Have You Voted Yet?

Four years ago Kevin and I spent the better part of an afternoon waiting in line with our neighbors to vote in one of the most important elections of our lifetime. I never thought that this year we’d have even more at stake. 

Despite missing the inundation of television ads and the camaraderie of a polling place, this time around we still managed to get swept up in the spirit of democracy. Not surprisingly, exercising your civic duty from 5,000 miles away takes a little extra planning. We started the process in August and wrapped things up in late October. As long as the Embassy keeps up their end of the deal, we care, we count, we voted.

Timeline:

• Checked the Chicago Election Board website for weeks waiting for the launch of their online system
• Started paperwork online to register for an Overseas Absentee Ballot
• Walked over a mile to one of the only working printers in town 
• Paid to print documents
• Signed documents
• Taped completed documents to the front door of my house and waited for enough sun to photograph them (no scanner in town)
• Processed files in Photoshop to export in PDF format
• Optimized PDF in Acrobat to make file small enough for email
• Emailed documents to Chicago Election Board
• Waited
• Received link to mark ballot online
• Rode 6 hours on a bus with sort-of-working air conditioning on a 100 degree day to the capital
• Rode 1 hour on a bus with no air conditioning on a 100 degree day to the Peace Corps Office
• Strained brain to remember password to login to the Peace Corps computer system
• Found email from Chicago Election Board and followed link to mark ballot
• Voted
• Started printing election documents
• Ran out of paper halfway through job
• Emotionally prepared myself to argue that even though the Volunteer computer lounge had used it’s allotted amount of paper for the week, denying us more would allow the terrorists to win
• Learned the person in charge of paper was out of the office and received a ream of paper, sans argument
• Resumed printing
• Strained brain again in an attempt to remember the words to Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American”
• Gathered documents, headed off in search of a glue stick and scissors
• Hit pay-dirt when the Peace Corps librarian had appropriately sized envelopes so instead of making envelopes from scratch, we could just glue the official envelope front to a ready-made envelope
• Assembled envelopes for overseas absentee registration, ballot documents, and ballot
• Modified a ready-made envelope with scissors and tape so I could fit the ballot envelope inside the ballot document envelope
• Cleaned up craft station
• Placed stack of envelopes in the Peace Corps Office Embassy mailbox
• Tracked down an “I Voted” sticker
• Drank some tereré

As Chicago residents we actually had it easier than a lot of other Volunteers. So what’s your excuse?

As a Chicago voter, I couldn't help but wonder if the city was encouraging me to vote twice

Setting up our craft station

Required materials

The coveted sticker

"And I'm proud to be an American..."

"...'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land..."

Se fue...

A few months back, two Peace Corps technical trainers stopped by our little house in the South while surveying locations for future training activities. As Americans who have lived in Paraguay for ten and thirty years, respectively, they both offer unique perspective into the cultural differences between our two countries. Over dinner, Kevin and I enjoyed their insight.

For example, in Paraguay greeting people involves a sort of ritual. Women meeting other women press cheeks on each side and make a kissing sound. Women greeting men guide the introduction and choose either the same kiss shared with the ladies or a handshake. Men greeting men shake hands, sometimes gripping the opposite shoulder with the free hand. Men rarely kiss each other. At this point in the conversation, Kevin mentioned that our host father always kisses him. Jon smiled and replied, “That means he actually considers you his son.”

We didn’t need another person to point this out to us.

In Peace Corps Paraguay volunteers live with host families during their first six months in country. Especially during training, our host families often regard us as confused baby birds, a little lost and incapable of fending for ourselves. Although in many departments this assessment hit spot on, in other ways it got tiresome. I knew this constant scrutiny came from a loving--and initially helpful--place. (Even the most common daily tasks, when placed in a Paraguayan context, required re-learning.) I, though, couldn’t wait to cook for myself, walk a block alone, or self-supervise my ironing.

I started thinking about moving into our own place as soon as we stepped foot in site. As much as I deeply appreciated these folks opening their home to us, I still found myself in desperate need for some alone time. Many volunteers form deep bonds with their Paraguayan families, others keep them at arms’ length. As I had little desire to relive the critique of my teenage years for the now third time, I expected to fall into the later category. I already had a mother and she stopped nagging me about a decade ago. Lucky for me, I didn’t have an option in this particular situation.

Nelly (aka Mitad) and Felipe, their adult children, and extended family took us in and never gave us the chance to say no. They included us in everything and introduced us as family members from day one. When it came time for us to move into our our house, Mitad stopped by every day--and never empty handed. Felipe helped us hang our mosquito net and made sure we had a safe, hot shower--rewiring the whole operation before we could even ask. They made us feel like one of their own.


