counterclockwise

I’m back to our old stomping grounds of Guarambaré this week, where Peace Corps Paraguay trains its volunteers. In particular, all the new volunteers to my project group come in May to spend the winter training, so we’ve got a new crop in class right now. The training contractor, an organization known by the cryptic initials CHP, is big on hands-on, interactive education.

This means a whole lot of bus time to me. This weekend, Liam and I were privileged to host two trainees doing a field visit to Tacuatí. And then today, I was invited to come to Guarambaré a do a session on accounting in Paraguay, with lots of emphasis on lessons learned from actual practice. Because if there’s one thing true in Paraguayan finance, it’s that the letter of the law, the spirit of the law, and what you can accomplish with local resources are often not at all synonymous.

It was interesting to look back on what I’ve done, fun to meet the new people, and good to see what all I’ve learned since I came. When all’s said and done, I’m glad to be who and where I am. Dues paid, check. Bus schedule learned, check. Ticket home, check.

Speaking of which, I’ve taken the mail call page down now. I recommend against sending anything else to Paraguay in the time I’ve got left - if you’ve got a letter or a card or such for me, my mother’s home address in Knoxville is the best place for it. If you need to know it, e-mail me and I’ll be happy to tell you.

The Guaraní word of the day is ahata aju, literally “I’m going to come.” But the phrase is actually used to mean something more like “Bye, see you later.” Go figure.

Post-vacation and post-COS-conference, life has been quiet. Since I’ll be the last Peace Corps volunteer to work at my financial cooperative, I’ve been trying to prepare them to operate independently. To that end, I’ve been writing an operations manual for the administrative council and the secretary I hope they’ll eventually hire. It’s turned into a monster project - I’ve got about 15 pages written and at least another 20 to go. Which doesn’t sound like that much, really, except that it’s all got to be in Spanish.

That means that lately my dictionary and I have putting in plenty of quality time. It’s edifying but not in a way that gives me lots of interesting news for the ol’ website. Most interesting thing I’ve done all month is a dinner party for some librarians in the region. The German aid organization GTZ donated a few dozen books a couple of yours ago to a youth group in town. The youth eventually drifted off, but recently the folks at the judge’s office have taken it on themselves to set the library shelf up in their waiting room and try to start up circulation again.

So it was our great good fortune that my friend Rachel and her Paraguayan counterpart Fany were able to come out for dinner and expert advice on how to build a library that’s sustainable and user-friendly. One of the biggest problems they’re up against is reading level.

The current collection is heavy on reference books and weighty classics, so not very encouraging to novice readers. And in rural Paraguay most of the population - adults included - are  novice readers by the standards of developed-world bibliophiles. The good news is that almost everyone in Tacuatí can decypher short passages. The bad news is that very few people get the opportunity to develop the fluency and concentration skills that you need  to read a whole chapter book.

It’s definitely something for me to keep in mind as I write my manual - part of the reason it has to be so long is that I can’t take much background for granted. But on the whole, I’m glad to be in a situation where using very simple language is more of an advantage than a disadvantage.

The Guarani word of the day is moroti, meaning white. Cool moroti markings on the frog, aren’t they?