Hanging out with Peke’s Family

October 4th, 2009

The last few days I have been hanging out with Peke’s family. Peke has 2 sisters and also a cousin who lives with them. One sister is about 5 years old, the other is 12, and the cousin is 16. They are really fun, smart, sweet and very well mannered. I brought my computer over Saturday night, and they got a kick out of looking at my pictures, typing stuff in Word, and trying Rosetta Stone Spanish.

Computers fascinate kids, and they pick them up almost instinctively after having experience with them, which is why access to computers is more of a problem than knowledge of how to use them. That’s why I love the program, 1 laptop per child. I hope their organization continues with the success it has had in bringing laptops to third world children. With computers and Internet, I believe kids could narrow the gap much more quickly because of the wealth of information available online. We are in a knowledge economy, and in that economy, he has the most information and knows how to use it, wins. The Internet, and its vast sources of information levels the playing field a bit. If we could get a laptop in the hands of every child and then extend affordable Internet to those areas, I really believe countries would close the gap between the 1st and 3rd worlds significantly more quickly than the current pace, which is abysmal in some areas.

I brought my marbles over Sunday and taught these city kids how the campo kids get down. It was a disaster...nothing like playing marbles in the campo with lots of space, good dirt, and dedicated kids who are enthralled by and skilled in the game. However, it occupied our time for a little bit, and then we sat under some shade trees and drank T-ray for a while, an activity they are really good at, as are most Paraguayans.

For lunch, Gabbi, the cousin, displayed her chef-like abilities by cooking the best salad and asado up to this point. The bar just gets getting raised...but you have to realize that it started REALLY, REALLY LOW. Haha.

As you can probably tell, there isn’t a lot of diversity in the food around here, but there are variances in quality of preparation.

Overall, I had a great time hanging out with the girls next door and plan on spending more time over there because, frankly, it’s more fun than my house, the children are cooler, it’s more neat and clean, and the food is better.

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. ~Theodor Seuss Geisel

Monday, August 17th, 2009

The next day was really relaxing. I spent most of the day just hanging out around the house. Most of the family was gone for most of the day. I hung with my Sister while she washed clothes and rearranged her house. Then around 4:00, I went with her to pick the kids up from school.
I’ve had been to their school once before, and Mary has been asking me when I was going to come back to take pictures for a while now. This was my first real chance to do so, and it was a good feeling to pick them up for their school on my last full day in Paso de Oro.

I’ve already mentioned the education system in Paraguay in one of my earlier blogs so I’ll just make one comment about it now. You know that feeling in the atmosphere after a summer afternoon shower? The air is kind of moist and the ground is just a bit damp, but everything is starting to dry up? That is what the weather was like that day. Only 5 kids showed up out of Fabiola’s class of 14. The situation was even worse in Mary’s class. It wasn’t even raining, but because it wasn’t 100% ideal conditions outside, kids just didn’t come to school that day. That just shows the overall commitment to education in Paraguay. Not only do they only attend school for about 4 hours a day, but they also don’t show up at the slightest indication of bad weather. So even if the teachers were on point and the facilities sufficient, which they’re not, they would still be at a huge disadvantage.





Anyway, all of the kids in my family went, so I was super proud of that.

Fabiola was so excited to see me, and she got out of class a little early. She showed me around her school a bit and we played chase. She showed me where Mary’s class was, and when we walked up Mary was looking out the window at us. Shortly, Mary got out of class, and we headed for home.





On the way back from their school we stopped by a little store that is half internet café, half small clothes store to buy a few things for Mary and Fabiola, who are in desperate need of clothes. You should see how excited and grateful they were to receive a pair of jeans and some sandals. The sad thing is that my Sister didn’t even pay outright for those. She has a credit account with the owner of the store. She pays in small payments over a long period of time. That’s why she shops there instead of lots of other places. If that lady wouldn’t extend her credit, the kids would simply go without decent clothes. If Mary gets straight A’s on her report card, she’s going to get some boots. She’s working really hard to earn those boots. She’s waited a while for these jeans and she says once she has the boots, she’ll have a complete outfit. When she got home, she did exactly what most kids, around the world, do after buying new clothes...tried them on and showed them off. She was so proud of her new jeans and it made her day. It made me think of when Churches, non-profits, and other groups send packages filled with basic items and maybe a few toys overseas to those who won’t receive anything else for Christmas. When we were filling the boxes, I used to think how the kids were probably upset to find toiletries, underwear, etc... in their boxes. Now, I don’t think that at all. I bet those kids light up.

How spoiled we are in the States right? I used to get money and clothes were a given...a necessity. In my opinion something that I needed anyway didn’t count as a special prize for making good grades...the ways my perspective is changing... Here parents have to use things that they know they have to buy anyway as incentives, because there isn’t enough money for luxuries.

