Showing Tag: "la" (Show all posts)

Neighborhood Quest to Wring the Worm

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Tuesday, February 17, 2015, In : Paraguay 

Paraguay’s Neglected are my Neighbors

(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps. All quotes are either in Spanish or are my translations.)

▷ Click here for a better view of the photos 

I was feeling a little weak today and decided to walk-splore instead of run. Just a kilometer or so from my little abode, on the same hillside, the infrastructure stops. The cobblestone roads turn into rutted trails an...


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An Update on Perspectives-n-Plans in Paraguay: Peace Corps Volunteer Reporting Form

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Saturday, August 30, 2014, In : Paraguay 

(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.)

This is my way of taking action to make my words speak a little louder. My method is transparency in what I am doing and reporting about my service to the Peace Corps, which is a branch of the U.S. government.

TO CLARIFY: The Peace Corps is a non-partisan agency within the executive branch of the U.S. government. It has presidentially appointed directors, is supervised...


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The Peace Corps Asked, I Indulged

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Tuesday, April 1, 2014, In : Paraguay 

(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.)

What I Reported to the Peace Corps: Volunteer Reporting Form

As opposed to the government in this freedom of the press suppressed Paraguayan oligopoly, I want to make my inter-cultural experiences, efforts and observations transparent. Minus the details of my community contact information and the code boxes checked for the Peace Corps’ statistics compiling, such as; ...


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Merry “General Strike” Day

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Wednesday, March 26, 2014, In : Paraguay 

(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.)

Today marks 20 years of a “general” strike here in Paraguay, mainly led by union leaders rallying the teachers and farmers, and human rights groups and students rallying themselves. The sad thing is that a lot of the striking working-class posse 
aren't thoroughly informed as to why they’re shutting down traffic, but instigated to participate based on propaganda fe...


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Paraguay’s Moto Conundrum: Death Rate Rising

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Monday, August 19, 2013, In : Paraguay 
(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.)

An underage motorcyclist out for a Sunday evening cruise around town with the hordes of other showoffs drove into the side of my host mother’s car. By the time I arrived at the scene, which was just in front of the house, one of the cops was sharing a cool drink of tereré with two of the ‘20-something’ daughters of the family and their friends, and another was ye...

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[Scene 2] Pre-Service Regiment

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Monday, July 15, 2013, In : Paraguay 
(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.)

The Peace Corps has us on a tight leash from when I wake up at 6:00am until the collective drops me off in Itá (my homestay community) at 6:00pm. It’s dark. I’m tired. I need to study my Guaraní, I need to run.


The weather is unpredictable to say the least. Monday can have a high of 52 and Wednesday 83. When it’s cold, there’s no escaping it. The metal window f...

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[The Curtain Rises]

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Tuesday, June 25, 2013, In : Paraguay 

(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.)

I woke up one morning, Thursday, the 30th of May, 2013, to be exact, and I was in Asunción, Paraguay. 

[Lights intensify like dawn]

And while I’m not trying to insinuate some surprise international abduction, I am trying to convey the, “I haven’t absorbed this” feeling you get when the velocity of life is whirling too fast too land … despite, however, the fact ...


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The Mexico Moto-Deposit

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Tuesday, September 20, 2011, In : Back From Central 

I’ve been in Quetzaltenango, aka Xela (shay-la) Guatemala for a month studying Spanish and piano and taking aerobics and yoga classes … oh, and climbing a damn steep volcano.


Full moon hike up Volcan Santa Maria above Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

The cost for private Spanish classes at Miguel de Cervantes Spanish School & Hostal is about $4 an hour. So, for an aerobics class, followed by 3-hours of one-on-one Spanish, an hour of piano and an hour-and-a-half of yoga I paid $16.70 per day, in c...
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Held Up by Tonka

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Sunday, August 7, 2011, In : Central America 
I’ve been in San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala for a week, staying with the sweet Gonzalez family who I met while studying Spanish here in 2009.


Pedro is a painter of traditional Mayan themes (ArteMaya.com) and even has a piece in the Smithsonian. Debora is a queen of the hand-made tortilla and will only cook them on her wood burning stove on the back porch.

It’s been a pretty intriguing week; climbing La Nariz del Indio, debating the rules of the imperfect subjunctive tense with my Spanish t...
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Guatemala: “People here just enjoy life,” he said.

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Friday, July 1, 2011, In : Central America 
So much to say, so much to say … my brain is like a glitchy GPS. I lived and worked for two-months on the scuba certification factory of Utila, an Island run by 20-something backpackers, before cargo shipping Cart-her back and traveling through the rain to see the ruins of Copán, on the Honduran/Guatemalan border.

Even though I learned the interesting – and slightly disturbing – fact that the inhabitants of the Mayan ruins buried their dead underneath their stone beds to use them as a ...
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Island Fever

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Sunday, May 29, 2011, In : Central America 
After about a month and a half of shipping organization and transit time to Utila Island, the modular chin bar replacement for the snapped flip-top button on my Scorpion EXO-900 TransFormerHelmet finally came in! It’s like Christmas in May. I couldn’t imagine touring through such vastly different climates as I have been – from December’s record lows in the southeastern States to the humid 90s along the Caribbean coast – in anything but a modular lid; hydratable, breathable, and chat...
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KLR Maintenance Day 3,452

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Tuesday, May 24, 2011, In : Central America 
I’ve learned that humidity causes carburetors to run lean. That the KLR ignition coil is sealed, can’t be visually inspected, and can only be checked with a coil reader and the ability to measure the arch. That I can now remove the side panels, seat, fairings, gas tank and carburetor, clean it and put it all back together in 19 minutes and 18 seconds since, through unintentional experience, I am now KiLleR carb-pilot programmed.

 
The orange splatters around the gas cap were from shaking ...
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Moto-Crossing Borders: Mexico to Belize to Guatemala to Honduras

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Tuesday, March 29, 2011, In : Central America 

The following is a list of border crossing info for fellow moto-adventurers ... Mom, this one isn't for you! But I love you dearly.

MONEY X: 1 USD = 12 Pesos

US TO MEXICO
Date:
January 21, 2011
Location: Lukeville, Arizona – Sonoyta, Mexico
Paperwork required:
• Passport – 1 copy
• Registration or Title – 1 copy
Total Cost: $61.50 USD
• Vehicle Import Permit = $437.61 (credit card only) = $36.5 good for 6-months
• Tourist Visa = $25 USD good for 90-days
Money Accepted: USD or Mexican Pe...


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Cave Diving to Mud Sliding

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Saturday, March 12, 2011, In : Central America 
After three grating days of post-new-tire flat-fixing (three pinch-flats on my bike and one on Malcolm’s) I am still on the hunt for the elusive 130/80-17 tubes and a case of anti-chafing talcum powder; a multi-purpose cure for tire/tube friction and monkey-butt. And fortunately now, after scuba diving the Cenotes in Tulum, I’ve regained my tranquila and bi-wheel love. Mechanicals happen.
 
 
Sweet warm-water white sand beaches of Tulum and our dive leader, Paulo of Easy Chango dive center...
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The Terrible Tubes

Posted by Brienne Thomson on Wednesday, March 2, 2011, In : Mexico 
We just got new Kenda K761 130/80-17 rear tires for our KLRs ... the only in-stock rubber we could find on the Yucatán Peninsula from our online searching. Things down here; services, products, specialists, are more-so word-of-mouth than word-of-web. But the Kenda’s had good reviews for our dual-sport tope-hopping journey, so we went ahead and headed toward the MotoMundo shop we found them through in Mérida. We “thought” we were doing the right thing by replacing our rubber before our...
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