I Love My Site

So I have some good news and bad news. Good news, I love my future home, bad news I forgot my camera on my trip so I have no new pictures. But its okay cause I’ll have two years to take photos! So I just spent a week in my future home of Tacuaras. I had an absolutely awesome time. My site is amazing! It is about 4.5 hours from Asuncion by bus, but it goes really fast! Then its another 5km from the main paved road on a really sandy road to my town. The town itself is small and everything is really close together, which is awesome, you can walk everywhere really easy! It is really marshy down there in the south and the sand is white not red which is kinda nice my clothes hopefully won’t get as dirty! However since there is lots of water there are also lots, and lots, and lots of mosquitoes!! I know, my favorite blood sucking animal… and unfortunately on my trip I forgot my hydrocortisone cream to stop the itching, so now I have nasty scabs on my feet and legs from the extreme amount of bites I got. I swear if anything kills me here, its going to be the mosquitoes! Oh well so goes life!! But I really enjoy my community. It has an elementary school, high school, the mayor lives right in town, there is a police station, its own post office, a really nice church with priests that came from Italy, a sweet plaza, a soccer field and plenty of volley courts! And it also has its own puesto de salud with a doctor and three plus nurses, there seemed like there was tons of nurses and people always there, but there was a lot of nursing students that have to spend a certain number of hours in the puesto. I didnt do too much this week, except hang out with the family I was staying with, which is my contact, Avelina, shes super awesome and I feel really lucky to have such a great contact, she is one of the nurses at the Puesto de Salud. She has two cute kids Carlito, 3 and Joana, 11. I bonded with both of them and made good friends. Yesterday morning Joana didn’t want me to leave! And last night Carlito and I were snuggling in my bed and playing with my ipod, I was showing him my pictures while we were listening to music! In the house was also Avelinas mom and dad, sister and nephew. The sister Ale was really cool, shes 14, almost 15, she’ll turn 15 two days after I get there! She was my professora this week, she helped me study Guarani and she quizzed me all week! Avelina and I walked around the community and meet people a bunch this week. Everyone seemed sooo nice, I was a little worried at the beginning because one of the other nurses came over to the house the first night I got there (hes Avelinas cousin) and hes like: You need to learn Guarani, everyone speaks it they hate speaking Spanish, and I got a little freaked out. But the more I went and visited people and their families the more I realized that yeah people may not like to speak Spanish but they did to me. So I still will be able to communicate when I first get there, but I really do need to learn Guarani so I can be that much better integrated into the community and I’ll be that much more respected in the community. I hung out in the afternoons in the puesto de salud with the doctor and nurses. That was always a good time, they definitely have a much more laid back style of working… we just sat around all afternoon drinking terere, it was fantastic! I connected a lot with the wife of the doctor who is also a nurse, shes really nice and we hit it off right away! They are one of the people I’m going to live with in my first three months that I have to stay with families! And we’re going to start a diet together when I get back and we’re going to help each other to not be cheaters! And I saw my future house that I’ll be able to live in by myself after three months that I’m obligated by Peace Corps to stay with a family! And it is sooooo cute! I love it! It has two rooms and a kitchen, no bathroom right now; I’m going to have to build one. And I just saw the outside, but its kinda perfect! And I will live next to Avelinas grandma, who is about 90 years old, lives alone and so cute! She said she was really excited to have such a pretty neighbor! Overall I’m so excited to be where I am, I think I’ll be really happy for my two years and have plenty of things to keep me real busy! Plus I have a really really close neighbor, Josh who lives in Guasu Cora with me now. So I’ll be able to work closely with him, do summer camps and such! Plus he has an amazing way of getting sweet hookups! I don’t know how he does it, but he’s definitely a good person to have around! Now I only have two more weeks in Guasu Cora (tear, sad!) then I swear in, spend a weekend in Asuncion and head back to my site on May 4th. And by then I’ll have a phone and life will be easier!! I have been feeling withdrawals from a phone, I know its sad! But I also feel more safe with one- or at least that’s my excuse I’m going to give! So next Wednesday we’re in Asuncion and I don’t know if I’ll have time to get on the internet, but the week after that the 29th were in Guarambare soooo… I guess I don’t know when I’ll update next, you’ll have to bear with me, and once I go to site I wont have a planned schedule of when I’m using the internet, it’ll be whenever I go to the bigger town of Pilar, but as we say here in Paraguay… Tranquillo! Besos a todos!