VAC fun

Last weekend I had a fabulous time with a ton of my PCV friends. Most of them are in my VAC (Volunteer Action Committee, maybe?) but some of them weren’t. It was really nice being able to spend time with some Americans that I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting yet.

Friday:

I woke up bright and early at 5am, in the 40 degree weather, to catch a bus with some of the other PCVs that are close. We made our way to Coronel Bogado, which is the next town over. We waited there for a few hours because the bus to San Cosme didn’t leave until 9am. We drank maté (tereré’s scalding hot brother) and at chipa to try to keep warm. We finally got on a bus…when I say bus, I really mean glorified tourist van. Once we arrived at the PCV’s house in San Cosme I immediately took a nap. Duh. Later we went to look at the Jesuit Ruins which was cool, and then we went to lunch to have our VAC meeting with some of the Peace Corps staff from Asuncion. This meeting took forever…3 hours of talking about what we like and what we want to change about Peace Corps Training and Support. Get PCVs talking about how to better the program and they never shut up! Later on that night we got to go to an observatory/planetarium where we got to see Saturn through a telescope! It was awesome!!! (did I mention that San Cosme has a ton of touristy little activities?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday:

We woke up at about 9am, packed up our stuff and got ready for the day. Our first activity of the day was to stock up on crackers, cookies and other snacks. After that important part of the day we took an hour boat ride to the sand dunes that are in the middle of the river. The boat was full of 17 volunteers and was not reallyyy something you would feel totally safe in with 16 other passengers, plus the driver, but hey…adventures! We arrived and it was actually really awesome. It was essentially a few big hills of sand, but it seemed so out of place and that made it really cool. We spent a few hours there, ate our snacks, and shared some wine. Later that day we all made our way to Encarnacion for a going away party for one of the PCV who has now completed her service. I really cannot even imagine completing service at this point. We got ready and then headed over to her party. There was karaoke and even though I was skeptical at first, I was eventually coerced to sing some old school Spice Girls with a few others. It was fabulous! Then we decided we had to dance so we went to the club that was right down the street. It looked like a normal American club with drinks and a ton of people and very little light, but no one was dancing. Everyone was just sitting around, like that was the normal thing to do. We were definitely not having that so we moved some tables around and made our own dancing space and just decided to get the party started. We were clearly trend setters because about 2.5 seconds later the rest of the club joined in the festivities. Thank god. It might have been awkward to have a group of Americans just dancing by themselves while all the Paraguayans watched. It ended up being a really awesome time.

 

just some Spice Girls karaoke!

 

 

It was a fabulous weekend and I love being able to spend time with my fellow volunteers. Even when you don’t know the others that well, there is already this unspoken bond. We are going through the same experiences, mas o menos, and this brings us together instantly. It also doesn’t hurt that we can have conversations effortlessly. We are a great big happy family and I’m so grateful for all of them!

 

My next adventure will be in Asuncion, the capital, for the 4th of July party at the Embassy. Stay Tuned!

ummmm, Rude.

I find myself saying the phrase... "um, rude" very often. I don't know how it happened but it did. There are many different reasons to use this phrase here in good ol' Py and many of my closest friends have started using it as well. It's really just a casual way of saying that we're frustrated or annoyed with something. It’s never something I say in front of anyone except my English speaking, PCV friends. Let me give you a few examples of why I (or any of my friends would use this phrase):

-it rained during the night, but then was perfectly sunny in the morning. Rude. (because now we are unable to bask in the glory that is the lazy, rainy day)

-it finally rained during the day but on the one day that I had something guapa planned, so no one shows up. Rude.

-having to do the hardest Insanity video. Rude. (aka Pure Cardio... that thing is death in video form)

-playing phone tag all day with my friends... rude. And very frustrating

-all of my electronics seem to die at the same time, every time. Rude.

-Jen refusing to visit me because of some guapa project she's doing. Rude. (granted it is our job, but these are just minor details ha)

-not eating a single thing that would resemble healthy food in days. Rude. (luckily, not my experience but it is very real for some PCVs)

-having to sit at a “fiesta” doing absolutely nothing for hours when I’d rather be reading or watching movies. Rude.

-realizing that mosquitos are the sneakiest jerks ever, you never realize you’re getting bit until you end up having literally 50 bites. Rude.

-having a drip in the ceiling that really isn’t a problem, except for the fact that it just so happens to drip every 2-3 minutes right next to my head when I'm trying to sleep. Rude.

