Che Tava Pyahu!

Today´s post: Che Tava Pyahu (´´My New Community´´)

After weeks of grueling training, Guaraní acquisition, and the ingestion of countless chipas, I was ready. And last week, I received it: information about the community where I´ll live for two years, starting 15 December. Two days later, I was on a bus to visit. I got back today and feel exhausted and excited. In keeping with Peace Corps guidelines, I´m not going to give the name of my community or describe exactly where it is. Even though nobody there (to my knowledge) has the internet, I want to respect their privacy. If you´re dying to know, just e-mail me!

My community is in the state of Caazapá, in the center of Paraguay. The trip from Asunción is about five hours on bus and the route goes through Caacupe, Coronel Oviedo, and Villarica. The population is about 500, and the community is a 5 km walk along a dirt road from a major highway. There is a sizable town with a supermarket and internet about 20 minutes from this junction by bus, so it´s not too isolated. My town is a farming community, with most people doing subsistence farming and some growing sugar cane for sale. There is a lot of poverty but also a more affluent ´´centro´´ with a church, some almacéns, a health post, and a tiny police house. There is electricity, which is fairly common in the Paraguayan countryside now, but also running water, which is way fancy. The community is reputedly safe and there haven´t been big health problems.

The people I met were incredibly nice and very humble. It seems like I may have a lot of work cut out for me: teaching about environmental issues in the school, helping families start woodlots, working with family gardens and viveros (tree nurseries) to improve nutrition, doing grafting of citrus and mango, working with a Spanish NGO active in the area, promoting reforestation along the local river, and maybe encouraging farmers to use green manures in their fields. I am also really excited to maybe help with diversifying farm economies - working with farmers to think up ways to save money and maybe provide more financial and food security. Some ideas along these lines include new crop introduction (for both the farm and the garden), helping farmers to grow their own yerba maté, and helping families to extend the season of their garden using cold frames, etc. Of course, I need to start dialogues with the community to find out what other things my neighbors are interested in doing and what they feel will enrich their lives. There are also two agricultural comités, which may be a good way of getting in touch with the farmers who are already interested in collaboration and innovation.

So, I will be halfway in between a first and second volunteer at my site. The current volunteer started work as an agroforestry volunteer in a different site, but had to move to the place I´ll be going with six months of service left. She has done some great work with a few families, with the village´s women, and in the schools, and I had a really good time getting to know her. But there is still a lot of work left to do in terms of meeting other families she hasn´t worked with and in working with men in situations where she couldn´t work (for instance, alone in the field).

So, that´s the upshot. I am required to live with families between 15 December and 15 March. Going off by myself to beg strangers to let me live with them for two weeks in my third (and occasionally second) language was also one of my biggest challenges in the Peace Corps so far. One family finally said ´´yes´´ and I´m living with starting 15 December. The men work in the family fields and I think I´m going to help them with their corn, mant´io, and beans in exchange for the hospitality. After the new year, I´ll move in with someone else. A few families hinted that they might be able to take me in once out-of-town relatives leave following the holidays. It also worked to my advantage that some of the señoras got jealous and competitive when they learned that I had received a first invitation. After three months, I´ll move in to the current volunteer´s house, which is totally cushy - it has a stove, a fridge (I´m buying it from her), a bed, a nice outhouse, and a tap outside in the yard! It´s also pretty sound structurally and way bigger than I need. Total luxury, even if I´ll be bucket-bathing.

I´m back in Guarambaré now and am going to buy some ingredients for apple pies and head back to my host family´s for the night. Tomorrow, Heather (another volunteer in agroforestry) and I are making apple pies and taking them to a potlach with the agroforesters and crop extensionists at our training center in Guarambaré. I´m looking forward to Thanksgiving and feel a new sense of optimism and excitement now that I finally know more about where I´ll be living and working for two years. More updates to come before my swearing-in on 11 December. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States! Imagine our little ersatz celebration when you tuck in or, for that matter, put on a jacket (it´s 36 degrees and humid here right now!).

Che yoga mboehara hy´eguazu pora.

