Oh so much to catch you (my many faithful readers) up on! Where to begin? How my language has deteriorated? How I lost my life? How I was called a liar by one of the señoras I’m closest to? How I think I need to do something about my love of karaoke in Paraguay? How God is apparently really technologically advanced? OK, here we go. I’ll try to do this chronologically.
I went in to help teach the trainees how to teach English a few weeks ago. I showed them Monkey-Fire, which is a game I love! You say “monkey” and the kids run in one direction; if you say “fire” they go in the other. In between you say different animals and the kids at them out. I use drawings of animals with the English name of the animal underneath. When the kids get good at remembering animal names in English, you just say the words without the cards. Some of my drawings are much nicer than others, and I explained that I copied some from some temporary tattoos I use for prizes, but the other ones “I draw out of my mind.” I knew immediately that was not said correctly but could simply not think of the right way to say it. My old trainer cracked up…maybe since I still ridicule him for the time he asked, “What do you call bread that has already been sliced?” Umm…sliced bread? (Guess which I copied from a temporary tattoo.)
How I lost my life? I was biking to do a HIV/AIDS talk in a high school. My tote bag (with my phone, 20.000Guaranis ($4), my planner, my house key, my bike key, and a bunch of other stuff inside) was tied to the back rack. I figured out it was gone too late. When I biked back it was gone. I then spent two hours going door to door explaining what had happened, going to the local police station, asking my neighbors to keep an eye on my house. It was annoying. To deal with this annoyance and avoid having to take the locks off my door I went to another PCV’s house for the evening. Luckily my wallet was in my house so I just had a neighbor boy climb through one of my many broken windows to get it. That was quite a production—my teenage neighbor girls tried to climb in, and then tried to get their cousin to climb through. We literally picked up like 3 kids to try to shove them through my window. It was absurd. The next day, my neighbors got the locks off by taking what looked to me like a big crab mallet and bashing them off. They tried sawing the locks off but it was taking too long. I found it fairly disconcerting just how easy it was to break into my house… (Luckily, though, if I’m inside I have what can only be described as dungeon locks that I use. So no one, other than a very small child with an exceptionally small head, could come in undetected while I’m home. I think I could probably take said child.) I waited in the PC office for 6 hours the next day to get a different cell phone. I guess all’s well that ends well. Several things that make me feel better about the situation: 1) my wallet/passport/bank card wasn’t in there; 2) a whole neighborhood now knows who I am and what I do here thanks to my door-to-door visits; 3) whoever found my bag now has an absurd amount of info about HIV/AIDS so hopefully learns something; and 4) I got out of dressing up like a clown for the fourth time in four days.
A clown? Why in the world would you want to stand out more in Paraguay? Answers: Yes and I didn’t. The problem? My old host mom, Mimi (who is phenomenal!) asked me to dress like a clown for the church’s celebration of Día del Niño (Kids’ Day). I was such a hit (obvi) that I was then asked to do repeat performances for 3 other Día del Niño fiestas. For the one at the school I was given a microphone and led songs with the entire elementary school. Ten days have now passed and I’m still being called Payasa (clown). On my walk home from one of these events 5 different people (3 of whom I didn’t know) stopped me to ask if they could take my picture.
I’m a liar…or apparently that is what like 20 people think. I had my one year visit with my PC bosses. We went all over my neighborhood talking to people I work with. One lady told my boss that I’m part of the family, but that I’m a liar. This goes back to the library project. I had originally wanted to do a library/comedor project in the 3rd phase of my neighborhood. Unfortunately I’m not doing it anymore for a few main reasons: 1) I was given BOGUS estimates in which people very clearly (and repeatedly) tried to take advantage of me; 2) the women’s commission has fallen apart nearly completely; 3) there was no support from anyone/any group; and 4) with construction and the lack of enthusiasm, we simply do not have time to build all this in the 8 months I have left in site. Anyway, so in the community center there is a room where we can put a library pretty easily, and without construction costs/timelines. The problem: it is in a different part of my neighborhood and people apparently felt like I’ve abandoned them, taken sides, and think I never actually intended to do the library in the 3rd phase. I’m just happy that this one lady told me. The joys of this passive culture is that I had no idea that this was happening since people were acting the same with me like nothing had happened. Che Dios!
Karaoke? I simply do not have the voice to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart. I need to remember this. It doesn’t help that the kids (and teens) at the comedor constantly ask me to sing the Titanic song and tell me how nice my voice is, when in reality they’re just psyched to hear it in English.
God is technologically advanced? That’s right. You heard it here first. The other day I was at the comedor and started talking to this lady I don’t know well. She is the mother of some of the kids who eat there, but doesn’t really participate in activities normally. Anyway, the other day she was talking to me about heaven and Hell, and asked if I believe in Hell. I said, “Yes, of course!” and she told me that on my judgment day, I couldn’t claim to God that I hadn’t been told about heaven and Hell because she was telling me now, and He videotapes everything. Yes, she repeated, He videotapes everything…and has everything completely computerized up there. I struggled to keep a straight face as I pictured God with a big old video-camera with just VHS tapes.
Sex Ed Questions! So, as always, I’m doing sex-ed classes. My favorite question of last week was a double question: “Who invented sex? For what reason was sex invented?” How do I even begin to answer that??
