“And if you give me a basketball…

I’ll show you how to shoot it.”

Basketball is taking off right now!  On average we have about 10-12 people that show up.  They’re picking it up rather quickly.  It has nothing to do with my teaching, they’re just having fun.  We started out by putting up the baskets; no lines for out of bounds, three points or anything like that.  There were very few rules to enforce on them; just a ball, a lot of space and two (as close to regulation) backboards with the accompanying rims.  I showed them a few of the basics like passing and layups, not knowing the terms in Spanish; but they got it.

After a few warm up drills, the ball was tossed up and they were going at it.  Running from one end of the court with the ball snug in both hands like a pot full of boiling water ~whistle~ ”Viajando!” says Referee Evelyn.  Lots of dribbling with both hands simultaneously ~whistle~”Dribleigh Doblei (acting out what they can’t do).”  Running into each other like bats without sonar ~whistle~”Falta, No puedes hacer eso…” Evelyn really enjoyed being the super cop with her big, orange whistle; and she also didn’t know the terms or the signs hence ~whistle~”No puedes hacer eso”.  Everyone that was playing was having a good time trying something new.  Even the Mayor and High School Principal swung by.

The jugadores occasionally fell down and acted like they were really hurt, forgetting that this wasn’t soccer…  But it was entertaining.  And whenever there was a change of possession, they would touch the ball to the floor at the spot of the infraction before resuming play.  Little by little we’ll introduce the rules more, but right now, they’re just Paraguayan Ballin’!

But speaking about Soccer, the mentality of the youth is defensive even when they are in possession of the ball.  If someone has the ball, there are at least two or three of their teammates behind them.  Instead of advancing the ball, they throw it backwards; there is no half court line yet.  When they are on defense, they try to overuse their body resulting in a blatant foul; but we can’t call everything, or else they would never get to play.  And whenever they are within 20 ft. of the basket, they are in a rush to shoot it.  I think that this is because in soccer, you have very few opportunities to take a shot at the goal.  I tried to explain to them that they have a lot more opportunities to score in this sport.

Back to the lines, we plan on putting down some yellow lines so that they can differentiate from the white soccer lines.  But I like introducing them little by little.  When we first started, they were running all over the place because there was no out of bounds; the court was wider than it was long.  We recently put in side lines and baselines, drastically limiting their space, but they adjusted superbly!  I’m hesitant to put down the three point lines right now because they are just going to launch line drives from there and eventually break the nimble backboard.  They shoot the ball very, very hard.  I think the next installation will be half court to teach them backcourt; no more being behind the ball Jóvenes!

One of our youth that’s been with our youth group since its iniciation, Pako, was amped up to play!  He started up just like everyone else.  But after the first day, he came back and told me, “Yo ví anoche un partido del NBA.  Nuevo York Contra Boston.”  Yeah, they have ESPN out here!  He watched Playoff basketball and downloaded the information like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix.  He came on the court, smiled, and started Paraguayan Ballin’, to the max!  Pump fakes, spins(with an occasional travel), back pedaling like a pro!  Hitting mid-range jump shots mixed with a few, stylish, air balls…  executing the give and go and controlling his team.  He even became such a go to guy, that when he had an off day, he said, “Hoy no es mi día…” Go ‘head Pako!

They’re getting ready for youth from the neighboring town to come and play a few games.  The kids from the other town have had a basketball court for years now and are, somewhat, good.  But the kids here have a quarter pro as their coach; maybe more of an eight pro?  They should have a good time.  And did I mention that the Referee is my wife? Wink, wink…

That’s all for basketball for this time in the Fall.

Now we need to prepare for our dance competition, we’ll let you know how it goes when we get a chance.  Right now we’re going to self-invite ourselves for lunch to one the houses of a youth in our group; we want to spend quality time with them before we go.

Chronomentrophobia

“Trying to find solutions to the situations I’m facing.”

It’s been longer than the amount of time that we actually have left here in Villa del Rosario since we wrote our last blog!  But what’s left?  Two months of trying to close up our work here.  Two months of spending quality time with the friends and family that we have made.  10 (and some change) weeks of slowly saying our “see you laters” (Not goodbyes because we will be returning!).  10 weeks of Polka Paraguaya classes (2 weeks of practice before a competition in May!).   About 70 days of anticipation and excitement for our next adventure (Spending time with friends and family in the States & preparing for our move to New York…).  This is a short period that, at times, seems to stretch out longer than it seems it should; oscillating from fast to slow like intervals during a basketball game.

