Hard Work Pays Off

One of the things I spent a lot of time doing towards the end of my stay in Paraguay while in the office was translate documents. Pages and pages of documents from Spanish to English, to be used to solicit funding from other organizations. This didn't make it into the blog earlier because...it wasn't very exciting. Translation is tedious work (that I'll actually admit to loving) that didn't really seem worth mentioning. Well, Fundacion Paraguaya has been meeting with USAID over the past month or so and just recently received $500,000 from them for the Ikatu project! This is very exciting, and will do a lot of good.

All I did was translate things someone else had written and developed the ideas for, but it's still pretty cool to see it have direct results!
 
Here is an article written about this. Unfortunately for most of you, it's written in Spanish, but I thought I'd post it anyway for those of who can read it, if interested.

Another Take--Ikatu

One of the interns I worked with  sent this article along to me today. It is about the Ikatu project that I was working on during my time in Paraguay. I found it quite...interesting. I think many of you who have followed the work I described doing throughout my experience, will notice some discrepancies upon reading the article  You're not imagining it--you're right! Particularly things like the manner in which the indicators are measured, and the way the workshops are designed and the topics chosen. Quite fundamental differences, really. I'm curious as to where the author of the article got her information, and for what purpose it is going to be used, but I'm not sure I'll ever find out for sure!

Things are going well back in Boulder. I spent a week in Seattle right after getting back from Paraguay seeing family and friends, and am now all settled back in and starting classes tomorrow for the last year of my undergraduate education! There was a lot of culture shock and adjustment and processing that went on right after I got back. It was a struggle in a lot of ways, but ultimately I had a wonderful (that doesn't really even encompass it) experience, and I'm glad to be home.

Again, thanks so much for following along on this adventure with me!

Hello Mountains, I've missed you...

The mountains were out when I landed in Denver this morning. Everything went with perhaps the most ease possible for long international flights. My first flight was delayed by about an hour, but that was okay because I had an airport buddy in Asunción (another intern was leaving at almost the same time) and it just meant that I got to hang out in Sao Paulo for 6 hours instead of 7. No big deal. All of the rest were right on time or early. I met interesting people (including one flight attendant on my Sao Paulo-Houston flight who was then on my Houston-Denver flight, and then my bus from the airport to Boulder. Flight attendant Mary and I spent a lot of time together. And she was cool, so that is good.)

And there was no line for customs at 5 AM Houston time. None. That was good too. The immigration guy let me back into the country, based on my customs form, on which I was of course completely honest. I was in Paraguay just for tourism (I was Paraguay’s first tourist) and that cow I milked definitely does not count as contact with livestock….right?? Grabbed my bag, walked down a corridor, gave them back my bag, walked through security, got on another plane. I didn’t have to wait for my bag or a bus upon arrival in Denver. They came right when I wanted them to.

So that is all good. On the other hand, I feel like I have had a deer-in-the-headlights, what-the-heck-is-going-on look on my face ever since I landed in Houston. I think in heading to Paraguay I knew everything was going to be different than I was used to and had prepared myself for that. So, while I was learning every day and figuring the place out, I was expecting it. But this was supposed to be coming home, returning to the familiar. But it somehow feels so very unfamiliar and strange. Though I’m sure I’ll readjust quickly, for now I feel a bit off kilter…

Home?

I know, the title isn't in Spanish. Weird. But it's about time for me to start transitioning back into English, no?

I remember before I came realizing that it was soon when I could look at the 10-day weather forecast and know what the weather was going to be like when I arrived. Now I only need one more day past the 3-day forecast that automatically shows up until the weather here in Paraguay doesn't affect me anymore.

I'm leaving on Monday, so this is probably my last post in-country. The last week has been crazy and busy and wonderful. I have my final presentation in the office tomorrow morning, and then I'm done, and have the weekend to hang out with people and pack up. I'm excited to go home where the plumbing always works and I have my own bedroom and a job that I get paid to do, not to mention my family and friends, but...

I'm happy here. A deep-down, satisfied, comfortable kind of happy. And there's so much work left to be done. That's not to say they can't do it without me, of course they can. And this kind of work will never be done. Maybe I'm just not done. But life calls; school calls.

I will try to write a couple more times with more general reflections on my experience here, once I've had time to readjust to life back in the States and consider it all more completely. Thank you all for following along on this journey.

Sueños

I have heard my supervisors say to committees time and time again "It's not about money, it's about your life and your dreams." Recently, we've been trying to help the women develop specific goals and plans out of their dreams. And then, turn their goals into reality. But first, we had them write down some of their dreams. I thought I would share some.

