| May 14, 2006 |
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| Written by Michael Berg | |||
| Sunday, 14 May 2006 00:00 | |||
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Tourism Guide
Greetings from Caaguazu! Yesterday I was feeling frustrated, because I had prepared to present to the Municipal Council all the work Ive been doing for the cadastre. Then the plan was to discuss the possibilities for elaborating a cadastre within the next few months. At this point, Ive done about all the preparation possible. If cadastre work is to continue the council would have to authorize a budget, and I wanted to see if they were willing to and if so, what they were willing to invest.
There was no presentation because only two of the nine council members came to the meeting, which was one of their legally mandated meetings. I was unable to go to a big meeting of Plan
Paraguay
in San Domingo yesterday because I stayed in Paso Yobai to give my presentation at the city council meeting that didnt happen. Last Saturday I also came to the council meeting, because I was told the wrong date by one of the council members. The day before I waited around for Don Agustin to come for his scheduled computer class, and he didnt show up.
There were too many frustrations, so I just felt like getting out of town yesterday afternoon. But Im a little tired of taking the bus to Villarrica. So I decided to bicycle to Caaguazu, which Id never done before. It took around five hours of bicycling on dirt roads. By the time I got there the sun was down, but there was a full moon, and the world is nice and cool here now.
Last week a lady from the Ministry of Tourism called. Paso Yobai Secretary General Don Tata answered the phone. The lady needed all these addresses and phone numbers, so Tata gave the phone to me. After all, I found the maps of Paso Yobai in
Asuncion
and I made the phone directory for the Municipality. The lady wanted to know the addresses of the post office, police station, hotel, ice cream parlor, restaurant, creek, all these kinds of things. People dont use street names and addresses in Paso Yobai. Still, some of the streets do officially have names.
I showed the map to Don Tata, and he pointed out that a bunch of the names of the street had been change, mostly to the names of his immediate ancestors in the Samaniego family. So we made the corrections, and I helped the woman out as much as I could with addresses and phone numbers. We got most of the information, although I occasionally had to leave the phone and ask people questions. I think she got frustrated with me, and started asking to speak to Don Tata again, but Don Tata had given me the phone because he didnt know the answers and he considers me the map and cadastre man. He didnt want to deal with her.
I think that there could conceivably some benefit to having a guide which has the phone number of The Faro Restaurant, the police station, the Municipality and such things. Some of her questions were absurd, like where 911 services are based out of and where the municipal airport is located. It was also funny to me the way she would get exasperated, like when I told her that the bus terminal is on the main street on the corner of another street without a name, and it has no phone. She had trouble believing these things but they are true.
Maybe shes never left
Asuncion
, I dont know. Paso Yobai is a small town where everybody knows where everything is, and thus there hasnt been a huge effort made to specify addresses and street names. There arent a lot of tourists here seeing the sights. In the maps I use for cadastre work, the streets are just Street 1, Street 2, Street 3, etc.
Theres this guy who comes to the Municipality probably 3 times a week named
Martinez
. Usually he just sits there and drinks terere, but every once in a why he someone comes in and he takes a payment, and looks at a receipt. Hes friendly, hes mostly quiet. I think he is a representative of the phone company, although Im not sure. I forgot to ask him what he does when I first got there, and now, half a year later, it would be embarrassing to ask. I wonder how much information we all think we are supposed to know, but dont, and are afraid to ask, because we think that everyone else thinks we are supposed to know the information too, and if we ask they will know for sure that we dont know.
This happens to me a lot with names too.
Last week there was also big meeting of the leaders of Paso Yobai politicians, people who write things, religious people, teachers, and others. Sitting at a table in front of chairs with people in the Municipal Auditorium were Mayor Luis Dure, Department Council Representative and former Mayor Oscar Chavez, the President of Guairá Council Roberto Arrua. They were all there with the new public prosecutor for environmental crimes.
Arrua gave a really interesting speech. He talked about how all over Guairá, especially Paso Yobai, there is the problem with dripping diesel fuel into creeks and the terribly damaging practice of fishing with homemade bombs. Now for the first time ever, there was a full time prosecutor, in Villarrica, whose job it was to prosecute environmental offenses. The corruption in Paraguay is rooted in Asuncion and spreads outwards, he said, thus it is a wonderful step that now Guairá has a Guaireño, based out of his own Department, tackling these issues of life and death. He pointed out that for the first time, the prosecutors office was able to enter Minas Paraguayas, which is a walked, heavily armed fortress a few kilometers outside of Paso Yobai, where gold is mined.