The title of today´s blog means ´´My yoga teacher is beautifully pregnant.´´ Though this will be a random utterance to some of you, I hope to reach out specifically to my brother and other Phoenecian yoga disciples. I also want to draw attention to the verb ´´to be pregnant,´´ which belongs to a special class of verbs: the ´´chendal verbs.´´ Chendal verbs are basically verbalized forms of nouns or adjectives that express sentiments that, in Spanish, would involve the use of the verbs ´´estar,´´ ´´ser,´´ or ´´tener.´´ So, to be pregant, to be mean, to wake up well, and to be thirsty are all verbs of this class. They´re pretty easy to conjugate to boot, so that´s an advantage. This brings me to:

But I Do Speak Spanish. First of all, it´s not called ´´Spanish´´ here; the language that you labored over in high school is known as Castellano, and most Paraguayans can speak or understand it. However, as is the case for widespread languages like Castellano and English, some words change meaning across geographical space. This stirs fascination in linguists and frustration in Peace Corps volunteers.

For instance, one of Paraguay´s signature words is ´´guapo´´ (which, if you say it in Arizona, means ´´handsome´´). In Paraguay, guapo means hard-working or impressive. It´s a high compliment to say ´´nde guapo´´ (you are guapo). Appropriate times to do so might be upon witnessing a well-hoed field, a good idea put into practice, etc. And, as I learned a few weeks ago, it´s also a pleasantry used in greeting. The agroforestry group took an excursion to SEPA, an agroforestry institute and center started by PCVs but now run by Paraguayans. On the way, we met a current volunteer and visited the farm of one of her community´s families. The mistress of the house, on welcoming me, cried ´´nde guapo´´ and I have to say that I blanched in embarrassment. Despite all my Peace Corps language training, my initial response was to feel that I´d been hit on by a Paraguayan farmer´s wife in front of her whole family. When the volunteer we´d visited came to visit us the next week, she told me that I had become an inside joke between her and this family after she´d told them how most Americans interpret ´´guapo.´´

My other tale of linguistic confusion occurred shortly after I got to Paraguay. My host mom didn´t serve juice with dinner and let me know that it was because we were having dessert. She then ladled out a delicious glass of sliced fruit in sugary syrup. I asked her what the fruit was and she replied ´´mamón.´´ After several repitions of the word, I confirmed that she was saying ´´mamón,´´ which my (biological) mother uses all the time to describe sycophants, butt-kissers, and others of an obsequious bent. ´´Mamón´´ was delicious, but I was disturbed when my Spanish-English dictionary yielded my American mom´s definition instead of my host family´s. I even was shown the mamón tree in our yard. It took a few days of asking around before another trainee in our group told me that mamón is used in some places in Latin America to mean...Papaya! I hadn´t recognized the taste because of all the sugar and ended up feeling, if a little embarrassed, happy that I hadn´t been fed sycophant or dessert.

There are other tales of linguistic confusion (´´frutilla´´ is strawberry instead of ´´fresca´´ and ´´autobúses´´ are either ´´micros´´ or ´´collectivos´´) but none too troublesome. Worse are the occasional Guaraní translation errors. My name for instance means ´´we go to sleep´´ when pronounced correctly in Guaraní. Jake jake!

Future Plans. Training has been intense so far, and I think the remaining four weeks are going to go by quickly. I´m leaving with the other agroforesters on Monday for five days in rural sites in the Department of Caazapá. We´ll be living with host families and working during the day with current agroforestry volunteers. It will be my last taste of real ´´campo´´ life before site assignment a week from this coming Wednesday. At that point, I´ll find out where I´ll be living for the next two years. The next day, my main contact from said site will come to visit my current host family, and we´ll then head out to visit my future home. So things feel like they´re accelerating and I´ll hopefuly get a chance to post with more information as it is revealed. As it is, I´m excited to find out about my site and to get going with my service as a volunteer (swearing-in is 11 December). At the same time, it will be sad to say goodbye to my friends from training and a little scary to jump in to my project with only some meager Guaraní and good intentions. To use the Guaraní translation of one of my favorite English AND Spanish expressions (´´we´ll see´´ or ´´ya veremos´´): jahechata.

Ikatúpa roñe´e michimi Guaraníme

So it turns out that though many Paraguayans understand Spanish, the vast majority prefer to speak Guaraní. And this tendency becomes more pronounced the further out into ´´the campo´´ you get! So in that spirit, I´ve decided to start naming my blog posts using some handy Guaraní phrases. Last post´s title means ´´I´m happy in Paraguay´´ and this post´s means ´´Maybe we´ll speak a little Guaraní?´´

Though it´s getting darker later (PY ended daylight savings!), time is always of the essence as I still have the walk back to my home village ahead and don´t want to miss dinner. To that end, here are a few more tidbits about life here in the southern Semi-tropics.