"Mi sueños es acer un negocio de verdad y de conceguir en ayuda de ustedes y des dios" (For those of you who speak Spanish, forgive the spelling errors, I'm writing them as they did.) My dream is to have a real business and continue moving forward with help from you and from God.

"Mi sueño: dentro de 2 a 3 años sueño con este salon" My dream: within 2 to 3 years I dream of having this salon (There was a drawing of the salon, sorry I missed that.)

"Sueños: dejar a mi familia un futuro mejor: economicamente, moralmente, espiritualmente" Dreams: leave my family a better future: economically, morally, spiritually.














"Que mis hijos se casen y tener nietos" That my children get married and have grandchildren.
"Abrir mi propio joyeria en mi casa" To open my own jewlery store in my house.
"Me Gusta ayudar a todos..." I like to help everyone...
"Me gustaría abrir un peloquería en mi casa" I would like to open a hair salon in my house.

And a final thought:

Me siento linda. Si cambio, ya no voy a ser yo. I feel beautiful. If I change, I won't be me anymore.








What are your dreams?

Una Historia: Susana Zanate

A couple of weeks ago I shared the story of a woman that broke my heart and left me discouraged. Today I will tell you one that I found truly encouraging. They start the same:

A somewhat haphazardly constructed house too small for all it's members...

Incomplete walls in part of the house. (Imagine sleeping there when it rains...)

So, she too is in poverty. But that is where the similarities end. She was confident and easy to talk to. When I explained to her that I needed to take some pictures of her house for the Ikatu project and asked her if that would be okay, she said, "No, you don't need to take pictures. You just want to because you think my house is so beautiful! I'll let you." She was able to laugh at herself and at me. Well, mostly me, but the point remains: she has a sense of humor.

And her house was beautiful. Despite the missing doors and incomplete walls, it was beautiful.

There were details like dried flowers on top of her refrigerator...

Her land was clean and well kept...

She has plans. Her dream is to be able to start making her own compost and using her land for more, and finish her house. I believe her when she says she knows just how to do it. And I believe her when she says she will do it.

Para Manejar un Negocio

It’s hard to run your own business. People pay thousands of dollars to go to school for years to learn how to do it. And here I am, working with an organization who gives women in developing countries money to start their own businesses who are, on average, educated to the 5^th grade. And we expect them to know how to do be successful. Or maybe we just hope. Many of them do in fact succeed, but not all of them. We give them capacitaciones every time they take out a new loan (every 3-4 months) but they can’t learn everything they need to in those 30-45 minutes.

We’ve been giving our first round of workshops of the Ikatu program (setting and reaching goals) this week, and this will continue into next week. In the meantime we’ve started writing our next workshop, which will be on planning and budgeting. It seems like a simple thing to you to know whether you’re earning more money selling something than you’re spending on the raw materials used to make it, but that’s because you were educated past the 5th grade.

I tried to explain to a woman the other day the difference between her sales and her profit—that she wasn’t earning everything she was given from selling her empanadas because she had paid for the ingredients that went into her product. This was a difficult concept to get across, and it had nothing to do with my Spanish.

These women are not stupid. I want to emphasize that. They just haven’t ever been taught. This is where we come in. We have two hours to teach them how to make and keep one budget for their business and one for their family that allows for some savings and provisions for emergencies. And in each comité, there are one or two women who don’t know how to read and write. This is where drawings come in. We’re still working out how to teach this effectively to women who have no previous knowledge of the idea, in a way that will serve its purpose but not be overly complicated.

But it is so hard to change behaviors, to create habits. At the end of these, I often go home wondering, Are they actually going to do what we’ve just taught them?

Iguazú

This weekend, Katherine and I went on an adventure. The plan: Iguazú falls. These are famous waterfalls on the river that creates the border between Brazil and Argentina. The bus that goes there from Asuncion takes you all the way to the Brazil side, but Kat didn't have a visa for Brazil, so we were told we had to get off in Ciudad del Este, the city just on the Paraguay side of the border.

So, we followed the rules and got off of our bus at the bus terminal in Ciudad del Este though I'm pretty sure no one would have cared if we just stayed on...where we proceeded to wait for another bus that would take us to the Argentina side of the falls, where you don't need a visa to get in and we would be able to spend the night. The bus never came. (The lesson: don't get off your bus unless someone makes you.)

So, instead we just found dinner and a hotel in Ciudad del Este, drank some wine...

                           ate some chocolate...

