The first picture is of my adorable brother who should be on a commercial for the niko bottle! The second picture is of us at the soccer game, me liza danielle and liza´s two sisters sitting in the stands, third is a beautiful sunset the other night... it was just so perfect! and then me and liza at the soccer game and finally a couple of us at natalies birthday party, way too much fun!!!

Well Guarani is extremely difficult. It’s a slow process of learning a new language, and last week I was feeling really frustrated. I just want to know it, and its hard. Really really hard. I mean its taken me 7 years to learn Spanish, now I’m suppose to learn a completely new language in a couple of weeks- ugh! But I’m trying to keep a positive attitude about it, especially because I know how much better I’ve gotten in Spanish already so hopefully I can learn it pretty quick! On the 21st we had a birthday party for Natalie, it was super fun… we invited all our families again and shared food. We danced, chatted, drank and listened to super sweet eighties music! They love eighties American music here, its funny! I made a Paraguay version of my Cheers game- it was really fun, everyone really liked it! And I made homemade dice. It was awesome! The next day most of our group went to watch the local club teams play soccer, its an all day event and most of the people from the community go to watch it! It was super duper fun! We sat around, drank terere, ate candy and chatted with people. I always had about 4 or 5 kids around me, I had a lot of fun hangin out with the ninos! Then I started chatting with this lady next to me and she invited me to go talk on her radio show the next Saturday! So hopefully if it works out I can go meet up with her, its in the bigger town so I’ll have to take the bus! Life is good though! My bug bites have mostly gone away and my legs don’t look sickly gross anymore: I love the tranquillo life here, and I’m starting to get really comfortable. All the little kids know my name, when I walk by their houses they call out my name and they love hangin out with me! One day coming home from school they ran out calling my name and they had wrote me a note saying, “Sara- te quiero mucho, como una mariposa!” Translation: “I love you a lot, like a butterfly!” it was really cute! The girls that I’ve been teaching English numbers to have 1-10 down pat! And I played soccer with the kids the other week, which was crazy fun, I cant believe how good these little kids are already at soccer and they range between 8 and 12 years old and they’re already amazing little players! I’m definitely going to be sad to leave Guazu Cora. In one week from today I will know my future site, and that’s absolutely crazy and exhilarating! I cant believe we’ve been here for 7 weeks already!!! Only 109 weeks left till I come home! Ha!

So last week I was gone all week for what they call long field. I went to a southern most department called Missiones. It was absolutely beautiful! I went with my friend Natalie from my community and then three others from our neighboring community, Santo Domingo. That was really cool because I got to know some of them a lot better, because we don’t have much time to hang out with them outside of our training sessions. I stayed with this family who was hilarious. It was just an older couple whos kids were all grown and left the house, they didn’t speak a ton of castellano, so it was mostly Guarani, and I’m not good at Guarani yet, so I used more gestures… it was fun! They were really sweet and generous though, and the mom cooked some really good food! This week, I gave two charlas (little presentations) to the schools, one on nutrition and the other about developing and identifying your personal identity. The nutrition one went really well, it was to smaller kids and we played games and talked about what foods were good for you to eat. The second charla on identity was definitely a lot harder, it was to older kids and just the vocab that was necessary for this talk was more advanced and I definitely lacked some words I wanted to use. It is really hard for kids in Paraguay to have personal thought and creative thinking. Most of them just wanted to copy what their neighbor has; they are just so used to copying something from the board and not thinking for themselves. So it was a little hard to get our messages across at points! But it was a good time, and great practice! Then I also built 1.5 wood burning stoves for two different families! By the end of the week I was pretty exhausted, all this intense manual labor stuff… ha! I was really glad to go back home to my room and my family! The day we got home I walked to my friend Liza’s house, which is pretty much the farthest house from mine! The way there I had a little skip in my step and I was so happy to be where I was! I was walking past people who knew me and smiling, chatting, saying hello… then I hung out with Liza and her family for a while, laughed, joked and caught up from our weeks! We talked about how I ate pig head meat this week… its not as bad as it sounds, it tasted like turkey! But there were some rolled us sushi-esk things made out of pig skin and meat… I didn’t eat that, that’s where I drew the line!!