-taking a shower and having to blow dry my hair every single time because if I don’t my hair literally will not dry...ever. Too humid. How rude. (and time consuming)

 

As you can see, most of these things are not actually rude at all, simply agitating. But anyways, that’s a little glimpse of some of my random annoyances. Hope you enjoyed!

A Brief Summary of my Recent Trip to Villa Florida

Jen lives in Villa Florida. I assume it got its name from the fact that it's a vacation spot that has a beach and a ton of tourists. Anyway, here is a picture summary of my trip.

We went to Jen's new casa to check it out and see if any cleaning needed to be done. Instead, we drank mimosas because we're classy like that. Oh and you can see the new coat I bought! :)

Mimosa time!

alright, fabulous outdoor kitchen..







Oh yeah, her house is fabulous. And it has a huge yard!

So, in her new yard she has a ton of friends. Are they hers now? We're not sure. There is a horse, a cow, a piglet, some chickens and their babies, and 2 random dogs came into the yard too. The weirdest part is that her entire yard is fenced in and we're not sure how these animals got in. We checked for any breaks in the fence and there were none. The mystery continues.

I caught a baby chicken!

Clearly my favorite picture ever.

Jen and Cocoa (that is her new name, we decided)

digging a hole.

Then we decided we wanted to build a fire pit because obviously we will need one for when she has camping parties in her fabulously large yard. Plus she conveniently had all the things we needed. 




Jen loves the finished product!

building a fire pit!

I might be pretending to roast a marshmallow

Then we walked down the road to the little dispensa (translated: store) which was owned by one of Jen's new neighbors. We bought some hot dogs and some bread (there were no hot dog buns) and we made ourselves some campo dogs. Yum. Oh and by the way, we had mayo on our hot dogs because there was no ketchup or mustard either, but don't fret because this is customary in Paraguay.

Notice the small bread. ha.

Then we went to a San Juan festival at the local church. This is a custom that goes on all of June although the real date is June 24th. They have many parties that act as fund raisers for the various groups that host the parties (church, school, municipality, etc). There is usually a lot of fire associated with these parties. I'm not sure why. I've tried to ask and no one seems to know, or maybe they don't feel like explaining it to me when they are pretty certain I won't understand anyway... touché. Anyways, they have people walk on hot coals, they lite balls on fire and play soccer, they burn a mannequin that's hanging from a tree (view below), etc. there is also a lot of food and music and it was generally a good time. 



 The kids seemed to love me because I played tag with them for like half a second. I'll take it.

another little friend.

A little friend I made!

 We also did some other fun things like stroll around her community and watch copious amounts of Game of Thrones and other TV shows. It's always nice to be able to visit other PCVs, especially when they happen to be your best friend in the whole country!

Music makes the world go 'round!

I’ve experienced a lot of music in this country. It’s very important to their culture, as I’ve come to learn. Some ways that I’ve experiences music are not so wonderful. Por ejemplo: the neighbors would sometimes just blast their polka music at 5 or 6am for no reason at all, maybe they just wanted to wake everyone up with the lovely sound of accordion? This is awful, but alas it is a normal thing here.

However, there are many wonderful ways in which I experience music in this country. For Independence Day in May, all of the schools put together some sort of musical number to perform in the plaza for the whole town to see. It was really lovely seeing kids from preschool age to high school pitching in and just getting their groove on.

The other weekend I went to Encarnacion with my host mom to go to a concert. There was a free guitar concert at the municipalidad and hey, why would I turn down a free concert? The performer was from Japan and he was skilled in the art of playing Argentinian style guitar. He apparently went to NYC as a young man to try to make it on Broadway and ended up staying with an Argentinian family for a bit, this lead to his love for the music of a super famous guitarist. I got a little lost during this part of the story because obviously it was all in Spanish, and this guy wasn’t even a native speaker (being from Japan) but somehow he met the nephew or cousin of the famous Argentinian guitarist and was told to go to Argentina and study with said famous guy. He decided Broadway wasn’t for him (or maybe they decided he wasn’t for them...I’m not sure which) and went to Argentina to pursue his new passion. Talk about staying true to what you love. Leaving two countries in the hopes of getting something great out of it. He ended up being tutored by the famous guy and now goes around the world doing concerts based on that music style. It was really amazing and a super inspirational story.

