My Route!

When they said we would be busy this summer, they definitely weren't kidding! These past few weeks have been filled with planning for the arrival of our volunteers, surveying communities, doing a three-day long training with all 37 volunteers, then finally dropping them off at their respective communities. When we finally brought them to their host families, everything became real. Strangely, it felt a lot like how I would imagine dropping off your kids at their first day of school would feel. We were excited for them, eager for them to learn and grow and tell us all about their stories. We also felt a little nervous, hoping they would be okay even though we know they would be.

The way we decide who goes to which community is a fun but crazy process where we not only consider which pairs of volunteers will be compatible as partners for the summer, but also consider which families can take boys and/or girls, and whether the community as a whole will take two boys, two girls, or two girls and a boy (those are the only three possible combinations)


My route consists of three communities, with two boys in each. Already I'm feeling very proud of everything the vols have accomplished. From milking a cow and learning how to herd cattle, to having a successful first meeting with the community, my vols are pretty darn awesome and I feel really lucky to be their supervisor!



We did this funny "route reveal" game, where we gave all them clues about their supervisor in the form of puzzle pieces. My volunteers couldn't figure out my clue for a while, but when they finally did, it was such a happy moment! All six of the boys ran over to my table, where we laid out cups of juice with the names of their communities written on the bottom. As soon as they ran over, I gave them all a big hug and was ecstatic to begin telling them all about the place they would be living this summer and the people they would be meeting. And seeing as the carpincho, or capybara, is my spirit animal here in Paraguay, the boys decided on naming our route Los Carpinchos!


Route Reveal:

Aw, so happy

A bit about the geography of our communities:
All of them are within the departamento of Guairá, and within Guairá there are different distritos. In our Amigos project this summer, we are only working in communities within the distritos of Ñumi and Independencia.


My Route:

Cerro Corra (Ñumi)
Santo Domingo (Independencia)
Mayor Cué (Independencia)

Ñumi is the little blue one in the center, and Independencia is the large red on the right hand side. Staffhouse is in Villarica, the red dot. 

This is going to be an amazing summer!