Last night at the mall, while waiting to be seated at Ruby Tuesday's (yes, out of all places I could eat while I am home, I chose Ruby Tuesdays. You've obviously never tried their unlimited salad bar), I was able to count 41 identical looking girls in 15 minutes with their too tight jeans tucked into the unfortunately trendy ugg boot. I was hoping that I would come back to the states and not have to deal with this epidemic anymore, but its spreading like herpes. You should all be bitch slapped.

Back in the USSA

Well I made it safely back to the states. It's surprisingly not as strange as I thought it would be. I don't really know what I mean by that, but I guess I was expecting to go through culture shock all over again. The weirdest thing to me is being in public places and hearing the people around me speaking english. It's weird to actually understand what strangers are saying. The snow is nice, but I'm not dying from the cold like I expected. I surprisingly remembered how to drive. I was a little over whelmed by all the clothes in my closet. Its been a while since I've had to pick out an outfit, and with so many choices. I haven't even touched any of the clothes I brought home from Paraguay. I've found so many pieces of clothing, books, makeup, hair products, etc. that I miss/love/need and just have to take back to PY with me. Yes, I will really need my straightening iron in the campo, and my awesome hemp jacket that I forgot I owned in the 100 degree heat. Ooh and my 'lovely' perfume. I forgot how good that smelled. The mosquitos will love it too.
Anyway, being home is great. The time is flying by and I feel like I have so many things to do in such little time. Everyday I have plans to go visit a family member or good friend or something else I need to do (yes, i am that popular). I don't have much time to relax, like I was hoping to do, but I think seeing all the most special people in my life is the most important thing. And yes, it is necessary that I stay in Rhode Island for 5 whole days.
Thanks to Jackie for comming from california to jersey for a very short time, and taking the time to come and visit me in CT last night. I had so much fun with you and I'm so glad I got to see you! Thanks again for comming, and thanks for telling me that you actually read my blog. You are probably the only person besides my parents who does!
Tomorrow I'm off to NYC to do the whole tourist thing. After all, I am technically a paraguayan citizen now, or something. Sunday, the parents are having an "open-house party" thing for their friends and neighbors that "has nothing to do with me being home." Sunday night I have a date with Brea, my best friend since I was three, who I have not seen in soo long! And after christmas I'm off to visit Grandma for a night, then off to Rhode Island til new years, in which I will go back to NYC and close 2007 there, along with about 10 million other crazy people.
Oh, and I hear that there is this movie called superbad, and its super funny? I'm told that if there is one thing that I do while I am home, it is to rent this movie and watch it. Funnier than Napolean Dynamite you say? I'm not sure if that is possible. I'm so out of the loop.
Happy and safe holidays to everyone!

Video from my parents visit in June

take me home country road....