My very own siblings are quite musically inclined. I’ve watched my sister, Leti, perform karaoke at a fishing tournament and she has a really amazing voice. My brother, Mauri, is awesome at playing guitar and I can only hope to one day be as good as he is (ha, fat chance). He can play many well-known songs, from Enter Sandman (one of my favs) by Metallica to the Game of Thrones Theme Song. It’s really quite marvelous. Both of my siblings contribute their musical talents to their high school’s choir group. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing them perform…finally. There was a benefit for a woman who is fighting breast cancer and there were 3 choir groups that participated. The first was a full of young, elementary school aged children. The second was the group from Carmen (my siblings) and the third was a group of adults from the Universidad Catolica. First of all, the amount of English songs that were incorporated by each group was astounding. It made me realize that we Americans are really ignorant in the language department (ha, as if I didn’t already know this). Our choirs never attempt songs in other languages. I understand that a lot of pop culture songs around the world are in English so this contributes to the reasoning, but still… Second of all, this was one of the most moving displays of affection I have ever witnessed. It really hit home because my aunt is battling breast cancer and it really made me realize, as cheesy as this sounds, that we are just one world. We may have different problems but many of them are the same. The amount of love in that room was palpable. I admit I even shed a few tears when I saw the woman get up on stage and sing her heart out with her choir family. Each singer had so much emotion written on their faces that it would have been hard not to feel their love for her. It really was beautiful, and I was so glad that I was able to be a part of it.



Mauri doing his guitar thannng

Leti getting her solo on!

The Carmen del Parana Choir

Preguntas, no mas.

I'm gonna go ahead and jump on the bandwagon and write a post dedicated to the crazy questions I'm asked while here. Let me preface this by saying, it really makes me feel like I need to brush up on my history or just general knowledge of the U. S. of A. Every single time I have to basically respond with "umm..I don't know" or "Es depende" (aka it depends). I'm sure this is very frustrating to the asker because they simply want to the answer to something they'd probably be able to answer if the tables were turned. Oh well.

-how does Facebook make money?
-how many people live in the U.S.? your state? Your city? (I did sort of know the answer to these, mas o menos)
-how many neighborhoods are in Madison, WI? (what?)
-what is Obamacare and how does it work? (literally cannot explain this in English practically)
-can you please explain time zones? (interesting because I guess they never needed to know, since there is only one time zone in Py)
-why do places like Mississippi and Louisiana, who have hurricanes and tornados, have houses made of wood?
-how much does a sports ticket cost? (expecting a specific price that I was unable to give considering it depends on so many factors like which teams, time of year, which seats you get, if the teams are big rivals, etc.)
-how do certain businesses work? (what? I have no idea.)
-how warm is it in you state? (in Celsius of course)
-how much money does the average family of 4 need to make to live "normally"? (that's a loaded question. What is normal? What is average? Where does this family live? Etc)
-can you explain the Civil War? (not as tough, but in broken Spanish... not sure if the message came across)
-how much do you weigh? (this is apparently not a taboo question here. Luckily I can rely on the fact that we use pounds and they use kg so I can just use the excuse that I don't know.)

And finally I want to give you an idea of one of my convos:

Him: how does a person usually get to work?
Me: typically, a car.
Him: well what about people who don't have cars?
Me: well... then probably a bus or train or something
Him: how much does riding the bus cost?
Me: I have no idea because I had a car, and during college I had a free bus pass so didn't need to pay for the bus.
Him: can you guess?
Me: not really.
Him: well then how much does the train/subway cost?
Me: I don't know.
Him: why not?
Me: because (again) I had a car. Also there aren't trains or subways in my city. Those are mostly in the big cities.
Him: so how much do they cost?
Me: I really have no clue because I've never taken the train.
*then he continues to give me a skeptical look like I'm simply withholding this info from him.

So yeah. That happened. Weird.

I do have to say that while these questions can be incredibly frustrating, for both parties (me- because I don't know how to answer them. And them- because I don't know how to answer them), I think it's really incredible that the people here have such a fascination for knowledge. They simply want to know about many things that we take for granted in the states because we don't really need to know the answers. While I sometimes loathe the 20 questions game, I also love it because it makes me feel like people are actually sort of interested in me (or at least my country). It's a good way to start dialogs with people and this is quite helpful.  

Kinda Sorta Guapa?

Well I’ve finally done some guapa things, kinda sorta. First of all, I finished book 2 of Harry Potter in Spanish. If that isn’t guapa, then I don’t know what is, haha.

