Floating in Feces

The cement top to our septic tank here in Paraguay was constructed without the use of rebar.

How do I know this you ask? Simple, really. As I stepped across it yesterday, it broke open like a trapdoor and I plummeted into its murky depths. One second I was strolling in the backyard enjoying some South American sunshine. The next, I was chin-deep in everything Carly and I have eaten the past month.

It was a somewhat surreal experience to suddenly find myself submersed in a sea of stool--a pond of poo, if you will. I couldn't have been in that dam of dookie for more than five seconds but time sort of stood still and gave me the chance to really absorb my surroundings. Speaking of absorbing, I lost a flip-flop somewhere down in that Mississippi mud, too.



Thankfully, Carly heard my apropos cries of "Oh shit!" as I climbed out of that estuary of excrement and came to my rescue. She helped me strip naked in the front yard and got me pointed in the direction of the shower. I could even hear her mopping up the slime trail I left in the house as I tried desperately to scrub away the memories of what just happened while picking the peanuts out of my beard.

The poop plunge left my entire body covered in one big scrape. So, the Peace Corps medical staff has me keeping an eye-out for infections. Carly's been helping a lot with applying anti-bacterial cream and keeping the messier wounds covered--God, I love that woman!

But Carly hasn't only been helping my disgusting self. She's apparently got it in her mind to help the people of Paraguay while we're here, as well.

She has morphed into a volunteering machine in our community lately. Just last week, she gave 140 diagnostic tests at one of the local schools to figure out which kids need extra help, setup/ran a really cool recycled art table for an Earth Day festival, attended 3 community meetings, accompanied me as I stumbled through my health census (i.e. worked as a translator), and taught a class of 7th graders the importance of washing their hands by fashioning sinks out of old, 2-liter bottles.



Well, that's about all for now. We'll try to sort out a video tour of our new house once we have everything set up (we're so close).

Sandpaper, Toliet Seats & Bird Murder

It was another sweaty week of nonstop work at the casa con tanque here in sunny Santani.

First order of business was getting the plumbing into good enough shape to handle our weak, American bowels. Thankfully our barrio is home to best damned one-armed plumber in Paraguay, Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos fixed our leaky toilet (complete with a sparkling new seat), repaired the concrete floor in our shower, remounted our bathroom sink and built us a brand new outdoor sink---all with 3/4 of the usual appendages. The guy was a machine.



Next, we needed to remove various forms of debris that collected over the years in our ceiling. This included a tiny bird's nest. Despite the fact the it was 15 feet in the air and impossible to look into, Carly assured me the nest was empty. She encouraged me to just yank it down and I obliged. Imagine my surprise when, after a few pokes with a stick, I got a face-full of baby birds. The poor bastards were dead as soon as they hit the ground. But they didn't die in vain. The neighborhood kids had a blast playing with their corpses.

We spent the final three days of last week sanding every inch of insert your favorite poison here-based paint from the interior walls. I'm no longer afraid of hell because I've been there--and it's hand-sanding walls in the humidity of Paraguay. We both wore protective masks and glasses but they were no match for the toxic dust we created. Our boogers are still gray two days later.




Stay tuned for more exciting news next week. If all goes according to plan (which it won't) we should have a fixed roof, a new front door, bars on all the windows and whole heap of furniture moved in. We'll keep you posted...probably.

Our House is a Very, Very, Very Small House...

...with a water tank in the yard and a fence that's topped with barb.

Training's over and Carly and I are officially working as volunteers in the busy (for Paraguay, at least) college town of Santani. We even landed our own little house just 2k outside the center of town.

Locally known as the "casa con tanque" (tank house), our casita is home to the local water tower and has been unoccupied for as long as anyone around here can remember.