Well, I am already back in the city after 3 whole weeks in site. The three longest weeks of my life because I have been preparing to go home to the states for the holidays! I don´t know how I did it, and I will probably regret it when I get home, but I managed to fit all of my crap into a backpack that I´m bringing home. There was no way that I was carrying my gigantic rolling suitcase 45 minutes on muddy, sandy road to the bus stop, then hauling that big ass in buses around the city. No thanks. So instead I am bringing a virtually empty backpack home, that I plan to fill up with lots of good food and other goodies to bring back to Paraguay in January. I´ll just have to buy a whole new winter wardrobe for the two weeks that I am home. Daddy will be pleased when he gets the credit card bill, but I´ll already be out of the country, so mom will get in trouble. Anyways, its thursday now. I leave for the states monday evening and arrive in new york 8am tuesday morning, so i´ll be expecting a welcome party. and that means you, with posters and streamers, and balloons and whistles. You may have trouble recognizing me, as now I have a newly acquired double chin, long straggly hair, cracked blistered hands, and even though I have consistently gained weight these last 14 months, my clothes hang off of me like parachutes because of the consistent washing and scrubbing. Just look for the girl whos really tan (you´ll know i´m not one of those fake bakers because of the awful farmer tan lines) , has holes in her dirty ass clothes, and is wearing flip flops (because thats all she knows) in winter in new york.
So tomorrow our new sister group swears in, while our old sister group completes their service. Every year a new agriculture group comes, which means exactly one year from now I will have left my site for good and be preparing to come home forever (or will I?). It makes me sad to think about. I almost cried last night at the neighbors house, while we watching ¨bailando por un sueno¨for the last time this year on their brand new COLOR tele, and while I made chipa guasu with mom for the family to eat for dinner, and to take with me to the city, because I told them how much I was going to miss campo food. delicious fresh corn bread with lots of cheese and oil. Anyway, about sister groups. Tomorrow night is the despidida/swearing in party at some hotel in san bernardino (a city described by lonely planet as the town where the ´elite´paraguayans have their summer homes. I didnt know there were such a thing). It should be a wild time. Then I will have the rest of the weekend to recover and go shopping for christmas gifts to bring back to the states and as much yerba maté I can fit into my suitcase to keep my tereré and maté cravings under control these next couple weeks. Let me know if you would like any souveniours from paraguay. Santa Sara would be happy to bring you a giant clay rooster (a sign of good luck here in my country), your very own disco of all things paraguayan polka, a wooden penis, a bottle opener made out of a baby cows foot, whatever you like. Just let me know.
I suppose I should go shower. You know you are dirty when waiting for the bus, and there are melted popsicles all over the ground, and a child next to you that keeps farting, but still the flies choose to land on you and eat your grime. yeah im pretty nasty, i know. see you at the airport.

Well. Another long bus day today. 6 hours on a bus to get to Caazapa. The town nearest to me, that is supposed to take 45 minutes. Lets just say my alarm didnt go off to catch the morning bus, and what happened after that was my own damn fault.
Well tomorrow, December 8th is a super big holiday in PY. Dia de le Virgin Del Caacupe. People all over py walk to the city of caacupe to pray at the church. luckily, we have a little virgencita church about an hour walk from my house so i dont have to walk for three days to get to the city. The virgincita is an important spot too but i dont exactly know why. tomorrow there will be a rodeo and festivities and a fiesta in the evening. I wish I understood the holiday better, but if your really interested, research it.
Next friday I leave for asuncion. Saturday is my sister groups despidida. And the 17th I fly out of PY and head home for christmas! I am super excited to see my friends and family. Although the paraguayans tell me that no one will recognize me now because I am so tan and fat. Real nice. I can´t wait to listen to christmas music, take a reliably hot shower, sleep in a comfortable bed, eat seafood, visit good old rhode island and all my best friends that occupy that state, eat more seafood, watch a christmas story, see a christmas tree, see snow (hopefully), escape 110 degree weather and mosquitos, not be afraid that i will contract a disease if i touch a dog, and of course see my mommy and daddy! oh yeah, and to see my car, and maybe drive it! I got teary eyed on the bus today thinking about my car. haha im not even joking.
the computer is being super slow and i dont have the patience to upload anymore pics. But so far I have one of me super happy at the abandoned gas station trying to get to thanksgiving a couple weeks ago, the people eating rainbows, and my boyfriend juan dario. yeah i give up. this comp sucks.

Thanksgiving... What Im thankful for..

