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.