The good news is the nice folks in our barrio have agreed to let us live there rent-free for the next two years if we fix up the place. The bad news is the repair list goes as follows:

-fix roof
-construct patio
-replace windows
-slaughter a couple thousand spiders
-new toilet
-new paint job
-new doors
-remove a decades-worth of semi-burnt trash from the front yard
-install sink
-figure out what sort of animal(s) died in shower drain and remove
-cut waist-high grass in yard and trim bushes
-install ceiling fans
-fix busted electrical outlets
-buy all appliances and furnishings


We spent the majority of this week cleaning the yard. It was hard work but Carly made it a whole a lot easier after she somehow conned the neighborhood kids into thinking yard work with Norte Americanos would be fun.



On Friday, we had all 15 of our broken window panes replaced. Apparently some young hoodlum in town had been using our house as target practice for his slingshot before we got here. I'm really looking to forward to the first time I get to run out my front door in my underwear to chase some punk kids off my lawn with a rake.



We're actually going to try and fix the roof ourselves this week so we can get cracking on the inside of the house without getting rained on.

Also, sorry we've been slacking so much with the blog lately. Now that training is over we should have more free time post...or at least more time to come up with better excuses as to why we're still not blogging.

Pre-Service Training

Training is definitely a draining experience. It literally lasts ALL DAY.

We live in a more urban setting as I'm an education volunteer, but Jeff is picked up early every morning and taken out to the campo (countryside) where the other health volunteers live with their host families to train every day.

6 days a week we wake up at 6:20ish (for everyone that knows us, it's incredibly difficult) and eat breakfast with our mom (usually cafe con leche y pan con dulce de leche, or sometimes cereal).

Jeff's teachers arrive at the house around 7:10ish to take him to his language training in the campo with the other health volunteers. I head out of my house around 7:30 to make it to my language classes that start at 7:45. At about 11:30, our language classes end and I head home for lunch and a siesta. Jeff has another host family in the campo that feeds him lunch. I eat lunch with my family, chat it up a bit (this is usually my most effective communication of the day as I've just walked out of my language class).

After my siesta, I start my technical training classes (related to sustainable development, Paraguayan education structure or PCV survival) at 1:30ish. Classes run until about 5:30. Afterwards, I like to sit in the Plaza in the center of town (across from the church) with other trainees or Jeff and just let my brain relax for a minute.

Our family typically eats dinner around 7:30ish and Jeff is always home to join us. Dinner is a lively time with my family as everyone is recapping their day, planning for the next day, and (the best part) telling dirty jokes. I don't think we have a typical family. A lot of the other trainees have a very different experience at the dinner table, but again, we're pretty lucky with our set up.

Around 9:30 we each take a shower and study/do our homework until about 11:30. Then we sleep for a bit, and get ready to wake up and do it all over again. The weeks are incredibly draining and on Sunday mornings we like to sleep in as late as possible (w/out seeming rude or anti-social).

So far things are going well. We knew it wouldn't be easy and we were both ready for the challenge. Nothing has been incredibly surprising just yet, but I'm sure we're in for a few eye-openers in the future.

Since Monday is el dia de los enamorados (Valentine's Day), there are two fiestas tonight at two different clubs in our town. Apparently one is more traditional and one is more "chuchi" than the other (chuchi = a bit uppity; well-off... used as both a compliment and an insult). I think we're going to check out both places with our sister and brother tonight. Should be interesting.

Definitely missing everyone from home, but couldn't be happier with our choice to embark on this adventure. Besos y abrazos a todos!!!!

(The high school near our house)

Our Paraguayan Family

Our host family... where to begin?

We live with a really great family here in Paraguay. We live with our mom (who everyone calls "La Princessa"), our dad (a dentist in the community) and our older sister Enma (also a dentist) and her boyfriend Osvaldo. We have tons of other family that live close by (a younger brother that has a wife and son, and another older brother with a wife and 3 kids). We have another older sister that we haven't met just yet. My parents have a total of 6 kids (4 girls and 2 boys) and the 2 remaining women live in the States with their families. The youngest son is 28 and he spent his 9th grade year in the States living with one of his older sisters. He speaks excellent English and we rely on him to translate any awkward situations.

Our host mom celebrated her 70th birthday yesterday with a grand asado (bbq), cerveza and dancing. Not entirely sure why she was wearing bunny ears, but either way she the queen of the day.