This last weekend I didn’t do too much and it was really nice. I was suppose to go talk on the radio show and Liza was going to come with me, but she wasn’t feeling well, so we’re going to try and go next Saturday! All weekend I just kinda hung out, slept in… worked on a crazy project I’m creating! There is lots of down time to do things, and this week is Semana Santa, so we only had a half day today and no school or anything to do the rest of the week!! Woohoo! Tonight I’m going to make chipa with my mom and grandma and probably Jacob! On Friday that’s all we eat, chipa is a harder bread type thing- its an interesting food, I didn’t like it too much at the beginning but now I do! And some is definitely better than others! But literally everyone in Paraguay will be making chipa tonight, its what you do! But I’m really excited for this week, because we’re just going to get to spend some quality time with our families and not have to worry about going to class and missing some good hang out time! Plus I could hang with my brother all day long, he is so adorable, I took a bunch of pictures of him on Monday night and I think I should sell the pictures to the Niko company (which is a brand name company that makes soda) they would be perfect advertisements! Yesterday morning I got up way way early and went up to Jacob’s house. It’s a very traditional thing to eat pig during Samana Santa, so we killed a pig that morning. And when I mean we I mean Jacob killed the pig and I took pictures! It was intense, you just stab that guys throat and you have to save the blood for some food you make, but it was really interesting to watch! I got some sweet photos! And it was a fun family bonding activity, my Pa is the main man when it comes to killing pigs! He roped that sucker on the first try :) Then we ate the pig that night, we had the meat from the head... ohhh man was it delicious! And pig tongue, que rico!!

Well the next time I write to you I will know where I’m going to be for the next two years. Real scary and super exciting, all at the same time… but if its anything like the place I’m at now, which I can sit outside at 7 o’clock at night on my porch listening to the sounds of children playing soccer, waving as people strole by on the road, and watching the sky turn magnificently beautiful colors… I will be completely happy! Pretty sweet life I live- and I’m getting paid to do this! Love you and miss you all at home, wish you too could experience the tranquillo life in Paraguay!

Damn you Mosquitos!