That night we had my despidida (going away party). Before eating, Fabiola and Mary danced traditional Paraguayan dances for me.






My family went all out for me. My brother bought a chicken, my Mom killed one, and I threw in to buy another chicken, and added in the meat I had purchased from Mary. We also had rice, salad, and of course there was mandioca. Papá even drank wine, and he hardly ever drinks.



I was kind of out of it during the dinner because I knew this was the last time we would all be together for a while. It was a lovely dinner, and afterwards people made a few toasts/chants for me.

I sat back and looked at the family, and in my mind it was like a scene from a movie or TV show. You know...the drama has built up for a while and the conflict finally solved. Everyone gets together at a Christmas or a Thanksgiving meal. Some witty comments are thrown around between family members, and then the camera starts panning out. You can hear all sorts of conversations going on, and the clanking of dishes. People are reaching across the table, and it’s such a nice, warm family scene. Music starts playing and the picture pauses in that moment and then fades away into the black screen with the rolling white credits. Happily Ever After...



Well my story didn’t exactly end that way, because I’m one of the characters. It’s the camera that stops filming, but the characters go on living.

The kids finished eating and went to the front of the hosue to play. I stayed at the table chatting with the adults a bit, and then went to join the kids. I saw Fabiola sitting along with the saddest look on her face. It broke my heart. I sat down next to her and gave her a big hug and consoled her. Later, I came back into the living room, and she had fallen asleep there. I sat down beside her, and just watched her sleep for a bit. I started having memories of us together, and thought about how much she likes me and how much I like her. It broke my heart, and I began to cry. In fact as I type this I’m overwhelmed with emotion and tears are welling up in my eyes. I love that little girl.



I walked outside to get myself together, where I was met by my good brother, Agusto. This made me break down even more. He tried to tell me that we would talk on the phone, I could come back to visit, and that I would meet new people in San Juan, and that everything was going to work out. I told him it would never be the same, which is true. It never will be the same as it was. We had a good conversation about how crazy it is that complete strangers from two different parts of the world can become so close so quickly, how happy and comfortable I was there, and how I could have not found a better family with which to live for my first 3 months in Paraguay.

After our conversation he went to bed because he had a long day of work and another long one ahead of him the next day. We were going to say our goodbyes then but I told him to wake me up in the morning before he left for work.

I talked to my niece for a while and then went inside and played Go Fish with the kids.





Before too long, people started heading to bed, and I did the same.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

The next day I woke up and played Crazy 8s with Mary and Fabiola. I played a while with the kids and then began to pack. Fabiola was my little helper. She wanted to put things in my suitcase, so I just let her as I was arranging everything else, and then redid it later. As I was packing I gave Fabiola the Crazy 8 cards, because she still needs to learn her colors and numbers, and this would make for a fun and educational gift for her. I gave Mary and Fabiola toothbrushes, and gave them each a spiral notebook I had bought and not used. I also gave them a few pencils. These gifts basically represent what I hope for them. I hope that they maintain their hygene and health (toothbrushes), study hard so that maybe one day they can go to University (pencils and notebooks), and also that they play and enjoy each other(crazy 8 cards).

Mary, Jessica, and Jacquelin all went to school so I had to wish them goodbye. I know I’m coming back so it wasn’t so bad. Once I finished packing everything, my Dad helped me take my stuff outside to the road. Then we took some pictures and waited on the bus, which came all of a sudden and kind of rushed my goodbyes.







This whole process has been full of goodbyes. First I told my friends goodbye in Columbia, then I told my family goodbye, then more friends in Spartanburg, my parents at the airport, my Peace Corps friends after the swearing in weekend, and now my training host family. I guess I’m getting training in goodbyes for a reason. I’ve gone away before, and moved around a little, but this is on a completely different level.

I hugged my Mom and sister and told them I would see them later. I gave Fabiola a big hug and told her how much I loved her, and that I would see her later.

My Dad and I loaded my stuff up on the bus and boarded. As the bus drove down the long dirt road, I stuck my head out the window and waved at the family I had grown to love in such a short time, and then I just watched Fabiola get farther and farther away from me until eventually I couldn’t see her any longer. Then I turned around in my seat and looked out towards my future while nostalgically remembering my past.

It was an hour and half to Asunción, and a few hours waiting at the bus station. My kind Dad didn’t have to but insisted on waiting with me until my bus departed. Within a few hours the bus arrived. We walked over and put my luggage on the bus. I told him how appreciative I was for having me in his house and how much I enjoyed my time there. I told him to tell me if Paso de Oro plays in the championship because I’ll come back for it. He wished me luck, we shook hands and said goodbye.

