Sweating Through My Life

11-06-09

Today has been quite pleasant. I was going to wake up and do laundry but it was cloudy so I just bummed around the house until going to the comedor. Since the people in charge have changed it has been much more pleasant there for me, though I think some of it is because in a meeting last week I went on a rant about how ridiculous all the gossip and caddiness is so now the mothers gossip mostly in Guaraní. In other words, nothing has changed but now I just don’t know all that is being said. After several delays, I finally started the dental activities with the kids there, though I’ve actually decided to hold off on doing them until school ends in about two weeks since then I can actually have the whole group do the projects instead of having kids come in and out, depending on when they have school (morning or afternoon). I think it’ll be much more effective that way.

I went to another volunteer’s site earlier this week to help with sex ed/healthy relationship chats among middle school and high school kids. There were six volunteers there to do the activities, many of which went really well. We did one activity that I had totally forgotten about—we learned about it during training. You draw a scale, and then talk to the class about the reasons to have sex in high school and the reasons to wait. After you have gathered all the reasons, you go back through and erase those which the class decides are bad reasons on either side. We also did one part focusing on healthy relationships. We read scenarios and had the class decide if it was a healthy or unhealthy relationship. I’m amazed at how acceptable—and even desirable!—jealous boyfriends are. (We split the groups into girls and guys, so I don’t know how the guys reacted.) Culturally—and realize that I am by no means saying this is always true, but I will say that it is extremely common—guys are able to (and often expected to) have more than one girlfriend. I don’t know if this is somehow connected to the War of the Triple Alliance when something like 2 out of every 3 Paraguayan men died. Maybe this is just a part of that history that carries on. Who knows? Regardless, it is very acceptable. Paraguayan men often cheat and often have several girlfriends, sometimes completely openly. The women, on the other hand, are frequently kept on a fairly short leash. We read one scenario that was something along the lines of, “Every time I go out with my friends, I have to call my boyfriend first—it is almost like I have to ask permission.” Healthy or not? The class was pretty split. It amazes me. Jealousy is frequently seen as part of a loving relationship, like jealousy proves that the person loves you. Again, I want to stress that this is NOT always true, but I’ve been absolutely amazed at how common it is. We also got a few questions about why men are all such womanizers and so machismo. I’ve gotten a few of these in my own sex ed chats as well. On other quick sex-ed news, I accidentally left 6 poster-sized anatomically correct drawings on a bus a few days ago. I should call the bus company but can’t imagine how awkward that conversation would be. I’ll call after siesta today.

It is getting super grossly hot here. Two nights ago I decided to cook a few big dishes that I can eat throughout the week. As I was cutting the vegetables it was so hot that I was dripping with sweat. Mind you, I was only cutting vegetables. This is not a very strenuous activity, and I was dripping onto the floor. Ew. It is only going to get worse too. Yesterday I took a bus into Asunción and passed two signs telling the temperature. Like the rest of the world, Paraguay uses Celsius, so one said 39° and the other said 41°. Because I’m horrible at converting in my head, I was thinking that meant 95° Fahrenheit more or less. But I used my phone converter, and that means it was between 102° and 106° Fahrenheit! And that was at about 3:30, after it had cooled slightly. Needless to say, I headed to the Embassy pool to swim a bit and felt a thousand times better afterwards. I’m planning on taking advantage of my proximity to the pool this summer. It easily gets up to 45° Celsius here—that means 113°F! And sometimes a bit hotter! So, if you’re planning a trip to this lovely little country, maybe you should wait until May or so.

OK, sorry about that weather rant. I can’t help myself. Life is going well for me. Students are in exams right now, so life is a bit slower, but I’m enjoying myself. A Peace Corps friend came over last week and made some shelves for me. I would like to say that I helped, but I did very little other than serve terere. The shelves are beautiful and I’m psyched not to be living out of my suitcases any more. My house is far from being finished but it is coming right along. The next step is to put up a pole to hang some clothes and then make a bookshelf. Afterwards I’ll eventually fix up the other room and make it so that people can actually sleep there if they visit. I’m thinking that is a project for January though. We shall see. Hope things are going wonderfully state side for everyone. I have no idea what is going on in the world, so any news updates or personal updates would be greatly appreciated. (Also, my address is somewhere in this blog, so feel free to send me a little love via snail mail!!)