Tembi´u. Tembi´u, or food, here is tasty, if quite different than my eating customs back in the states. Breakfast, as described previously, is a cup of kocido (maté tea) with sugar, peanut, and lots of coquitos (bread balls). It definitely doesn´t stick to the ribs like mom´s much-parodied ´´Big Breakfast´´ but I now look forward to it every morning. Lunch is often some kind of stew, with rice or noodles, sauce, and meat pieces. Dinner is also usually an occasion for so´o (meat) with almost all dishes deep fried: beef empanadas, marinero, or tortilla are common. Marinero is kind of like fried steak and tortilla is completely different than Mexican tortilla. I actually learned how to make it! You mix flour (either corn or wheat), eggs, water, milk, salt, and fillings (my mom uses lettuce and CHEESE) until it flows from a fork fairly regularly. Then you deep fry!

My family is also way into the bread and juice (from a packet with plenty of sugar). I can usually escape with only two to three glasses of juice put away and am experimenting with ´´no´´ to the bread. Needless to say, my diet is quite different here. But what can I say? Sometimes a fried meat package tastes great! I sneak fruit from time to time to get a little roughage and load up on salad when we do eat it.

But what I really want to talk about are my FAVORITE Paraguayan foods. These are, so far, jugo de frutilla and chipa. Jugo de frutilla started making an appearance when strawberries (frutilla) came into season. Basically, this is strawberries, milk, and sugar in a blender. Delicious! My family noticed how eagerly I slurped it down and my mom has been making it quite often, to my delight. But this South American smoothie takes a back seat to my favorite Paraguayan delicacy: chipa, the national bread. I made it with the volunteer I visited in Guirá awhile back and have since bought many chipas from vendors on the streets, buses, and in my own yard. Chipa consists of mant´io (cassava) flour, corn flour, eggs, cheese, oil, butter or margarine, salt, anise, and, naturally, cheese. It´s then baked until it´s crispy on the outside in a wood fire. Chipa: the new light of my life. Leave it to the Paraguayans to discover the importance of putting cheese in bread.

One more note on food: mant´io (or manioc, Manihot esculenta) , a food many of us have never heard of, is the Paraguayan staple. It´s perhaps less important today than it once was with the advent of globalized food chains and changes in the national diet. But many Paraguayans (and most in the campo) still eat it on a regular basis. The mant´io plant has a long, starchy, comestible root. Once peeled and boiled, it tastes like a slightly sweet, stringy potato. But it´s not the taste that makes mant´io so important. The plant grows all year round here and is basically like food in the cellar when other nutrition is scarce. When families don´t have anything else to eat, they can dig up a manioc. And unlike corn, wheat, and most other staples, it doesn´t have a season. Manti´o may not taste like a fresh pepper or be as nutritious as corn and beans, but it will always be there.

Yvyra Mata. One of the best parts about being here in Paraguay has been learning about some of its many yvyra mata (literally ´´tree plants´´). The bible on the topic is a book originally written jointly by Paraguayans and Peace Corps volunteers: Árboles comunes del Paraguay or Ñande Yvyra Mata Kuéra. Now, it´s widely available through the National University. We´ve been practicing identification of a couple dozen common trees and I can´t wait to learn about more.

The Paraguayan national tree is the black lapacho, Tabeluia heptaphylla (tajy hu in Guaraní). It´s actually a group of related species, each with different colors. They´re gorgeous, tall trees with palmate, 5-part leaflets and (apparently) excellent, strong wood. Lapachos have been cut down across most of Paraguay, but some remain. We missed the flowering season this year, and I can´t wait to see what is apparently an amazing sight next Spring.

Fruit trees, whether native or not, are also really important here. Papaya, mango, banana, orange, lemon (except the lemons are orange!), mandarin, guava, and some lesser-known indigenous trees dot people´s farms and yards. We learned how to graft citrus trees earlier this week and are working on mango Friday. I´ve enjoyed grafting so far and have heard that it´s a service in high-demand in Paraguay.