So that Thanksgiving celebration I was super excited about, didnt exactly turn out as planned. And I feel even worse for Carin than I felt for making her sleep in my bug infested house and cuddle with my under my ripped mosquito net. Friday at 730am we walk to the bus stop from my site to catch the 8am bus to take us directly to Encarnacion to the Peace Corps Thanksgiving weekend binge drinking good food eating fiesta. As we are waiting, we cant stop discussing how excited we are for the big thanksgiving fiest that will be served for dinner tonight. I especially cant wait to try the tofurky. Needless to say, by 930am we decide the bus is not going to show up. No reason for it. But the bus doesnt come. OK fine, we will go back to my house make some lunch (grilled cheese and oreo milkshakes) and then we will walk back in this blistering heat to the bus stop again and take the noon bus to Yuty, a city 1.5hrs south of me that will have buses to encarnacion. So the bus comes. Halfway to Yuty we are the only people left on the bus, and the bus drivers decide we are not worth driving all the way to town. So we get kicked off at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by nothing. Just a gas station with a couple of toothless guys, on a long dirt road. We wait. Work on the Star crossword puzzle, and about 2 hours later a bus shows up and takes us to yuty. We arrive around 4 and learn that there is a 430 bus to encarnacion. Thats good. We might get to encarn late tonight, but we text numerous people to make sure they save us leftover thanksgiving dinner. All of a sudden its cloudy. wouldnt it be funny if it started pouring and the bus didnt go? Carin and I joke. Then it starts to pour. The bus arrives and says its not going to go because the roads are not paved and the mud is just treachorous. Around 5, a local bus says its going south towards encarn to san pedro. Sweet lets try it. We get about 3 kilometers out of yuty before we get stuck in the mud and try to drive back to yuty backwards. Apparently thats hard in a bus and we veer off the road and the bus lands in a swamp, almost on its side. Carin and I cant wait any longer. The bus is stuck. We get out and decide to walk back to yuty. Luckily a pick up truck passes and gives us a lift to a sketchy ass motel. We stay there, enjoy a dinner of stringy asado, mandioca, and potato salad with to much mayo. Not exactly the dinner I was looking forward too. The next morning we wake up early to catch the 6am bus to encarn. It has rained during the night, but we are determined to get there. A little after 6 the bus shows up to the terminal, ready to go to encarn, but a little unsure about how we are going to make it there on the muddy ass road. 10 minutes out of town we are once again stuck in the mud, and the bus breaks down. 2.5 hours later, another bus shows up and pushes us from behind to jump start us. The get stuck in the mud to, as well as another bus behind them, 2 semis, and a couple autos. To the rescue arrives a giant caterpillar tractor to tow us all out. We get towed out and stuck again, and towed out again. We drive for a few hours, actually slide in the mud for a few hours, and it starts to rain again. Perfect. FINALLY we hit pavement. It is now probably noon. We arrive in encarn around 2. Starved and dehyndrated. We take a taxi to the hotel because we cant stand to be on a bus a minute longer. We get there. Some people are happy to see us. Most are to hungover to care. We head straight to the lunch buffet, and shove some leftover food in our face (no more thanksgiving dinner though). We find our hotel room and put are bags down. We have not put any liquids in our bodies all day, with fear that we may have to pee on the bus, so of course its a good idea when I come back downstairs and the first thing handed to me is vodka and sprite. It was yummy, but I was feeling beer. I go and get carin and myself a nice cold brahma to wet the pallete. Shortly after we are signed up for beer pong. Amazingly, we win three games in a row and make it to the finals, where we lose. Thank God. I take a shower and chug some water and get ready for dinner and round two. Its too bad the weather was so ugly, because this hotel was like a tropical paradise. Built on a hill, surrounded by forests and exotic plants, trees, flowers, and birds. 4 huge pools, and a pretty siamese cat. Anyway, after my shower I go downstairs and catch the end of the peace corps olympics. Then its dinner time. Drink more time. And in the end, an amazing volunteer talent show. Kudos to Jill the fire dancer who had a well deserved victory. It was awesome. There were a lot of other amazing talents, but all I could focus on was the migraine that was forming in my head. Once I was at the point that I was in so much pain I was crying, I decided it was bed time, but could not find my roomate with the room key. Finally, the key was located, I went up to my room, missing the results of the talent show, threw up dinner because my migraine made me do it, and went to bed. Sunday morning was beautiful and sunny. Had breakfast, hung out, had lunch, and took the bus that peace corp rented back to asuncion. I could not get back to my site on the muddy roads because it had rained all day and into the evening yesterday. So here I am in Asuncion. I was not planning on comming here, but I felt better being stuck here, than in Encarnacion, a city I know nothing about. Now I am going to eat lunch and go back to site. With my luck it will start raining on the way and I will get stuck some where else. It was a long stressful crazy ass weekend but carin and i made the best of our trip and had a great time once we finally arrived. I have great pics that I took to document the viaje. The videos of us on the bus driving backwards into a ditch are extremely amusing. One day when I actually remember to bring my usb cord to the city I will post them. But until then, Ill just keep you in suspense...

