*Note: I'm not currently accepting freelance gigs--building Purpose Portfolio has me pretty much at capacity :) Thanks for your interest, and feel free to drop me a line if I can help find the right designer for your project. `sj
Apparently I arrived just in time for what all the students are praying was the worst cold snap of the winter. Just thought I’d let you know I’m not in danger of hypothermia anymore.
We had exams this week at the Escuela Agricola de San Francisco; complete with cramming the night before, visible stress and consternation on the part of the less prepared students, and cheating…lots of cheating.
Whenever you find someone who’s doing something that’s actually working, particularly with indigenous communities, it’s not a program you can adapt. It’s not a model you can implement. It’s not a system you can standardize and package for international distribution. It’s never a system.
Ventured into the Chaco this weekend to a truly unique little town called Filadelfia. It’s one of several German Menonite settlements nestled in the middle of one of the last largely un-tamed wildernesses in the world.
They say that you know you’ve arrived at fluency when you start dreaming in a language. I don’t have any delusions about getting to that level in these three months, but if I work really hard, I might just be able to flirt.
Went to church again this week. Most of the service is in Guarani—and therefore virtually unintelligible for me—but again this week I was soothed and strengthened by the deep familiarity of it all.
I am living for three months at the Escuela Agricola de San Francisco de Assis near the town of Cerrito in the Chaco of Paraguay.
Since I came, there has been what seems to me to be quite a bit of birth and death around here. Of course that’s kinda a given on a farm. Pigs get old and die. Young cows lay down and never get up. And it’s normal to lose some of the babies in any herd or brood. But for some reason it seems to effect me more here.
Right before I left, to spend three months in South America, my friend Seth made a few predictions:
1. You’ll come back speaking fluent Guarani
2. You’ll be super dark
3. You won’t want to eat anything
They said it was winter here. They said it would be cold. I consulted the Almanac and decided that a South American winter would be right up my alley—70 degrees, partly cloudy with the occasional afternoon shower followed by breezy, clear nights. I packed accordingly...
I leave for Paraguay in less than 72 hours. I had planned to set up a blog under my own domain, and to be fair, it's there...I just can't figure out how to make it do anything.
