Campo Productive

A common topic of conversation among volunteers is "productivity". Often, I find myself talking to my friends about what we did that day and we tend to break it down a couple of different ways. Of course there is "work productive", usually referred to in Paraguayan Spanish as guapa.  Instead of meaning handsome or pretty here like it does in other Spanish-speaking countries, guapa here means hardworking. So on a day like yesterday when I finally finished putting the health post's census into digital format, I could say I was definitely being guapa. Visiting families, doing charlas, cooking at the Puesto, all of those are checkmarks on my guapa list for the day. Heck, right now I'm being guapa by writing this blog and telling you all a little about Paraguay (President Kennedy stated that the Third Goal of the Peace Corps is to "strengthen Americans' understanding about the world and its peoples." )

But there is another kind of guapa, which is a bit harder to measure because it doesn't go on my 4-month report to Peace Corps, nor do my Paraguayan friends and neighbors give me much credit for it either. It involves doing housework. The kind of elbow-grease dirty housework that one really doesn't have to think about much in the states. Like mowing your lawn with a machete, pulling weeds in the garden, baking bread from scratch, sweeping the dirt floor over and over, or my momentary arch nemesis: laundry.

Up until last week, I had it really good as far as laundry was concerned. My neighbor, the super-guapa Melania had brought a front loading, rinsing, spinning washing machine from Argentina when she moved back 15 years ago and had been more than willing to let me use it. All I did was buy her soap and dutifully truck my clothes to her door and they would reappear, damp and clean at the fence for me to hang up in the sun to dry. But last week the door of the washing machine broke, sending suds into her kitchen and I happened to appear the same day with two weeks of dirty clothes ready to wash. My laundry luck had finally run out...until further notice I'll be washing my clothes by hand.

So the next day I decided to dedicate to two time-consuming tasks: doing a water boiling test on my fogon and doing my laundry. Since going to a workshop about fogones I have been running a lot of tests on mine to get a good baseline and learn more about the efficiency of traditional cooking. The water boiling test is pretty straightforward; all you do is boil 5 liters of water on the stove twice, first from a cold start (no fire in the stove beforehand) and then hot start followed by a 45 minute simmer test. During all phases of the test you have to measure the amount of wood used, amount of charchoal generated and keep a close eye on the temperatures of the pots. As long as I could check back every five minutes or so, it left me plenty of time to do laundry while waiting on water to boil. 

Things I've learned in PC: Be resourceful! The scale I use to weigh my wood for my testing is an old baby-weighing scale from the Puesto that I'm borrowing. Ironically donated by JICA (Japanese development org)

Water on, wood in, temperature measured...now just missing the important part...FIRE!

There is a specific way to do laundry here in PY, and luckily I was able to learn it from my host mom during training. First, you put the clothes to soak in soapy water. Luckily I have a giant concrete 2-sided sink to make this task easier. Then you scrub. Either by hand or on the washboard-esque side of the sink. Not too hard, though...there are only so many clothes I have left to last me til the end of service. 

Then you wring. Then rinse two or three times in dedicated buckets of water. When the first rinse water becomes too soapy, replace it and it switch the buckets. Wring again. Hang on the line. Repeat. A few hours later you get something that looks like this: 

And even though its not going on my VRF (PC work report), I felt pretty dang accomplished at the end of the day. Not only were ALL of my clothes clean, I managed to do a water boiling test, bake bread, do dishes, AND sweep. All before 3pm! Now thats what I call campo productive. 

Easy Whole Wheat Bread (makes 2 loaves)

2.5 cups warm water (should feel like bathwater)
1 T yeast
1 T sugar, honey or molasses
1 T butter or oil
1 t salt
Flour (mix of white and wheat, I usually also add about 1/2 cup of sesame seeds)

Put first 5 ingredients in a bowl with about 2 cups of flour. Stir well for at least a minute (this makes sure the yeast is good and dissolved). Add flour a cup at a time, mixing with your hands until the dough is no longer sticky. Knead for 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic (a good measure is if you poke the dough and the hole springs back quickly, its ready). 

Put in a warm place (in an oven on "warm" or in the sun if its a nice day) and let it rise for 1-1.5 hours. Rise time will vary on how warm your place is. On a hot sunny day the dough doubles in 45 minutes, on a cool cloudy day it can takes much longer. Break into two pieces,  and put into loaf pans. 

BUT WAIT...what if you could make one of those into cinnamon raisin bread instead of plain old wheat bread?? 

Flatten one of the halves into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Sprinkle on about a half cup of pre-soaked raisins (leave them to soak in 1 cup hot water for about half an hour until they are soft) and 1T cinnamon and 2T sugar. Roll up like a jelly roll and place seam-side down in the loaf pan. 

Let rise another 30 mins or until the loaves are slightly taller than the pans (ensures nice tall loaves)

Bake until their internal temp is around 190F or they sound hollow when tapped from the bottom.