back.” The other says, “Come back!!). I can hook up my ipod to the family’s homemade stereo system and then we can listen to Bob Dylan or Shakira while we hoe the tomatoes. One of the host brothers, Issac, is a wiz when it comes to speakers and electronics. He pieced together an impressive setup considering what he has to work with. Issac works in Asuncion as an assistant to a lawyer. He’s 20. His friend hooked up him with the job and what an opportunity it is. People here are always complaining about how there are no jobs here – no opportunity. Today I was talking with another host brother, Manuel, and he was saying the intelligent people always find jobs wherever they are. I agree.
I am sick of hearing people complain and whine about the lack of opportunity here. There’s opportunity everywhere you look. But the only ones taking advantage of it are those who want to work. The rest of the people just whine. “We’re screwed here in Paraguay. There’s no way to make money.” And then I say, “well we can begin by making your soil better.” But they don’t make the connection. Or, “we can plant some trees so that in 10 years you can cut them down and build a house.” But that’s just too far in the future to think about.
So I’ve pretty much had it with trying to work through that state of mind. I’d rather spend my time working with people who want to work, where I don’t have to convince them that they can do something. Time is precious and it’s one thing that no man will take from me.
Volunteers from my group are dropping like flies. I’m glad a few of them of left, because I didn’t like those people. Well, pretty much all of them. At the end of two years I’ve noticed that the group sizes tend to shrink quite a bit. Maybe the PC should take a look at that? Maybe fewer volunteers and more resources for them? But that would imply that the PC actually gave a flying rat’s ass about what is it their volunteers are doing. So as long as we are liked, the PC is happy. Work comes last. But shhh, you can’t tell them that because they work so hard trying to act like they care.
Who’d of thought that I’d join the PC and then lose what sense of altruism I had? I just see how it’s the decisions that people make which account for their situations. If a farmer is not even interested in making his soil better, then what do I care if he complains about having to eat beans everyday?
Wait a minute; am I actually saying that individuals are responsible for themselves in life, and that the actual responsible people don’t have to run around picking up the fallen pieces? No, no, a good Peace Corps volunteer would never say that! We’re supposed to reach out, spend our time (this is a 24/7 job) trying to convince the local drunk that if he joins a farmers’ committee, he could start improving his life. We’re supposed to tell him not to sell off his doors and windows to buy more sweet cana (liquor). And then we’re supposed to feel guilty about him, “what can I do to make his life better?” Who started this notion that the capable should feel guilty for the plight of the incapable? (Of course there are issues of violence, accidents, birth defects and the like which are often out of people’s hands – but I am not referring to these.) After all, we’re supposed to be good-natured altruists.
But I’m not.

July 2nd, 2006

I came back from the states with about 30 books. All by Graham Greene, Paul Theroux, and Ayn Rand. It’ll take me maybe till the end of the year to read them all considering how busy I am now a days. I went from such boredom that I was ready to pull my hair out, to being so busy that I hardly have time to read.
We have maybe 1000-2000 tomato plants in the ground. Soon we will have equal numbers of bell peppers, lettuce, and spinach. I’m tired of buying so many vegetables and besides, I like to grow things. We will eat whatever we can, and then sell the rest. The host mom takes a load of tomatoes to Altos, the little town near us, and sells them. Not for much, but it’s better than nothing. We have a lot of watermelon growing now too. The chickens got into the watermelon patch and ate like a quarter of it so we had to build a long fence made out of coco branches. These coco branches are thin and full of spikes. The tips of the spikes love to break off in your body when they stab you. So yeah it was a blast to build this fence.
I love to see progress in the fields. I hate to see the land sitting fallow with nothing going on. It looks so much better cultivated. The problem is that during summer, it’s too damn hot to do much of anything with the land. Unless you have irrigation or shade for your crops, there’s not a whole lot you can do in my part of the country. You can always grow beans. But we have enough damn beans…
My rabbit project so far is a complete disaster. None of the litters have survived past a month – I’ve had nearly 25 little rabbit deaths. The were a number of reasons the poor little buggars were dying predation, disease, and lack of nutrition. I took them away from their momma too early, so they didn’t get milk. The dog was crawling up under the cage and snatching them down, pulling them through the bamboo floor. One got decapitated. And there is a mosquito borne disease, which just claim the father. Also the mother and father were brother and sister, so that could have been contributing to the high death rate. So I’m going to build a new house for the rabbits, completely predator proof. Including mosquito protection.

1 Comments:

Blogger stephanie said...

You are beginning to feel frustration along with compassion fatigue just as many more before you have along the way. Why try to help someone who doesn't want to help themselves? The answer is in the question itself. You can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves. Why are there so many homeless people? Not because of a lack of resources but a lack of motivation & desire to help themselves. Or maybe perhaps they don't even want to help themselves, they couldn't care less, they prefer to simply exist... Either way you can't make them better themselves if they don't want to so don't waste your time with those satisfied where they are at and with what they have.

12:41 PM  

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