almost there update!

Hello world-at-large! It's so interesting to tap into an extended geography via the WWW. It's so calming and fascinating that, no matter the place, the universe always shrinks-or expands-down to the instant of existence. My world right now consists of a steamy internet cafe with tacky, peeling blue walls, sticky keyboards, and a fridge full of glass Coca-Cola bottles. Last night, it was lounging on my host sister's bed discussing dirty words in four languages. Our following conversation about nuclear powerplants and plutonium waste was a bit more complicated, as every third word was new to me, and we had to diverge from the topic for definition explinations or dictionary searches. But, regardless of the conversation's ridiculously slow speed and repetition of phrases, it worked! We did it! Every conversation is progress.

BTW, I switched host families. I know live with an older couple with a 21 year-old daughter that attends university for accounting. The university degrees sought after run in fads. Right now, nursing and accounting are the fashionable technical diplomas until the market is saturated. Before, it was secretarial training.

Anyways, I ran into some deeper problems with my previous host family and moved a couple km down the road. This new house is wonderful, talkative, and incredibly welcoming. My host Papa is non-stop soapboxing about how Paraguay is in the top-five list of about everything you can imagine: PY makes the 3rd best guitars in the world, is the #2 exporter of cotton to the U.K., drinks the most beer in all of South America, and grows the most nutrient-dense watermelons in all of the world. He delivers his facts with dramatic pauses and accents in all the right places, and it's incredibly endearing.

But, this is only my home for one more month! I receive my site assignment for the next 2 years this Wednesday and visit my future community on Friday to meet, greet, and awkwardly ask door-to-door if I can live in their home for the first 3 months of my service. Then, I return for two more weeks of crash course language and training specific to my future site. That's it! Training is over, we swear in, spend one last weekend in the capital, and haul our books and backpacks on overnight buses to our respective new homes. I cannot wait!

Happy holidays to family and friends at home! And, please! Cherish every last flavor of that dressing and real egg nog!

Much love, much light,
Kat

Adjustments

Over 21 days in and the Paraguayan lifestyle is beginning to become habit!

I'm adjusting quite quickly to seeking shade underneath the mango tree at every chance I get (I know all the best and shadiest mango trees in my area), all activity and business pausing for afternoon siesta in the heat of the day, and clapping instead of knocking at entrances. I now know that rain stops everything, including work, school, and buses, whether or not the red dirt roads have turned to cloudy arroyos. I have learned that instant Nescafe requires several tablespoons of sugar and some soggy white crackers called "coquitos" floating in it to be delectable (I mean drinkable).

I must note that one of the most important cultural lessons I've learned is that giving the "okay" hand signal is equivalent to giving someone the finger in this region of the world and that it's best to stick with the the thumbs up to express that "it's all good." (Hand signals become extremely useful and frequent when your tongue is pulled in several directions by multiple lanuages.)

I am now keenly (and uncomfortably) aware of how privileged I am to have attended school beyond the 6th grade. The school system here limps along after decades of neglect and a desperate partial reform in the late '90s that included raising teaching salaries to above minimum wage and encouraging kids to attend middle school. High schools here are expensive, hard to come by, and are inaccessible in so many ways. I am partially consoled by the fact that I met one of the most curious, inquisitive, and absorbant mind I've ever encountered last weeked; he has a 3rd grade formal education and all the intellectual capabilities of an USA-made Ph.D.

I now think more than twice about the plastic I purchase. I know that whatever trash I create I will later inhale during the trash burn in my backyard every Saturday. There's no public waste management infrastructure outside of the major cities, and the trash that isn't easily thrown on the street is burned in yards. A bottle of Coca-cola is a health threat in countless ways!

I've gotten used to and even welcome the cold and very quick showers (you'd be proud of me, Grandma), long walks to get to anywhere, and saying "adios" instad of "hola" as the costomary greeting to passerbys. I am even, albeit reluctantly, becoming accustomed to viewing cats, rabbits, geese, dogs, and horses as domestic animals whose sole purposes are to deter thieves and flavor soups and salami.