On a lighter note

I´m in Caazapa today doing some shopping. Carin is on her way and I am super excited. She´s staying at my house tonight and tomorrow we are going to the peace corps three day long thanksgiving hotel swimming eating drinking fiesta spectacular. It should be fun. Poor Carin doesn´t know what she´s in for once she gets to my site. Lot´s of horny adolescent boys (and married men) yelling obscenities and staring long and hard (but where in Paraguay doesn´t that happen, right?), and my house. Oh my poor excuse for a house. A ´glorified shack´ as my nearest american neighbor calls it. We will be snuggled tight under my mosquito net to avoid the masses of mosquitos, giant beetles, moths, gnats, and other bugs that I cant name, that plague my house every night. At least its not supposed to rain. Then the poor thing would get rained on in her sleep as well. Every day my neighbor tells me he is going to fix my roof, but i´m still waiting.
Grandma came back from buenos aires a few days ago and brought her husband ( who hasnt been to paraguay in 25 years) with her. I have grandma as my neighbor again and I am so happy! I don´t understand a work grandpa says over his heavy agrgentinian accent, but I just nod and smile and read his medicinal herb magazines with him. He´s totally into that stuff which is really interesting to me as well. I´m learning a lot about natural medicine from his books (not so much him because I don´t understand him when he is talking.) I did understand his yesterday when he told me that it it necessary to wash apples with bleach. I thought that was odd.

Alert! Must read! Your life may depend on it!

So last week it rained, A LOT. For a few minutes in the late afternoon, the sun came out and it started to rain again. Inevitably, there was a rainbow. There were two in fact. Huge and brilliant. I went outside in my yard to take pictures of the spectacular sight, when out of nowhere, the neightbors came running over to my house yelling something about the rainbow. ¨What did you say?¨I asked. ¨I didn´t understand. But it sounded like you said the rainbow was going to eat me.¨ They explained to me that, yes, that is what they said. Have I never seen a rainbow before? and was I not aware that rainbows eat people? I laughed and laughed some more. You are all crazy, I told the kids. Until mom from next door came outside as well and verified for them. Rainbows eat people, especially if you are in the water. They like to suck the people up from the water and swallow them like aspirins. I´m not sure if this is only in Paraguay, or if it is all over the world, but please pass this information on to you friends and family. Make it into a chain letter if necessary. They may look cute and innocent, but rainbows are actually deadly forces that will eat you. So please, next time you see one, do not go outside, and whatever you do , do not go in the water! Hide! and thank me and my paraguayan friends for saving your life.

wasting away again in mojitoville

Well, I´m in Caazapa this morning to pick up some groceries. I have been living on powedered milk and crackers with jelly since I returned from Asuncion last week, and so I thought it would be a good idea to get off my lazy terere drinking campo ass, and come do some shopping. I was also happy to see a pile of letters for me at the post office. Five from my mom, plus a package, and 1 from my uncle. Thanks mommy, I can always count on you to make my post office experience a pleasant one.

It´s been cold these past few mornings. Really cold. And lucky for me I´ve had to wake up extra early every day this week, and have been able to bask in the freezingness. Monday to teach english at the escuela (Only to get there and find out there was no class because the students have exams. Thanks for telling me. Thats PY). Tuesday to go to Buena Vista with my contact to get a document authorized for the women´s commitee, and today to come to Caazapa for my shopping and to bring our pedido for a chicken project to the governor´s office. Tomorrow I can sleep in.

I have a date to drink terere with my pretend cowboy boyfriend this afternoon. He probably won´t come because he´s scared of me and only talks to me we he´s drunk, which I guess is ok. At least I know that he can talk.

Off to the grocery store, I have run out of rum and would love a mojito. I have to find a use for all the mint growing in my yard, right? mmm and they are just soo yummy. I find I have more patience for the children always hanging out at my house after 1 mojito, or 2...

No subject. Literally.