They are really dedicated to helping us master Spanish (we've both improved GREATLY in just one week of classes and living with our family). They are excited to start teaching us Guarani, but we still have a long way to go with our Espanol. Guarani is such an interesting language to hear. It's a strange mix of sounds. A lot of the trainees are having difficulty with the "y" pronunciation which is a weird gutteral throat noise.

Our family is incredibly warm and loving (tons of hugs and hand-holding) and they treat us as if we've always lived here. We're really lucky as they've had volunteers live with them for years now. Their oldest daughter used to teach Guarani at the Peace Corps Training Center here in town and the 3rd (??) oldest daughter married a trainee she met here in town (about 30 years ago). They have a lot of experience with the organization and are excited to help us get through this training period successfully.

We have two family dogs. One is a mascota (or a priviledged house dog) named Kiki and the other is an outside dog named Rocky. We have 6 rabbits, a rooster and tons of chickens. They are a great alarm system for waking up in the morning.

Needless to say, we lucked out. Yes, there are awkard moments where we have NO IDEA what they're saying or there's a complete cultural misunderstanding, but all-in-all it's been a great start to our homestay. Our mom even stocked up on soft TP for us as she knows the stress, new environment and new food can really wreck a trainee's stomach. (Thanks, mom!!!)

Our house

And You Thought Packing For Vacation Was Annoying...

Try packing for the next 2+ years.

It feels like Carly and I have been packing for the past month. Ever since we left Brooklyn at the start of the year, our lives have centered around suitcases and the best way to fill them. When we're not actually packing, we're talking about packing. I'm starting to dream about packing. (honestly, they are more like night terrors than dreams, but you get the point)

The Peace Corps mandates that we each carry no more the 80lbs of luggage with us when we fly to South America. That's a lot easier than it sounds when you consider a decent pair of work boots is about 10% of that. We briefly toyed with the idea bringing nothing but African dashikis to make the weight restriction, but apparently the native garb of Paraguay is oriented around something called "pants."

Thankfully, with less than 5 days until our departure, we are nearing the end of our compacting campaign. Our clothes have been weighed and sorted and it looks like were going to come in under 80lbs. All of our converters, immodium, books, immodium, flashlights, immodium, tools and immodium are finding a home somewhere in our bloated backpacks. Who knew Carly's tetris skills would ever come in so handy?

Sadly, I will remain a toothless redneck in Paraguay

Here's the story: About 7 months ago, a bridge (aka fake tooth glued in the front of my mouth when I was 13) cracked. My dentist said bridges were soooo 1990, so me and the Mrs. decided to be big spendors and pay for a fancy new dental implant.

I've been living with a titanium anchor screwed in my gums for the past six months patiently awaiting the day when my new chopper was attached. Luckily, my dentist was kind enough to fashion me with an middle school-style retainer complete with a gnarly fake tooth during all this. I was really going to miss taking that thing out at restaurants before eating or feverishly searching for its whereabouts on the sidewalks of NYC after a good sneeze.

Anyways, I went to my dentist last week to take an impression so that my new tooth would look and fit as perfect as I always imagined. Would I go with the standard white or pay tribute to my fallen homeys and go with gold? Vampires are all the rage right now, should I get a fang? The possibilities were endless. Or so I thought...

My dentist's exact words when she leaned over to take the impression: "Uh-oh."

As it turned out, my implant never fused to my jawbone. I was one of the lucky 10% of patients whose implant fails for no apparent reason. It was like winning the lottery...the shittiest lottery in the world.

I had surgery two days ago to remove the failed implant and to get a skin graph on my gums (about as fun as it sounds). Since the entire implant process takes 6-8 months, I won't be able to have another surgery before we leave for Paraguay in February. On the plus side, my dentist has agreed to make me "a handful of retainers" to take with me for the next 27 months.

With my dreams of greeting the people of Paraguay with a perfect smile crushed, I hope they'll still welcome this walking jack-o-lantern with open arms. I may not be pretty, but they'll always be welcome to sit on my front porch while I relax in my rocking chair and drink from a dirty jug with "XXX" on the front.