Gettin excited, doin work

Today I went to the Puesto de Salud to talk to the head nurse and my main contact, Petronila. My intention wasto talk to her about PC related stuff like my upcoming training but like many things here, it didnt go as planned. Today was a consult day, like any other Monday Wednesday or Friday, she had lots of patients. Or non-patients, aka friends who just came in to gossip. But between the patients and gossip, Hugo, my other contact and assistant nurse at the Puesto came in along with Nestor the guy who runs the pharmacy and gave me some pretty awesome news...the doctor that we have been waiting to come to work in our Puesto for months is due to arrive in the next two weeks! This is a huge deal for my community and for the surrounding communitites that my Puesto serves. It is part of a new program run by the Ministerio de Salud that is bringing not only a doctor but another nurse and also more money to my tiny health center which is all sorely needed. The program is also supposed to mandate more community-based health projects like doing charlas in schools which is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing so I am stoked that they will be given more incentive to work with me on projects.

So with this new program coming I am thinking that the majority of my time is going to be spent helping them out at the Puesto, which I am really excited about. The previous volunteer had really utilized the Puesto to hold tallers (two or three day long courses) about reproductive health and other topics and the nurses in it had been partners in promoting good health practices in the community. Up to this point I had been looking for a way to “get in” at the Puesto and hopefully this is it.

I really want to help them get more organized and maybe even get them a computer. They serve my community but also five communities surrounding it as of now, and when the doctor comes, the nurses say they might start serving more. Since they serve so many people, there is incredible amounts of paperwork and from what I can tell their filing system is pretty archaic. Petronila is also very interested in adding another room to the Puesto. Its a really great idea, but is surely going to be a bit of a headache. I don't even know where to begin to help her with funding!

The slightly frustrating part for me is that even though I know they need a good dose of organization and theoretically I could go in one day and say “I'm going to reorganize everything and make it more efficient and easier for you to work” and I could do it all myself and make it perfect. BUT they would probably a) never understand it and b) revert to the old way as soon as possible since they were no part of it. Learning how to encourage people to do things that are good for them but still allowing them to own it and do it all (mostly) themselves is definitely the biggest challenge I face as a volunteer. 

Diggin Deep: Trash Pit

I am going to be so sore in the morning. I dug a 1m deep 1m diameter HOLE IN THE GROUND today. Why? Ever think, I mean REALLY think, about where your trash goes? Well here in PY we dont have the luxury of being disconnected from our basura by curb-side pickup. Every piece of trash I make sticks around unless I do something about it. What usually happens to it here in PY? Option one is "tirar no mas" meaning it just gets thrown out back. Obviously if 6 million people are just going to throw stuff anywhere, you run out of space pretty quickly. Second favorite way of getting rid of stuff? Burn it. Specifically, put it in your front yard, pour kerosene on it and let it go. Although some people can tell you that burning is bad, many people are completely ignorant of the health and environmental consequences of burning things like plastic, chemical containers, and aerosol cans. Because of these problmes, environmental education is a BIG part of what we are up to here in PY.

And for anyone to take me seriously down the line when I start trying to tackle these issues in my community, I need to be a model of responsible trash disposal. So that hole I was talking about will be my trash pit. I also am making a compost pile. The crazy part is that I've been told that a 1m diameter 2m deep hole will last me my whole service (a little less than two years now). SOOO does that mean that in the last 23 years I have generated something like 11 square meters of garbage? Hard to wrap your mind around!

Today I also planted my garden! Many people in my community have beautiful gardens but they all pretty much grow the same veggies--tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, onions and scallions. I decided to try and grow some "weird" veggies like eggplant, swiss chard, and spinach to get some PYans to try new stuff when they are ready. I've never really had my own vegetable garden before so I'm pretty excited.

Here are some pictures of my PY garden process. Here everybody gardens in raised beds called tablones (helps a lot to keep things together when it rains), so that's why it looks like I've buried three bodies in my garden. The fence in the pictures is my favorite part...my neighbor made it for me and its the only way I can keep her chickens from eating everything!

The sticks are marking off all the different stuff I planted...spinach, eggplant, basil, cilantro, parsley, squash and swiss chard. And that grassy thing in the corner is Cedron Kapi'i, delicious terere yuyo

Look how big Chipa is getting! Shes going to have to learn to chase the chickens away from my garden!

The Paraguayan attitude, embodied in my internet stick

So the internet here is touch and go. As volunteers, we can sign up for a USB modem from the cell phone company, which I have. In my house, the signal seems to have a mind of its own. One minute, I've got full signal and can Skype, the next minute I have nothing. In order to get reliable good signal, I have to go out back to the banana forest.

But if its raining, like today, I'm stuck taking my chances inside. Mostly I've got nothing, but if I sit on my bed with my computer JUST right, I get awesome signal that tends to stay for about 10 minutes at a time.

Surprisingly, this totally random internet doesn't really bother me. I think I have started to get the hang of this tranquilo attitude here in Paraguay. If I have enough internet to put up an occasional blog entry and check email, I'm stoked. Getting to watch the Daily Show is purely a bonus.

In the US I feel like we are completely the opposite. I can remember being on the phone with my internet company whining that the speed was slow and I wasn't getting what I paid for. Not here, you just go with the flow. If you had a meeting planned and it rains, vamos a dejar por otra dia no mas (we'll do it another day). Why would you want to go out in the rain when you can just wait for a dry day and do it then? It makes sense really. Call me a convert. Next time you set up a date with me in the US, I might be late.