Feliz Cumpleaños Cuerpo de Paz Paraguay

The 40^th anniversary celebration was nice, a short ceremony at the Paraguay-US Cultural Center with great food and a photo exhibit afterwards. Of course it has provoked many questions and controversies in the pcv community these past few months:

-why are we celebrating ourselves? Isn’t this money better spent elsewhere? What purpose does this event really serve?

-what’s important is the collaboration, the teamwork between pcvs and Paraguayans. This was the essence of the US ambassador’s speech, that we’re so happy to be here working side by side with Paraguayans. Which sounds nice, and is certainly our goal. I was intrigued, however, in that his speech was followed by the speech of a Paraguayan woman who hosted a pcv, and she talked about how she loved Georgina like part of her family, Georgina slept in their beds and ate their foods, and she was so hard working and worked in the schools and in the coop and did so much for them. Her perspective was just one person’s, of course, but I bet it’s typical – the highest compliment for a Paraguayan to pay us is to say that we’re hard working and part of the family. What we want is for people to see us working and join in working with us and continue working long after we’re gone. Two different things.

-after 40 years, should pc still be in Paraguay? Should we still be teaching adults how to brush their teeth and rehashing the same things we’ve been teaching for 40 years? Is there a time limit, or should there be, for pc to work in a country??

-the ceremony was in spanish, with some guarani too, which I thought was great. Translators were available for PC Washington staff.

-the volunteer representative mentioned how pcvs are really only able to provide three things to a community: ideas, information and inspiration. I thought that was a good way to encapsulate the limitations of our work. He also saluted those who fight against poverty and injustice, and a fellow pcv took issue with that, saying that when we think of Paraguayans we should recognize their positive qualities instead of always seeing and talking about poverty. I fell into that trap sometimes with my students in NY, thinking about all the things they lacked instead of all the positive abilities they had already.