My New Favorite Sport

3-26-09

I simply love Villarrica. It has been an awesome few days. The volunteer we visited has been great and we did another charla today--this time in private school. The school was ridiculously international. There was one kid from Germany and another from Maryland of all places. WTF? Strange. The charla could definitely have gone better but we were prepared to teach kids with NO prior knowledge of computers without using computers. Instead we were shoved into a fifth grade class and then a seventh grade class where the kids have daily computer classes starting in first grade. We basically just played games.

We went back to see my new loves (the carpinchos) and got some pretty sweet photos of all of us rubbing their bellies. I really would love to abscond with one... We then went to a private museum run by one of Los Gomez brothers. They were a Paraguayan band who traveled to 60 countries, playing for the king of Iran, soldiers in hospitals during Vietnam, DisneyWorld, and recognized on several occasions by the pope. Strange. It was a silly and absolutely phenomenal place and our guide had a moustache that made you want to give him a big hug. (Try to imagine a mustache with that kind of effect. I dare you.)

Strangely, then we were on the radio. Paraguay is so unlike the US. Any of us can easily have our own radio shows in site. You can walk into a school essentially uninvited and I´ve been told that if I do want to volunteer in jail, the process is exactly the same. I don´t believe there is any sort of background check whatever. Anyway, after making fools of ourselves on the radio, and having another SUPER painful Guaraní lesson, we went to the handball tournament. That´s right. We were told it began at 7. We got there at 8, assuming we would avoid the inaugural events. I cannot explain how much random stuff led up to the beginning of the games. First some random people (including the mayor) spoke. Then all the teams paraded out with their Miss Fill-in-the-Name-of-the-Town-Here scantily clad and leading the pack. Then we stood for the PY national song. Other people talked. Like 5 different dance acts came out and did their thing--including one that was supposedly Arabic...the whole thing seemed silly. After watching the two teams warm up and take photos in front of the goals for another 45 minutes it began. Oh, and there were random kids and a dog that wandered out onto the court durin gthe dances/prep. We watched a 30 minute half, part of the half time show (which was a guy with fiddlesticks) and left at 11pm. As a side note, I am extremely interested in playing handball at my site. It was intense and phenomenal.

As I´ve said I´ve really been loving Villarrica but we leave tomorrow. I´m sad to leave my temp host fam--they have been great and my host bro is hilarious. In the AM we are going to an orphanage to do some games, then have language class, then stop back at that delicious Cucuruchu on the way home. I can´t wait for that delicious comida though I´m sad to leave my new Rodents of Unusual Size amigos...