Process and Vindication

Greetings from sunny Paraguay. I´ve just come back from Thanksgiving weekend, celebrated by about 100 PCV´s every year at the Hotel Tirol outside of Encarnación, Paraguay. It´s a great weekend filled with laughter, good food (even turkey and stuffing), swimming, music, dancing, good conversations and perhaps even a beer or two (Dad, you can edit that last part out for the Trinity Leader). Now it´s back to the campo, where honey harvest season is in full swing.

Recently we harvested for the first time with my beekeeping committee members, who began practicing beekeeping with me when I arrived last year and have now gone through all the essential steps of a season, from capture to harvest. The committee is a group of very special individuals. They collaborated with their own money to buy two brand-new bee boxes, contributing 36,000 Guaranies a piece. This equals about $7.20, but for poor small farmers in Paraguay, it´s a lot of money. Beekeeping is an almost perfect development activity, since it requires little work, is relatively easy to understand, conforms to local practices, is intrinsically interesting and enjoyable work, and brings in good profits. I say ¨almost,¨ however, because the initial investment to buy the equipment is sizable, and not practical for many poor farmers. But a group of 15 members putting their money together toward the project can begin relatively easily. Unfortunately many committees in Paraguay are reluctant to do this, perhaps because 1) They would prefer to apply for and receive government or NGO grants, 2) They don´t have enough trust in one another to contribute their own money, or 3) They just don´t feel they can spare the extra capital. However, when people put their own money into something, they feel they have a greater share in it and are therefore more likely to continue working on the project. Thankfully, the committee had enough trust in each other, and in me, to give it a shot. Last week´s harvest, a solid 12 liters, was for me a vindication, both of my work with the group and, in a larger sense, of my work with the Peace Corps in general. So much of what we as Volunteers do, the impact that we have, is unquantifiable, unmeasurable, and often that makes us feel uncertain or insecure about the value of what we´re doing. But when you hold a bottle full of pure, delicious honey you and your friends harvested, you see a tangible result of your hard work. I have done something good. After nearly two years of mixed results and adjusted expectations, it´s nice to just feel proud of myself.

Included below are some pictures of recent life, work, etc. Enjoy and Merry Christmas to all (you really think I´m gonna make another blog post before Christmas?) Peace...

Me and Hugo, drinking tereré and gearing up for a capture.

Inside a wild hive of Africanized bees during a capture.

I´m pretty hardcore. Bees don´t even sting me though because

1. They´re afraid of me, and

2. They can smell my Zen and they know I´m not a threat.

Honey inspections. The bees cap the honey panels with wax when they´re finished dehydrating the nectar they bring from flowers. This panel is about ready for harvest.

New life. Born in the middle of a thunderstorm. Can´t think of a scarier,

more jolting way to enter the world.

Me and Fernando leading an Agriculture workshop to a

mixed group of Acuña locals and new, green PC Trainees.

Host dad Valerio ¨Willy¨ harvesting honey.

Fruits of my labor.

Artifact from Jesuit ruins near Encarnación. The Jesuits may have had a quasi-colonial influence, teaching Spanish and converting the indigenous Guaraní to Christianity, but they also learned to speak Guaraní, lived in peace with the locals, taught them about agriculture and organized them into larger, sustainable communities. It still smacks of colonialism but it´s a lot better than what the greedy, murderous Spanish Empire was doing. There is a possible corrollary between Jesuits vs. Spain and Peace Corps vs. US Gov´t./Multinational Corp.´s.

At least the Jesuits were trying to do the right thing, and ultimately were on the people´s side.

Whose side are you on?