Now, Zac is a seasoned observer. But, more importantly, he has stuck with the program while many have not. By his second month in the country, his training group of 40 had dwindled to 22. Some people kid him, calling him "George Bush Jr." "Maybe it's because I kind of speak Spanish the way he speaks English," Zac jokes. Some people think he's an actual spy. "They think we're here trying to steal their water -- which is the next oil," Zac said. "They don't have newspapers here, or the Internet, but they're not stupid. They know enough to be suspicious, and they wonder why I would take time from my rich country to hang out with them." It doesn't help that rumor in the country has it that the Bush family recently bought land there near one of the world's largest aquifers. But, slowly Zac's projects are taking root. This month, or as soon as a severe cold snap passes, he hopes to plant more trees. He has organized waste cleanup and worked with cotton farmers to gain an understanding of their place in the world's economy. And, when he can, he tries to convey the notion of one planet, one connected environment. Having any impact takes time -- much more than the two years he's allotted, Zac says. Back home in Seattle things move so quickly. "I'm aware of how concerned we are with time as money back home," Zac said. "Here, I've gained a sense of patience. I'm less apt to make a mountain out of a molehill. Here, the wind takes off your roof. There, it's a catastrophe if a storm cuts your Comcast connection for a day."
Peace Corps Volunteer Zac Eskenazi went to Paraguay to teach, but it's what he's learned that hits home
Dispatches from Paraguay
Ballard's Zac Eskenazi went to Paraguay to teach, but it's what he's learned that hits home
By SUSAN PAYNTER
P-I COLUMNIST
Caption: Zac used an abandoned hospital clinic as his living quarters in General Jose Diaz, a small town in Paraguay. Photo: Zac Eskenazi
Peacable platoons of young and not-so-young Americans troop home this time of year from a world that may think a bit more highly of the USA because they went.
Some served in summer programs. Twenty-five-year-old Seattleite Zac Eskenazi is nearing the finish line of a two-year Peace Corps stretch. And, for most of that time, I have saved the e-mailed journal entries from "Our Man in Paraguay."
Literally the kid next door, Zac grew from a seedling to a Western Washington University grad in environmental economics to a Bank of America teller. He left determined to plant a few trees of his own and maybe some seeds of understanding. And he has. But, month by month, his highly personal dispatches have also stitched a crazy quilt of experiences, observations and hard-won insights.
Turns out teaching isn't as easy as it looked back home at Ballard High. And it's clear from an entry during that first Paraguayan fall that the local dialect didn't help.
"I was excited (and late) to get to school for my first science project on 'World Water Day.' I wanted to do an experiment with sugar water, saltwater, vinegar, plain water and Sprite representing different groups of pollution. But I didn't have vinegar so I ran to a little dispensa, out of breath, begging the woman at the counter to hurry. 'I've got to have vinegar right away to use with the kids at school! It's an experiment! You know, you put it on your salad?' "
The woman stared. Zac fled. It turned out school was closed that day anyway, which no one had told him.
The next day a young male store clerk chased Zac down the street. "He had to know if I got my 'medicine' and how the experiment with the kids went. That's when I realized I had left the all-important 'n' out of the word for vinegar, making it come out Viagra."
He also learned the hard way that, in the Guarani dialect, the word for "to eat" can also mean "to have sex."
His first September in Paraguay, Zac stopped in the village of Guarambare where his host family instructed him to go out and kill a chicken. "It may be my (lack of ) language skills or they could just be messing with me," Zac wrote.
But there was more in store at the next, more permanent stop -- the town of General Jose Diaz -- where his initial hosts invited him to stay an extra week ("I think I am finally growing on them!" he said).
They even invited Zac to come and help them butcher a cow in anticipation of a New Year's celebration. Politely he declined. "Later, they pulled up in the truck, my host brother yelling, 'Hey Zac! I get the head, but you can have the eyeballs!' That night we ate the organ meat, and I stuck with the veggies (topped with raw bacon)."
By this time Zac had accepted the life of a "freeloading Yankee," hauling his bundles from house to house because no one family could afford another mouth to feed long enough to keep him more than one week. But none would take his money.
