future site visit

As I sit here in my room listening to Coldplay on my ipod, staring at the white brick walls of my room in the still 80 degree heat of a “cool” fall night, I’m can’t figure out exactly how to start to explain this last week and my future site visit or even what to include. For those of you who don’t know, I got my site placement and went to go visit my site for 5 days, which is definitely the longest I’ve been away from English speaking people since I’ve been here. My site is in the south of the department of Cordillera (if that means anything to those of you who care to look at a map) and once I swear in, in three weeks, that is where I will be living for my two years of service here.

My site has about 80 houses, 380 people and I am the first Peace Corps volunteer to live in their site, which in one way is nice to set the tone of what Peace Corps is, but terrifying for the very same reason. Although I am the first volunteer in site, I already have my work cut out for me and I have schools that are expecting me to do charlas the first month I’m in site. Half of the site is in need of fogons, which means that I will have to petition the government for money or fundraise as well as start a construction project. The women want me to work with them on nutrition as well as talk about parasites, dental health, and sex ed in the schools. There are also a few people who have said they want to learn English and want me to help them, although I have no idea even where to start with that. Whether I like it or not, I will definitely be busy for the next two years. My site also mainly speaks Guarani even though most of them know Spanish, so I will be hopefully learning Guarani very fast as well.

I spent many hours this week sitting in silence with wandering eyes while people around me talked in Guarani, every once in a while picking up a word or two. I have also been promoted again to celebrity status and everyone likes to talk about what I do, what I say, and they all want to come over and meet the white girl. I went on a walk one morning for close to an hour and that very soon became a main topic of conversation when I met new people. My host mom would begin with my name and what I was doing with the Peace Corps and then start into, “And she went on a walk this morning and she walked all the way to the other side of the community!! When she came back she said that she liked to walk, isn’t that funny!” Besides the fact that walking in general was strange, I had a woman ask me if I was scared to walk alone. When I asked why I should be scared, I didn’t get an answer just that she would be scared to walk by herself. They also thought it strange that after three months of living with families, I’m planning on living by myself for two years. While my host mom tired to explain that American women are more independent, the women and girls there couldn’t comprehend that a young woman wasn’t scared of the dark or living by herself and thought it absurd that I didn’t see a problem with it. I had people tell me over and over that I was pretty although I’m almost positive that’s only because I’m white. Some people were not as concerned with my work there as they were with the fact that they had gotten a “lindo,” or attractive volunteer. I even had a couple people tell me they were glad they got a lindo volunteer instead of a morocho, or black volunteer and didn’t believe me when I told them that black people are attractive too. As usual, most people were concerned about me not having a boyfriend and I was assured that there are many churros in my site so I will be able to find a Paraguayan boyfriend. While I was there I tried to explain Disneyland to my host sisters as well as describe what a roller coaster is… I don’t think they understood. I played futbol barefoot on a field that had cow poop on it that is definitely something I’m supposed to be teaching the kids there not to do. I had conversations where people were literally staring at me the entire time. I also listened while other people had conversations about me while I was sitting in front of them as if I didn’t understand what they were saying. My family gave me a month old puppy so I have someone to keep me company when I live on my own and thought I was funny that I liked to play with it. (By the way, have I mentioned that people here use dogs strictly for protection and not for pets?)

As I read over my list of random experiences, I realize how strange that probably sounds to most of you while at the same time most of that seems normal and almost expected for me. Along with that, that list probably makes it sound like I had a terrible time and that is actually quite the opposite. While I was definitely in some awkward situations this week, awkward situations are becoming quite normal for me and they will probably be my area of expertise when I return to the United States. Even with the elevation to celebrity status, I truly enjoyed my time at my site and felt very much at home even in the middle of a strange language and people staring at me and talking about me. A part of me didn’t want to leave at the end of it and I am so excited to be working and living there for the next two years.