On Tuesday, I went to the colegio (translated: high school) to observe a little workshop that was going on. Some first year medical student from Encarnacion came to chat with each classroom about what things they wanted to change about the community. These were things regarding safety and security, recreation, cleanliness, etc. They also talked about what they liked and didn’t like about their school (i.e. were the teachers effective, did they have temperature control during the various seasons, were their desks sufficient, etc). Another main topic that they talked about was health (are they happy with their home life, how many people share rooms, what do they know about sexual health and healthy relationships). Most of these things seemed invasive and private to me, not something that you’d talk about in a large group with your peers, but I surprised at how honest some of the answers were. When it came to the sexual health topic I was sort of disheartened by the miniscule amount of information they were offering. I couldn’t tell if it was because they simply didn’t know the answers, or because they were shy about it. It could be either one. I find it hard to believe that they don’t know anything about STDs or contraceptives, but I suppose it’s a possibility. Either way, I think I really want to work with this youth about topics such as self-esteem, goal making, personal growth, and build my way up to how to have a healthy relationship and sexual health. Apparently teen pregnancy is a problem here and I think education is an area that they really need some support in.

Another guapa thing my host siblings and I have been doing is the Insanity workout program. If you’ve never done Insanity, let me tell you that its name is perfect indicator of what it is. If you can do this program, sin problema, you are probably insane. The reason we started is because my sister, Leti, asked me when we were going to start doing exercises. This excited me and obviously I jumped on the opportunity. I told them that this program was going to be super hard but they were into it. After the first day, we were dying. My heart was pounding so hard I was certain that my neighbors could hear it. I had never felt so out of shape in my entire life. Wow. I’m 100% sure my siblings felt the same way. So the second day, I was sort of afraid that I had scared them off with such an intense first experience but they still agreed to do it. After this workout we were also exhausted and full of sweat. But it was a positive thing, because the next day they surprised me. I fully expected to have to coerce them with promises of treats or something to get them to continue this crazy program, but to my wonderful surprise they came home eager to start the next video. I’m just hoping that this eagerness continues and that at some point it can maybe blossom into a real live exercise group with some other members of the community. I mean let’s not get ahead of ourselves or anything, I’m perfectly content with my familial activities. (Did I mention that last night after our workout, Mauri (my bro) and I made delicious brownies? It may or may not cancel out the workout we did, but it was totally worth it. I’m just trying to share some culinary culture, right?!). It's great because this has also lead to some great discussions about healthy eating and nutrition. I know it's only with my host family, but I think that it certainly counts!

until next time,

xox

nothing to write home about

I know I should update you all on my Peace Corps journey but there isn't much to update on... therein lies the problem. I'm sure it's tough on all of you eager readers to have to wait and wait for some other exciting or awkward event to happen in my life, but trust me it's harder on me.

After my site presentation I was sick for a few days, which means I was reading and watching movies in bed all day, since it wouldn't be very responsible of me, as a Community Health Volunteer, to go work at the Centro when there is a possibility of infecting others.
Sometimes I'm amazed a little bit at the Paraguayan healthcare system. Clearly it lacks some things (what healthcare system doesn't?!) but it's crazy to see people go in sick and walk out with the medications they need, free of charge. How wonderful is that?! I just can't get over it.

I finished my first book in Spanish. It's a fantastic feeling, let me tell you! And what's even better is that throughout the second half, I didn't even need my dictionary that often. I'm on the second book and it's going much faster, thank God. I cannot handle reading that slow. I also got my host sister, Leti, interested in Harry Potter too. She read the first book, much quicker than I did of course, and we watched the first movie together last night. It still amazes me that she can watch a whole movie in English and understand 90% of what's being said. She's fluent. Obviously she liked the book better (woohoo) so now she's waiting for my slow poke butt to finish the second one. I told her she could read the 3rd one before me so that she can continue to be a rock star and read as quickly as her little heart desires.

I've been baking a lot. Cookies are still a hit in this house hold, and even in Jen's household. Her host brother didn't believe that I made them, he told her that they had to be bought. Ha! We've also ventured to make cupcakes. They were delicious, and pretty good considering I'd never made homemade frosting before. I think sometimes soon we're going to make brownies. Just call me the Dessert Master. Clearly, I'm the best health volunteer because I'm opening up their eyes to all these sweet, unhealthy treats!

In other news, I've learned how to play "Oh, Susanna!" on the guitar! Yay!

The lovely Chelsea and I at a fabulous Mexican Restaurant in Asuncion

Yum.

Photo cred to Leti!