An Inspirational Aside. I want to thank all of you who are following my blog and especially thank those of you who left sweet messages on the last one. Logging in and reading them was a delight. I will try to respond back in future internet sessions.

Things continue to go well here. I am in great spirits and feel so lucky to be able to represent my country and serve Paraguayans. Training is challenging, but my language skills are coming along and I´m enjoying learning more about new agroforestry and extension techniques. What keeps me most motivated is thinking about life in my future site. I´ll get my assignment next month and will be off in mid-December!

Early in training, one of our trainers said something to the effect of ´´Peace Corps isn´t about helping people to have more; it´s about helping people to be more.´´ I really loved that. I think many of you know how I feel about our own culture and its fixation on material things and ´´progress.´´ I have worried a lot about whether doing ´´development work´´ was just ushering other peoples toward the same ends. Now that I am here, I feel much more strongly that I´m doing something worthwhile...and maybe one of the most worthwhile things I´ve ever done!

So, thanks for all your support and good wishes! I carry them with me here and hope to have more to share for the next post.

Che avy´a Paraguaìpe.

aAfter much conniving, I´m happy to say that I´ve escaped the clutches of the PC to internet binge for a precious hour-and-a-half this morning. It´s Saturday and I am about to embark on my first real solo adventure: a trip to the department of Guairà to spend a few days with a current agroforestry PC volunteer (PCV). However, my bus doesn´t leave until noon, so I´m here in Guarambaré for some computer time.

Life as a PC trainee in Paraguay is something of a Paradox. We´re surrounded by Americans, but are trying our hardest to integrate into our host communities. We´re adapting to the Paraguayan attitude of ´´tranquilopa,´´ but have an intense all-day, every-day training schedule in language, technical skills, and more. There´s amazing beauty, but a lot of over-stimulation. Some things are incredibly different (fruiting papaya trees, tossing trash wherever, speaking Guaraní) and some things are incredibly similar (laughing with my family, hit American music on the radio, making new friendships).

There´s so much to say and I do eventually want to get to Guairà, so I´ve tried to pick a few topics to write about to give you all a taste of life here.

Guaraní. Paraguay has two official languages. Spanish is good to get you around the cities, for official correspondence, and to speak with people if you don´t know Guaraní and want them to feel awkward. However, as one former volunteer told us, to Paraguayans, it sounds sweet when we speak Guaraní. The problem? Start with pronouncing ´´y,´´ a task which I have tried to accomplish by pulling the corners of my mouth down, bringing my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and making a sound reminiscent of the offspring of the ´´ea´´ from early and the ´´i´´ from kid. But, at least when Paraguayans speak it, Guaranì is a beautiful language with a lot to offer. My favorite aspect so far is that there are two forms of ´´we´´: one that includes everyone present and one that includes only the speaker and at least one other person. Think about it: wouldn´t it be great if English had that?

Ka´a. That´s the Guaranì name for the plant we know as maté. It´s ground up and consumed in myriad ways here. Every morning, my breakfast is kocido. To make it, you cook maté leaves in hot water, then strain the mixture, add milk, tons of sugar, and maybe a spoon of ground peanuts. My family then eats it with a spoon after crumbling many hard little breads (galletas) into it. If kocido is for breakfast, then ka´a´y (maté in Spanish) is for when it´s cold. This is a tea of maté leaves and hot water consumed comunally using a cup and metal straw, like in Argentina. The pourer fills the cup with hot water and each person takes turns emptying it using the metal straw´s strainer to exclude the matè leaves. Finally, there is tererè, the national drink of Paraguay. It´s consumed when the weather is warm. First, one crushes up to three pora ñana (medicinal herbs) in a mortar and pestle and then adds them to a pitcher of ice water. The water is then used to make tea as with ka´a´y. One person pours and everyone else takes turns draining the glass.

These drinks, especially tererè, are central to social life here. People spend hours sitting around in a circle drinking tererè and talking. It´s basically what you do to get to know people, cement social bonds, and build trust. And everyone uses the same cup!