The shock that remains most unnerving is the 7% of the Atlantic Forest that has suvived the slash-and-burn epidemic initiated here by Monsanto and Carghill and carried out by the marginalized indigenous and opportunistic immigrants. The speckles of Atlantic Forest that remain in Paraguay occur in patches throughout the eastern region and are tightly associated with the Guarani Agquifer, on of the largest subterranean water deposits in the world. The forest also boasts the most biodiversity per square-meter of anywhere on Earth. Only 8 protected areas preserve less that 2% of the forest's original extent, and I had the precious opportunity to visit one such place-the Parque Nacional San Rafael-last weekend. The (as much as possible) virgin forest is so thick and lush that it is virtually impassible without a machete and the most desperate of motivations, and the sky is blocked by layers of leaves, vines, and spider webs. So beautiful is this place that I am requesting my PC director to place me at a site near one of the Atlantic Forest reserves.

I am missing easy, comfortable, and openly loving interactions with family and friends back home. The smell and sounds of crisp fall air and crackling brown leaves pull at my heart as it gets hotter every day here. I've been sheltered from the reality of how hot it actually gets here by my inexperience with the Celsius scale. I made the mistake of doing the conversions yesterday and came up with a maximum temperature of 130F! The fan is the most-valued posession one can own!

I'm constantly sending and receiving instant love-mail, but snail mail takes about 3 weeks at its best. Please please write! I'll most definately respond with fervor.

Love, love, love.

Hola! Que tal? All is good and well. Life is simple. Mi familia esta muy simpatica. I´m trying to upload photos of *Typychyty* (spelled wrong in the last post). The *y* is pronuounced as a gutteral "oo". Another note: there is no "s" in Guarani. Intersting, aye? The language is described as melodic and sweet, and it is so. However, the first half of my training is in Spanish, as I´ve a bit to catch up on. It´s coming fast, though. I want to learn to communicate more than I´ve ever wanted anything. The immersion process stimulates motivation to learn like no class can.

It´s all still so intense. I doubt that feeling stops for a long while.
Mucho amor,

Kat

From Paraguay

I´m safe! I´m sound! In Typychy, Paraguay! I arrived in the middle of the night a couple of days ago and placed with a host family, the Caceres Goetz Familia, for the three months in training. To sum it all up: INTENSE.

Some occurences I will never forget:

1. The way Dahiana, my 4 year old host sister, hugged and kissed me and proudly called me her Amiga and has hung on my body everywhere I go since we´ve met.

2. The awkwardness of Dahiana pulling the string of complimentary condoms out of my PC medical kit during my first conservation with my host mom.

3. The love and gratitude I felt when my host parents, Anibal (30) and Ana (25), spent an hour welcoming me into their home with a vocabulary that I know extremely sparingly, and, even though I couldn´t recognize the words (I´m already getting better!), I understood that were extending their home and care and love to me. Special beyond anything I´ve ever experienced.

Just want to let you know I´m healthy and safe! I´ll be calling you, Mom and Dad, next Sat (9) to chat on Skype. I´m on Miami time right now.

Love you all.

ps It´s so beautiful here.

Photos of Travels to Paraguay

1: Waiting out the 14-hr layover at the Admirals' Lounge in Sao Paulo Airport

2: PC Paraguay in line at Miami Airport

3: PC luggage storage

From the Sao Paulo Airport Admirals' Lounge

Made it to Sao Paulo, Brazil for a 14 hour layover. PC is cushioning the past few days/nights of hotel lobbies, airplane seats, and airport hustling by housing the 43 of us trainees in the American Airlines Admirals' Lounge for the many hours we must spend viewing Brazil from inside the terminal. Some of us are finally crashing from the constant stimulation and overdrive by pushing together stiff leather chairs and crawling into the fetal position. Others are practicing Guarani, the language we're about to be immersed in. A few are reading. A few doing it up early in the day with free cocktails. Most of us are still chatting and engaging with each other with the same speed and intensity that we started at just over 36 hours ago.

Has it really only been 36 hours? It feels like forever already. Meet a thousand new things at once: new PC family, new language(s), new food (mostly starches, thus far), new heights of atmospheric humidity, so little sleep, constantly in transit. Trying to remember what I'm doing. I think we're all trying to remember what we're doing-a normal airport state-of-mind.

My PC family is amazing. So well-intentioned, so ambitious, so idealistic and hopeful and kind. Everyone is here to give, and the giving starts with each other. I feel that I can rest my head on anyone's shoulder (which I've been compelled to do often these past overwhelming and exciting hours) and be at ease. Oh... the joys of sinking into a life about cultivating postive relationships.