Last Thursday we had another day of practice and my friend Stephanie and I went walking around the community again and ended up talking to the same people as the week before. Only this time, the guys that were asking us tons of questions weren’t there… unfortunately those cool guys live in Buenos Aires and are doctors, that explains a lot why they were asking us lots of questions and seemed like very astute guys! But we ended up talking to other people at this house, who were very nice- not as fun as the last time, but we had a good time! Later that day we had class and talked about our mornings, but we got out of class way early so some of my friends and I decided to walk to an ice cream store (which ended up being a lot farther away than we had originally thought) so we stayed there and ate our ice cream in the shade of this persons house for a good hour or so! Lots of people have despensas (small stores) in their houses, so we bought some ice cream and sat in the shade, ate it and just hung out! Later that night we went to the soccer field like we normally do, but Liza and I ended up just hangin out with Wes’s mom, she is an awesome lady and we always like to talk to her, and I think she really enjoys our company! Friday morning we had more language class and we practiced interviewing each other because we were having oral exams 3 days later. Later that day we went on a technical excursion. We went to a really small site to visit two volunteers and build something. The volunteer we visited happened to be from Seattle, and went to UW (boo, gross! Ha!) so we had a lot in common to talk about and its always fun to talk to someone who knows where you’re from! We started working building a fagone (brick oven) but we didn’t get very far the first night. My friend Natalie and I stayed the night with a local Senora, she was very nice but the house was slightly older, made of wood (which always indicated more bugs) and the bed was a little sketchy. But these are just some of the things you have to deal with here! But Natalie and I had an awesome night talking and laughing in bed before we went to sleep. Turns out we are very similar people and have had very similar lifestyles! So it was really fun to learn a lot more about her! Well turns out my thoughts about the sketchy bed were right, I woke up in the morning with my legs COVERED in bug bites, I had put insect repellant on right before I went to bed and I still got eaten alive. I’m not exaggerating when I say I probably have about 75 bites just from my toes to my knees, on both legs… its disgusting! I was a little upset about it, and its highly probable that they aren’t even mosquito bites, but maybe bed bugs or fleas from the probably dirty bed we slept on. Because Natalie had tons of bites on her legs too, not as many as mine, but plenty! But the next morning we went and finished the project, it took us a while to finish it, but I was very proud of us for building it! I was definitely tired by the end of it, and I decided that manual labor is not one of my strengths I have to give to the Peace Corps! Ha! Fagone building goes right along with mowing the lawn- I can do it, I just choose not to! (that was for you dad!) So we got home kinda late Saturday night and I went to the soccer field to watch Jacob and Andy play and hang out with my peeps, but quickly left, just cause I was tired, cranky, had bug bites everywhere and definitely did something to my back, it hurts! I went home to find that my mom had a friend over and there were three more children in my house all under the age of 3… needless to say I did not come home to a quite house. I was going a little bit crazy. The three children visitors were crazy, running around screaming, hitting each other. My brain hurt so I went up to Jacobs house only to find a small party going on and everyone was drinking, so I hung out for a while. But then went back home to eat and shower! Later I went back to the house to hang out more and have a few drinks to relax! Then called it an early night because I was tired! I slept like crap that night, I was up scratching the heck out of my bugs bites all over my legs and I tried so hard not too. I even put on socks to try and help, didn’t work. So I didn’t sleep very well and woke up in the morning with even bigger bug bites! If the damn mosquitos weren’t here I would be completely happy. But I was woken up at 11… which was pretty late, but I didn’t sleep during the night. My friends walked in the door at 11 inviting me to lunch at this guys house. He lives in the states and his brother lives here in Guazu Cora like two seconds from my house. So I woke up got ready and went to that guys house with the rest of my people to have lunch, which was amazing! The best part was they had KETCHUP there! And it was delicious! We talked with them for a while in English and Spanish! Then I went home, hung out with Jacob and some of my uncles for a while, then home and had bonding time with my mom! We sat outside and talked for hours, we watched the two huge storms come and go. (Mom, Cindy- you would love these storms, they are awesome!! I think of you every time there is one and how much you like them!) I finally showed Ana my scrap book and talked about my friends and family, which was great practice for my oral exam tomorrow! I like the rain, its cool and really fun to watch- but only when I’m in my house and not going anywhere, cause this rain soaks you very very quickly. Its like that one time that we were at Coco beach in Florida and just like that it started down pouring and we got all wet! Great day of just hangin out, trying to recuperate, I really did mess up my back a little bit, I’m walking like an old grandma! And trying not to itch my bug bites that cover my body :) Monday morning I went to class early with Jacob because he gets extra practice with our language teachers, but since I was there early I went ahead and did my exam first thing! But when I went in there the tester said, its not an exam its just a conversation! I think I did pretty darn good, so much better than our first interviews! He said I just needed to work on my concordances, like the feminine pronoun with the noun and such, but he thinks I should start in only Guarani now! So that’s pretty cool! I was happy I did well! Later that day I lead another session on cultural challenges, this was something I was asked to do by my technical trainer who recommended me! So it was kinda a privilege to be asked to do another session, so that was cool. It was a more boring subject than nutrition and I didn’t do a sweet dance, but my peeps enjoyed it! That night two of my girlfriends and I made carrot cake, and it was pretty delicious! I brought some home to my ma and pa and they loved it! Tuesday we went to a larger city about 20 min away and made a bunch of different food with other trainees in the urban youth group and with their families! It was fun to do something with the other group that we don’t know very well and don’t see often! We made soy empanadas, soy tortillas (which is a fried dough, kinda like a pancake but way oilier!) and soy apple juice! It was pretty delicious, I ate A LOT at lunch! In the afternoon we were back with our health group and we had current volunteers talk to us about how to teach in schools, it was pretty interesting. And Chaco Fred was there, which was really fun to talk to him. They call him Chaco Fred because he lives in the Chaco- which is no mans land and hardly anyone lives in the west side of the country… except for Chaco Fred! I was expecting him to be hairy and caveman like, not at all, he was actually very good looking! Ha! And he had been a teacher for 4 years in San Francisco and vise principal for 2 years, he gave us tons of really great info on how to teach in schools, it was cool! Very smart guy! If only he knew a secret cure to keeping away mosquitos… later that night I went to the soccer field to hang out. I have been teaching these two adorable girls how to count to ten in English! They are doing really well, only they always forget how to say six and eight! But they love me, and we always have a lot of fun, they teach me words in both castellano (Spanish) and Guarani. It’s a nice little arrangement we have! And I think those girls are so great, we’re going to start learning food and animals names in English when I get back from my long field trip that is all week next week. So I wont be updating for two weeks! I would love to hear from everyone, and I hope y’all are doing amazing! Besitos!

