Hi everybody – my name is Andrew Kindman (that’s me on the right, though I am generally less pixilated in real life). I am a student at Duke University working towards a double major in Political Science and Economics. This summer, however, I am leaving academia behind in favor of some more hands-on development work.
I am living in Asunción, Paraguay from early May to mid August working as an Microfinance Intern with an NGO called La Fundacion Paraguaya. Paraguay is sometimes known as South America’s “Empty Quarter.” It is landlocked and nearly all of the population is concentrated in a handful of cities, leaving the majority of the country uninhabited, and by most accounts, uninhabitable. While Paraguay is very poor economically is was, until quite recently, destitute in terms of democratic capital.
The 2008 is a landmark year for Paraguayan democracy, the nation having elected for the first time in 60 years a president who is not a member of the Colorado party. We learn from the example of other Latin American countries (notably the PRI in Mexico) that a single party holding such sustained hegemonic control over a nation is likely the result of astute and manipulative economic policy.
This summer I will be working right at the margin between politics and economics at a time when both are making progress in leaps and bounds. It is a very exciting time to be in Paraguay. This blog is a space for anecdotes, reflections, points of interest, pictures, and other miscellanea that may appear over the next few months.
