Finding.....

When I first came to paraguay i knew i would deal with sexism. I knew i would have to climb higher than this and move on. When I first came to my site and heard from the other volunteer about domestic violence in my site, I knew that this too i would have to put behind me and move on. When later I met the timid females in my community i felt this was a result of the sexism, violence, lack of economic freedom. But... what i never guessed, what i never thought was how i would gain female empowerment from paraguay and the women i saw as timid and insecure would gradually bash my own sexist mind from the states, and teach me what it means to be a women in the campo and gradually i saw how the states sexism has caged my own ideas of myself. This alone is a reason for all women in the states to join peace corps. you will learn how caged your idenity is, gain a new one, and reflect on the past in the states.

When i was in seventh grade, i loved shop class. I remember we were making cars out of wood and nitrous cartages and were going to race them. I remember going after school to make sure i was going to have the smooothest ride. And i won for my weight level. i never shared this with anyone outside of class. it seemed werid for a female to boost about this, so i kept quiet.

Sexism in the states took form for me in small comments..."wasnt that too hard for you" (after a hiking trip or any task that took muscle) or a be careful, or a are you sure you can do that..... wasnt that difficult...

well its not hard, not difficult, and in fact swining a machete around cutting down trees, weeds taller than my house while being bitten by ants, stung by weeds, bees, throwing dead rats into the sugar cane, watching for snakes, in the heat and humidity is something most female volunteers go through proudly saying i bet non of my exs could even do this...

Making my bunny cage was a huge obsticle. Ive never made one before!! I had a list of supplies i needed, ok... but how.. theres no lego manual saying what to do. So I swing my machete into some trees in the forest bring back four for the four sides. Dragging them through the forest, cutting off all branches into a Y. I sawed the bambu, after hauling, cutting that down, and wondered if i had ever sawed before in my life.... and why HADNT I.... the thing is that although the women in my community at first glance are less empowered than american women, american women have so much to learn from them. I am learning! .. for paraguayan females, what i was doing was seen as normal, how silly would it be to discribe to them that in the states usually a male rakes leaves!!! or does the things i was doing. A females role is all work. in the campo, all work. In the states, we tend to be in the house... and we call ourselves more empowered than the third world women!! Whose more independent, self sustaining...

it boggles my mind, bashes it into mandioca flour when i think that i used to judge the timidness of the females as being unempowered. Both females from paraguay and the states are unempowered in different ways but equally destructive. for the first world females we still deal with domestic violence. we may have more empowerment being finacially independent, but paraguayan women if taken and placed in the forest and we played survior I would go with the paraguayan.

and on top of all this muscle work, they still love pink nail polish......