Monthly Archives: August 2013

A New Level of Tranquilo and Reminders in Gratitude

August 26, 2013

“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Howard Thurman

Since returning from my stateside vacation earlier this month, I’ve noticed a big change in me. Somehow, in the span of a week, I mellowed. After being gone for nearly a fortnight  I didn’t check my bed for spiders before crawling inside, a ritual I’ve cultivated for 11 months now. Despite knowing that anything that doesn’t get moved every 24 hours in my house becomes potential housing for a creepy crawly, I didn’t bother to check all their regular hangouts before diving a hand into bags or clothes on the shelf (I know by  now you’re asking “where is Wendy and what have you done with her?!”) In fact, I found a thick black hairy arachnid on my hand yesterday and simply shook it onto the floor, not bothering to see if there were others on me. And it’s not just the spiders. Mini beetles in the popcorn stash are harmless once fried in hot oil, right (probably a delicacy somewhere too)? You know you’ve reached a whole new level of tranquilo when your answer is “yes” as I had to admit this week. I consulted my best PCV friend with this question. She agreed wholeheartedly and added that it’s simply a source of more protein (at least I don’t have to carry this protein 17k from the grocery store!) and said “Wait til you start eating off the floor!” My reply: “Ummm, that started last week.” For the germ-a-phobe I used to be, never did I see myself submitting to the 3 second rule in PY. Ever. Even though I have a fancy, fairly clean, tile floor, unlike many PCVs whose floors are hard-to-clean-cement or straight soil, I did not think I’d ever be so nonchalant. This, in the same week I was picking dead bugs out of my stash of beans given to me by a generous neighbor. Not exactly the self-development progress I’d hoped to make during my time in PY but I’m sure it’ll serve me somehow. We work with what we’ve got.

Last week all the volunteers in my group traveled with our community contacts to the Chaco (the Northwestern chunk of PY) for a few days of training. I was so excited to realize that my language skills had improved significantly since our last gathering two months ago. I pretty much was able to follow most of the conversations – ooooh what a feeling, halelujah! At the end of those few days of intensive Spanish conversation, however, my brain started to feel like a 20-car pile up with all those new words and phrases overflowing my mental parking lot, backed up waiting for a parking space in the memory banks. I’ve learned this is a good sign…it means things are getting in there! Hopefully the valet driver can also retrieve these when the time calls for it. haha

Despite being assured winter is almost over, today’s high in my site was a raw, rainy 45F. I try to ignore this fact and focus instead on the week’s forecast which promises temps in the 80s and 90s. It’s been raining for days and it’s been equally as many days since I’ve had a shower, washed dishes, taken my hat off, or opened my front door except to shoo away cows trying to eat the oregano on my porch. It was so raw even the cows were shivering! I will welcome the sun and sweat with open arms. Bring it. And hurry. These warm clothes I’ve worn 24/7 really need a break. In an effort to walk my own talk and focus on the positives in life, I sought gratitude in phone calls with friends, hot chocolate with honey harvested from my own bees, lingering over a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee (ok, it might have been 4 cups today), the luxury of reading, skyping with my mom, eating my fill of hot, freshly made soup from the bounty of my garden that has gone totally gangbusters since a week ago (did you realize carrot greens smell like carnations?), then rounding out the day with popcorn sprinkled with fried beetles (if you add some dry basil it helps camouflage the bodies). I’m a lucky gal.

I haven’t made too many faux pas in a while (that I’m aware of), perhaps because I’ve been cooped up in the house (there’s an upside to everything) but I did make a good one related to my birthday (go big or go home, I always say). While visiting a family the week prior to my birthday, the husband and wife were commenting on my special day coming the following week and kept saying something about “invitado” this and “asado” that and was I going to have that cake made from beans that I love so well? (It tastes like chocolate but has not a speck of chocolate in it. Deelish!) What I didn’t realize is that in PY, it’s the person celebrating the birthday who puts on her own party, cooks the food (asado means BBQ), bakes her own cake and invites the town to the fiesta at her house. Oops. I had been expecting my host family to put on a lunch for me and bake the famous bean cake since they’ve been talking about it all year (or so I thought!) It wasn’t until the day AFTER my birthday and the birthday-celebration-that-never-happened that another volunteer explained the custom. Oops again. I had let them down. NOW I understood that they were actually telling me to be sure to invite THEM to my party at my house and the family had given me a kilo of beans so I could make the cake for this fiesta that never happened. Oops…again. Fortunately, as an outsider I’m forgiven for most of my missteps. But I think they all felt a little embarrassed that I didn’t get a party at all. No worries though! We’ll make up for it next year!

