Paraguay: A Peace Corps Adventure: list of random things I've done recently

Blerg. Life is busy.

I have about a zillion little things I want to mention so don't mind me while I rattle them off.

1. Eggs for brekkie: one night we were having fried eggs (among other things) for dinner and I casually mentioned that it happened to be one of my favorite breakfasts in the US and that my dad makes me eggs occasionally, which I love. This is a strange concept to them for more than one reason. [Let me just clue you in really quick... they don't eat "normal" things for breakfast. It's not that big of deal here, usually consisting of some sort of hot, sugary milk drink (which they consider coffee) and dense bread. But they also found it weird that my dad would actually cook something for me ha.] So anyway, they were really confused by what I was talking about but one of the following mornings my host mom went out of her way to make me fried eggs for breakfast and it was a really touching moment for me. And now it's become a weekend thing and I'm absolutely thrilled about it. Sweet, eggs.

2. Intentional Women's Day: we had a little fiesta at our Centro'i for int'l women's day and it was such a success! We invited all of our host moms and most of them actually showed up! We taught them how to make banana bread with the intent of teaching a healthier option. Total hit! excelllllent. We also did a zumba class and it was hilarious, they loved it! It was just awesome.

3. Yoga: I've gone to another yoga class and it's just the best. It's awesome to have time to just relax with friends. Plus my host sister is totally into it, so I love that we have this little activity to do together every Sunday.

4. Dance Class: what better way to spend your Saturday afternoon than walking 40 minutes away to go to a traditional Paraguayan dance class full of small children? Literally, the highlight of my weekend. I'm pretty sure the 8-10 of us who go are now an integral part of the choreography. Apparently its a serious commitment. I actually love it though.

I love the skirts! :)

5. Speaking of dance, I watched my prima (cousin) at one of her dance performances and it was beautiful. They have these really intricate outfits and it was really cool to see such a traditional dance done by young kids. Also, at one point they had all these bottles on their heads... like 5 bottles high, because why not right?!

6. Centro de Salud: Jen, Bon-Bon and I have gone to the local Centro de Salud (essentially a hospital) twice now for an activity called Dia de Integracion. The purpose is to get some experience meeting new contacts at locations were we could potentially see ourselves working. It's actually hilarious though because when we think about it, its just amazing the amount of stuff they let us see. First of all, on our first visit we somehow managed to walk in and get a meeting with the director of the entire place. He literally dropped what he was doing to accommodate us. That would NEVER happen in the US. Then he proceeded to attempt speaking in English to us (referencing Bon Jovi and Pink Floyd) and every time we tried to ask legitimate questions he would sort of just ignore us and continue his music conversation. Once we finally got him back on track he led us around the entire place on a pretty extensive tour. He brought us into every open room (including the pharmacy and the x-ray room... is that okay? I'm not so sure, but whatever I guess). On our second visit we decided to talk to someone more specific and got a lot of awesome information from a woman in charge of a program called Escuelas Saludables. The program teaches health charlas in the local schools and sounds super promising. It's amazing to me that people are so accommodating, I can only hope that my site will be similar.
7. Wine/Movie Monday: this is a new addition to our weekly schedule, and it's fabulous. A few of us will get together and watch a movie in Jen's casita (little house) and just hang out and pretend we're in America for a brief moment. It's wonderful.
8. Pringles: I've grown to love them even more since coming to Paraguay, probably because I'm just being biased toward American brands. Whatever, don't judge me. Anyway, my host brother surprised me with a whole can of cheese flavored Pringles for my trip for Long Field Practice (LFP), which I'll talk about in a sec. It was super thoughtful of him!
9. Trash: we have this project called Aspirants en Accion where we have to partner up and come up with an idea of a potential long term project, for practice purposes. My partner, Emily, and I decided to do an environment project. The inspiration came from the fact that there is just trash EVERYWHERE. More specifically, there is a ton of trash near the arroyo (river/pond thing) which is sort of sad because a lot people use it as a social gathering spot on weekends. We decided to do a few trash pick ups with other PCTs and it has been really successful so far. We made a few Eco-Bricks (see pics below) and collected multiple bags of garbage. We're also going to set up a meeting with the Municipality at some point, but I'll fill you in on that later. (mostly because I'm lazy right now). One important thing you should know is that Eco-Bricks are a really cool concept but totally suck to make. They take a ton of time and HARD labor. I became best friends with a stick because it ended up saving my poor little hands while stuffing the trash into the bottles. The first day I actually ended up cutting my finger on some gross garbage..so I probably have some trash-related disease right now.. oh well. But I also acquired some sweet calluses which vaguely reminded me of my rowing days.