Trying to Beat the Heat

It has been HOT HOT HOT here! We have been doing nothing but sweating for the last 5 days. On Monday night at 11 pm in my room it was 95 degrees, or so said my handy dandy LL Bean alarm clock, and this was with the lights off, window open and fan on! You can only imagine what the days are like. Sunday was probably the hottest day since my arrival, but I was lucky enough to go to a place called Salto Cristo for the day. Salto means waterfall in Spanish. Laura’s youth group from Church went and I got to tag along. It was the perfect way to cool off. The heat continues until it rains to cool things down. Although it did rain on Tuesday afternoon, the cool front that it brought lasted only about 4 hours. Wednesday was sunny and hot once again. So it is definitely as hot (probably hotter) as NOLA or Tampa in the summer. And we do not have those afternoon rain showers or AC to cool us down. On the positive side I am starting to get a tan!

The terrain here is pretty flat, lots of green grass and trees but no big mountains. We did see a few small mountains on the excursion on Sunday. In the city where we are training the roads are mostly dirt. There are some brick roads and also a few paved roads, which are the main routes. The dirt is red and sticks to all your shoes. It’s kind of like going hiking everyday!

The big thing here right now is “Fiebre Amarailla” or Yellow Fever. There have been outbreaks of Yellow Fever over the last week and the rumor is that it caused someone to die and put another person in the hospital here. We had to get the vaccine on our first day in country from the Peace Corps, but for the Paraguayan people obtaining the vaccine is a problem. There are not enough vaccines for everyone in the country so they give priority to certain sectors. Children under 10 can all get the vaccine but no one over 60 can get it through the Public Health Department. The Dept gives them out for free but people often have to wait in long lines or take a bus to Asuncion to get them. It’s very scary for the people here because the threat is very real and it seems unfair that the vaccine is not obtainable for everyone. Other frightening diseases transmittable through bugs are Dengue Fever and Chengas, neither of which are preventable and both can be deadly. Dengur is a viral infection transmitted through mosquitos and causes flu like symptoms but exacerbated. Chengas is transmitted through a type of bug that lives in the walls and furniture and comes out a night. The bug bites you and then deficates on your skin. If you get its feces into your body in any way and the bug had Chengas you get the disease. It doesn’t cause any immediate problems, but results in heart problems later in life. We have to get tested twice during the course of service to ensure that we don’t have the disease. Those are the scariest ailments. PCVs get lots of other bugs like parasites, piques and worms that can be taken care of pretty easily. I am not so worried about those.

So this weekend I am going to stay with a volunteer for a few days near Asuncion. I already know the volunteer because last Saturday we went to her site to do have our first hands on experience with Paraguayan youth. I will be spending about 4 days with her and learning what life is like for a volunteer as opposed to a trainee. It will be a nice change in pace. Training is very structured and exhausting. I am guessing that life as a Volunteer is a little bit more relaxed.
More next week…