Here’s something I threw out to my friends this week:

What stories do you tell yourself about you, your abilities, your worth? Have you checked their validity lately? How many are so negative you wouldn’t dream of saying them to your best friend or beloved? Maybe it’s time to tell some better stories.

I love this. I think all of us can relate to how easy it is to beat ourselves up over our perceived shortcomings and point out areas where we lack. Interestingly, we may not even realize this habit but we do know we would never want to treat our friends and loved ones the way we often treat ourselves. My Peace Corps service has brought my own self-defeating habits to my stark attention and it’s been an incredibly humbling experience. Your pride gets taken down a notch or two or four. You realize you have far more to learn from your host country nationals than they have to learn from you. Sometimes, it is far better to listen and learn than speak and never be wiser. Language barriers can infantilize a person. When you’ve led a life feeling fairly competent in your everyday work, tasks, and understanding of your culture and surroundings then suddenly find yourself feeling completely inadequate on sometimes even the most basic levels, it is disconcerting. It makes you question yourself, your worth, your ability, your stamina to see this through. It holds up a mirror that reveals facets of yourself you never knew existed. You must look at it everyday. Sometimes we are proud of what we see. Sometimes not. Even though you might have been going through life working really hard on your problem areas, being kind, being aware of your wake, striving to grow and learn, extending compassion and loving kindness, sometimes those blind spots just hit you upside the head and you never saw them coming. Peace Corps is hard this way but it is one of the best damn eye openers I’ve ever had the good fortune to be gifted. So I invite you to consider the questions above. While there’s always work to be done on ourselves, is there room for you to be more loving and gentle as you go about it?

This week’s takeaways: pride in standing up for myself and and my principles with courage to speak my peace without flinching coupled with the strength to extend compassion during a difficult situation; joy in having someone tell me my words made a difference for them; assurance that the universe delivers who and what we need exactly when we need them (including a cheap taxi that appeared out of nowhere and really was an angel of mercy on a rainy day); grateful for opportunities to practice in areas where I struggle knowing it will make me stronger and wiser; appreciating people in my life who really have my back when I need them; knowledge that I’ve made great progress in loving myself and the gifts I have to offer, blessed with a great mom who’s always there; appreciative of a super boss; never again in my life will I take for granted good coffee, indoor plumbing, an indoor stove, central heat, or electricity. Even on the hardest days, I consider myself blessed with the privilege of being here, sculpting my life, writing my own script, and making my dreams come alive.

Categories: Peace Corps Paraguay | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Reframing and Being Present

August 20, 2013

“So, ask yourself: What can you do right now to see the other side of change, in spite of the anxiety?” -Sumitha Bhandarkar

Reframing is perhaps one of the most critical skills I have honed in the year since arriving in PY. I’m not talking about reframing doorways or watercolors for the wall; I’m referring to perspective, the situation that isn’t going as planned and will drive you crazy if you don’t reframe into something more tolerable, if you don’t shift your perspective toward the positive, if you don’t look for the lesson it’s trying to teach; it’s the moment that offers its lesson cleverly wrapped as frustration, a set back, or a plan gone awry.

This past week I had two excellent opportunities to further develop this practice: a late bus and doing business at the bank. My usual excursions into the next town are a casual affair requiring a minimum half day of my time due to bus schedules. I am only hurried to ensure I reach the bus terminal on time but, once there, it’s pretty tranquilo. On this day, I was meeting a brand new volunteer who had just moved to town and had promised him lunch, English conversation, and a tour of the town to get him grounded. Today, I had no time to spare; I had scheduled every available moment intown. Today, the bus was an unprecedented 40 minutes late. Really? Today of all days? Ok, I get it: a ‘reframing’ opportunity right here. Attitude adjustment time and asking myself how I could look at this situation differently. First, I reminded myself that it would all be ok in the end, regardless of the time we had or didn’t. We weren’t negotiating a hostage situation; it was lunch. Then I decided to make better use of all this extra time available to me. I began bargaining with my plan, seeing what could be condensed or eliminated once I got to town. I began calculating costs for my next vacation. I practiced guaraní vocabulary using the various objects within sight. Magically, the time passed much more quickly. Once intown I rushed to the bank on the way to meeting the new volunteer, thinking “This will just take a minute” and feigned patience while waiting my turn in line. When it was my turn to step to the counter, another bank employee appeared at the teller with an urgent project that needed his attention immediately and seemed to take forever. REALLY? Do you really need to count all that money now? This can’t wait until the line has cleared? I don’t have time to wait, folks! Hence began the mental gymnastics to turn my impatient thoughts into something more productive. I listened to my inner ramblings from outside myself and recognized this as yet another ‘reframing’ opportunity, muttering under my breath that there’s probably something to be learned here somewhere but what the hell is the damn lesson this time???? Surely, haven’t I already learned it?? Clearly, the universe felt I needed more practice and this was it’s reminder to just cool my jets, Chickie.

