life update

this first picture is of my family on fathers day. i made that delicious looking cake! second is my nutrician game i did in a class. me and jimena riding bikes, my family and i making chipa over a fire- kinda like marshmellows! and last is my bros first birthday party!

The weekend of June 4^th I traveled back up to Guazu Cora (my training community) for Alexis 1^st birthday. An hour after I got on the bus my friend Danielle got on. Its so nice to have a traveling buddy, so every time we go to Asuncion we can ride together too! We made it to town and had to stop by some of the other families too to say hello and chat a little bit! Then I got home and everyone in my house was preparing for Alexis’s bday. We were making and decorating a cake, I blew up tons of balloons. That night it was just a small family party compared to the normal gargantuan first birthday parties that people throw for their kids in this country! But I think my mom had it right, she said Alexis wasn’t going to remember anyway so why spend a bunch of money having a huge party when we can just celebrate with family and close friends! So we had a great time eating tons of meat, drinking cana and wine (not together of course!) The next morning we all just hung out, drank lots of terere, because pa was hung over! After lunch I went over to Danielle’s house and we ate very delicious and juicy mandarins right off the tree. Then we went to Liza’s families house to visit, and I asked her mom to make me a pretty dress just like Liza wore for our swearing in- only red, because red’s my color! Then we made our rounds and hung out with Wes’s fam and drank mate dulce, which is sweet tea-ish. Only it was sweetened milk that you put in a cup of shredded coconut mixed with anis (which is some herb that I don’t know what it translates to!) and it is absolutely delicious! I almost wanted to cry when the milk ran out! Ha! My ma cooked me my favorite dinner that night but it was cold so we went to bed early! The next morning we just said goodbye to everyone and had to leave early to get home in the light!

That next day I prepared for my site presentation on Tuesday. I tried to be really guapa (hard working) and go around to peoples houses and invite them all to come to my presentation. I got to quite a few houses, mostly the people I knew well and who knew me. I was pretty excited because everyone said they would come. However, one thing I’ve learned about this country is that people say they’ll show up and they seem very convincing, but they don’t come. It’s at times frustrating, but its just something you have to realize. So if you invite some number of people, you really have to divide that by 3 and that’s maybe how many people will show up! But I was just proud of myself for trying and getting out there and inviting my people! I went to the school and entered every class in the morning and afternoon to tell all the kids to tell their parents to come! And in the afternoon I went with Nancy bike riding around town inviting even more people. So I got exercise and work out of it! By the end of the day I was tired.

Monday I woke up and went to the school to prepare all the chairs in the schools big hall where my site presentation was going to be. But the sweet cleaning lady that works at the school had already done it for me- so great! So I went home and showered, you know the typical get ready for the day things! Then my boss Don Pedro showed up right on time and I showed him to my house where we did paperwork and chatted about how things were going! Then we ate lunch and chatted for a long time. It was really nice that I live with the doctor. My boss was able to talk to the doctor a lot and figure out how the medical system worked here in my town! Then we had my official presentation to my community. It went well, there weren’t as many people there as I was hoping, but I knew not to get my hopes up! I said a few words about how I was excited to be in Tacuara and live there for two years. Overall it was a good presentation my boss got to talk to all the important people I will work with and he seemed very impressed with how well I’m adapting and all the people I know already! Good day!

My new home is going really well. I really like this family, I feel so much more part of a family. Like a mom, dad and sister! They’re a pretty united family and they always like to have meals together which I really enjoy. We cook chipa asador together for dinner, which was where we put chipa dough on a stick then cooked it rotisserie style over a fire pit that we had in the kitchen! It was a really fun night bonding! My new ma, Nancy and I like to ride bikes, so we’ve gone on a couple of bike rides together. One morning we went pretty far outside of town to a house where they were branding and marking cows. We got to watch and help out a bit, it was a fun day! I just feel so much more a part of this family, we play cards together, watch and talk about the newest happenings on the telenovela! Its nice because they have a car and a couple times a week they go to Pilar, so its really convenient to go and I don’t have to pay the bus fair! This last Saturday we went to Pilar to go shopping, we ran a bunch of errands and I got to know Pilar a lot better! Sunday we went to San Juan, Missiones which is the neighboring department (which would be an equivalent to our state) to visit Nancy’s sisters that live there. We spent all day eating, chatting and doing a little bit more eating! It was a good day just hangin out and we almost died on the way home with a near miss of a cow. (not really momma, we didn’t almost die, there was just a cow in the middle of the road! Ha!) My little sis Jimena, is really cute, but sometimes she wines a lot and its annoying. I understand a little bit more about why they say terrible twos! I think its just taking her a little bit to warm up to me. However, she does really like it when I put on Super Pato for her- which is Loney Tunes Superior Duck, and we watch it together! I can basically recite all the lines now! It is nice to have the doctor and a nurse in your house though. My big toe starting hurting really bad the other day then got really red and poofy, so my ma looked at it and decided to take a chunk out of my toe nail and it happened that my toe nail was growing sideways into my skin at the bottom towards the cuticle… ouch! So she was able to take that out very nicely for me (it only hurt for a bit) and give me antibiotics to make sure I didn’t get an infection! Ohhh the benefits of my new family! Other than that we’ve been watching a lot of soccer, the world cup has replaced the March Madness I missed! I have a little fold-up schedule that I can fill in the scores of everyone who won, so I’ve been watching a lot of games lately. And its something I like to do with my new pa, like when Paraguay played the first time, we had our set up in the house for prime game watching. Then this last Sunday Paraguay WON, we all got up early on Sunday morning to watch. Sunday is the only day possible to sleep in, because we’ve been doing house reconstruction. We’re putting revoke (a sand/cement mix) on the walls and tile on the floors. So the men working on the house come every morning between 6-6:30am except Sunday. So of course the day I could possibly sleep in there is a game on at 7:30am, that I HAVE to watch! But it was worth getting up because we won!! My family was so excited! Plus it was fathers day, so we had a really delicious lunch and hung out as a family all day, and I made a chocolate cake and decorated it with words saying Happy Fathers Day! My pa was pretty excited about it and we all took a lot of pictures!

