Bees and Thinking Small

Happy Easter to all. It has been quite a while since I've updated this sucker, so let me fill you in on recent happenings in my corner of Paraguay.

Well, come to think of it, not a lot is happening now! We have just finished Holy Week, which is a time to rest and be with family. My host brother Fernando, who left site a few months ago to go work elsewhere, came to visit for the week, which was great. In my first few months in site here I really depended on him to help me get to know the community, introducing me to folks and showing me around, and it was tough for me when he left because he and I are not just work partners but close friends.

In terms of work, things continue to develop, (as always) slowly but surely. The tree project we were planning with Fernando has been put on hold for many reasons, and I am recently focusing more on beekeeping. I am working with a few local beekeepers, and also with a farmers' committee whose members recently collaborated to buy a new bee box. I have about a year left in service, which I hope will be enough time for us to learn the essentials of beekeeping by going through a full season, keeping the colonies healthy during the winter and (hopefully) harvesting around October/November. The group of 10-15 members currently has three colonies, which is obviously not much, but the idea is that, by dividing strong colonies and capturing other wild hives, and purchasing boxes with proceeds from future honey harvests, the group can build up a larger number of strong colonies over time. I suggested to the group the possibility of using Kenya Top Bar Hives, a low-cost technology that can be mostly constructed from local materials and an alternative to the expensive and complicated "modern hive," but the members are not, at least for the moment, interested.

Working with this beekeeping group is very different from the group I worked with in Bolivia, which had an 18-hive apiary, centrifuge, jars and labels, all purchased with Peace Corps funds. When I got to Sopachuy in Bolivia, that project was already 3 years old and there was still lots of work to do to make it sustainable (who knows if we might have succeeded). Here in my site in Paraguay we are starting small, with a small number of farmers who are collaborating their own money for the project. From my end I am working with the group just providing training, not (at least for now) money. Because of the unique nature of my service, I have very little time (only a year left in site) to work, and am not certain if I will be followed in site by another PCV. I therefore do not want to start any project that is so big that I will not be able to see it through to completion, or at least to a stage where it is relatively self-sustaining. So I am thinking small, a few farmers, a few colonies. It would be a shame to ask for and receive lots of money from PC, the government or an NGO for a big project when, in fact, there might not be enough time and/or genuine interest to make the project succeed. So we are just focusing on learning the basics of beekeeping with those who are interested.

Development work is complicated. As many Volunteers learn, you don't just go to the 3rd world and "help." Conversely, you can't just send money from the states to "help," without responsibly researching your charity of choice to find out exactly what kind of program you are supporting.

Okay, this post is getting a little long, so let me just say that I am doing well, have lots of friends in site and other PCV friends as well, and am smack in the middle of one hell of a journey. More on the personal aspects of PC life, and hopefully an update on a planned fish-farming project, next time. Sorry for taking so long to post this entry.

Peace.