Saturday
7-18-09
Last night I went to the Expo with my host siblings, their 13 year old cousin and other 16 year old amigo. The Expo happens for about two weeks per year in Roque Alonso, which is even more of a turnpike town located between Asuncion and Limpio. The Expo was basically a supped up county fair. It is held in a shopping area/fair ground. They have an absurd amount of tractor displays (especially considering most small farmers still use animals to pull their plows), lots of car displays (complete with scantily clad women), a double-decker tour bus that you could explore (that you can take for the 16 hour trip to Buenos Aires). Some guys doing basic bike tricks drew a considerable crowd, though the bands playing in the stables of cattle didn’t seem to be a particular favorite. You could see new types of roofs, the (surprising to me) amazement of a basic fountain, how Itaipu dam was spending money, get a vaccination at the Health tent, get something inscribed on a necklace (which my 17 year old host sister did twice for her boyfriend), get your name put on a bead of rice (something I remember my real sister doing over a decade ago), get a characature drawn of yourself… It was like a county fair meets the board walk.
The way we spent the vast majority of the four hours was waiting for, and then finally watching, motocrosss. There were two motorcyclers—one from Australia with a bright yellow-with-flame-details jumpsuit who is supposedly the 2nd best in the world and a skinny kid from the US who was dressed like he was going to the mall with his high school buddies. The announcer was down in the field with them and would ask questions in English then translate their answers to the crowd of 8,000. The problem was that the announcer just made up his own answers. At one point, one of the riders said he was looking forward to going home soon. The announcer translated it as “He said that Paraguay is the best country he has ever been to!” What? Also amusing to me is that vendors of soda and beer yell that they’re selling soda and milk. They do this on the buses as well. Leche, anyone?
ALSO! Somehow I neglected to write a few weeks ago that there is this one excellent group of kids from the comedor that I spend a lot of time with. They’re siblings, kind of crazy, but sweet and generally listen to me. I hang out at their house sometimes, talking with them, their teenage brother, and their mom holding her infant. I asked the baby’s name after hearing he was 45 days old. The mom said she hadn’t decided yet, which struck me as slightly sad and odd. Offhandedly I mentioned that I like the name Alejandro. A few days later I was at the house again and the mom told me she had named the baby. I froze. She formally introduced me to David Alejandro…I’m just glad I don’t have the kind of pull to choose the first name!
Monday, July 20, 2009
I´m Cold and Swine Flu is Ruining My Life
7-16-09
I miss clothes right out of the dryer. That’s where my mind is. I’m freezing. I’ve slept with spandex, sweatpants, knee high wool socks, and several sweater/fleece layers the past few nights and all I can think of is my lone request to Peace Corps for where I wanted to be placed—no where cold. I told them, “I don’t care where I go or what I do as long as it isn’t in cold weather.” As I write this I’m in two sweaters, a hat, a hood, a fleece, spandex, jeans, socks with my feet under a blanket. Ugh. I wish I had a dryer…I’m glad I’ve already bathed today because I’m not sure I’d be up for the aftershock of a bucket bath. Maybe I’ll boil some water to put in my Nalgene to sleep next to tonight—another PCV told me that trick.
Life is S-L-O-W right now. This marks the end of the second week of winter break here. The first week I was soaking up the sun and enjoying fantastic food, drink and company back in Maryland for my sister’s beautiful wedding. It was fabulous, but flew by as expected. To curb some of the boredom I figured was inevitable with a two week school break I decided to turn my energy towards camps. I did an “environmental” camp at the comedor Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Environmental is in quotes because though that was my goal I ended up doing the camp by myself and was overwhelmed at times by attempting to provide educational activities to 40 rambunxious six to thirteen year olds. We did make 5 batches of Play-Doh though… Today and yesterday I helped my married couple Peace Corps friends with a health camp at their site, which is a few hours away. It was nice to see another site and eat delicious vegetarian cuisine for a few days. (I was welcomed back to Paraguay by a liver feast! Damn you, organ meat!) I’ve been looking forward to developing more of a set routine in the schools starting this upcoming week and have already planned some charlas. Unfortunately though, all of Paraguay’s children will be enjoying at least one more week of winter break thanks to the swine flu. Some schools say they’ll take the next two weeks off. I’m not sure how many Paraguayans have died thus far—I believe it is 6, though Monday I was told four people were dying per week in Limpio, the next day I was told it was 5 per day. In a country this small, it is amazing how completely scrambled gossip can become. People all over are equipped with tapa-bocas (surgical masks I believe is the English?) though there was also a claim that Paraguay was completely out of them. We’ll see how I spend the next week. I think I’ll go into the municipality to do some work, though I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if they took the opportunity to close as well. They do close their offices for the day at 1:30pm somehow… Silly.
I miss clothes right out of the dryer. That’s where my mind is. I’m freezing. I’ve slept with spandex, sweatpants, knee high wool socks, and several sweater/fleece layers the past few nights and all I can think of is my lone request to Peace Corps for where I wanted to be placed—no where cold. I told them, “I don’t care where I go or what I do as long as it isn’t in cold weather.” As I write this I’m in two sweaters, a hat, a hood, a fleece, spandex, jeans, socks with my feet under a blanket. Ugh. I wish I had a dryer…I’m glad I’ve already bathed today because I’m not sure I’d be up for the aftershock of a bucket bath. Maybe I’ll boil some water to put in my Nalgene to sleep next to tonight—another PCV told me that trick.
Life is S-L-O-W right now. This marks the end of the second week of winter break here. The first week I was soaking up the sun and enjoying fantastic food, drink and company back in Maryland for my sister’s beautiful wedding. It was fabulous, but flew by as expected. To curb some of the boredom I figured was inevitable with a two week school break I decided to turn my energy towards camps. I did an “environmental” camp at the comedor Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Environmental is in quotes because though that was my goal I ended up doing the camp by myself and was overwhelmed at times by attempting to provide educational activities to 40 rambunxious six to thirteen year olds. We did make 5 batches of Play-Doh though… Today and yesterday I helped my married couple Peace Corps friends with a health camp at their site, which is a few hours away. It was nice to see another site and eat delicious vegetarian cuisine for a few days. (I was welcomed back to Paraguay by a liver feast! Damn you, organ meat!) I’ve been looking forward to developing more of a set routine in the schools starting this upcoming week and have already planned some charlas. Unfortunately though, all of Paraguay’s children will be enjoying at least one more week of winter break thanks to the swine flu. Some schools say they’ll take the next two weeks off. I’m not sure how many Paraguayans have died thus far—I believe it is 6, though Monday I was told four people were dying per week in Limpio, the next day I was told it was 5 per day. In a country this small, it is amazing how completely scrambled gossip can become. People all over are equipped with tapa-bocas (surgical masks I believe is the English?) though there was also a claim that Paraguay was completely out of them. We’ll see how I spend the next week. I think I’ll go into the municipality to do some work, though I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if they took the opportunity to close as well. They do close their offices for the day at 1:30pm somehow… Silly.
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