Holy Moly, Holy Week!

4-14-09

I´m back in Guarambaré and have been here since Wednesday. Holy week was interesting. Thursday I went with my friend Barbara and her family to make chipa, which is a cheesey break made with Paraguayan cheese. Paraguayan cheese is simply not that great and I´ve recently been thinking too much about how essentially all PY food would be better with cheddar. I miss cheese variety. It doesn´t help that I just found out that Paraguayan cheese is frequently made by putting the cheese into a cow´s stomach for a while. Ew. Regardless, it was nearly impossible to make the chipa. We were attempting to knead the dough, but finally were just given the job of making it into shapes...a task mostly reserved for children. We were also put down for a 2 hour nap by Barbara´s family while they cooked lunch. I´m frequently treated like a child here...it is taking some getting used to. I was also told that God wouldn´t protect me if I went for a run on Good Friday. That was a much bigger holiday than Easter here. I missed getting an Easter basket next to my bed on Easter morning...maybe I´m being treated like a child for a reason?

I´m excited for my future site but hating time in limbo for now. We have classes like before but they seem super slow and repetitive. We swear in on the 24th (dad´s bday) at the embassy and have to be in site by the 28th. I had lunch with Paraguay´s presidents sister in site. She came to the community center where I´ll be working and grabbed my elbow for a photo op for, I thought, an uncomfortably long time. She seemed nice though. She refers to herself as Paraguay´s first lady because Lugo isn´t married... Sadly, I don´t think I made any papers here with that photo op.