May Update

05-23-10
May has been a pretty slow month up to this point.  We had a week of rain which felt like a month and a few cold nights, but not as cold as I remember last year.  Things slow down a lot in Winter here which is sometimes hard to take because compared to the pace back home, it always seems slow in Paraguay.  Here is a brief list of what has been going on:
-harvested radishes today, the first harvest from the new garden.  Turns out, I don't really like radishes all that much but they are pretty good in stir fry, soup, and sliced thin and fried like potato chips.
-almost done reading Sherlock Holmes.  Good read.  Movie was OK.
-yesterday I helped with a worm composting workshop in another Volunteer's community and am hoping to start some worm composting bins here with people in my site as well.
-weekend presentations on different Agriculture and Beekeeping themes are dying out. Less and less people each week.  Oh well.
-now addicted to Podcasts, specifically This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Left Right and Center, and How Stuff Works.
-short days mean lots of sleeping.  Somedays I get up at 6 am, and get into bed around 7 pm.  It gets dark around 5:30 and there just isn't much else to do.
-been doing some running, mostly to town which is about 5 km away.  Feels good.

That's about all for an update, although I'd be a little worried about you if you are looking here for some excitement.  Like I said, things have been slow lately.
This leaves lots of time to think.  Now this entry will turn philosophical, contemplative, a little whiny, and mostly useless for most normal people.  But here is someting in particular that has been on my mind lately: being simple, being frugal, being comfortable, and/or being jaded. 
I like to think that I live simply, or try to at least.  Maybe not so simple by Paraguayan standards (I am writing this on a laptop), but probably simple by the US standards.  My house is small, I don't have nice furniture, you may have seen pictures of my pathetic bathroom, and I eat simple meals.  Everyday that I am in my site I eat oatmeal for breakfast. Prepared the same way.  Everytime.  I drink yerba mate every morning.  With the same herbs for flavor (cinnamon and mint leaves).  Everyday.  The hilarious thing is when I go to the city and can splurge and eat literally whatever I want, I still wake up and actually crave that boring oatmeal.  I even took some with me once to the city to finish off a box and made it with the hot tea water on the breakfast buffet at the hotel.  No lie.
I am usually frugal, or thrifty, or maybe cheap as some might see it.  I use the entire roll of toilet paper, and sometimes, if I forgot to pick up more in town, I even unroll the cardboard tube and use that.  I hang on to several little pieces of soap when they are almost gone and then mash them together and use that soap clump for washing my hands.  I don't peel potatoes.  Why should I?  The skin tastes good to me.  Sure it makes for lumpy mashed potatoes, but they taste good and are probably better for you.  And I don't have to peel them.  I don't peel carrots.  Why should I?  They taste the same to me.  I write To-Do lists or shopping lists on the backs of scrap paper.  Then compost the paper when I'm done.  I pee on my compost pile.  It seems like a waste if I don't.  I don't ever burn or overcook my food because I like to unplug my electric stove as soon as I think its done.  Sometimes its not done but I eat it anyways.  Doughy pan biscuits not cooked on the inside taste OK to me.  The funny thing is I don't even pay for electricity so it's not like I am saving money by doing this! 
But most of the time, I feel perfectly comfortable.  And I don't think I am a slob.  I sweep my floor, change my sheets (sometimes), wash dishes, put things away after I use them, etc.  My house is generally neat and tidy so I don't think any of this is really rooted in laziness, although it might be.
So I ask: Is any of this "frugalness" or my desire to live simply in anyway connected to low self-worth or not having enough self-esteem?  Sometimes I don't let my rice or beans cook all the way because I think they are good enough for me, even if they are a little (or a lot) firm.  If it is just me eating these meals, then they don't need to be fancy or nice.  This is where I am starting to wonder: Maybe I don't value myself very much.  I don't splurge on nice things for myself, but I also really don't think I desire them all that much.  I feel and know that I am extremely priviledged with the lot that I drew in life.  I have nice things, more things than I need actually.  So much so that I don't really value the things that I have and I don't enjoy at all acquiring more things.  I look around and see my neighbors on the other side of this issue.  They have to do laundry every other day because they don't have enough clean clothes to go any longer than that.  I can go almost a month without washing clothes and that doesn't necessarily mean I wear the same shirt or underwear 5 or 6 times before I wash it, although sometimes it does.  Should I just start giving my things away until I actually start to feel what it is like to be lacking something?  A little scary voice inside tells me that my neighbors wouldn't appreciate these things either.  Maybe secretly I believe that I deserve these things, but I don't think that is true. 
On another note, I wonder if I have become a little too jaded.  I don't appreciate good things.  Sometimes I make a big, nice complicated dinner for myself and I still just woof it down in 10 minutes.  I don't feel any better or more satisfied than when I just eat popcorn, which is quite often, for dinner.  I know that effort has a lot to do with it.  I am afforded the luxury of a steady salary here so I can eat popcorn or oatmeal without growing it.  One thing I could try is relying more on my own work for my food.  I know for a fact that then, I would appreciate it.  I would also be a lot skinnier.  Although today, I ate radishes.  The first radishes of the year and the first fresh food from the garden.  I even left the electric skillet on long enough to bake radish chips.  And I salted them which I don't usually put much salt or spice in my food because I don't really think that extra flavor is worth it.  They were OK.  I'm jaded.
So, finally in this little, or long, ramble, I realize most all of this self-doubting is due to my shelter from the real world.  All you real adults out there who know what it takes to get through the day probably laugh or maybe would love to see the day when you have the time and freedom to be in this situation I find myself in.  Eventually, I will be done with school, Peace Corps, and all these other things that I can find to delay my entrance into the real world and I will start to understand what it takes.  Sink or swim, I will have to.  This blog will shut up, Facebook will go away, and I will fill my time, like most people, with doing the necessary things to get by.  Until then, I guess I should just enjoy the downtime, try to learn to appreciate what I have, learn to take time to do nice things for myself, and in sum, grow up.  Then, I can be an adult and tell kids how lucky they are and that they shouldn't waste their time rushing to grow up.  That's enough for now. Like Ferris said, "Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
And finally, an interesting clip from an old song:

"Oh happy who thus liveth! Not caring much for gold;
With clothing which sufficeth to keep him from the cold,
Though poor and plain his diet, yet merry 'tis and quiet."
Elizabethan Song Book ca. 1588, stole from a book of quotes gathered by Helen Nearing

Peace!