First photo: PC luggage storage

Second photo: PC airport check-in

Third photo: Waiting out the 14-hr layover at the Admirals' Lounge

Photos from the Bay Area experience

west coast sunset
lanes and lights on the 580 toll road
receiving a hug from a Berkeley hipster
Point Reyes National Seashore
art and culture on UC Berkeley campus
Point Reyes National Seashore

A Pledge of Allegiance to the Bay Area

9/21/2010

On the plane again—middle isle this time. Between two quiet men reading magazines. Three awesome days spent in the Bay Area. I’ll most certainly (as certain as I can be during this transient and fluid life stage) be calling this place home upon my return to the Northern Hemisphere.

Some reasons I will be moving to the Bay Area in a few years, listed in ascending order as experienced during my recent three-day visit:

(1) to appreciate UC-Berkeley’s lush and elegant campus and outstanding minds as a Geography PhD candidate;

(2) to vote with my minutes and dollars at any of the overwhelming number of used book stores, slow food restaurants, local espresso counters (some also serving hot buttered rum), and international food nooks matched in diversity by the six languages one can hear spoken while standing at a street corner;

(3) to meet and be one of the interesting, warm, and incredibly nice people that serve up the freshest ceviche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceviche) on the North American Coast and live in a hotel-turned-cooperative-home with a rooftop garden (a.k.a. “backyard”), loving kitchen, bedroom bike shop, and rainbow painted walls;

(4) to be human in the human landscape of San Francisco proper, particularly illuminated at night by neon signs, skyscraper silhouettes, metallic evening attire, and the golden gate bridge appearing ghostly and magnified through the midnight fog;

(5) to be human in the non-human landscape of Point Reyes National Seashore, particularly illuminated at dusk as the sun dives into the Pacific and silhouettes surfacing seals, dramatic crumbling sea cliffs, and plovers chasing and being chased by foamy ocean waves;

(6) to savor the terroir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir) via vintage bottles that adequately and justly represent the region’s interesting and surprising combination of fruitiness, earthiness, and spiciness that transcends the Bay Area’s wine to also characterize its cultural and natural landscapes;

(7) to feel stimulated by and connected with the absolutely intriguing, expressive, unique, and proud people that call themselves Nationalists because America blends and embraces all the world’s colors.

Some thoughts on priorities...

I can't believe that I'm leaving so damn soon! It's hitting me from the side like a cat that's been stalking me for a while and the whole time I could see her out of the corner of my eye and still I'm defenseless and flabbergasted when she pounces at my calf. I'm starting to say my goodbyes to the people I see around.... like, real fucking goodbyes; I haven't said those in a while. I've been running outside and wearing skimpy clothes and dancing ferociously and enjoying excellent beer and (gasp!) shaving my legs because I've come to recognize these things as "American" and soon to disappear. I'm calling people I haven't talked to in years because I feel that if I don't now, then I never will.

Priorities are aligning! Amen! No, wait, it's two-men. And they're towards the bottom of the list, along with cleaning my room (which should occur naturally as a result of packing, but my space is the messiest it's ever been somehow), sitting at a computer, finally finishing the scarf I've been knitting for Kristina since Christmas, and planning my going-away party.

At the top of the agenda are: rolling around in good conversations with new and old friends; painting (yes! I'm painting again); savoring my folks' casserole dishes; visiting cities (odd and likely derived from being alone in the wilderness for the past several months); hugging my grandparents; enjoying the yellowing of the Aspens; and living every day as if it's a going-away party.

ocean to ocean

I'm flying to San Fran in a few hours to explore new horizons in my North American neighborhood. I'll dip my toes in the Pacific tomorrow and rest my eyes upon the Atlantic next week. From the Gulf Stream waters to the New York islands, this land was made for you and me.

Two weeks from now...

...I will be running through my packing list and swearing off anything that I've forgotten as something I obviously don't need; attempting to gather and hug and kiss all of my friends and family at once; digesting "mom's squash casserole"; sipping and savoring a final Fort Collins microbrew; wondering if I will be able to sleep; forgetting where I put my passport and then remembering that it's already in the hands of the U.S. government and then looking for it again five minutes later; staring up at the Northern Sky; reminding myself to breathe and be here now; and, finally, relaxing into in the wide-eyed excitement that always comes with a big "leaving", particularly one that reunites with the earth 6,000 miles south.

Welcome. To my chronicles.

Alyssa, follow me!