And with that I boarded the bus, which was empty, put my backpack in the overhead compartment, sat down, started a playlist on my ipod, and started the next phase of my Peace Corps Adventure.

Nostalgia- Playing like a Kid Again

August 10th, 2009

The last few days I’ve been playing a lot of the traditional games Paraguayan children play.
It was all prompted because Saturday I had to give a charla (small instructional presentation) about a cultural topic of my choice. Since I spend a lot of time playing with kids, and already knew some of the games, I decided to do my charla on juegos de niños (children’s games). So I began asking the kids and other family members what the most popular games were, and explaining the games in words just wasn’t sufficient. I had to play them to understand them. So we all, including my older, sort of hefty sister, acted like kids again and had tons of fun doing it.
Many of the games are the same traditional games kids used to play in the States.

Muñeca (Doll)

Muñeca (Doll) is a game that resembles hopscotch. You basically draw the photo below in the dirt with a stick, broomstick, your shoe, a rock, or something else. It can also be played on concrete surfaces and chalk is used to draw the doll.



Then you toss a rock into the first square. You have to hop on one foot skipping the square the rock is in. You can use two feet when you get to a sectioned portion of the muñeca. Once you get to the head you turn around come back and bend over and pick the rock up on your way back. Everyone takes a turn. Then the next round you throw the rock into the next section. Repeat the process. If you use two feet when you’re not supposed to, fall, go outside the lines, or toss the rock and it lands on a line or in the wrong square you lose. The person that lasts the longest without mistakes wins.

La Cuerda (Jump rope)

Two people hold two different ends of a long rope. Then they start making circles with the rope. The first person enters, and goes as long as they can, and then tries to exit without the rope touching them. While the person is jumping the people with the ends of the rope turn it faster and faster every time. The next person has their turn, and the game continues. In theory, you count how many times you were able to jump before exiting. The next person has to beat that. If the rope touches you, you’re out, and if you don’t jump as long as someone else, you lose. In practice what ends up happening is everybody just takes turns jumping and holding the ropes. You never really declare a winner or keep track. You can add two ropes if you want to get really advanced.

Goma

This is a game where an elastic rope (the elastic in the waste of sweatpants for example) is place around two people. It starts around their ankles. The first person has to step on the two pieces of rope, pressing them to the ground. You are allowed to do one at a time. The next person goes. If you aren’t able to do it, you’re out of the game. This continues until everyone has gone, and then you raise the level of the elastic rope. The game continues until the second to last person has failed in pressing the strings to the ground. Usually by the time the elastic rope is around the peoples’ necks, there is a winner, and if not almost for sure there will be one after that round.

Balitas (Marbles)

A day or so later, I asked the kids about marbles because I had seen some kids playing on a street corner as I was riding home on the bus a few weeks ago. They didn’t have any marbles, so we set out to find a place to buy them. Fabiola, Mary, Junior, Jacquelin, and I all went together. We went to 3 different stores, but finally found them. I bought 20 marbles, and we were off to play. We played a silly version of chicken on the way home. I had Mary on my shoulders and Jacquelin had Fabiola on hers. We would run at each other and ram into each other, and let the two little girls battle a bit. Then one person would take off running and the next person would follow in pursuit.

Shortly after arriving home my sister explained to us exactly how to play the game and we began. You basically draw a circle in the dirt, and put an indented hole in the middle of it. Then you draw a line about 5 feet away from the circle, and each person in turn rolls their marble towards the center of the circle. The first person to enter the whole places their marble outside the hole and waits for someone else to make it in. When that person makes it in they get a chance to knock the other person’s marble outside the circle, which means they lose. This keeps happening until there is only one marble standing, and then you start a new game.
It was a CATASTROPHE. These kids were screaming at each other arguing about the game and vying for position. They would crowd over the person as they were trying to shoot, and would get upset over whose marble was whose, and whether or not someone did it the right way, or whose turn it was, etc... Fabiola quit every time she lost even though she had won the most games or was tied at any given moment. I had to put some order to the game, and the major frustration was they couldn’t remember whose turn it was, and would fight over who got to start the game, which is stupid because the first person to make in the hole has the largest likelihood of getting knocked out first. I mandated that the person who won the previous game would go first in the next, and the rest would be determined by height (to make it easy). Next I wrote down the order every time on a piece of paper and would announce whose turn it was after every turn. Coming from the states, I assumed it would be easy to remember which person you’re always after, but that’s not the case here.

