So my brother’s visit has come and gone. We had a great time running around Paraguay, visiting friends of mine, and reminiscing about the days when I could beat him up. Highlights were definitely the waterfall Salto Cristal, which we went to with a PC friend of mine and some Paraguayan neighbors of his, seeing the capybaras (obviously), and having Rahde convinced that he can market the terrible Paraguayan sugar cane booze in the States. Check out the photos if you’d like. Somehow we didn’t figure out until our farewell at the airport that we won’t see each other until August 2011. (He got a Watson Fellowship and will be traveling to New Zealand, South Africa, India, Turkey, and Jamaica studying open fire cooking techniques. Jealous? Yeah, me too.)
I was ready to get back to work after he left and I got back to site after helping with the PC Paraguay publication but I got back just in time for Holy Week. Holy week in the US (at least for me) just consists of possibly dying Easter eggs and enjoying an early Cadbury Egg or two. Here it consists of eating a ridiculous amount of chipa hard corn-based bread) and doing very little. Oh, wait. That is everywhere else in Paraguay. Here in Villa Madrid there is no shortage of chipa but we also enjoy Pascua mita’i and Pascua Joven (translation: Children’s Easter and Teenager’s Easter). Obviously. The youth at my local church put together three days full of activities. Since I was out of site beforehand I didn’t help plan and was not really involved, but I did attend to play with kids, dance for God, and take pictures of the event. Dance for God? Right, you should question that. There was a great deal of calling out different groups to have them dance for a while in the middle of a circle of 80 kids and a bunch of teenagers. They were all called in groups but me. This is the joy of being the weird Norte here. Anyway, the teenagers did a good job and the kids all had a blast.
I talked to my mother yesterday and she asked me what I did for Easter. I had kind of forgotten it was Easter, since it was also a PC friend’s birthday. Three of us had planned to sit in the food court of a mall in Asuncion playing Banana Grams (obviously) and having some beer until a movie started. The online movie schedule was wrong so the movie wasn’t until 6 hours later. We nixed that idea but figured we’d spend the day Banana Gramming and playing chess anyway. A mall employee interrupted a Banana Gram hand to tell us that the mall food court had a no gaming rule. I still really don’t understand/believe this. He went on to tell us that the food court was for consuming food and drink only, even though we were doing so. Unfortunately we had to move on to actually talking to each other. We were all thoroughly disappointed and decided to move our gaming next door to the grocery store food court. They welcomed us with open arms. So although my Easter did not involve bunnies, eggs, or pastels of any sort, it did involve Brahma beer, Banana Grams, and a grocery store food court. This may be my new tradition.
Since then life has been super busy in site. Last week I started English class. I have been avoiding this for the past year but finally broke down and began it. The class is to run for ten weeks, twice a week for two hours a class. The first day was horribly painful (6 people showed and one girl was mean and snobby which I thought was weird since this is obviously a completely optional course); the second was much better (12 showed up and seemed invested and interested); and the third (last night’s) was even better. 23 people are now in the class, even though I had closed the class to just 20 people. I really have no idea how this happened. Anyway, I have an attendance policy and strict rules as far as what it takes to receive a certificate but the class is pretty relaxed. I’m actually enjoying it much more than I thought I would, which is to say that I am actually enjoying it while I thought I was going to hate it.
Yesterday Fundacion Vision came to my site to do free eye exams for people over the age of 60 and for 10,000Guaranis ($2US) for everyone else. It went much better than I expected as well. I had somehow misunderstood a month or so ago when I invited the group and made 30 fliers for my neighborhood that said it was free for people over 60 and kids under 10. Guess what. Not true at all for kids. I ran around like a crazy person Saturday afternoon changing all my fliers and explaining my incompetence to all the families I had invited. The foundation also sells cheap glasses and offers follow-up surgeries at low prices at a later date. They’re coming back at the end of May and again in June in two locations—the first phase and the fourth phase (which sounds like it should be part of my neighborhood but is actually the same size as my neighborhood and about 2 miles away). Anyway, I’m psyched to be working with them, though I did have to be at the comedor at 6am yesterday to welcome them and then they were obviously an hour late…Oh how I love Hora Paraguaya!
This past weekend at the comedor (free meals program for kids) we began activities and educational chats with the kids. I did a bunch of stuff that focused on dental health, which is really lacking here. There are a lot of kids who have cavities that are actually visible in their front teeth. It is very common for adults to be missing teeth in Paraguay, especially since dentists frequently find it best/easiest/who knows? to just pull teeth to deal with whatever problem. Anyway, we read a story, sang some songs, and practiced tooth brushing on a big set of teeth I got from the Peace Corps office. The kids then had a competition of plays, music, and games for which I was a judge. They tied, thanks for asking. Jovenes Unidos (my youth groups who works with these kids) then did a little chat about the environment and we had a trash pickup competition. Again, it was great, though for whatever reason I had to be there as well at 6:30am. I really hate how early things start in this country. A lot. I can’t stress this enough.
Anyway, that’s what my life has been looking like lately. Work is good and steady. Today I’m going to a high school to talk to the principal about a series of activities/presentations that two students and I want to do there about sex-ed, healthy relationships, and HIV/AIDS. If all goes as planned we’ll be doing this at three different high schools in the area and then have a day of basically the same presentations but also invite a non-profit from Asuncion to come give out free condoms and information. I’m psyched.
