It is beginning to turn into summer here in Paraguay (southern hemisphere and all), which means that it's starting to get hot. I was actually surprised that, for a few weeks in winter, it actually got "cold". I say "cold" because back home in Michigan I would hardly consider 50 derees F as exactly cold. The big difference is, however, that in Michigan I can take a nice fall-weather walk breathing the crisply pleasant, earthy-smelling air, then go back inside. Here, inside and outside are the same, so there's really no escaping the temperature, especially at night when it gets down into the 40's and ocassionally the 30's. There were a few nights when I couldn't sleep through my shivering, despite wearing all the clothes I owned under 3 blankets. But that is now a thing of the past-- at least until next year.

Now it's springtime, turning into summer, and school is starting to wind down. Summer vacation doesn't technically start for several more weeks yet, but considering school usually gets out only half-way or so through the 4-hour day, skimming a few weeks off the end of the year doesn't seem too far amis.

Work in the school is still as challenging as ever. I've been doing some work with my elementary school kids, and while my teachers don't exactly block my efforts anymore, they still coldly refuse to offer any support whatsoever, and this can get discouraging. It doesn't really hurt me in any way, but the ones who are REALLY losing are the kids, so if the teachers refuse to benefit, so be it -- I will bypass their chill indifference and work directly with the students. It may not be very sustainable, but it is better than doing nothing. So I'm going to go ahead with my tooth-brushing charla tomorrow, and hand-washing on monday, despite what the teachers think or say. At least then these little monkies climbing all over me every day will be somewhat clean and have better breath! Who said that community development can't also be self-serving?

The World Map project is progressing slowly, but slow is what I'm going for. Before starting to paint the map itself, there is a lot of work and planning to be done. First, we have to raise the money for the paint. That's going rather well; we've already bought plaster and patched the numerous holes in the wall, and we have almost enough to buy the paint. Technically, we have enough for the paint, but not the supplies, and we need to keep a budget to fund the fundraisers we have every other week or so. I think by the end of October we will have all the necessary funds.

But money is only one part of it. I'm also teaching a "mini-class" twice a week about what a map is, what it's used for, and some very basic geography concepts. At the start, I showed the kids a globe, and several maps from an atlas, and they couldn't even tell me what these colorful objects were supposed to represent, much less distinguish north from south or oceans from land. It's a tricky thing trying to explain such a large-scale, abstract topic to middle-school kids with basically no exposure to such ideas (and especially to the ones who can't read), but we HAVE made progress. The association of "blue-means-water" was not very difficult for most of the kids, although the concept of an "ocean" is still rather foreign. (Paraguay is landlocked, after all.) North and south were easy, though they still confuse east and west sometimes. A few of my students are starting to grasp the idea of different continents and countries, and even think about why borders are they way they are. Most of them can now identify North and South America, and that Asia is "the big one". We have "find-the-country" races, and we've started doing some veeery basic trivia games, though those are still pretty hard. I'm trying to work them up towards a modified "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" type game! (Or perhaps "Moöpa yvýpe oñeñongatu Carmen Sandiégogui?")

We have several more weeks of "Comité del Mapa" meetings before starting the actual painting, but it's great that my students are actually excited about it, and are starting to take, if not quite leadership yet, at least tenative ownership of the project. This is the whole point. Geography is an important and fun topic to learn about (and teach!), but the real goal here is giving the kids something they can be proud of, and the tools necessary to realize their own "projects" in the future, whatever those may be. After all, these kids are going to be the ones to change Paraguay, not me.