On Thursday (June 10^th) I played some more volleyball with the high school kids. I was picked first to be on a team! I didn’t even play well, but I threw in a couple of spikes here and there that impressed the crowd! Little by little I’m getting ready to form my volleyball team. I have a new reason to form my volleyball team. Not just because I love coaching and playing but there is a serious self-esteem/motivation/self-control issue with the girls here. I just found out this week that a young girl is pregnant from a man that already has (at least) three children with three different women and many other girlfriends. So this girl makes number 4. It breaks my heart to see these women repeat the same thing over and over again, thinking that he likes you and wants to be with you but really he’s just using you. So my secondary mission is to try and empower these young girls and hopefully get them at an early enough age that I can make a strong positive influence on them.

Another project I’ve started is a walking club. I’ve only gone a couple of times and so far its only my friend Blanca, but we’ve been walking for a good hour in the mornings. Not only is it good exercise but I’m talking, practicing, learning! And I really like hanging out with Blanca because I can say things really wrong and she helps me understand why it was wrong and how to say it correctly! She’s going to be my official Guarani tutor. Starting next week I’m going to work with her at least 2 or 3 times a week on my Guarani, because Peace Corps is paying for it, so why not! But I’m looking for more women to join my walking club and hopefully get a big group out and exercising and showing the importance of getting exercise and how good it is for you body!

On Monday and Tuesday (14-15^th) of last week I was at the school helping a teacher with a nutrition project she was doing for her studies. On Monday I was in the class with kindergartners and pre-schoolers. I lead a game about what food is good to eat and what we should eat less of. I had made a bunch of food cards that were laminated and put on cardboard so they could withstand the wear and tear of little kids! Then I made two big mouths one with pretty teeth and one with ugly rooting teeth. The kids were each given a card and they were in two groups and each kid had to decide if their card was a good food or bad and put it in the corresponding mouth! It was fun and they kids seemed to really like it! On Tuesday it was a meeting for the parents, they demonstrated how to make an alfredo-esk sauce that was healthier. After the presentation I got to stand up and say a little something to the parents about how I would like to start a garden project if anyone is interested for better alimentation of the family, and I’m also going to be bringing a detergent kit from Asuncion the next time I go, because I had a lady tell me she wanted to do it and she will help me get a group of ladies together to make it with me! Yeah!

Friday (18^th) was a holiday. It was dia de San Juan and there was a festival that night at the high school, which luckily is right across the way from my house. Both Freddy and Nancy were gone for the night so it was Eusavia, Jimena and I. We ate really typical Paraguayan food, there was little carnival type games for the kids. The little girls danced which was adorable. Some of the boys played piqui, which is a mix between volleyball and soccer, you can only use your feet and have to pass it between your partner and get it to the other side of the net! Then there were the Kamby which were kids that dressed up crazy so you didn’t know who they were and ran around trying to capture people and all the kids were lovin it, and some of them wanted to be chased! Then they lit a scarecrow looking thing on fire and there were fire crackers inside! It was interesting, but super fun! But most of my time was spent chasing Jimena around everywhere!

This last Saturday I went with my contact Avelina to another little barrio (town) where we celebrated abuelas 87^th birthday! It was super fun at first, we were eating delicious grapefruit, we walked around in the fields and took lots of pictures, just hangin out and having a good time. Then we sat down for lunch and there were two of Avelinas uncles that starting talking to me, which was fine until they started talking about wanting to marry me… its so normal in the country for people to ask you if you’re single and they always ask about the possibility that you could stay here if you found someone special… blah blah! So I’m totally used to people talking to me about that. But these two men wouldn’t quit. And I eventually didn’t know how to respond, plus age in the country means absolutely nothing. The one guy was 47 and the other 45. and for them to be asking this of a 23 year old was perfectly normal… the 47 year old man has a 16 year old pregnant girlfriend if that proves anything. So by the end of lunch I was really tired of saying I wasn’t going to bring either of them back to the United States and we would never be together. I don’t think it helped that either of them had been drinking. To make my day even more pasado (literally means heavy, but in this sense means tiring) Later that night I went to hang out with some friends at Avelina’s house and I was actively hit on by a man with a wife and son, who’s mom was sitting in the same room. Moral of this story. It is very hard to be a woman in this country, foreign or citizen. Just because you’re married, have a girlfriend… means absolutely nothing in this country. It is just something I will constantly have to be aware of and always try to keep myself away from situations I don’t want to be in!

Not to end on a bad note. Life really is good here. I find little things in my life every day that remind me why I’m here and that I really have the opportunity to make a difference and I know I will. And I do have a lot of support from my other volunteer friends- thank god. I always have someone to talk to that’s relating to what I’m dealing with. And I have made a lot of really good Paraguayan friends in my site already and I cant even imagine what those relationships will transpire into in the coming two years!