                            played some cards....

and talked about life. Sorry, no pictures of that.

And then I asked Kat to throw cards in the air for me. I know I've found a good friend when I find one who will indulge my photographic whims with a smile...

And then we slept. In beds much more comfortable than the one I've been sleeping in for the past two months. Wonderful. We woke up bright and early Sunday morning, drank some cocido and ate some bread in true Paraguayan fashion, and decided to hop a bus into Brazil, having heard that you don't need a visa to go just for the day.

So we got on the bus and kindly asked the bus driver to drop us off at immigration, which he did. But the border people weren't too keen on letting visa-less Katherine into their country. The lesson: don't get off your bus unless someone makes you. Are you noticing a pattern here? Well, we're either slow learners, or else someone has drilled it into our heads far too many times that rules need to be followed, at least when it comes to immigration.

What do you do when one country won't take you? Go to another, of course. So we walked across no-man's-land and right back into Paraguay...

...where we hopped a bus to Argentina instead. By this time we'd learned our lesson: don't get off your bus unless someone makes you. Well, this time someone made us. But Argentina was happy to let us into their country. Thank you, Argentina.

Unfortunately, the gray and gloomy weather didn't seem to scare off the other hoards of people. As hypocritical as it may be, just because I'm an English-speaking, camera-toting white girl, doesn't mean I want to hang out with other English-speaking, camera-toting (poncho-wearing) white people. Okay, so a good number of them were from Argentina, but the point remains: tourists.

But anyway. Then we saw some waterfalls. And they were beautiful.

And then we got on a bus that drove us through Brazil  to get back to Paraguay, and five-billion more buses (I exaggerate) to get back to Asuncion. But everything worked like clockwork this time. Buses even came when people said they would. Which, quite frankly, is a miracle. It turned out to be a good adventure.

Pensamientos

Just some errant thoughts from a week in the field...

School uniforms. I have heard women say more times than I would like to relate that the reason they don't send their kids to school because they can't afford to buy them new uniforms and shoes every year. How many more kids would be educated through at least secondary school if they were allowed to wear whatever they have? Latin Americans in general seem to think that uniforms will add to the pride the children get out of their education or any other number of things, but I can't help but think that it's quite difficult to have pride in an education you never got just because your shirt was the wrong color.

Sombreros are not a lucrative business. Many of the women make sombreros by hand, which they later sell. But here's the thing: most of them are only breaking even, some of them are even losing money doing this. In most cases, they have been doing this since they were quite young, and their mothers before them... you get the idea. There's a lot of tradition and perhaps a bit of sentimentalism involved. But maybe when you don't have doors or enough clothes, there are things more important than tradition. Or maybe not, it would appear.

Childcare is a wonderful thing. Many women end up leaving businesses they've been developing for quite some time when they have another child because they can't both take care of an infant and work. It seems to me that if someone would start something like a child care center, even out of their own home, they could make some money off of it, and more women would be able to work. Everyone would be better off. I'm not sure why this doesn't happen. And while I'm at it, birth control is a wonderful thing too. I struggle to imagine that anyone actively chooses to have 15 children or 12. I met one woman last week who when asked about her bedroom situation answered thus:
"How many bedrooms do you have?"
"Two."
"And how are they divided?"
"The boys sleep in one room, the girls in the other."
"And where do you and your husband sleep?"
"He sleeps with the boys, I sleep with the girls." She followed this up with, "we can't afford to have any more kids" like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Also, it is cold. That is all.

Finally, I am leaving in just over two weeks now. That is hard to believe. I'm not sure I'll be ready.

¡Corrí!

This really has nothing to do with the work I'm doing here or even the fact that I'm in Paraguay at all, but the fact that it happened while here makes it fair game: for the first time in the three months since I injured my knee, I was able to go for a run the other day! Again in the spirit of honesty, I'm going to qualify that statement: according to my wonderful Physical Therapist, for the first week I'm allowed to run for 8 minutes every other day. Next week I get to run for a whole 12 minutes every other day. And then 15 minutes two days on, one day off the following week. You get the idea. Not much running really, but hey, you have to start somewhere, right? Right. And I'm pretty excited about it.

In other news, Winter has finally arrived here in Paraguay. It is cold. It was 37 degrees when I woke up this morning, and here's the fun part: neither the office nor our house are heated. Both have air conditioning, which I'm sure is actually more important considering how hot it gets here in summer, but heat feels pretty important too right about now. The solution? Lots of clothes and lots of tea. Mostly lots of tea. Paraguayans like tea almost as much as I do. Almost.