In the last four months we’ve participated in two different leadership camps (one national and the other local).  They were both successful, motivating a few of the youth to continue strengthening their abilities and developing their communities.  We’ve been able to see a few other parts of Paraguay; a beautiful waterfall at Salto Cristal (Evelyn did a, baby, cliff jump where she bit a hole in her tongue), we visited the countryside without the amenities of electricity in Las Brisas (Evelyn milked a cow) and we’ve made a few trips to the capital (Evelyn spent all of our money on restaurants!).  And we’ve even produced and recorded a few reggaeton songs about personal finance, cleaning the neighborhood and civic participation.  We’ll share those with you later.  The basketball court is up and you can see that and more on the Facebook page of the youth group Jóvenes en Acción.

Everything is pretty much on cruise control right now.  We’ve done what we can and we are preparing our community for follow up volunteers to continue and do better work with the firsthand, yet stable, foundation that we laid down.  The youth here are ready to do more activities and learn new things.  The next volunteers (we are hoping for another married couple) will have great potential to execute great projects and lasting relationships!

Wanna hear a cockroach story?  It’s short…

Sometimes at night (about one or two in the morning) I have to go to the bathroom because of all of the water that I drank right before bed.  Well, one night, as I was half way asleep walking through the house I went to the bathroom.  I went to wash my hands and then… ffffFFFF POOM! I received a POP on the back of my leg!  I was like, “Oh, What?”  I was looking around and I turned on the light to see a big ol’ roach looking at me, showing off its wings and its ability to fly.  “You ain’t never seen these bad boys on a roach huh?”, referring to his wings.  I replied, “Nope.” SPLAT!  I had to take him out because I didn’t know when he was going to take off again.  Since then, I’m always alert when I have to go at night; either that, or I hold it until the morning.

Ok, I’ve left you on a cliff hanger for a few paragraphs…  We are very thankful to have found, what seems to be, our passion out here.  Also, we have been blessed to find jobs that line up with that passion.  So do you want to know what I’m talking about?  If not, I’ll just leave it like that… let me know…

We’ll be teaching at a boarding school in Upstate New York (Lake Placid) starting this August.  The school is called North Country School and all of its values are core values that we share.  I will be teaching fourth and/or fifth grade Social Studies and Language Arts.  Evelyn will be teaching fourth and/or fifth grade Math and Dance.  We will also be house parents to 10, or so, kids (great practice right?).  We are very excited for this opportunity.  For this reason, we will be leaving here a month earlier than expected, to be able to spend time back in L.A. before we ship out again.

With all of this going on, it is challenging to stay focused.  We are thinking about all of the memories that we have made, the good things to come and trying to value the present.

I’m going to stop now because Evelyn is crying again…

We’ll see you soon!  Who knows, maybe we’ll have a few more blog entries before we come back.

 

But I Still Get Overwhelmed

When I Look In Her Eyes!

With the nice cool weather (which is probably 80 degrees) we have been able to relax a little bit these last few days after a nice summer rain.  The bugs are still singing all kinds of songs with the dogs, roosters and toads performing backup.  The cicadas go all out with their voices; they leave you looking for them.  Though, the only time that they can be spotted is when they’re quiet.  And then you say, “Damn! That’s a big ol’fly!”

It’s Evelyn’s Birthday on Sunday!  I’ve spent a quarter of her life with her and look forward to that percentage increasing.  With all that we are doing out here, I get to see her continue to blossom into a wise and wonderful woman.  She has really pressed herself to push and reach and grab and assess her own limits!  I can’t wait to see what she does next…

Actually, she just finished   teaching her first, all women, dance class; and it seems to have gone well.  She came back with her little yellow shirt drenched in sweat.  She was probably dancing harder than the people in the class.  It was supposed to be once a week, but because it was so fun, I think that they convinced her to do it every Monday, Wednesday and Friday now; go ‘head Evelyn!

This class is important for the community, because usually the women here don’t have any extracurricular activities to go to.  I think that by providing this class, other projects or groups or business might start up.  But that’s just my idea; maybe it’s good in and of itself.

Jóvenes en Acción, held a movie night (Evelyn told you about it in the last blog; again, please add them on Facebook if you haven’t already) with free snacks and juice.  It was a success!  It was our favorite project that we’ve done to so far.  It was that good feeling of giving without expecting anything in return.  And, this time we were able to share that feeling with the group; I think they really enjoyed it.  There were about 100 people, mostly kids, which came through.  Hopefully we can do something similar again in the future.