He urged everyone to report all violations to the office. Even if you are unable to bring in proof, the office will investigate. Even if you dont know who is doing the damage, but just know that damage is being done, the office will investigate. When they are found, everybody involved will be prosecuted. For example, the illegal cutting down of forests the landowner, the cutters, the transporters and the buyers are all susceptible to prosecution.
There was a long discussion afterwards. People talked about the need for more education in the schools. More specifically, and I believe more practical in the short term, is a wide distribution and campaign of general education of what the specific laws are. If people know what the laws are, they can know if they or their neighbors are breaking them. I saw a previous list that had gone out, where the offenses were listed as Polluting the Air, Polluting the Water, Introducing Dangerous Chemicals to the Environment. A little vague. The laws are not vague.
But Arrua very sensibly stressed the need to prosecute violators. Repression and education go hand in hand, he said, one will not work without the other.
The discussion afterward dealt a lot with mercury. Some people very vocally expressed the opinion that the mercury being used right now for gold extraction will make Paso Yobai uninhabitable for 20 years.
This afternoon I went to talk to Don Nestor the English teacher who comes once a week to Paso Yobai and 3 de Noviembre. I agreed to help with the class in 3 de Noviembre once every other week. Nestor seems like a nice guy. I say that because saying something nice is usually what people are supposed to do before they say something mean, even if its true. Nestor is an English teacher, but his English isnt all that good, bless his heart. And his didactic method is to explain complicated grammar in terms that the kids dont understand, while they ignore him. This explains why there is nobody in Paso Yobai, besides my students, who speak any English.
Because of pressure Id received from parents in 3 de Noviembre, I arranged to work with Nestor to work with him to teach English at the 3 de Noviembre high school. So I show up a few days ago on the pre-arranged day, and Nestor just hadnt shown up to teach his class. So I figured, I was there, Id get the class together and do a basic lesson. They werent all that interested in English, and to my amazement after six months of class none of them knew the words I, you, he, she, it, we, and they. The pronouns.
I gave a basic 45 minute action class on pronouns, How are you? and some ways to answer the question. But I dont think there is much of a reason for me to go back there to teach English.
I dont think that it is all that important for people to learn English if they dont have any desire to do so, Im just willing to teach if people have a desire, because its something I know how to do. But if there has been an English class in a school for half a year and nobody knows the pronouns, you might as well just stop wasting the time of everybody involved.
The day before I went to Planchada and conducted a pretty interesting participative workshop on gender roles, sex, the difference between what is biologically determined and what is culturally determined, what can be changed if there is a desire. It was made by another Peace Corps volunteer. I like it because it doesnt judge and say what is the right and wrong way to conduct relations between men and women. It just gets people thinking and talking about how most of what it means to be a man and to be a woman are not set in stone, and differ from culture to culture and over time.
Then that afternoon I went to give a basic English class at the elementary, coordinated through Professor Higenio. We had arranged me to come and give the lesson the previous month. I even wrote it down three times because he was adamant that I write it down so that I wouldnt forget the date. He said, make sure you dont forget, I will be there.
I didnt forget the date and showed up at the right date. But he did not show up because he had something else going on. So I gave my lesson with the substitute there, which was a little awkward because Higenio didnt tell the substitute that I was going to be coming, I dont know the substitute, and he was scowling a lot, but I think that he is just a scowler.
The class went well, because I pretty much used the same techniques I used in
China
, acting out words as you say them, and kids love that kind of stuff.
I think I figured out what the skinny policeman Pira Kangue is yelling whenever people pass. According to one of the other policemen, he is yelling, Ay chuki!, as in Chucky, the little doll in all those movies that cuts people into pieces. Im not sure why he refers to people as Chucky.
A couple days ago I was out running to
San Jose
on a skinny road. The road is in a small ravine, with yerba mate being grown on the higher ground on both sides. All of a sudden in front of me I heard this voice yell, ¡Salí de allí! Then I saw that there was this guy on a horse galloping behind charging cattle. Having no desire to be stampeded, I quickly scurried up into the yerba mate, and when the cows passed the man and I exchanged the customary thumbs up sign and an exchange of adios.
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