Chaco

This weekend I went to visit a volunteer at his site to see how life is beyond training. My friend Adam and I got sent out to the Chaco to visit Rad (yes that is his name). For those of you who don't know, the Chaco is the western part of Paraguay which is mostly desert and mostly unpopulated. It makes up 60% of the land in Paraguay but only 5% of the population lives here. We headed out on a night bus on Friday night and arrived at a dark crossroads which we barely figured out was our stop before the bus left. The bus was early so Adam and I waited in the dark for Rad and soon enough he showed up. It was about four in the mourning so we went right to bed when we got to his place.
He shared a place with a family. The father was out working and the mother was at the house with three or four kids (it is hard to tell because they are constantly coming and going). We got up the next day and did what most volunteers do for a good part of their day which is sit around. This was a welcome change from the 8 or 9 hours of class that I have become used to in training but after a few hours of sitting and drinking mate then sitting and drinking terere (which is cold mate), I was ready to do something.
Luckily that afternoon Rad had scheduled a Fagon construction. A fagon is a wood burning stove and it is made out of bricks and a mud/sand mix as mortar. We worked on it for several hours and were getting close to being done when we heard the woman we were building it for screaming in the street at the neighbors house. We couldn't figure out what was going on but we saw her husband go to get his machete in what was clearly a defensive move. All the sudden we saw a group of 6 or 7 dudes run out of the house across the street one of which was carrying an ax. They all hoped in a van and the van took off. At this point we decided to clean up and take off. We found out later that a couple of guys got beat up/cut but everyone was ok. Apparently one of the guys was dating a girl from another town who had another boyfriend. Rad had been at the site for over a year and said that this was the first incident like this he had seen.
The rest of the trip was a little smother. We finished the fagon, saw a taranchula (next to my bed), and played a lot of Uno with the kids. The Chaco is alright but it is far, even hotter than the rest of the country and there is little to no water available. I am hoping that I don't end up out there but Rad seemed to like it. So I guess that is a little taste of what my life will be like in a couple months if I make it though training.