It’s all about integrating!

so these pictures are all from a fiesta we went to, lots of dancing (with my gpa in the green shirt) my grandma is the lady in the pink. and my host family is the one with the baby in it. our group is one of them and the other is my friend eliza holding a cake for my friend andy´s birthday! it was super fun!

This last week we got to go observe the local school. We were only there for about an hour, but it was really interesting. I was in a 9th grade class, basically in Paraguay you have a lot of rote memorization, its all about finding the answer in the limited number of books they have and writing it word for word. There is not a lot of creative thinking involved in the school systems. On Friday we had our first Dia de Practice (Practice day) where we were just sent off into the community to talk to people. My partner, Stephanie and I wanted to go to the Puesto de Salud (health post) but it wasn’t open because it was a holiday. So we just kept walking, we decided to be adventurous and just go up to a house and talk to someone, it turned out to be a very old lady that we visited, she was really nice though. We talked to her for about ½ hour it was fun! Then we kept walking, we finally found a house where there were a bunch of people outside that waved to us, so we went in to talk to them. We ended up staying at that house for over 2 hours! They were really cool. We sat and talked to them, drank terere and discussed the meaning of life. I’m not joking, this guy was asking us question after question, rapid fire! We talked about anything from the difference of a private and public university in the states, the reason of Peace Corps, our future dreams and goals to the most important aspects of our life! It was absolutely crazy, but it was really nice to talk about things I don’t normally talk about and use vocab with… so it was great practice! It was some good integrating time! That night we had a party at my friend Liza’s house. All our group and our families were invited to it. We all dressed up nice and hung out! We spent time with our families, we all brought a dish to share, it was really fun. Liza’s sisters boyfriend brought big speakers so we had sweet music to dance to, I danced with my grandpa… we’re always dancing partners! We drank some wine mixed with coke (don’t judge me Bri, I’m trying to integrate!!! Haha!) I don’t know why they drink wine with coke, its not terrible, but I would rather drink it plain. But mom you would like it cause they always keep their wine really cold and/or put ice in it! But its decent wine, it all comes from Argentina! We had a blast that night though, we danced a ton, spent time with all our families and ate great food! All the families left and us PC people kept dancing and hangin out… it was a fun bonding night! However, the next morning we all had to get up and go to language class at 7:45 AM! I wasn’t hung over cause I didn’t drink that much but I was just tired. However some of us were a little hung over- it was and interesting day of class. It was our friend Andy’s bday on sat also, so I had prepared a game for that day. During one of the breaks of class we played the game and it was super fun! I know Andy really appreciated it… and I have to maintain my reputation as party planner #1!! Saturday night we played another soccer game against the same girls as before. I did okay… I was tired and I didn’t work that hard! I was really close to making two goals, just a little off! But it was super fun! We all went home to have dinner with our families then we went to a one year old birthday party, the dad is a good friend of Jacob and mine that we see often and talk to when we walk past his house! So we hung out there for a while, integrated with the community then went to my friend Wes’s house to play some cards. We finally know how to play Escobo de quince… which is super fun! We played a couple games of that and drank some beer and wine. This time I had straight wine, much better! It was fun hangin out as a group but Jacob and I went home semi early cause we were all tired, but Sunday was our free day so I didn’t have to wake up early, I slept in till 10:30! It was fabulous! I used Sunday to catch up on my journaling and do some studying; I have a lot to learn with Guranai! Monday we switched language teachers and my new teacher is pretty darn cool! She really takes the time on the pronunciation of the words- which is really nice especially when we’re studying Guarani! That afternoon 3 of the 4 groups in our whole G32 (G32 is our entire class: health group (2), elementary education and urban youth development) G stands for Guarambare which is the city we train in and 32 is the class number we are. There are three times a year groups come to Paraguay, so the next health group to come to Paraguay in Feb 2011 will be G35… just some PC lingo! So almost our whole G was together for the afternoon activities where we talked about HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. Basically we talked about sex and condoms all day! It was very interesting, because it is a very touchy subject in Paraguay, we aren’t even allowed to talk about it until we’ve been in site for 6 months… serious stuff! We’re supposed to be integrated well before we broach sensitive issues like that! But we put condoms on mandioca, played HIV run around games and did interpretive dancing to female and male reproductive body parts! It was fun! Ha! Later that night we had our first dance practice, I told everyone I am in charge of choreographing a group dance, we have already got approval and a time slot to do it in front of everyone so now we just have to practice!! We all met at my house and I showed everyone the four songs and how I had spliced them together and organized them! Then that night I made up the moves to the first song, Michael Jackson’s “Closer”! And we practiced on Tuesday during our break between language sessions! The dance was slightly too hard for everyone in certain parts so I’m modifying it slightly, then after class on Tuesday Liza and I made up the moves to our second song, the girls are dancing to “Lets get Loud” by JLo! Pretty awesome, I’m very excited to see it all come together!

