First Week in Site!!

It is really interesting arriving at site during Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Paraguay. Paraguay is a predominantly Catholic country with some pretty cool cultural aspects thrown into their beliefs and traditions that makes it unique.

First theres the food aspect of Semana Santa. I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but there are certain things you can and can't eat and cook during SS here. Of course theres the usual no meat on Friday rule but here most people don't cook at ALL on Friday. For example all I've eaten today is fruit salad (I peeled approx 10 oranges, 1 pineapple,and 2 apples to help my contact make it...my hand hurt all day) and chipa. Chipa is a huge part of SS all on its own. Traditionally, people make chipa on Wednesday before Easter. I had the great honor of helping one of the families in my community make chipa so I got to see how its made. I am surprised I can still eat it after watching.

What I had chosen not to think about every other time I had eaten chipa on a bus or in the street (besides being a SS tradition, chipa is also one of the most popular street foods in Paraguay) is that its terrible for you. We used around 15 kilos of flour (mostly corn, but some mandioca flour too) and about 15 eggs, 2 liters of milk, at least 5 kilos of Paraguayan cheese and 3 kilos of LARD. When all of these ingredients are mixed by hand just so by whipping the egg whites seperate from the yolks, only adding the milk a little bit at a time, and kneading vigorously its ready to be put in the tatakuaa, the special chipa oven. It looks kind of like an igloo, and its basically just a half circle made of bricks with a base and two openings on each side to add wood and later chipa. First you add tons of wood and get it really hot. After an hour or so of preheating, you push out all of the ash and embers and put in the chipa. The end result is sort of cornbread textured but with a harder outer shell and a slightly gooey cheezy interior. If your mouth isnt watering yet, it should be, because its delicious. And even though I know its extremely unhealthy, I have allowed myself to eat a ton of it by telling myself I will exersize my chipa kilos off once I get my bike from Peace Corps.

But enough about my love affair with lard filled goodness. I also got to go to church for the first time here today. I had been to the oratorio (local church with a layperson reading the mass), but the church in Caazapa was a totally different story. The church was huge and beautiful with adobe walls, high ceilings and big arched windows. I'll take a picture of it next time I go into Caazapa for sure. And the service was pretty interesting as well. The first part was outside and they talked about the crucifixion and all that, then basically did a mock funeral, where they took the statue of Jesus down and walked it into the church for the second part. I didn't understand all of it, but it was neat since I've been to Catholic church a bunch of times in the US and they say all of the same prayers, but they still have their own local flair for it.  

Future Site!!

So I am so stoked about my future site!! There is so much to love about Cabayu Reta! I met up with my community contact and Anne, the volunteer I am going to be following up on Friday. Anne has done SOOOO much in the community. Not only did she help organize two really awesome women's commisions and complete a fogon project, she also worked a ton in the school and speaks killer guarani. And just recently she started another fogon project and a sink and concrete floor project that I will be continuing. One of the big advantages of being a follow up volunteer is that a lot of times they already have projects going on that you can get started on pretty quickly. What I was really dreading is that if I was a first time volunteer you spend at least three months explaining what the heck you are doing there and figuring out things that the community needs. On one hand its a little scary having to go straight into site with a really high set of expectations, but on the other its so nice to finally be able to DO SOMETHING instead of just training for it.
But even if I didn't have this fogon project to work on, I'm sure I would have plenty to do anyways. There is a nice, well-equipped health post in my community which also serves four outlying smaller communities. I'm pretty sure there is enough work to do there that I could just go in and help out nearly every day for the next two years and not get bored at all. There are only two people who work there (the head nurse is my community contact), and are both super hardworking.
Besides that, the scenery is gorgeous. I have an abandoned  rock quarry about 3k away from my house that is basically a huge swimming hole. I got to check it out with Anne and Miriam, the volunteer closest to me. I am so lucky to have her so close by, shes only about 3k from my site and will be an awesome resource for learning how to get started in my community. She already wants me to help her with some workshops she is doing at her school in a few months.
While I was there on my visit I got to meet a lot of people in the community. Peace Corps wants us to live with a family for the first three months in site in order to get to know people and work more on our language skills. I think I am going to spend my first month with the family of the president of the fogon commission, whos daughter also was Anne's best friend in site. After, I'm going to live with my contact for a month (who actually has a modern bathroom...que suerte!!) then either of the nurses at the health post. Afterward, I really hope to live in the house that Anne had been living in. Its a little complicated because her neighbor who owns the house really wants me to live there, but her family (who also part owns the house) wants to leave it open for when they visit once a year. My contact offered to talk to her and I hope she does. The house is in a perfect location, and all of Anne's stuff (and the stuff she borrowed from her neighbors) would be available for me to use. Keep your fingers crossed that my awesome contact will make it happen for me!