I feel like I am finally starting to understand a good bit of Guarani. I have been forcing myself to use it more and ask people more how to say things instead of just switching to spanish when I get stuck. So now I know such useful phrases as “Añoty mandyju kokuepe” which means “I plant cotton in the field” which is exactly what I've been doing in my spare time lately.
When I'm not in the health post entering seemingly endless census data, or at the school giving charlas about sanitation (did my first one on Friday for World Handwashing Day! It went really well, even though I was super nervous), I've been helping my host family plant cotton. I went with them the first time to their field which is about 3k from their house. The road to get there is INSANE because it is basically a rain channel through rocks. The first part is a minor hike through the woods, then you have to cross a palm trunk over a creek, then the second half is all uphill and is the really rocky part. Whats even crazier is that my host dad does it on a horse (all except the ravine crossing part...he just goes through the water). His horse is ivale (real smart) as one would say in Guarani.
There were seven of us, me, my host parents, two host sisters and the boyfriend and brother of one of my host sisters. And two horses. They used the horse to make little furrows in the ground and all the rest of us got cut off two liter bottles with blue seeds in them to plant into the furrows (the seeds were blue to resist pesticides I think but it left your hands really blue if you didnt wear gloves). Upeicha, tres o cuatro cada uno, my host dad told me while holding his hands about a foot apart. My host dad speaks mostly guarani but upeicha is a word he knows I get because we use it alot when he is gesticulating to me frantically to try to get some point across that I am not understanding. It means “like this.”
So we were off, each one of us in our separate furrow. I watched as Julio my host dad studied my technique and then demonstrated (no upeicha, UPEICHA! He emphasized, pointing at his feet as he pushed the dirt over his seeds). Once you get into a rythm the time flies by, furrow after furrow, and before I knew it it was 10:30 and we were done...four hours, seven people, not too bad.
The second time I went out my camera batteries were NOT dead, so I got to take some pictures. It was different since we were going in the afternoon, and this time to my host sister's boyfriend's field. He and his brother borrowed an oxcart from my neighbor and we went in that instead of walking like the last time. Having never ridden in an oxcart before I was pretty excited about it. As you can see from the pictures its a nice view.
The road wasn't as crazy as the other path we went on but there was one part where our driver said that my host sister and I had to get on the other side of the cart. We did, and I saw why in a few minutes...the left side of the road was at least a foot taller than the right. We were being used as a coutnerbalance so the cart didnt fall over. Slightly scary.
But other than that it went smoothly. I do have to say though, that horses look quite a bit easier to manage than oxen. I can still hear the boys yelling manso! Oro! In my head after hearing it ALL day as they tried to get these thousand pound beasts to do work. I can't say I really blame them though. Hours and hours in the hot sun had me pretty tired too. Slept really good that night :)
Check out the Picasa link on the right for more photos! Love you all!
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