#thisisfieldwork

7/31/2019: today the news is that I almost missed a flight because an airline that I'll hypothetically call United misprinted the time of my flight's arrival in EZE as its departure time. I realized this slightly less than 2 hours before my flight was set to depart and left for the airport post haste. I did not miss it though, and consequently have spent 6.5 hours and counting in EZE, getting my fill of American restaurant chains to bookend my time in the field. If you've gotta have a 9 hour layover 10/10 recommend Buenos Aires EZE with its speedy free wifi (uploaded all my recordings to the cloud as a backup) and ample space to charge electronics. T-minus 11 (?) hours until I re-enter the US

7/28/2019: another day, another picture of my luggage, (mostly) packed and ready to go back to Asunción. My visit here in filadelfia was the perfect length to relax, enjoy running, warm water, and get myself together a bit before I head back to my last week of Guaraní class. I did not get my data retranscribed, as ambitiously planned, but I did get some important work done for the Grad Student Assembly, which I had been putting of all summer.

7/17/2019: I made a post a couple of days ago but tumblr consumed it, I guess. The most exciting news is that I met a new consultant and he helped me transcribe and translate slightly over 2.5 minutes of a text, in two hours! (This seems slow but actually is amazing). Unfortunately, he's the village leader and very busy, so I don't know if I'll be able to work with him again before I go. He's very interested in language documentation itself, so might have some good ideas for community based collaboration! I drew some cacti for him to try to get the words in angaité...I am clearly not an artist. I'm also weirdly proud of these messy multilingual notes from when he was telling me about the history of the area. This is what my brain is like inside all the time right now. See also, this lovely sun-screen my consultant helped me build this morning so the sun didn't just obliterate my entire video.

In other news: has been warm during the day here and cold cold cold at night, though tonight seems less cold, based on the quantity of mosquitoes attacking me. Also, every field guide I've ever read talks about how a few hours of elicitation can create many more hours of work for the linguist and I'm here to attest that THIS IS TRUE. Apologies also, in advance, for the disaster of IPA/practical orthography/modified practical orthography that are my notes. It's shameful but we're here now.

Also, it's been cold rainy, and I caught "la gripe" three days ago (NOT the flu, as I learned in spanish class, but just a regular cold, here in Paraguay), and neither of those things have helped troop morale.

6/30/2019: I have finally arrived in the community that I'll be staying in for the next month! I've spent nearly a week trying to get here and being stymied by impassable roads. Yesterday, my impromptu hosts drove me as far as this pit of what is basically quicksand, and then I carted my stuff around it and another patch of mud before some guys from the community came by with motorcycles to help get my stuff the last 500m into town. Already putting my Guaraní to work! Now the question remains...how does one...fieldwork?