WORKING
FOR THE PEACE CORPS IN PARAGUAY, 1968
Here are the reminiscences of Dick Ginsburg, a former Peace Corps member, who served in rural Paraguay.
Our
Peace Corps group had two months of training in Toluca, Mexico, to learn
Spanish, Paraguay’s native tongue (Guarani), and agriculture. We learned to grow vegetables and to castrate
pigs -- all new to me.
We
arrived in Paraguay in December, 1968, at the height of summer. Getting off the plane was like walking into a
brick wall of heat. Paraguay was a
backwater, isolated and off the beaten track.
The capital of Asunción was a sleepy city without a traffic light. Outside of Asunción and a couple of other
larger cities in the countryside, there was no electrical service. Telephone service came only to a central
office in most towns. The highways were
unpaved and turned into an impassable quagmire when it rained.
Going
to the site: I took a 12 hour, all-night bus ride to Lima,
Paraguay. I had to walk the last two
kilometers at daybreak to reach the mission of the Holy Ghost fathers, Fr.
Sydney Chang, Fr. Neil Rodriguez and Fr. Keegan. They wanted to start an
agricultural cooperative and had requested a volunteer from the Peace
Corps. I was fortunate to be selected
and had the opportunity to help form the Cooperativa
Agrícola de Lima. The idea was not
totally new, but a prior tobacco cooperative had failed due to bad seeds.
The
farming in the area was subsistence-level. The farmers plowed their land with
oxen. They grew the food they consumed
and, in addition, small amounts of tobacco and cotton to sell. At this time the U.S. foreign aid program had
embarked on a project to introduce soybeans as a market crop. My task was to learn how to grow soybeans and
pass this knowledge on to the members of the cooperative. A dozen or so were willing to take the risk
of planting a new crop. It was decided
that each would grow soybeans on their own land and then market the crop
together through the cooperative. The
cooperative advanced them credit for the seeds and tools. Seeds were also provided by Caritas, a
Catholic charity. Fr. Sydney Chang
obtained a donation from the Chinese embassy of a diesel motor to run a
thresher that the cooperative bought. It
was taken from farm to farm on a traditional oxcart. The cooperative succeeded. The members had a cash income. Another Peace Corps volunteer came to Lima
and taught the wives of the members to use soy flour and soy milk in their
traditional Paraguayan recipes. Soybeans
now constitute the most important crop in Paraguay and are a major source of
export income.
No comments:
Post a Comment