Sophomore Season

Hello all! And welcome back to your monthly installment of "What is Maya Even Doing All the Way Down There in South America?" August has brought more gardening, a family trip, celebrations, and finally feeling like I am an experienced volunteer.

With the swearing-in of C11, the newest Community Economic Development and Community Health cohort on August 7th, my group, C10, is no longer the "babies" in Paraguay. Technically, I am now a sophomore by Peace Corps standards, and it has been so fun and exciting to meet the new volunteers and realize how much we have done, learned, and grown since December. Some days it feels like I just stepped foot off the plane, and other days it feels like I've been living here my whole life. However, when I'm conversing with the volunteers just settling into their sites, new host families, and braving the significant transition from training to service, it's a blast to the past (the past, of course, being only 9 months ago). It's a wholesome feeling to offer advice and support.

And now we are in full preparation mode for the arrival of the next Environmental Conservation cohort on September 25th. I will be helping out with a week of their pre-service training in October, and I'm so excited. I remember thinking the "volunteers of the week" were so cool and experienced when I was a trainee, so it's wild to be that for the incoming group. Ziggy and I will lead and co-facilitate sessions about composting, working with the schools, and environmental education. Then a week later, 10-11 trainees will come to Mbocayaty and Yataity (Zig's site) for the Technical Excursion—a one-night, two-day trip where they get to see how volunteers actually live and the projects we're working on.

Speaking of projects, I am still mainly working on the huerta at all three schools. At the beginning of August, we finally cleaned and prepared garden beds at the colegio (high school). This was long overdue, since we had to ask the municipality to build a fence first. It is nearing the end of planting season in Paraguay, since the brutally hot summer days are right around the corner. So it was rewarding to finally see the concrete progress of this project that I promised to complete all the way back in February.

Unfortunately, the tablones (garden beds) we made at my larger elementary school were destroyed due to the construction of a new classroom for preschoolers, so we had to start over from scratch. But the very hardworking 4th-6th graders made their tablones again without (too much) complaining, and we replanted extra plants from my tire huerta to fill the beds.

Some new skills I learned in the Heart of South America have included: hanging up a mosquito net, killing giant spiders, and replacing the plug of a power cord. A prong on the plug of my electric stove (the device I use the most in my house) snapped off, so I bought a new plug and followed a YouTube tutorial to learn how to fix it. Hooray! Who knew that I would be in my handywoman era in Paraguay.

Then I was off to Panama to meet my family for a wonderful week-long vacation. For the first 3 days, we stayed in the rainforest, only about 3o minjutes outside of Panama City. There, we got to feed monkeys, see the giant container ships on their way through the Panama Canal, and explore the (extremely hot and humid) Central American lowland tropical rainforest. After, Crosby, Mom, and Dad took a short flight to Bocas del Toro, a group of islands on the Caribbean coast, but I stayed behind because Dastan was arriving! We spent a magical night in the Casco Viejo neighborhood in Panama City, then flew to meet the family the next morning at Tranquilo Bay, our eco-lodge for the next 2 nights. On the island, we saw so many sloths, monkeys, and other wildlife and spent a day at a nearby beach. We also went snorkeling, kayaking, and birdwatching; it brought me right back to my Tropical Conservation Semester in Ecuador, and it was so fun.

For the last few days of the trip, we stayed in Casco Viejo once again, where we learned about Panamanian history at museums and on a walking tour, ate incredible food, and visited the Panama Canal. My non-engineer brain had a hard time figuring out how the lock system worked, but it was so cool to see the huge ships up close. Overall, it was a wonderful family trip, and I am so grateful and lucky to be able to go on adventures like these with the people I love.

Once again, coming back home to Paraguay was very strange, but it has been exciting to establish a solid routine with running, reading, yoga, and now painting too! Dastan got me a watercolor set, and it has been so fun to practice creativity again in a low-stakes way.

This past week, Paraguay celebrated a national holiday called Día del Folklore (Folklore Day) to honor the country's food, traditions, and culture. Each grade had a "station" where they presented a food, a drink, a medicinal herb, and a game or mythical creature to the principal, attending guests, and students' parents. My friend Nico was able to watch the presentations with me in the morning, which was so nice, since it's always fun to share the joys of my town with others!

As mentioned above, about a third of the next environmental cohort, C12, will spend their Technical Excursion at mine and Ziggy's site. Claus, our technical trainer, visited Guairá last week to plan the trip. We found a hotel for the trainees, tried a restaurant in my town, and planned activities with our respective counterparts. It was so rewarding to have others, especially my boss, see the work I've completed here and the people who appreciate me. And I'm so pumped to show the future volunteers my town, my house, my school, and answer all their many questions. What's even sillier is that I may be younger than many incoming trainees, but because I've been in Paraguay for almost a year, I am more experienced in all things "Peace Corps." We have some very exciting things planned for October, so stay tuned to see how they pan out!

And last but not least, I spent this last weekend at Sam's site in the department of Misiones for her Patron Saint festivities. It was the first time seeing her since our winter break travel adventures, and it was lovely to see Sofia, whom I also hadn't seen in more than a month. I am constantly thankful for the wonderful friendships I have here and the ability to travel spontaneously.

That's all for this month! Thank you for reading; until next time, Maya 💚💚💚