Well, I am back in the city for the first time in a while. I would have rather not come in, but I needed a break for my sanity, not to mention a halloween party at my bosses house tonight and a homeade pesticide charla I am giving to the trainees on tuesday. I always expect to come into Asuncion and have a vacation, but I end up getting super stressed, running around the city doing errands for myself and people in my community, spending way to much money, and eating way to much food. It's hot as hell, so I can't complain about the bug-free air-conditioned hotel room. Asuncion is like a different world compared to the campo. It's weird to hear people speaking spanish instead of guarani. Today I saw 2 dogs on leashes and almost tripped and fell flat on my face because I was staring so hard. If I even tried to explain the concept of a leash to a campesino, they would probably think I was out of my mind. Mmm and theres coffee here. Yummy, sweet, delicious, caffienated coffee. Yerba is a nice substitute, but coffee is just sooo delicious.

I have to have a halloween costume by tonight for this party. I have no ideas. I'm not good with this kindof stuff. I asked friends for ideas and i got pepper ann, a bean, a german yogurt selling woman, or a pirate. I already am a pirate so that doesn't require a costume. I thought it would be cool to give myself a mullet and be a person from buenos aires. Then I decided I don't want a mullet.

Last week I had a super cool trainee come and visit me for a few days. Unfortunately it rained the whole time, but we still had a good time. Went to a fiesta, drank lots of wine, taught the paraguayans how to play uno... it was a productive week.

I taught my first english class last week. It went, well..? The teacher was pretty excited about it. I think because she gets a break from teaching for an hour. The kids were..well..confused. I never realized what a weird, confusing, ugly language english was until I started speaking another language. And I realized it even more, once I started trying to teach it. I do, I think its ugly, and if that pisses you off, too bad. I think spanish is much nicer, even though I butcher it when I try to speak it. And guarani is just the coolest language ever.

I'm at a loss for words..

until next time.

My Trip to the Circus

My Trip to the Circus
By Sara

It was a hot, sticky, humid evening on Sunday October 8, 2007. I was invited to go to a circus in my community of Colonia Jerovia. As advised, I showed up at my host mom´s house at 7pm, ready to go with her and her daughter, Cintia. I was super excited. Earlier that day at the horse race, I was informed that the circus would have lions and elephants. There were no animals, but thats besides the point. I´ll start from the beginning.
It´s about an hour walk from the house to where we were going, so on the way my sister and mom started talking about the big fiesta next saturday (tomorrow). I must go, I´m told. I´m getting past my prime and it´s vital that I find a boyfriend and marry. Now! And what better place then a fiesta full of underage boys drinking cerveza and dirty old men groping little girls? ¨It´s a streepehr party Sara. Have you heard of streepehr?¨ My sister asks me. I repeat the word a few times and give my sister a puzzled look. She proceedes to explain to mom and me that the ¨streepehrs´will perform ´el baile del cano.´A dance with a cane? Oh a pole dance?! Streepehr = stripper. ¨Cintia?¨I ask, ¨By streepehr, do you mean the girls who dance and take off their clothes?¨ ¨Exactly!¨ She replies while undulating her hips to demonstrate how the streepehrs dance with the poles. She´s 12 by the way. She went on to explain how they won´t take off all of their clothes, like streepehrs in the cities. Just down to the pretty undies. ¨You have to go!¨She insisted. Her mom urging her on. I told her I´d think about it.
We arrived at the circo around 8. Like usual, all the high school boys were hanging out by their moto´s, sippin 40´s, whistling at the girls (including my new pretend boyfriend. He´s a cowboy. My marlboro man. I have this mental picture of him with his cowboy hate on, chewing a blade of grass, leaning against a fence, arm´s hanging over, one foot perched up on the rung, staring off into the distance, thinking deeply; about me of course. We´ve never actually had a convo, but thats not important. I rode in his ox cart once, and drank his gaseosa spiked with cana. I think that means we are an item.) Anyway, we paid our 5 mil entrada fee. Mom demanded 1 mil from me to buy some chicle. Being the tool that I am, I gave it to her. So as I said before, there were no animals. Paraguayans don´t have the best reputation for treating animals kindly, so it was probably for the better.
Ther evening started with a ponytailed man in a sequin jumpsuit demonstrating his trapeze skills. There was your usual fire eather and tight rope walker. There were also 2 clowns that put on a very raunchy comedy act. It was hilarious and I was proud of myself for understanding the majority of what was said. It was dirty. I thought circuses were for children. I made the mistake of getting up in the middle to go pop a squat behind the circo ´tent.´I got immediately called out by one of the clowns. He said something about being my chair, getting in my pants, and asked what he had to do to be my underwear. I didn´t understand the rest, but my sis said it was dirty and wouldn´t tell me. ¨Eike nde revikuape!¨I yelled (stick it up your ass). I was not about to be degraded by a stupid clown, especially in front of my pretend boyfriend.
There was a magician as well. For the end of his act, he intentionally picked the best looking girl from the audience for a teick. She was able to turn a bandanna into a sheer black thong before you could say ´abracadabra!´ It was truly amazing. The magician then had her put the thong on over her pants and model for the audience. Degrading? Not in Paraguay. At the end of the night, the dirty clowns picked 8 little boys out of the audience. The had the boys drop and do push ups, sommersalts, cartwheels... while the clowns smacked them repeatedly with home made paddles. The audience was rolling on the ground laughing. The poor traumitized children were scared out of their minds.
The show finally ended around 11pm. I was tired as hell and not looking forward to the long walk home. My buzz had worn off from the rum and tang mixture I chugged before leaving my house to prepare myself for the circus and calm my social anxiety. Now, all I wanted to do was climb into my bed and sleep. I made it home around midnigt, and thats exactly what I did. Even though my sheets were still wet from washing them that afternoon because my dog pissed in my bed, I was able to pass out and sleep like a rock.
And thats my trip to the circus in a nutshell.