Viveros. From my first day in Paraguay, I´ve been living at a vivero, or nursery. I couldn´t have been placed with a better host family, in part because my dad, who is a big joker and a self-trained horticulturalist, runs his own nursery out of our yard. He even lets me ´´help´´ him out sometimes. He grows many plants familiar in the states: bougainvilla, lantana, spider plants, ficus, etc. and some that are unfamiliar to me. We´re also learning how to build and maintain viveros as volunteers. Frequently agroforestry volunteers help members of their communities to set up viveros for trees (ybyra, in Guaraní). The eight of us in the agroforestry group created one adjacent to my house and we´ve planted over a dozen tree species there. Some have already germinated. I´m already excited about starting a vivero, a huerta, an abonera, or other such projects at my future site...if my community wants them!

Tranquilo´pa. This is a state of mind, a response to ´´how are you?,´´ and just a general commentary on the situation. Life in Paraguay is supposed to be tranquilo, and I try to keep that in mind when the transition from my northwestern ivory tower to this lush, messy, real world seems daunting. But all in all, I´m incredibly happy here and feel like there is nothing better I could be doing with myself. It feels like an honor to be serving the people of Paraguay (well, once I actually become a volunteer) and representing the people of the United States in this way. (Incidentally, how long ago did our beloved President win the Nobel Peace Prize!?!? I flipped out when it came on the news last night, much to the bemusement of my family here.) At any rate, thank you to everyone who has been keeping up with and thinking of me. You are all in my hearts!

Well, off to Guirá! I´ll try to sneak away again soon. Until then, jajatopata (see you!).

Àqui estoy!

Mbaèichapa de Paraguay!

A quick post to say that all is well here. I am living in a small rural community near Guarambarè with an amazing family. Life is different here, but amazing! Phone time and letters are expensive and we almost never have time to use internet (classes start in 10 minutes!). So this is a quick post to say that all is well. I am happy and safe. If you want my mail address, send me an email and I will forward it on my next computer break.

Can´t share more information about where I am (PC rules). And we´re out of time. Off to class!

Best from Paraguay!
Jake

Dearly Departed

Since midnight has come and gone, I can say it: today, I'm going into the Peace Corps! Here's the plan:

1. Say a tearful farewell to Mom and Harold at airport security.
2. Make melodramatic faces at/with them from behind the x-ray machines as bewildered TSA employees stare contemptuously.
3. Fly to Atlanta, then Miami. Spend the night in Miami - on the Peace Corps's tab!
4. Participate in awkward icebreaker activities with other new volunteers until being hearded on to Sao Paulo and then (by Thursday morning) Asunción.
5. Leave the capital for a "satellite training community," meet my host family, and perform the dance from the music video of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" for them as a sign of my gratitude and willingness to engage in cultural sharing.

As you can see, dear readers, I am drawing on humor to cope with what has been an emotional few days, full of many heartfelt and touching goodbyes. To all those of you who I've communicated with over the last few days, thank you so much for all your love and support. I'm taking those gifts with me to Paraguay as well as all the ziploc bags and Sudafed.

I probably won't have much access to the internet or a cell phone while I travel and get settled in. So this may be the last blog post for awhile and I may be slow to answer e-mails.

With that said, I can't wait to write my next entry - finally, from Paraguay. ¡Hasta luego, salud y paz!

One Week To Go!

This is just a short post to say that in six days, I'll be leaving Phoenix for "staging" in Miami! The next day, I'll be on a plane out of the country. All the excitement that I've been feeling for the last month has now acquired a tinge of nervousness. I'm trying not to fall into full-on knuckle-cracking mode (mom suggests it will alienate the Paraguayans).

I have also completed an almost-complete "trial pack" to make sure my material possessions are all going to make it to Paraguay. If I can check two bags (a large duffel and my internal frame pack) and take two as carry-ons (my normal backpack and a pygmy, aquamarine duffel bag), I should be fine. All this packing has made me kind of self-conscious of all the new gear I have obtained (via mother's generosity). How do you say "In my country, we only wear sweat-wicking, synthetic adventure clothing" in Guarani? What about "Oh no, I always travel with this many batteries and ziploc bags"?

Also, as a final separation rite from my past life as aspiring unkempt academic, I visited Great Clips and had my long locks buzzed off. This haircut has two advantages:

1. Less hair to wash in a country where plumbing is rare.
2. Having a semi-justifiable reason to persuade others to rub my head-stubble, which always sends little tingles of delight down my spine.