But the easygoing kid from Ballard was forging friendships, his seemingly constant swelling from bug bites making his host family laugh. "They think I'm super intelligent and hilarious. What more could I ask for?" he wrote.
One local language teacher spent part of her holiday pulling worm eggs from Zac's foot with tweezers. "Apparently I hold the local record for the most removed at one time -- eight," he wrote.
Zac's feeling of connection to the local community was growing, and none too soon. "The closest Peace Corps neighbor is 30 km away. I'm hoping to do some work on wetlands here. But there's not a single person from my training group nearby. I had a small mental breakdown Thursday in the privacy of my room. I hadn't felt that alone in my entire life. But time passed and so did my feeling of isolation."
Earlier, on Thanksgiving, Zac had dashed around gathering coins for a pay-phone call to Seattle. The longed-for conversation cost him $11, "Which doesn't seem like that much," he wrote, "except that I'm paid $3 a day."
He attempted to start his first community garden, but people just stood and laughed. "I think I must be doing something wrong," he wrote.
A sense of progress, momentum, even a concept of time, can be elusive in rural Paraguay. It took Zac months to organize a reforestation project near the river. And four people showed up.
And, in the poorest section of the nearby capital, Asuncion, it was disheartening to find that "waste management consists of dumping trash into the Rio Paraguay -- just one of the environmental problems plaguing the country."
But, at school, the smiles of kids signaled that Zac was finally connecting. "But, sadly, so many of the smiles are toothless," he wrote. "Another plague is malnutrition."
His reforestation efforts often stalled. "Because of poverty, protecting forest land is not a priority," he wrote. "The hope is to show farmers that a plot with trees can yield more, not fewer, crops than one with none."
Still, Zac sometimes questioned his own efforts. "Is it right for North Americans to come in and essentially impose their brand of environmental ethics on others? It's something I need to think about," he said.
After many months in Paraguay, Zac got his own "house" -- an abandoned hospital clinic. He listed its top features: missing windows, an insect and reptile zoo, cows with very big horns in the yard, a leaking roof, no water when it rained and a shower that missed him but bathed the toilet.
The perk was a 'fridge next door in the actual hospital, which he shared with the staff. "Only in Paraguay would someone unrelated to a hospital receive a key to enter any time they feel like it," Zac wrote.
One day he came home to a gathering in the backyard. "At first I thought it was 'Clean the Homeless Day' in General Diaz," he said. Then he saw that the homeless man being washed was having the toes of his swollen foot removed. "I thought American movie violence had desensitized me," Zac wrote. "It was so sad since simple hygiene could have prevented this. But hygiene isn't easy to come by when you live on porches."
Now, Zac is a seasoned observer. But, more importantly, he has stuck with the program while many have not. By his second month in the country, his training group of 40 had dwindled to 22.
Some people kid him, calling him "George Bush Jr." "Maybe it's because I kind of speak Spanish the way he speaks English," Zac jokes.
Some people think he's an actual spy. "They think we're here trying to steal their water -- which is the next oil," Zac said. "They don't have newspapers here, or the Internet, but they're not stupid. They know enough to be suspicious, and they wonder why I would take time from my rich country to hang out with them."
It doesn't help that rumor in the country has it that the Bush family recently bought land there near one of the world's largest aquifers.
But, slowly Zac's projects are taking root. This month, or as soon as a severe cold snap passes, he hopes to plant more trees. He has organized waste cleanup and worked with cotton farmers to gain an understanding of their place in the world's economy. And, when he can, he tries to convey the notion of one planet, one connected environment.
Having any impact takes time -- much more than the two years he's allotted, Zac says. Back home in Seattle things move so quickly. "I'm aware of how concerned we are with time as money back home," Zac said. "Here, I've gained a sense of patience. I'm less apt to make a mountain out of a molehill. Here, the wind takes off your roof. There, it's a catastrophe if a storm cuts your Comcast connection for a day."
He's taught. He's learned. He's made a few friends for America. Nice work.
Susan Paynter's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Call her at 206-448-8392 or e-mail susanpaynter@seattlepi.com.