P.S.

I left out the best part! The other day I got an eraser lodged up my nose. Good think Paraguay has conditioned me well in the art of blowing the perfect snot rocket. I got that sucker out of there in no time flat. How did I manage to get it up there you ask? I´ll leave that up to the imagination

fear the joventud

Well the one year mark came and went last week, just like any other day. I thought about baking a cake to celebrate, as my mother had suggested, but then I decided not to, because I would probably have eaten the whole thing in one sitting, making excuses after each bite like, ´I haven´t eaten cake in so long,´or ´It´s my one yr anniversary in Py so it´s technically a holiday.´Crap like that. I decided to make cinnamon raisin bread instead. I´ve never made bread before. Needless to say, It didn´t rise, and therefore came out of the oven the same way it went in. Just hotter. I couldn´t let the precious raisins go to waste, so I decided to flatten the dough and cook it on the stove like a pancake. I even ended up eating it with syrup like a pancake. And, let me tell you, it was delicious. I didn´t want to be greedy, so I shared with my puppies as well. For dinner I celebrated with mojitos. yum.

So far this week I´ve killed 2 chagas bugs in my house. These bugs carry the chagas disease and if they bite you, you will have it, but you won´t know you have it until you die 30 years later. I´m thinking about getting my house sprayed, so I don´t fear death every time I go to sleep at night. I already have a debilitating fear of snakes and spiders. Every time I walk the path to my letrine with overgrown with grass as tall as me, i wait the infamous 7 minute snake to jump out and bite me and I die. Its name comes from the fact that it bites you, and 7 minutes later you die. I picture them comming in my house at night (because thats happened before) and waiting at the foot of my bed for me to wake up and then eat me. Spider´s too. Giant tarantulas. I know they are out to get me. They hide in my sneakers and wait to bite my feet. Good thing I only wear flip flops. If I decide to e.t. (early terminate), it will be because of my fear of these bichos. I´m glad I got that off my chest. I´ve never told anyone that before. Maybe now since I faced my fear, I won´t be scared anymore... Bullshit. I can feel spiders crawling all over my body right now.

