PCV Visit..a little late

Sorry I have not written in a while. Training has gotten a bit hectic and it has been difficult to find time to post. However this has caused me to pre-write this post so hopefully is it slightly more well-written and longer than those prior.

Where to begin….
Last weekend were our volunteer visits. I went to this volunteer Mitra’s site up in a town called Sagrada Familia near Concepcion about 6 hrs away. There were about 5 other trainees heading up that way on the overnight bus on Friday so we headed into Asuncion that evening to catch dinner before our bus left at midnight. We headed from Guarambare to the Peace Corps office (where I got to use the internet for a brief moment) and then went to this super chuchi (fancy) Mexican restaurant where I ate fajitas, drank some beer, and had a brownie and ice cream for desert. I was quite content after this meal since I have only been dining on fried everything and mandioca (sort of like a potato that Paraguayans eat with everything). After dinner we went on to the bus terminal to buy our tickets. Almost every bus we tried was sold out until the following morning and it looked like we were staying the night until Norte Poty pulled through and had the 6 or so seats we needed. This wasn’t one of the chuchier companies we had originally planned to take but it would have to do since we needed to get up there. Mitra, my volunteer was traveling with us because she had been our volunteer visit on Friday afternoon so I was not worried however the others had already made plans to meet their volunteers at specific time so we needed to stick to the schedule.

After almost 8 hours of restless bus sleep we arrive in Concepcion safely and go our separately ways to begin our weekend of experience volunteer life. Sagrada Familia was still another 30 min bus ride from the big city and then a 5km walk from the main highway so my journey was far from over. The bus eventually arrived and we boarded. Mitra made plans for one of the senoras, Na Maria, in her town to come pick us up on horse cart so we didn’t have to walk all the way with our stuff which I was extremely thankful for, although a horse cart only goes about 2km/hr I was happy not to be walking in that heat.

After about an hour on horse and carriage we arrived at good old Sagrada Familia. Mitra’s house is located on the property of a family so we of course met them first and then placed our stuff inside and took a rest, me on the hammock outside and Mitra in her room. After our nap that was supposed to last an hour (ended up being 4) we made some pizza from scratch using some veggies from Mitra’s huerta (garden) and then got ready for the party in the campo we were attending with Mitra’s host sister of sorts Adriana. This was quite an interesting time. Unlike in the U.S., the mothers accompany their daughters to these fiestas to make sure nothing naughty happens so both of Mitra’s host mom’s (her former and current), attended the fiesta with us and patiently sat on the side until we were ready to leave which ended up being around 12:00 which was a late night for me.

I woke up at around 8 the next day and we had some omelettes and got ready for the family reunion/birthday party we were attending with her family that day in a town about an hour walk away. They left a little ways before we did on motorbike (which we are forbidden to ride by PC law) and we followed on foot sipping terere along the way. That evening I fell asleep in the hammock once again and awoke to Thai food Mitra had made which was extremely tasty. I also should mention we made a carrot cake that afternoon which was super delicious and budin (sort of like bread pudding) that evening which was also very yummy.

The next day we woke up and had a pretty tranquilo morning performed a trasiego (capture) of a wild hive located in a fallen tree on the land of her host uncle. It was by far one of the coolest things I have done since I’ve gotten here. We hacked open the trunk and found the queen within the first 2 minutes which is usually one of the most difficult parts. We grabbed an empty matchbox and placed her in there. After that we could begin to work more comfortably and we began cutting off the good parts of the comb and tying them to the hive. This whole process took about an hour and then the bees slowly filed into the hive and we left them to chill. I was leaving that afternoon so I do not know if it was successful but all signs point to yes.

I made plans to leave on the 7:15 bus on Tuesday morning with some other trainees so we went into Concepcion that evening to spend the night so I would have no problems catching the bus. We went to dinner at a Lebanese restaurant and I had some delicious sharawarma. Then we sat around playing kings and drinking some beer to prep for karaoke-ing. After a long night of singing and dodging creepy drunkards I went to bed for a few hours before I headed back towards Guarambare with the other trainees in the morning.