Yesterday, we finished cleaning up our yard a little bit with the help of our neighbors (ages 8 &10).  Niko, came ready with his machete and made grass spaghetti !  He was hacking down that tall lawn that was growing in our front yard.  I was using the hoe to get a lot of the small weed sprouts before they grew into a mini jungle.  Yeni (Jenny), came over and wanted to sweep the dirt, which is actually pretty relaxing.  Sometimes I make a little Paraguayan Zen Garden after it rains when the sand has a little moisture and holds shape.  Evelyn helped gather the clippings up and put them in a pile to be dealt with later.

It was cool working together like this.  Usually I go out and try to do everything on my own and I get good work done; but afterwards I’m exhausted and the day has gone by.  When everyone works together, it’s more fun, more gets done and you build your relationships with your partners!  Speaking of my little partners, Niko and Yeni, when we were done they looked at me and smiled (I knew what that meant).  “Cuantos vas a pagarnos?”  (How much are you going to pay us?) I told them I would pay Yeni 10mil (about $2.50) and Niko 15mil.  So as I went to retrieve their proceeds, Niko says to me, “Dijiste 16mil para mi y 12 para yeni, verdad?” (You said 16mil for me and 12mil for Yeni right?).  I had to respect his hustle, but I corrected him and proceeded to pay them as we had agreed before.

This is not for Marlene Wilson!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVELYN!

If you get a chance, try to get in touch with her one way or another.  Hopefully we have electricity to try to talk on Skype or telephone or at least Facebook.

As always, we love you and miss you and look forward to catching up in the near future.

Today

Dion woke up before I did, as usual. So I used his pillow, and slept for another hour. Sunlight filled our bedroom as I begin to open my eyes on this beautiful Wednesday.

Today we will meet with our youth group at 9am, 5 blocks away from our house.  Dion told me it was 8:50, but I know that means it is probably around 8:20. He knows me so well, but I humor him and act like I’m rushing to get ready. As I shower, he cut tomatoes and garlic to add to cold beans and rice. Usually I cook a pot of oatmeal for breakfast, but during Paraguayan summers, cold beans and rice is the way to go! We both take a large swig of water and we’re out.

Dion goes to water our garden and I yell to our neighbor ‘Mba’éichapa Ne’ko’ẽ Che Sy’ (Mm-ba-esh-a-pa Ne-ko-eh Shey-suh) which pretty much means, Good Morning Mom in Guaraní. As we walk to Abraham’s house, we pass many familiar faces and are met with smiles, waves and kisses! Or maybe it’s the other way around, but everyone responds with smiles, waves and kisses, so it’s like the same thing

We are the first to arrive, and we begin to drink tereré with Abraham’s parents. We’re not expecting many members to come. All we need to do is visit a few more local businesses to ask for donations for our Free Movie and Snack Night we’re planning for Christmas evening. So far everyone we’ve asked has donated cookies, candy, juice, soda, cash, Christmas bread (fruit cake), gift bags or popcorn. Generosity, especially towards children, is one of the core values of our community. Diego arrives. Then Aurora and we’re off at 9:30am.

Our youth group is pretty awesome. They are our best friends here, and I probably get mushy on them a little too often, but I don’t think saying or showing love to someone ever gets old. Haha, I hope they agree.

I recently discovered that my backtone (the tone people hear when they call me) is a song that I must have accidentally purchased. And it’s popular, so Diego and I are singing it while walking, “Si un día piensas en mi, solo llamame…” and as we walk, drink tereré and ask  businesses for donations, we all take turns singing random songs and probably having a little too much fun. 1.5 hours and 5 full bags later, we are hot, exhausted and hungry so we decide to head back.

As we drop off our bags at Abraham’s house, we realize that this is the first time that we’ve entered the living area. Usually we spend time with his family in their store, which is technically the front part of the house. His dad is also surprised at this fact, and so he gives us a tour. We discover they have a 200 year old tree in their backyard.  It’s huge! And with the best shade I’ve seen so far in Paraguay. I definitely foresee Jóvenes en Acción (JEA) meetings taking place here in the near future.

