On the 2-hour bus ride from my home to the Peace Corps office are many sights that have come to symbolize Paraguay in my mind, but the most vivid is a vacant lot it which stands several incomplete apartment buildings. Those buildings don’t have roofs or windows and the walls are unfinished. The brick, mud, and cement skeleton of what might have been the home of generations of families grays with age. The grass grows tall and a sign that probably announced the development project when someone broke ground on the construction is too faded to read.

When I first saw the buildings I thought of a war-zone or a devastating fire. I wondered, “What happened here?” I still don’t know why that complex stands destitute until the rain washes the structures away, but I now know enough about Paraguay to be confident it wasn’t a tragedy that condemned the place. Most likely, the person funding the project ran out of money and walked away. Just as was the case with so many little houses I see scattered about when I travel—some with finished walls, some with partial roofs.

With little access to credit and varying access to good-paying jobs across the country improvement projects and development move slow. Paraguay is a place of dreams. A dreamland where the bridge between reality and aspiration is still being built. Some people are able to paddle across the gap, and some decide to dream on and live as they always have. Paraguay is a land of opportunity, but only the lucky and the determined make it big.