Are you embaressed to live alone?

These last few months Ive started making: dish / floor detergent with my comite and once with the community. My hope is to get them to start selling it when they go into town on saturdays with their veges. So far its still sitting on the table in the comiteś house, prepared, bottled, etc waiting for the motivation, that painful endless annoying pushing that is needed of volunteers when they have told me ¨we should sell this. this would work to sell¨. The logisitics of making it include: buying a kit in asuncion at the whole seller (a pain), bringing it back, finding a date that is good, making it with the comite, finding old soda bottles to put it in with lids! (good to have!), place and ya! Although this isnt a project i am necessarily proud of due to its sustainable reasons, its not something fun or dealing with agroforestry, the comite has somehow come across a huge amount of debt owned to the cooperative and another comite when their dulce (jelly,jams,etc) project failed, i feel this is at least helping out with that and perhaps keeping the incentive to stay in the comite, as many members has left. Its also a sanitation lecture which the women figured out fast ¨its very important to have detergent¨ and yes it is. So ill continue with this unexpected detergent project with the womens comite.

With my own comite ¨Super Chicas¨ we have been making Shampoo and Conditionar to sell. The process is the same but instead of soda bottles we use old shampoo and conditionar bottles when we can find them. We make more conditionar than shampoo, as many of the members of my community use regular soap for their hair and nice conditionar. But its been going well, our profits are great and we can use this money for our various cooking assignments I want to give in the future.
I orginally was more excited about the motivation making the shampoo and conditionar was going to give the girls incentive to show up to my classes, and they get super cheap shampoo and conditionar if they want, but I have found a low point in my class numbers and in my own ganas to continue to teach with only two children in the classroom. I know its not about the numbers but after preparing for an hour, getting photocopies in asuncion and once again working on my spanish, its not feeling as great as normal. I didnt have many girls show up in the winter, due to walking in the cold, so i suspended class, went to argentina. But now the effort seems so hard to continue when not many girls show up, at least i am trying reaching two girls at a time .

For example, my Myth lecture i was so excited about. I got to learn, hear about paraguayan myths and would share those from america and europe. I prepared drawing various american mythical characters and expanded to include some tall tales, childrens beliefs because paraguay has so many. I had them all on a big paper with descriptions in spanish underneath. Looking back I perhaps scared them with too many words on the paper. Paraguayan girls in my community are not used to reading much (this includes school). I had drawn: tooth fairy, santa claus and rudolph and elves, lock ness sea monster, Paul Bunnyan and his blue ox, Easter Bunny, Big Foot, leporchauns, mermaids and others. I photocopied all paraguayan myths for them to color and play a Go Fish game. I also had photocopied a checkers game with myths. I was going to do a show and tell, very exciting.... two girls showed up, one my host sister whose older and probably feels obligated to show up which i wish she wouldnt feel this way, the other a neighbors daughter. TWO GIRLS. Well the whole time we spent coloring the paraguayan myths, my host sister showed up late and i lost my motivation to present my myths i had drawn and they didnt seem interested.
At this point I know some of you would think, why dont you work in the school and then you may get more numbers, but this defeats my purpose of having a place to increase the self esteem of the young girls in my community by having a place where they feel safe and confident to speak up and learn.

Its been a long few months. Im learning that projects in site are A LOT HARDER THAN I THOUGHT. They take so much time and energy and emotion. Anyone who hasnt been in Peace Corps could never understand. For example, to photocopy those items i had to wait for the next time i was in asuncion (this is once a month). I meet with the girls every week, but a lecture with materials is a lot of ahead thinking. Ill continue with the girls because i believe in my work, but not without a saddness that is a more honest and real way of seeing myself in my community. However, we are reminded by our wonderful boss Eli, that just by living here in the community as females alone and working, we are an example, and that itself is work, progress.

One day i went across the street to give my neighbors a peanut butter and jelly sandwitch. The jelly was made from my neighbors madarine trees. This would be a cultural exchange and friendliness as they give me paraguayan cornbread from time to time. As I handed Na Teodora the dish, I was overwhelmed with happieness that i did this, last moment thoughtless act. She was happy to try it and walked away to put it in her kitchen (she would not eat it in front of me). I sat down next to her husband i dont know very well. He looked up at me, knowing i speak spanish and asked ¨ Arent you embaressed to be living alone¨? At this point the happiness of two seconds of openess and oneness hit back at me and i felt a physical heavy pain. I stumbled and said that i have my neighbors around all the time. I got up and left. This is Peace Corps. This two seconds of happiness for every two seconds of pain for every 20 minutes of muted confusion. All at a higher degree than you have ever experience.