Anyway, after getting some basic rules down and providing structure, everything went fairly smoothly except for the fact that Fabiola ruined our playing spot by squatting about 3 feet from the circle and peeing everywhere. Oh yeah, it’s completely acceptable to just pee pretty much anywhere at anytime. I may have forgot to mention that. I see people, including grown men, pissing on the side of the street, in peoples’ yards, etc... all the time.

Escondida (Literally translated hidden, the game is a lot like Hide and Seek, but with several major differences)

Escondida starts like this. Everyone puts their hands together and going up and down say, “Ma..yo...ri...a.” On “a” everyone throws their hand face up or down. The majority stay in and the oddball steps out. This process repeats until there is only one person left. That person has to stand at the “tambo” and count. They will count somewhere between 10 and 50 seconds, depending on another game. A person says a saying while touching the person’s back with alternating fingers of one hand. At the end the person has to guess which finger touched them last. Then they have to pull that finger. If the finger pops, you double the seconds that finger corresponds to, and if not, they just count the number of seconds that finger corresponds to.
While the person counts, the others run and hide. Then the person at the “tambo” starts looking for people. If they see someone they can yell out their position, their name, and say “tambo,” which means that person can’t get to the tambo. The idea is to not be the last person to get to the tambo. While the seeker is looking for hiders you could take a chance and run for the tambo, and if you make it there before the seeker does, you’re safe. The last one to get back to the tambo, or caught before making it to the tambo has to be the seeker the next time.

I struggled with this game at first because it’s illogical to me. The game is called escondida, which means hidden, but the rules of the game are such that the person who hides the best loses. If I hide really well, I will be the last found, and will have to be the seeker the next time. The trick is to hide yourself near the tambo, and make a run for it, or you could just get found first and most likely everyone else won’t make it back to the tambo without being caught by the seeker. A little illogical...but the kids love it here.

Polibandi (Cops and Robbers)

In Polibandi, you play ha kem bo (paper, rocks, scissors) to determine the cops from the robbers. I’ll explain the Paraguayan version of Paper, Rock, Scissors. It’s basically the same, but there is a well too. The scissors and rock fall in the well and the paper tops it. Also, the first to five wins, and you keep track using fingers on the hand your not using to throw your weapon.
Once the cops and robbers are determined. The cops go to the area designated as jail and the robbers to the area designated as their home base. Then the robbers have to run, and the cops have to catch them and take them to jail. Once in jail, another robber can break their fellow robber out by tagging them inside the jail. The robbers can always run back to their home base where they are safe from being arrested. I guess this is kind of like the idea of cops not going into certain areas because it’s so dangerous.

Once all the robbers have been caught and taken to jail, you switch roles and start it over.
This continues until people quit because their either too bored or tired to play it anymore.

Casita Robada

This is played with cards. You deal each player 3 cards and turn up four in the middle. The player to the left of the dealer starts and tries to make a match from the cards in the middle. If they can, they place those cards face up in their “casita” pile. If they can’t, they discard a card. At any moment someone that has the top card in someone’s casita pile, can rob it and place it in their pile. When all the players run out of cards in their hand, you deal 3 more cards to every player, and flip up cards if necessary in the middle.

When all the cards run out, you count your cards like this, “Casa, Casita, Rancho, Palacio, Casa, Casita, Rancho, Palacio.” That would be 8 cards for example. The translation is house, small house, ranch, palace. Palace is the highest valued and casa the lowest. Yet again, it’s illogical to me that small house has a bigger value than house, but that’s just the way it is.
You keep saying that, one word for every card, and the word you land on for your last card is what you own. Then you compare that with the other players. For example, if I had 4 cards I would have a Palace and if you had 3 cards you would have a ranch, therefore, I would win. If there are any ties, you settle it with Ha Kem Bo (Paper, Rock, Scissors).

I find the game really interesting from a social perspective because we normally would never play a game like that. You spend the whole game trying to collect as many cards as possible (capitalism) but in the end its up to luck (and basic math –if you’re final number of cards is divisible by 4, you’ll always win) (communism or socialism) that determines your material standing at the end of the day.

American Games

I taught the kids to play Go Fish, which they absolutely loved, and later taught them crazy 8s (thanks Mom for the cards), which they also loved.

Fabiola only knows numbers one, two, three, five, and ten by memory so it was difficult playing with her at times. We would help her, because it was simply not an option not to allow her to play. I tried teaching her numbers and made some progress. I ended up giving her the Crazy 8s cards because it made the perfect gift for her...something fun and educational. With those cards, she’ll have a fun time and learn her colors and numbers.

It’s really fun to play with kids here, and much easier and more fun than passing time with the adults. Sometimes you might think parts of the games are illogical, and usually they are, but just spending time having fun with the kids is what matters most.