A visit to Fram, Paraguay

As Peace Corps volunteers, we help each other with projects at times. Lending a hand also gives us the opportunity to visit other sites and see different parts of Paraguay. Recently, we traveled to Fram to visit Lydia.  Our home away from home was a church-we just pushed some benches together and threw our sleeping bags on top, while the saints kept watch.

Lydia and I with our outline of South America

Lydia needed some help setting up a world map mural project that she was starting at a school. Our charge was to help with the grid system, then outline each country in paint. The plan was then for students to follow a color code and fill in each country with its corresponding color to complete the mural.

Mark carefully adds Europe to the mural

Next, we brainstormed ideas about why a methane producing biodigester wasn’t functioning properly.  The biodigester which Lydia had constructed with her neighbor had been working the previous month, then seemed to have developed a leak somewhere in the system. Using soapy water, Mark located one leak in the fitting near the burner.

Lydia adds pressure to test the system, (Sorry, Lydia, I just couldn't resist this picture!)

Mark and Lydia add teflon tape to where the fittings join, near the burner

During our visit we also discovered that Fram is a village with a large Ukrainian population. In the 1930’s many of them immigrated to Paraguay, during the Holodomor, described as a starvation-induced genocide, in the Ukraine during Stalin’s regime. Once in Paraguay, the immigrants established a community and began farming.  It was interesting to see their orthodox churches, where in Paraguay,  95% of the population is reportedly Catholic.

It was fun spending time with Lydia- we shared stories and hard drive collections, productive work time, philosophies and ideas, good food, and big hugs.