Admittedly, things weren’t as dire as they felt in my haste… yes, I’d wanted to be ON TIME, and I may or may not have been keeping someone waiting but really, this wasn’t life or death; it’s a mere blink in the collective moments of my life … and I knew I’d probably laugh about it in a few hours (which I did, exactly 15 minutes later). Getting internally impatient or externally huffy does no one any good. Second, perhaps I should have checked my ego at the airport. Third, it gave me time to really be present, to look around the bank and take in the number of guards with their M16s who look so unintimidating drinking terere; to wonder how long the teller has worked here and if those worry lines are from his job, a difficult childhood, concentration, a struggling family member, or …?; to wonder about the life stories of the others in line around me. Simply: A good reminder that situations, and we, are not as important as we think, reframing is always possible and a change in perspective usually makes for a much happier you. And, yes, it all worked out just fine in the end.

Speaking of errands and money, I was chatting with a fellow volunteer recently about how our purchasing decisions here in PY are strongly influenced by our ability to get the purchase home. This usually means carrying it in a backpack or striking gold by finding a friend to haul it in a vehicle (rare but happens). Between us, 99.9% of purchases arrive home on our backs. And, yes, this makes for one of the most effective money-saving ideas I’ve ever used. I would have purchased MANY more things if I could have tossed them into a vehicle. Instead, I’m constantly asking myself: How much do I REALLY need that? How much does it weigh? Do I REALLY want to carry it? Is there room in the backpack after groceries? One yogurt or two? Wine, a new sweater, OR a week of veggies and fruit? The large economy-price spaghetti sauce or the smaller, lighter, more expensive box? For refrigerated items we must also ask ‘How hot is it today and can I get it home without it spoiling?’ We got to wondering – and laughing – how our lives back in the States would be different if we had to use the same criteria for making purchases and getting them home.

That said, hauling a heavy pack several kilometers home has its merits. It invites you to be present, to feel the weight of your new belongings on your body and then, out of discomfort, to reframe. It invites you to shift your focus to your surroundings and the opportunity to revel in the swirl of scents, sights and sounds filling the air. Mangoes, guavas, limes, oranges, and more are blossoming right now and the bees are so boisterous in their ecstasy over the feast you hear them before you see them. You notice birds bantering, how strikingly blue the sky is and how desiccated the soil has become since the last rain. You arrive home with your supplies and a satisfaction not unlike a long season of hard work in the garden that finally generates a great harvest.

Trash is an ongoing issue here. There is no cohesive waste management system in PY and none at all where I live. There is no truck that comes by to conveniently take your discarded material to the landfill. There are few recycling programs. With every day and every purchase we are forced to consider our trash, its lifespan, its final resting place and its impact on the environment. A plastic pouch vs plastic jar vs glass jar? What will we DO with this box/plastic/soda or wine bottle/wrapper/paper/metal chair/tire when it has run its course and usefulness? What can be reused, upcycled, used for storage, etc? Ethical and moral dilemmas abound. Most Paraguayans burn their trash in the backyard. What doesn’t burn gets thrown in a pile to the side. It gets us PCVs to thinking about home and the convenience of our own systems but also the idea of how we might make different decisions and live very differently if we, too, were forced to turn our backyards into our own personal landfills, in proximity to your wells and drinking water. We are so shielded from this reality in the states that we can continue to live our destructive lives and habits without having to consider the consequences each day. Many of us don’t even know when and where we are being destructive. Many PCVs burn their bathroom trash and bury the rest. But what happens when you go on vacation and your regularly scheduled trash-burning-in-the-shed is paused? Giant, super-stinger wasps move in. Then when you finally generate some smoke again, they fall from the ceiling and land in your hair. No harm done this time but…ick. Tis the season for these.

