The hole in the world wide web

So still no internet at home. For my political economy colleagues, paraguay certainly makes you consider the upside to telecom privatization. Anyhow, things are going well here. I have started on my field work, and while it is pretty late in the game to be torn between different research projects, there is at least not a lack of interesting avenues to explore. Most of my interviews have revealed intriguing possibilities and made me excited to do this work. The problem is that it only takes one interview that seems to contradict or complicate in some way the hypotheses I am exploring to make me doubt the entire research agenda and whether I really ought to be doing a PhD in political science at all. This is really unfortunate, since I know that I´m bound to have a lot of these sorts of interviews before my fieldwork is done, and that I´m likely to get more confused as time goes on rather than more sure of what I think I know. Knowing that doesn't really help though. In general, I'm kind of shocked with how much some of my interviews confirm the view of small-producers, innovation, high-quality niche markets, and cooperation that I developed in Boston. The problem comes when someone disagrees with how I see things or challenges my proposal. Obviously, this is a necessary and generally desirable part of the process. However, its impossible to decide whether this difference comes from my infinitely inferior knowledge of local conditions and utter lack of experience in development work compared to those I am interviews, or from a difference of interpretation. It's a tough call, because in writing a dissertation, I want to come up with something new and not just repeat the conventional wisdom that is guiding people in the field, but I also have to learn from people whose experience vastly exceeds my own. You need to be confident enough to not have an existential crisis every time someone sees things differently, but not so much that you don't realize when you are barking up the wrong tree. It doesn't help that I'm "very young to be doing a PhD." I've grown a beard to appear slightly older, but still, I know people would take me more seriously if I were older. Or if i had more experience working in international development. I know that I would feel more confident, and probably command more respect if I had more experience. We all have to start somewhere, but it definitely have inklings of being in over my head as I try to get this project off the ground. Its hard to start anything though, and I guess i I look at this as the start of a new career, then I'm not doing so bad.



As for the cooking, it's hard to not have my own kitchen for the time being, but we have been cooking some. I promise I'll upload some pictures as soon as I have better internet access. I've been assured that it will not be more than two more weeks. I can also commence with a series of traditional parguayan recipes as well.