August 7th, we lost Felipe. He never regained consciousness after the stroke that befell him two weeks previous. Before that, he hadn’t had so much as a cold in six years.

While Mitad took control of making sure I ate enough, spoke minimal English, and scolded me for letting my husband do any housework, Felipe maintained a more quiet, reassuring presence. Whenever I prepared American food, he always took seconds. He never pushed me or criticized my Spanish. He had the best giggle.

We giggled over the reappearance of lettuce on the dinner table after months of summer drought. (Felipe maintained a beautiful--and impressive--vegetable garden behind the house.) We giggled when we overheard the kids curse or make smart aleck comments. We giggled the hardest the day after Carnaval when he asked me--with a straight face--if I saw lots of “colas afuera” (tails out).

The last time I saw Felipe, I kissed him on the cheek and told him I’d see him tomorrow. I have no idea if he knew how much Kevin and I cared for him. His love, though, was never in doubt.

Felipe loved his children and grandchildren deeply. For last year’s first day of spring parade, he outfitted a big wheel with a refrigerator box creating “The Candy Train.”

Tanto Tiempo

Deep down, I knew I would not avoid this moment. I hemmed and hawed and even put in precautionary measures, yet in the face of a litany of promises made to myself, I have arrived at the inevitable. Despite my best efforts towards the contrary, I have little alternative but to lead off this installment of “Rate of Exchange” with one hateful phrase: tanto tiempo, aka long time no talk.

There comes a time when nearly every Peace Corps Volunteer with a blog starts to neglect posting--and often at about the same point in our service. In fact, in our Welcome Book, Peace Corps advises us to warn our friends and families that a normal lapse in communication often comes around the nine-month-in-site mark. Our projects pick up, we get busy, and we settle in. Somehow things start to seem normal.

With the ability to adapt written into our DNA, humans can eventually acclimate to most any situation. Last October’s hassles now register as standard operating procedure and once odd sites seen enough times stop making an impression. No longer fazed by things that felt so strange a matter of months ago, these days I don’t really have anything to write home about. Nothing has changed, except me.

The Peace Corps’ adeptness in predicting these personal changes continues to surprise me throughout our service. During our first few months in country, our trainers spent a lot of time talking about the “Emotional Roller Coaster” that follows every volunteer. This timeline maps out two years worth of high and low points, often to the month.  Like many of my new colleagues, I found the idea ludicrous that a prophetic piece of charla paper knew my reaction to situations so far in advance. How could a stranger predict that in mid-January of 2012 I’d probably feel a little frustrated or that September of 2011 my life would fill with wonder and excitement?

Startlingly, their formula preaches the truth--and evidently applies to Peace Corps volunteers worldwide, regardless of assignment. Just within Paraguay, our sites, jobs, backgrounds, beliefs, and ages vary greatly. And yet this crystal ball works in each region where volunteers serve. How?

As a devoted reader of worldwide Peace Corps blogs, I’ve come upon countless entries starting off, “You know you’re in...” or “Only in...”  Funny thing, though, I can relate to most of the incidents on these top ten lists. Very rarely do any of the things/moments/attitudes listed occur exclusively within the Peace Corps post in question. Down here, in the heart of South America, I regularly find myself annoyed/tickled/flabbergasted by incidents supposedly unique to the Peace Corps South Pacific experience.

So, then, where lies the commonality? Do the countries where Peace Corps serves bear such a striking resemblance that their corresponding volunteers parallel each others' experience? Does development work look the same no matter where it happens?

Yet these countries do not look the same nor do their citizens act the same. More likely, it’s us. Our humanity unites every person on the planet, but could our American lens impact the way we react to life? As much as the United States stresses the contribution of the individual--encouraging the unique and rewarding those who have made themselves distinct from their peers--our American-ness links us. Regardless if we’ve spent our lives embracing or rejecting these values, they make up the core of our personalities. This shared upbringing resonates as we develop impressions of new cultures.

Travel and spending time with people from different places often teaches us that we have more in common than not. I’ve never felt more “American” than I do now, living in Paraguay. After years of training pushing me to set myself apart, perhaps this time away will show me that I have a lot more in common with my neighbors back home too.

In spite of the universality of the Peace Corps experience, we still have rare moments. For example, I don’t know another volunteer whose neighbor’s pet carpincho wears a child’s tank top on cold days and is best friends with a giant (and over-protective) dog.