Rabbit Rabbit and a New Reason for a Pedicure

3-1-09

Happy March. It feels like August with this heat. So, I live with Alejandro, who is 5 months old, super cute, happy, and hopefully over the throw up on the tall white girl phase. Yesterday was his baptism. It was in Caacupe (ka-ah-coo-pay), where the Virgin of Caacupe is. She is absolutely Paraguay´s fav Virgin. I asked my parents what the story was, but they couldn´t remember somehow. But I just googled it and apparently she saved a converted Guarani from some hostile Christian-hating natives. Anyway, it is common for pregnant mothers to pray to her to ask for a healthy baby, and apparently Alej´s mother falls into that category. So the whole fam got into a van taxi on the hour long trip to Caacupe. I was drifting in and out of sleep in the back while my host bro (Alej´s dad) held the sliding door open for the breeze for half the ride. I woke up at one point to hear ¨Are we human? Or are we dancers?¨ bumping from the front speakers...

We get there and I walk around, excusing myself from buying rosary from the street kids who work with another PC UYD volunteer. The building was pretty...not very exciting but nice. It is fairly new, and I was surprised to see the Paraguayan flag in some stained glass. Also surprising was just how white and muscley Jesus was, along with how the Virgin of Caacupe looks an awful lot like a Cinderella Barbie... (I didn´t bring my camera to the cyber, but will try to get a photo up soon so I don´t sound like such a bad person and you can decide for yourself.) The baptism took maybe 15 minutes for Alejandro and the six other kids involved. Anyway, it was a good day overall....it concluded with a bizarre party where a 10 year old child asked me if we had dogs in the USofA. I said yes. Then she asked if there are babies in the US. Ha.

OK, totally different topic. UYD volunteers are known for being chuchi (this basically means that we live in cities, are given slightly higher pay, and dress up more). I don´t think that this is a hard thing to bedcome nown for considering the amount of people who live in the campo and do farm work. (We also have to dress up for schools, blah blah blah.) Regardless, I think that every single UYD volunteer I´ve met has had their toe nails painted. This is a stupid little thing, but one of my fellow trainees just learned one more excellent reason to get a pedi. This isn´t because they cost about a dollar, nor because Paraguayan women are disgusted by unpainted nails. As she was getting her feet cleaned, the pedicurist started cutting away at the bottom of her foot. She assumed it was a blister or something, but it was actually, don´t worry, a WORM! Ew. There are worms here that are extremely common among barefoot children. They crawl under your skin and lay eggs. Ew ew ew. I really can´t handle this idea. Luckily for my amiga, they got it out early so she shouldn´t have any problems but wow. We´ve been here for 3 weeks and already one has infested in a foot. This is the best reason ever to get pedis regularly...oh, that and they insist on putting some sort of silly design on your big toe.