It is 12:30pm when we return home and eat a watermelon for lunch. Then Dion washes clothes and I clean the house. The urge to sing has not left my system yet so I search for music to sing to… Bob Marley? … Erykah Badu? … Sade? … Aretha? Dion always says I listen to the same stuff, so I decide to go with Aaliyah. I haven’t listened to her in years and I start to think about one of my old friends back home (Miss you Nicole!).  Followed by Beyoncé, which causes me to think about another close friend back home, who is ironically also a Nicole (Miss you too girl!). The house is clean and I eat a cold mango.

It is 2:30pm and I hear a clap outside. Dion is exercising, so I go to our patio to greet María. She is a member from our youth group, but hasn’t participated for the past 3 weeks. So we catch up, eat some bread and drink tereré. Dion joins in, and about 1 hour or so later, María goes home. I do the 12 Sivananda poses and take a shower.

It’s almost 5pm and I call Isaiah. We discuss and finalize duties to carry out our marketing strategy for the annual leadership camp we’ve been planning for the past few months. The camp takes place the first week of January, so most of our efforts will be helpful  the next time around in appealing to prospective sponsors, providing the participants with useful resources for community projects and maintaining contact with youth groups. In short, JoPa MarCom team rocks! Check us out… www.facebook.com/JoPaXParaguay … http://jovenesporparaguay.wordpress.com …  www.twitter.com/JoPaXParaguay

Sometime during my 45 minute phone conversation with Isaiah, our close friend, Professor Rafael drops by. I am so excited to see him! It’s been a long time and we have so much to catch up on.  He is an elementary school teacher, a radio personality, a politician and absolutely hilarious! So I join in on the convo with Dion, eat some popcorn, followed by tereré. Profe Rafa invites us to talk on his radio show sometime between 7-9pm.  And as he leaves, Rosa arrives. She sells us homemade bread every week and, if she has time, we usually drink tereré. But she started selling her bread a little late today, so we only hung out for a few minutes. The bread was still warm, and I cut off a piece immediately. I LOVE bread.

It is 6:30pm and María arrives as I cut off a second piece of bread. Dion takes down the dry clothes as María and I leave to collect donations from 3 businesses. But first we stop for empanadas and mandioca. We return to find Cary and Dion drinking tereré. Cary is also a member of our youth group, and hasn’t participated for the past couple of months. She is 1 of 4 members of JEA that just graduated from high school last week and fyi, I was a complete mess at their graduation. We’re going to miss them so much!

At 7:40pm, Cary and María head home. María was planning to walk with us to the radio station to promote our Christmas movie night, but since Cary offered to drive her home, Dion and I went solo. Everything went well on the show, and we headed home.

It’s 9pm, and Dion’s got the tired eyes. He takes a shower, I’m on the internet. Then I take a shower, and he’s on the internet. And then Dion gets in bed, and I begin to write this blog a little after 10pm.

It’s now 12:51am. And this is why I usually don’t write blogs! But I want to learn to enjoy writing, so until next time … Goodnight

It Was A, Beautiful Day Off In the Neighborhood…

Yellows, and greens, and blues, and browns, and greys and hues that ooze beneath dilapidated woods.

The roots have taken again in this fertile land of Paraguay.  It’s been about a month, and the nostalgia of leaving to go home, spending a month in L.A. and coming back here has dissolved.  It’s now spring/summer time and the flowers are, proverbially, blooming.

Upon returning, we hit the ground walking, briskly.  We started student counseling at the local high school.  Out of about 300 students, about 100 signed up.  They were able to talk about their future plans, issues that they are dealing with and just have a one on one on one conversation; these are kids that usually don’t get the opportunity to express themselves.  It’s crazy that something that is taken for granted in the states can have a lasting effect on the students here.  There has been positive feedback from parents, teachers and students.  There was one student in particular with whom we barely even said a word!  This student just needed to vent; with tears and smiles and deep breathes; there was lightness in the air afterwards.  We received a thank you, but we literally didn’t do anything.

Through doing this project, we think that we’ve found one of our passions; and that is working with kids/youth.  There are not too many opportunities in life where you’re able to get instant feedback from your work.  Either teaching, tutoring or counseling (or some combination of these things) will be in our future!

