Eeek!

"Eeek!" is honestly the only word I can come up with to explain how I'm feeling at this moment. I have less than 6 months left in Paraguay! That means less than 6 months to get this library project rolling, less than 6 months to hang out with the children, families, and teens that have come to be like family to me. And on top of me wanting to be the best PCV I can be (how cheesey am I?), I also have an online statistics class to do while applying for grad schools for the fall. YIKES! I was gone for a bit this past week working on the Kuat (the PC newspaper) and though I had a blast with the other editors (new and old), I came back in a bit of a panic. I don't really want to leave my barrio for a while. But then I picture a calendar. I'm going to the super fun Thanksgiving fiesta in southern PY the weekend after Thanksgiving. Then there is the sweet concert of Ahendu ("I hear" in Guarani) on the 11th of December that I'm in charge of with some other PCVs. THEN my parents come on the 18th!! I'm stoked for their visit, and have decided to have a little fiesta in site to welcome them to my neighborhood/celebrate the holidays. Then we go to BA (yes, otra vez). But then I'm back in Paraguay like the 28th of December and am down to less than 4 months. How effing nuts is that? And so, EEEK!

But anyway, other than me being crazy and being astonished at how time has flown, things are going really well right now. Well, I've hit some speedbumps--got all my stuff ($$, cards, iPod, camera, sunglasses, purse I use daily, etc.) stolen in BA, then lost my phone last week (and all #s), and it was a total bitch to get my card figured out--but I feel my positive attitude coming back, nice and strong! My annoyances in site have mostly been with random drama that seems to have subsided, thank God. And now my library committee is A.W.E.S.O.M.E! Tomorrow is the municipal election (more on that later) and we're planning on selling hamburgers (hamburgueseada is the word for a hamburger-selling event) all day. We're starting at 9am. This seems gross to me--I have no real interest in eating a hamburger for breakfast--but isn't weird at all here. Anyway, hopefully we sell all 200 hamburgers we have ready. We got everything donated--buns, burgers, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonaise (yeah, I know), eggs, and are now waiting on the ham, cheese, and ketchup. You've gotta love the hamburguesa completa, right? I don't think I'll ever want a burger without an egg on it ever again in life. Anyway, even though I was gone for a good chunk of this week (and without phone), my committee did what they needed to to make sure the donations came through. They're excellent. People are psyched about the library and working hard to fundraise our piece of what we need.

The weather here is getting hot hot hot and I'm loving it! I sweat an absurd amount with this heat but I don't really mind. It just means that bucket bathing is actually really refreshing. It also gives me an excuse to drink an absurd amount of terere (the cold tea drink that I've mentioned a bunch). This time of year also means that no one goes to sleep early and that people are out and about all day (minus the siesta). And so, with everyone doing a lot of porch sitting, the candidates for the municipal race have an easy audience. Cars and trucks go down the main drag of my barrio (aka right in front of my house) with their speakers blasting campaign music and the candidate's names. I love the song Papa Americano which is played CONSTANTLY here, but now there is a candidate who inserts his name into the song every now and then which is slightly obnoxious... I had a really interesting conversation with a 20-year-old from my library committee about elections here vs elections in the US. I thought of Obama in the last presidential election, using all these different electronic forms of spreading the word and rallying people, and then I look outside to the car bumping music while lighting off fireworks in the middle of the day with people sitting in truck beds and hanging out the trunks of cars they're sitting in. One mayoral candidate is the brother of the past two mayors of Limpio. Today I went to Limpio to collect the food for our hamburgueseada and saw that they're painting the road. I like that little last minute push for votes. Also, I talked to that same candidate on the phone today to see if he didn't want to donate just a little bit more to our library event. Of course he did! Did he ask how I got his cell phone number or who I was? No. Anything for those last minute votes! (Not that I vote or get involved with this election in any way...)