Paraguay

With just over two weeks to go until departure, I still qualify as little more than an amateur Paraguay enthusiast. However, I thought it might be appropriate to share a little bit of what I've learned about the country during the seven months since I learned I would be moving there! The CIA world factbook is a good source for basic statistics, and I'm happy to share, on request, additional gleanings from the private reading I did last quarter on the country's agriculture and forestry sectors.

Paraguay is located in central South America, southeast of Bolivia, south of Brazil, and northeast of Argentina. It is a landlocked country of 406,750 square kilometers (a little smaller than California), with two major, navigable rivers (the Paraguay and Parana) on its borders. Located in the subtropics, Paraguay is warm and hot with occasional annual freezes.

The country's population is around 7 million, with roughly 2 million living in or near the capital, Asuncion, and around 40% living in rural areas. Life expectancy is in the early 70s and the literacy rate is 95%, however between a quarter and a fifth of the population lies below the poverty line.

Much of the population is employed in the agricultural sector, but roughly two-thirds of the country's GDP comes from the service sector (especially from the import-export trade and from services provided to employees in large agricultural enterprises). Economic development in the country has generally occurred in the form of boom-and-bust export-driven agriculture, often driven by Argentinian and Brazilian investors. Cotton used to be the country's main cash crop, but today, that position is occupied by soy and, to a lesser extent, beef. Deforestation has been severe, with most of the country's remaining forests having already been high-graded.

From 1954 to 1989, Paraguay was ruled by Alfredo Stroessner, one of the twentieth century's longest-serving dictators. Even after democratic elections were instituted following his removal from office, his party, the Colorado Party, dominated Paraguayan politics. The current president is Fernando Lugo, the leader of the liberal Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC), and the first non-Colorado head of state since Stroessner's fall. Paraguayan civil society and political culture, it seems, are still somewhat dampened as a result of Stroessner's regime.

Paraguay is a unique country in many ways. The state has dual official langauages: Spanish and Guarani, the indigenous tongue spoken by some of the original inhabitants of what is today Paraguay. Though most Paraguayans are mestizos, Guarani is an important component of national identity. The country has also been physically and culturally isolated for much of its modern and contemporary history, so it is less connected to the economies and cultures of the Southern Cone and wider world than its neighbors. My impression, however, is that much of this may change as changes in politics, telecommunications technology, and economic development change Paraguay's relationship with the outside world.

It sounds as though Paraguay is a country of warm and capable people facing a number of challenges, many of them environmental. I'm thrilled to meet my host families and communities there in the months to come and to finally augment the knowledge I've just shared with some "real world" experience in Paraguay.

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Today, I received an e-mail from volunteer in Paraguay who has made a video about life as a newcomer there. It was great to see images of the country and to hear testimonials from Peace Corps volunteers enjoying themselves there.

One month to go...

The real countdown begins today. It's 22 August and in exactly one month, I will be marching through security at Sky Harbor airport, bound for Miami, Florida. "Why?" you might ask. Let's just say that if this were the Oregon Trail, Miami would be my Independence, Missouri - the last taste of the familiar before a great adventure begins. Miami is the location of the Peace Corps's day-long staging event for volunteer bound for Paraguay. So even though I won't actually leave for Sao Paulo and, ultimately, Asunción, until the 23rd, today feels like a big one: one month to go.


It helps that other big milestones abound this weekend. Yesterday I hung up the orange apron at Home Depot and I'll leave Seattle for good on Monday. Ben (pictured above right buying salmon) is in town visiting and we've been having lots of brotherly fun, mostly revolving around the eating of pastries. This weekend has also been and will continue to be one of goodbyes. I'm especially sad to leave my roommate of the last year, Lenore. We took Ben to see Julie and Julia this morning and went out to brunch afterward (right). As you can see, I'm getting my last gulps of Seattle coffee.


The next post I make, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Paraguay but Couldn't Articulate," will likely come from Phoenix. Until then, pura vida from Seattle!

An Introduction is in Order

Hello Readers,

This post is more of a test than anything. Presently, I'm down to my last two weeks in Seattle before my (triumphant?) return to Arizona and subsequent departure for Paraguay. As I say goodbye to friends here, though, I want to be able to refer them to my blog, which I will hopefully keep updated while abroad.

So, if you are looking for the insightful but never maudlin blog "Jake in Paraguay," you've come to the right place. But for now, I'm going to go enjoy my remaining time in the Pacific Northwest while I still can!

Jake