more fiestas (there seems to be a trend) and the PCV visit

I feel like a lot has happened since my last post, I just haven't had the time to write anything down.

I made it to Asuncion with my partner last Wednesday. It went pretty well, we didn't get lost per se. Our instructor gave us the wrong directions (not sure if that was intentional or not..) but thanks to my marvelous directional skills I was able to navigate our way to the correct destination! WOO! We had to go to the Centro Cultural Paraguayo Americano first, and then to the Red Cross. It was really interesting. Then it started to pour rain, which was a first since we had been here. So we were soaked as we walked to find a bus that could take us to the Peace Corps office. It was actually quite refreshing!

On Valentine's I was happy that I got to Skype with Matt! (YAY).

On Saturday, there was a huge party at "the club" for Valentine's day/Carnival. In Paraguay they have their own Carnival in Encarnacion and it's a pretty big deal so locally they held their own fiesta. It also happened to be one of the other PCT's birthday so we had a little gathering at her house first. We left to go to the fiesta at midnight (Paraguayans really know how to party and don't start until very late!). There was a pretty decent size group who went. There was live music and dancing and beer all night. It was super fun and I ended up staying until 4:30am. A strange thing that I encountered was that in order to use the bathroom I had to pay 2 mil (which is equivalent to 40 cents, mas o menos) to get toilet paper to go to the bathroom.

On Sunday, my host family and I went to another fiesta for my host sister's godmother. She lived in what I believe to be a suburb of Asuncion. It was very nice! They had 5 adorable puppies at their house and my host dad kept joking that I was going to sneak one home in my purse, I was slightly (aka VERY) tempted. The daughter of the birthday girl, her friend, my host sister, and I went on a little excursion after lunch. They took me to this beautiful area near the Rio Paraguay. There were huge mansions, a yacht club, and a really nice beach! We spent a little time there before the fam and. I had to return home. I skyped with Marguerite, one of my best friends, and that was treat. Then I had to prepare for my PCV visit.



My favorite puppy

All five puppies on my lap!

Bright and early on Monday morning I had to take a bus 3.5 hours away to a city called San Ignacio. I met my mentor, Liza, there. We took another short bus ride to her site which was near by. It was awesome to get the opportunity to see how volunteers really live their lives on a day to day basis. We went to her health post which seemed pretty active and well structured and we had a lot of meetings with people in her community regarding some of her projects. It was nice to have down time when she didn't have meetings where we could read or watch movies or whatever. I finished a book called The Night Circus and it was SO good, shout out to my good friend Haley for hooking me up with some awesome reading material while I'm down here!!!!

I almost forgot to add that my mentor gave me the sweetest welcome gift ever!!! I seriously almost got a little emotional, and she probably would have thought I was a crazy person.. well maybe I am a little bit. Ha! She gave me a really cool guampa and bombilla. These are items used to drink terere out of. The guampa is the cup and the bombilla is the straw which has a strainer at the bottom so that you don't drink the herbs. (pictures below) Now all I need is a sweet thermos.




my new guampa and bombilla

I just got home from the visit today and took a huge nap.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love siesta?! Because I absolutely adore it! The fact that it is socially acceptable to take a nap anywhere from 1-3 hours everyday is awesome. I may or may not need to bring this cultural tidbit back to the states with me!

Another shout out to my little brother, Carl, because yesterday was his 10th birthday! I hope he is as pumped as I was to finally reach double digits! Love you broha.

Tomorrow I'll be back to the grind of training.
Until then,
xox






A view of the beach club

another view





The beach!



 

I found this really interesting because it was spot near the beautiful beach where they have people deposit their old batteries so that they don't get thrown into the river!

My mentor, Liza, and I

Liza's house!!