And speaking of critters…this week the spiders are back: I found two floating in coffee mugs, one making a nest in a folded shirt on the shelf, and another sitting steathily above my mosquito net over the bed. Tiny frogs jump out from behind the silverware canister, scaring the daylights out of me. They are harmless but I reached for a fork, not a frog. Piglets try to raid my porch and are non-plussed as I use my water-bottle-turned-squirt-gun to shoo them away. Blackflies have dissipated but mosquitos are loving the now-warmer weather, as am I.

Despite living next door to Canada all my life, I do not like the cold. I’m a wimp. Before moving to PY, I was assured winters here were mild with temps rarely low enough to produce a frost. They lied. Or their tolerance of cold is something akin to Artic-loving. My bones are not made for that. I’m a tropical gal and I love the heat. The weeks before and after my vacation in early August brought several frosts and one morning of freezing rain. Even the things in our refrigerators were frozen. Because homes here are not insulated nor do they contain a heating system, temps inside one’s house tend to be the same as outside, without the wind chill. I feel for those who must economize their trips to their outdoor bathrooms and force their bladders to greater holding capacity. I sequestered myself in my house in full winter regalia: boots, wool socks and a complete accompaniment of warm clothes. I slept fully dressed under four blankets with my hat on. I ran my tiny oven with the door open to substitute as a furnace, warmed bricks in it for radiant heat later, and drank liters of hot water. My hot water bottle took on god-like status. I did innumerable squats and planks to generate heat from within. I tried to reframe (at least I’m getting exercise out of this!) I tried to be present (yes, I can see my breath inside and practice making rings with it in the air; I’m very present to how numb my toes and fingers are!) The upside to long, cold winter days is there’s more time for reading. Whether or not you are a foodie, if you’ve never read “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver I highly recommend it!

Now that we’re flirting with warmer temps, I’m feeling human again. I dare venture out to visit my neighbors whom I have missed. I’m elated in having to use sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat once again and ever more grateful for being the rare volunteer with running water and a hot indoor shower. After being cooped up, I’m ready to get out in the sunshine and work!

Categories: Peace Corps Paraguay | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Where Has The Time Gone?

8-11-13

“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.'” – Maya Angelou

It was supposed to be a simple two-week respite from blogging back in February while I prepared to *finally* move from my host family (who I adored, but…) into my own house. Obviously, that turned into a six month hiatus as life got busy and Facebook posts became the ‘easier and quicker’ method to share the latest news of my Peace Corps adventures (oh, did I tell you? I now have internet at my house. Daily. And running water. And a hot shower. Daily. OMG). A lot has happened during this time, which I’ll try to summarize now and make a better effort to regain my regularly scheduled posts here.

In mid-March I moved into my own ‘house’, my ‘schoolhouse’ as I call it, because it is literally a classroom in an old school, residing on the same grounds as the new school. This has worked out beautifully; it is the nicest casa in the community and of course all my neighbors, especially the kids, were dying for a look inside. I am exquisitely happy in my classroom, the kids have been respectful (even inviting me to their daily voleiball games during recess), and I make fantastic use of the giant chalkboard that covers one of walls for my infamous list-making fetish, drawings, reminders, and even tallies while I do my 30-day ab and squat challenges – the only form of exercise I can get during what is currently winter of cool-to-freezing temps and sometimes rainy conditions. (Wow- that was quite the sentence!) As soon as I’d settled into my new space, I began work on my garden. The school Director, Profesor Victor, who is also my contact, gave me a space adjacent to the school garden. It was cow pasture when I started and five weeks later began to resemble a garden, complete with bamboo fence that I helped cut and build with assistance from about a dozen locals. The bamboo was delivered via oxcart from the far end of town. Unfortunately two weeks later, one of the oxen (called ‘guei’ …sounds like whey) swallowed a whole grapefruit and died. I never knew cattle love grapefruit.

Also this autumn (springtime in North America), some fellow volunteers came to visit my site to produce a documentary on biodigesters because, at the time, I had half of all biodigesters in the country right in my community. That same week I participated in a biodigester Train the Trainer workshop to learn to teach Paraguayans how to install biodigesters. Cool! I think I might want one when I come home. These biodigesters are 20 foot plastic tubes that lie in a trench and to which you add manure daily. In three weeks, this starts producing a daily delivery of amazing liquid compost for the garden and methane which the locals use for cooking… all using FREE materials!

