This update will be short, because I haven't been keeping notes as well as before. But I will get back to doing that again.

I've been out of Paso Yobai for a while because I had an In Service Training, with the Municipal Services Development volunteers and a counterpart. I brought Eyddy Burgos, Paso Yobai Environmental Affairs Secretary. We learned all sorts of technical things about elections and commisions. It was worthwhile. On the way to training I got a chance to visit a friend, Kasey, in La Colmena, a town founded by Japanese people. It's got a lot of Japanese Paraguayans. This lady in Colmena cooked a great Japanese meal for us at the restaurant there as she sung along to Guarani polkas.

I've been running around Asuncion meeting people from government and other organizations about the cadastre. I also visited Blanca in Villeta again. It was good to see Blanca. She gave me a big hug and smile and called me an ingrate for not visiting her sooner. She is doing as well as before, still with the foot problems, but she's got a lot of customers for her sewing. While in Villeta I also went to the quinciañera (15 year celebration for a girl) of Jason's host sister Fatima. It was the most over the top quinciañera I've ever seen in Paraguay. Hundred and hundreds of guests. Ten bright pink cakes were there, lots of food, and everything was filmed and broadcast on a big screen in the tinglado (gymnasium-like place) as is happened. Fatima was all done up very beautiful in a pink dress. It had to be hard to be her that night, because she had to constantly smile as the camera was contantly on her as she greeted everyone and danced with every male at the celebration. Can you really be happy that much, under that kind of pressure? It's got to be hard to be a quinciañera.

A couple weeks when I sent a message to all y'all from Caaguazu I was feeling pretty frustrated with my work, thus I jumped on a bicycle and went to Caaguazu. But things have been changing.

All of a sudden I'm real busy. I feel for the first time that I have some sort of handle on the cadastre business - my goal is still to get a team on the streets to compile the data to complete the cadastre. My goal is to have that begin at the end of August. Originally my goal was to begin that in May, but that was completely unrealistic. Now I actually think it might happen - but with the mayoral and city council elections coming up, the political will might be difficult to muster. Right when I get things together to get started the elections come along!

I'm also working on getting books for the new Paso Yobai high school library and the library in Planchada. I'm going to work with library comissions to make pedidos and after July 4th weekend spend two days in Asuncion embassies and organizations begging for books. The schools NEED books. Few people read, and I think some of the kids would begin to read, if there were any books to read.

If any of you know of people who have an excess of books in Spanish (or Guarani) and can think of a way to get them to Asuncion, that would be of great help. But if you do have the books, please don't bankrupt yourself in shipping - that's the expensive part.

Plus I have English class, a fogon building expedition with the Miguel the Fogon King in a couple weeks and they want me to host trainees the week before I leave. For the first time since I've been in tranquilolandia I feel busy. Which is going to seriously cut into my hours a day on the guitar, but that's alright.

I think the only other interesting I have to tell you about life in Paso Yobai was how important Mother's Day was. Mother's Day in Paraguay was the day after Mother's Day in the United States. It was Monday, May 15th. It was also Paraguayan Independence Day, and thus it was an official holiday for work and school.

At midnight, the first official minute of Paraguayan Mother's Day, my neighbors start blasting as loud as possible pro-mother music on their stereo system. At midnight. It woke me up.

All day the next day people were visiting mother's and playing pro-mom music, and singing and talking about mothers. Supposedly it was also Independence Day, but nobody was talking about independence. Nobody was talking about Dr. Francia. There were no parades touting that Paraguay was the first country in South America to gain independence. Nobody stirred up patriotic fervor that day in Paso Yobai. This was Mom's Day. Mom beats Paraguay, which I guess is how it should be.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."