Next in line is a project that was underestimated during the first year; basketball!  There wasn’t an urge to start this because it didn’t seem like it would be worth it.  But looking at it now, something new can always spark many innovative ideas.  The wood was cut, the metal was worked, the net was tied; todo casero!  Out of all the years playing basketball, I never thought that these hands would construct a rim and backboard!  Though, I’d be a fool not to mention the real heroes of this endeavor.  Isi (pronounced E.C.), the carpenter, helped me choose the right wood and cut it for me.  Humberto (one of our close friends) recommended the treatment and paint for the wood.  And Louis…

Louis is a very gifted, yet unconventional, mechanic/carpenter/metal worker/philosopher/you name it!  He’s the type of mechanic that has all of his tools and his projects all over the place; but he knows exactly where everything is.  He makes his own tools when he needs to and always has this wise smile on his face, like a guru.  He told me (while we were braiding the net for the rim), “Paciencia es la madre de virtud.”  It was so simple, so elegantly spoken; accompanied with that quirky smile.  I felt like I was a pupil of a master of some sort.  Measuring with his squinty eyes, he put together two, impeccable, basketball rims that will see a lot of action during the summer.

Once we finish (and find a new camera because we forgot ours in L.A.) we will be
sure to post pictures!

Everything’s great out here, it’s heating up and there is this eternal glow (or sweat layer) on our faces!  Nine more months, that is all that we have left out here! We plan on taking advantage of this once in an, every chance we get, opportunity!

With much love from Paraguay!

Bueno…

Here are some words that I heard from Dr. Reese…  The fish doesn’t know what water is.  It’s immersed in it and knows nothing else, nothing else to compare it to.  Only when it decides to emerge and break the un-known plane will it see that there is another ocean in the air, mountains and other beings living in it.  Being a fish, it will naturally return to the sea that birthed it, but life will forever be dissimilar.  We’re seeing a lot here, nothing that has changed us profoundly, but enough to make things different than they were before.  If we are fish, we would like to think of ourselves as Exocoetidaes.

The concept of time can be seen out here.  It’s been a slow and fast year to date.  In Los Angeles, time soars in a different manner; a discombobulating type of whirl wind… it can be a fun ride sometimes.  It’s hard to pay attention to the patterns that repeat themselves so efficiently back home.  It is busy in L.A., always something to do.  Here, there are also patterns, but you can inspect them and feel the breeze pass by during each millisecond.  At first, it was unsettling; it is just now becoming peaceful.  Having this stage in life where a weekday can be enjoyed shows a different possibility in life that didn’t seem thinkable previously.

Ok, enough of me attempting to examine life… everything is going good out here!  The garden is growing healthy (so far), our youth group is starting to take ownership of themselves little by little and we are enjoying every day that we have here, rain or shine.

Here’s the link to the facebook page we started up for our youth group: http://www.facebook.com/j.avilladelrosario

Hope that you enjoy the few pictures that we scrounged up.  Love you all!

Mr. T

Taking a shower in one of the nicest homes that we’ve been in, I was getting ready to finish when… out of the bottom of my eye… I saw… my first… living… tarantula…

I didn’t completely panic like you might think I would have (if you didn’t know, I am a borderline arachnophobe), I calmly tip—toed over the surprisingly peaceful spider, wrapped myself in my towel and went out to the hallway and gently called, “Victoria? Ummm, I found one.” Victoria is an ex-volunteer, she served back in the mid 90’s and loved it so much here that she built her retirement home outside of her old community.  We were very fortunate to meet her and she invited us to spend a few days in her, what they call here, estancia.  She is a traveling nurse and we have started talks about her possibly delivering our future child (take heed to the word future).  But I’m getting a little ahead of myself… back to Mr. T!  Victoria came out of her room, nonchalantly , looked at my eight legged amigo and said, “that’s a small one.”  She was probably internally laughing at this 6’4”guy in her hallway afraid of, “…a small one.”  “You forgot to turn off the water,”she exclaimed with a smirk as she corralled that beast onto a large square of cardboard and gently let it out of the window.

Meanwhile, Evelyn was in the room flossing her teeth, knowing better then to come out when she heard me call for Victoria.  She said, “I knew it was a Tarantula, I wasn’t comin’ out there!”

As you guys are out there getting over your Easter chocolate binges, I figured I would let you know a bit about Semana Santa.  The tradition here is similar, I believe, to that of many Latin American countries.  Being majority Catholic, there are different masses and religious activities that take course throughout the week.  Aside from that, there is also the Paraguayan spin on it.  On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, everyone made sufficient chipa and sopa to eat for the rest of the weekend.  No one cooked or did anything on Good Friday and lots of time was spent with friends and family.  We were not able to participate in everything because Evelyn was a little under the weather.  But this is the most important celebration in Paraguay and we will make sure that Evelyn loads up on her Vitamin C come this time next year!

Here are a few photos from the past few weeks.