In May, my cousin and a friend came to visit. Unfortunately, it rained…no, poured… the first three days. And it was cold. Instead of visiting locals and seeing sites around my community, this offered a great indoor bonding experience and many experiments in cooking that, after they inventoried my ‘pantry’ shelves, defied all bets we would go hungry before we ever got out of Dodge. It’s amazing what you can do with cornflour, mandioca, sweet potato leaves, beans and eggs. Ultimately, the rain broke and my cousin and I were able to play in my beehive; her first, but not last, foray into beekeeping.

Throughout this time I’ve made a couple of attempts to host beekeeping workshops but, for various reasons, including three days of rain, they keep getting postponed. As does the yogurt-making sessions I promise to my neighbors who seem very interested but are impossible to pin to a date and time. Such is Paraguay.

Most recently, I returned to Maine for a quick one-week vacation. I did not plan to visit the states until my service was over, however, Maine summer weather beckoned me after freezing my tail off in PY for a week, and all the other beautiful things of Maine including my daughter’s 25th birthday celebration, reuniting with family, swimming in the lake, tango dancing in an oceanside gazebo with friends, toes in the sand at the ocean and shared meals or walks with old friends. It was also the easiest vacation of my life in terms of packing since I was going home to my ‘stuff’. I had only the necessities: toothbrush, passport, tango shoes, a book, camera, tiny travel pillow, sunflower seeds for snacking, calendar of plans for the week, and a gift for my daughter. This was a liberating travel experience! Oh, and if you’ve never heard an American belle speak Portuguese with a deep southern twang over the airplane intercom, you just haven’t lived. I came back with a better perspective and appreciation for both cultures. What do I miss about the states? Besides the obvious answer of family and tango dancing (if you don’t know this about me, well then, you just don’t know me! I’m a tango addict), natural BBQ chips, feta cheese, fresh Maine air, seeing people exercise and trying to stay healthy, generosity and kindness of Mainers, being able to show my money at the cash register (or technology of any kind in public) with little risk of being robbed afterward, walking alone at night, full bodied complex conversations – in English-, dressing up all fancy for special occasions. What don’t I miss? The never-ending busyness, schedules going full tilt, attitudes of entitlement and rudeness, impatience, excess, and incessant marketing for stuff we don’t actually need.

After living in a culture which has the 144th worst GDP in the world but ties for first as the happiest people across the globe, I think there’s a lot to learn from the people of Paraguay. While Paraguay has its shortcomings in serving its people, a short visit with locals will undoubtedly convince you that wealth and stuff does not necessarily bring happiness. I live among very poor people who, despite the barriers they face and the limitations of their country’s systems, laugh and joke, skip and play, sing and show content in their everyday work more than any group of people I’ve ever met. They are resourceful, creative, and make the best of what they have. Want to play volleyball but don’t have a net? No problem, just balance a stick over the top of two chairs. Got a big rock and a plank? These kids will readily make their own teeter totter with such awesome materials. Or just play for hours in a pile of sand. And their generosity is second to none. A neighbor hears that I’m out of cheese and brings me the last of what she has. Another neighbor offers me unlimited access to her grapefruit tree. Others bring me popcorn grown in their field or eggs from their chickens even though they may have barely enough for their own needs.

So I’m sure I’ve forgotten some significant details but I’ll close here and save a little storytelling for next time. Feel free to leave comments, ask questions, or list things you’d like to know more about!

Until next time….jajotopata amigos!

Categories: Peace Corps Paraguay | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com.

Travel Trip Master

Compare and book cheap flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises and more

thartiganblog

My thought about (mostly) good stuff about us humans

Blogs And Travels

Your Travel Guides and Travel Deals Website

Wendy Ward

Empowering women around the globe through education, inspiration, and creating a network of big-hearted, courageous women seeking greater potential for themselves and others

Svalbard Eclipse Adventure

Eclipse in the Arctic

In All Our Years ™

Practicing love and kindness for all.

Passage to Paraguay

.. helping the world one sunflower at a time ..

Emmalina’s Kitchen

Everything about healing from home

Bucket List Publications

Indulge- Travel, Adventure, & New Experiences

The Manifest-Station

On Being Human

Cathy Kidman Consulting

Organizational and Leadership Consulting

Pompatus of Pete

.. helping the world one sunflower at a time ..

Simply Intentional

love. serve. live.

Tiffany

... following my heart and soul through this world...