by Mario Machado—The weather has finally started to turn. Instead of the blistering heat of summer, reaching well over 100°F daily, fall weather has gradually taken over; it is pushed north from the Argentine border by the almost constant cool autumn breeze. Temperatures still top out in the upper 90s, but compared to the summer months, this feels like air conditioning. The mornings in particular are spectacular. The air is moist and dense, the dew finally able to collect on the grass before it is mercilessly evaporated again. Rain has become a more frequent and welcomed guest. Some of the recent large storms have ripped up large trees and broken tile and thatch roofs. Still, the water is needed if this season’s crops are going to yield anything significant.
Following a big rain, the roads are impassable for 2 to 3 days—markets are inaccessible, food is undeliverable—but this suits the pace of rural life. Most farmers in my community have begun harvesting their tobacco and have loads ready to run as soon as the road-obstructing ponds and marshes dry up. The infrastructure to work around the weather doesn’t exist here. People don’t try to fight it, they just adapt their lives to work with it. I keep wondering whether the tranquilo way of Paraguayan life (i.e., laid back, slow moving, always late, etc.) is an inherent aspect of this culture or a response to the fact that the terminal velocity of anything is determined by so many unpredictable, insurmountable factors.
This past week, I began one of several projects in my community of Guido Almada. Unbeknownst to me at the time, when I visited the school building to observe a class last Wednesday, I was actually walking into my first teaching experience in Paraguay. The teacher, who introduced me briefly and explained what I was going to be doing in the community, promptly turned the class over to me and left the room to drink tea with some other professors before I had time to protest. Therefore, I taught an hour-long class in basic English on the fly. The students, at least, seemed interested and eager to learn. To be honest, however, it might have been the novelty of having an American in their community that sparked the students’ curiosity. I can’t begin to believe that my teaching was even remotely that engaging (or useful, for that matter).
Tomorrow I begin with physics and chemistry classes, which should prove interesting indeed. I am excited to be working more, to be doing more projects, but of course, this is not without its own set of questions and doubts. How applicable will basic chemistry and physics lessons be to students who (in all likelihood) will never leave their community, let alone be put in a situation in which this knowledge is useful? There is always the thought that at least it should bring about awareness, opening their minds to thinking about the world in a different way. Still, I am not sure how I feel about this whole endeavor. As they say in Guaraní, jahechata (or “we shall see”). —Mario Machado
Mario Machado is a Peace Corps volunteer serving as an agricultural educator in the rural Paraguayan community of Guido Almada. The Allentown, Pennsylvania, native and 2011 Penn State graduate spent the summer of 2011 volunteering at the Rodale Institute and the Organic Gardening test garden.