My Volunteer Visit

So this first picture is of a girl at the site i went to this weekend holding the pet monkey... it was awesome! second picture is of our volleyball court we played on... the boys in the pic are playing a game of pici and the rightmost picture is my volunteer i visited, Saydia, her neighbor boy in the town and her bro on the right, we´re sitting and drinking tereré!

Visiting a Volunteers Site: This was a very cool experience. First of all I was suppose to go on Saturday but it was raining all day and the road was washed out and I had gone all the way to Asuncion and found out the buses weren’t going so I went back home and just hung out with my mom! So the next morning on Sunday I woke up and it was nice and shinny so I thought no problem. So I walked another 45 min to the main road where I caught the bus and headed to Asuncion once I got there I went to the bus company and they said they weren’t going to Tuyango today either… so I called Ricardo, who is our technical trainer and he told me to try another bus company, luckily they were going today, so I bought a ticket and got on their bus that was packed. I sat right next to a very nice guy that talked to me the whole way, he was very interested in my story and just like to talk! He helped me practice my Guarani and was a huge help to tell me when I needed to get off the bus, so we waded through the crowds of people to the front and then I saw my volunteer running towards the bus, so it stopped, I thanked the bus driver and I finally made it. Not until late Sunday night, but I made it! The last part of the bus ride to the actual site was 20 km on dirt road… I felt like I was on a rollercoaster, and we got stuck three times, it was very scary! But I made it and I was introduced to some people then we just went back to Saydia’s house and hung out and watched a movie! In the morning she made a banana smoothie and we sat outside and enjoyed the cool of the morning! Next we took a tour of her site, but not all of it cause we got tired of walking! Then she made me some really spicy Indian stir fry, but it was delicious! I scarfed it down! Next we went over to a neighbors house to play volleyball. Well this court was very little and the next was a piece of wood that came up to my wrists when I put my arms up… we started playing and the people that were playing/hangin out with us knew very quickly that I knew how to play volleyball. I was a little timid when I was first playing then Saydia told me to hit the ball… so I started swinging hard! It was ridiculously fun! We ended up playing 12 games, yes 12 games! They were only to 10, but it was an entire afternoon of volleyball, it was great! Oh and we played with the neighbors pet monkey, it was pretty freakin cool, he was like wrapped around my arm and climbing on my head! He was soooo cute! Then we went home and made brownies and watched the older boys play soccer in Saydias front yard! Then as if we weren’t tired enough, we played a game of soccer with the kids! I couldn’t move after this game, I was so exhausted! We took showers, ate the delicious brownies (which were made from scratch, none of this premade box stuff!) and went to the neighbors house again to watch a scary movie with the boys! I was so tired at this point I couldn’t even focus on the movie and try to translate, so I just watched, but I got the jist of the movie anyway! We were both tired so we went home early and just talked in our beds and passed out! In the morning she showed me where she works at her health post. It was really cool, and definitely something I would love to work in! and the nurse is the contact person for the community and basically the coolest lady ever! Everyone that I met this weekend wanted me to be their next volunteer and the nurse was actually going to call our director and request that I be the next volunteer in their site! So it was pretty cool to get such a warm reception! It definitely made things seem a lot more real and discover what site is really going to be like. And if I’m in a site anywhere like Tuyango I’m going to be very happy! However I need to learn my Guarani, everyone was talking in it! Good thing we start Guarani classes tomorrow! Overall wonderful weekend, great experience and hopefully I’ll end up in a site as cool as Tuyango!

p.s. I’ve started a very nice tan! I wear sunscreen every day, but because of all the walking I do I’m out in the sun a lot most every day! Cool with me- lovin the sun kissed look!