As we come to the close of our time here in Yatytay, we are wrapping up some final projects and thought we would do an update on where they stand.
Trash collection project
During our 3-month gap in update blog posts, we did not really get a chance to talk about this project, but this has been one of our main focuses over the last 5 months. We are really pleased with where the project stands now, and where it will hopefully go in the future. Over our two years here, a huge focus of our service has been trash. We are lucky to be in a community that values proper management of trash, and they put the limited resources and money they have into follow-through. There are many municipalities that do not have trash collection services, or a landfill. Trash is an expensive business with very little payoff, and for municipalities that are not collecting much in taxes, it is not very high on the priority list. Our district has a Ministry of Environment-certified dump and a trash collection service that covers most of the urban center. That being said, the dump that was supposed to last 5-10 years is nearly full after just 3. On top of this, while the municipality is attempting (and succeeding on some level) to recycle cardboard, hard plastics and metals, there is no separation at the origin (within the home) – just two workers doing their best to separate everything on truck arrival at the dump.
About 10 months ago, the municipality hired a new environmental consultant, Wilma, who had some big ideas for the dump and wanted to involve the youth ecological committee and us. In an attempt to slow the trash influx, she wanted to create a municipality compost and request that residents separate their trash into organic and inorganic trash before pick-up. So, we set a day for organic trash collection each week and went house to house explaining the program in one pilot neighborhood. From there, we followed the truck each Wednesday to ensure only organic trash was being picked up and that it was well separated. The pilot was successful, and a lot of people were interesting in getting involved.
In September we added 2 new neighborhoods, then one more in October, and in November we are making plans to add 2 more. While getting people to change their habits is a slow process, Wilma and our municipality are dedicated to better landfill management. We will not be here as the project continues to expand, but know that all involved will continue push forward to provide better services to the people of Yatytay.
Salto projects
We have helped to complete various projects at our waterfall (Salto Tembey) park, and it is one of our favorite parts of service.
Park Signs
With the help of Daisy (Secretary of Tourism) and the municipality, we created and placed signs throughout the park identifying the two different trails, and others for tree identification. If we do say so ourselves, the signs turned out great! And we painted a cute little snail in the corner of each sign, since we live in Yatytay (Guaraní for “snail water”). The park continues to see more visitation each year, and Daisy has been working really hard to make small improvements in the visitor experience. As of right now, there are no interpretive signs, or educational materials in the park. But, we are hopeful that the tree identification signs are the first project of many to inspire learning and connection to nature in this remnant piece of the Atlantic Forest.
Trail
These two VOC trail workers are at it again. There is one part of the trail to the second waterfall that is extremely steep and dangerous, that we have been wanting to work on since first visiting Salto Tembey in November 2017. Just in the past month, we have finally been working with youth in the community to build a staircase to make it easier and safer to access.
INFONA Agreement with Peace Corps
While we didn’t have anything specifically to do with this, we had the honor of being at an MOU signing between Peace Corps and INFONA (the Paraguayan Forest Service). We have had great experiences with INFONA on various projects and it was great to see some big names (Director of INFONA, Director of Peace Corps Paraguay, US Ambassador to Paraguay, USAID Regional Director, and others) in attendance and speaking about promoting good environmental practices.
Platatón Itapúa
Speaking of INFONA, we have completed some smaller level tree planting projects thanks to a large donation from our department’s (department = Paraguayan equivalent of a state) branch of the forest service. They put on their 2nd edition of Itapúa Plantathon and we had a chance to work with different youth groups planting trees in green spaces around the community.
Visits
A couple other visits that we wanted to highlight.
Josh and Rae
Being so far away, we have not had a chance to visit many other volunteers out of site, but recently we got a chance to visit our friends (and other married couple) Josh and Rae. It was great to have a chance to see a different site in a different part of the country. They live in a part of the country that is more hilly, and is quite picturesque!
Nicole
Our friend Nicole came to visit and we got a chance to show her some of the spots we love in Yatytay. She also taught us to make legit enchiladas and they were SO GOOD. We’ve made them probably once a week since then…
More “See Ya Laters”
Last week we said goodbye to some friends who were the first of our training group to complete their two years of service. We wish them the best in their next endeavors and look forward to seeing them back stateside!
More photos of Michimi
We have been seeing lovely fall photos on social media, as well as some early bird snow storms. We are entering the time of year of constant sweating and swamp ass, with regular “real feel” day temps of 105. We’ll be thinking of cool autumn days, and shoveling off snowy cars in our daydreams!
Much love,
Dylan and Alli