The high school wants me to start teaching english. I don´t want to. I do not see the point. I don´t know how to teach. As soon as I leave they will forget everything I have taught them (kinda of like when I took spanish in high school). Maybe i´m negative, maybe its true, or maybe i´m just terrified of teaching a classroom of high school kids, when I can hardly even speak their language. High schoolers are mean. I cried when a 7 year old called me ugly, I don´t think I have the balls to face the joventud. Fear the colegio. Thats my motto. That´s why I´ve succesfully avoided it for the last 9 months in site. Accept on ¨Dia de los Ninos,¨ yes, the kids have a national holiday. There was a blowup slide at the colegio. I wouldn´t have missed it for the world. Of course I didn´t end up going on it. One poor chubby girl went down, and they made everyone clear away from the slide, while everyone laughed as she tried to slide down, but kindof just stuck to it. I don´t know, maybe they thought it was gonna pop? She laughed. I wanted to cry for her. People can be so mean. I wondered what they would have done if the giant american wanted to attempt the slide aka globo loco. ´Ani ejupi la globo loco, sarita! Nde kyraiterei! Embokaputa!!!´ That´s what they would have said.

Well, September 28th I will complete one full year in this strange country some call Paraguay. An island surrounded by land, as it's described in travel guides. I describe it as the land of instant coffee, the country of barefoot 5-year-olds running gayly with machetes, a place where the national bread is a root vegetable, similar to a potato, where emaciated dogs roam the streets looking for the freshest pile of cow shit to snack on, where cana liquor costs 40 cents a pint, and a land where confused roosters cock-a-doodle-do at all hours of the day and night. But, this strange place has been has been my home for nearly a year, and it will be for another year adn 3 months, so now I'd like to take this moment to reflect back on some of the valuable lessens the Paraguayans have taught me, that I will keep with me for the rest of my life;

1. If you keep your money in your bra, you will get cancer

2. If you cut your nails at night, you will die

3. If you drink hot mate, then put on cold shoes, you will die

4. If you drink terere and eat watermelon, you will explode and you will die

5. If you eat mangos with milk, you will die

6. If a toad pees in your eye, you will go blind

7. If you eat raw veggies, you will get worms. Veggies also make you fat. Tortillas fried in pig fat will not.
8. The bats here eat people

9. Eating chicken makes you smarter. Kelly's wonderful host dad taught me that. May he rest in peace.

10. Put toad in blender. puree. drink. your cancer is cured.

11. Spicy food makes one horny and must be avoided at all costs.

And I also have some things that I've learned/discovered on my own, through my personal experience;

1. There's no limit to how many times an article of clothing (underwear included), can be patched or mended. see photo attatched.

2. Toads are like boomarangs. No matter how far you throw them, they always come back.
3. 12 hours of sleep is not enough. One must nap after lunch as weell, sometimes up to 4 hours. On rainy days you may sleep after breakfast as well.

4. Exotic and endangered species such as toucans, armadillos, giant lizards, owls, and all types of birds should not be killed for please with slingshots. Although, I do treasure my toucan beack that was gifted to me.

5. It is possible to get bored enough that you will try to dread your hair.

6. Snot rockets are acceptable. Dirty feet are not.
7. Veggies taste so much better when they come from my garden. My veggies are like my children. I raised them. Except, I would never eat my children... Honest.

8.Paraguayans don't hold grudges. It makes sense. What's the point? Your only hurting yourself. Still, it's been really hard to let that one go. But its made life a lot easier.

9. They also avoid confrontation at all costs. They will talk shit all day behind each others backs, even close friends and family, but they will not say anything to their faces. I however do the opposite. That scares people. When confronted they get very scared. My host mom pretends i'm not talking and walks away.

10. Things are beautiful if you love them. I think theres a quote that sounds something like that. That's how I feel about PY. It's really quite ugly, but its my home and I love it and I am able to find beauty in it. Not always in Asuncion though, that place always smells like piss.

whoopie cushion suerte

Well...its hot. Hasn´t rained in over a month. I´m in Caazapa today to do some shopping, mostly because I wanted strawberries, and I learned the hard way, you can´t trust a Paraguayan to buy you strawberries when they go to town unless you want smashed, rotten, berries, with half of what you paid for missing. hmm.. Oh yeah, and peas, I needed more peas.
I got your two packages mom. Thank you. This time the whoopie cushion arrived safely. The mail people actually stole the first whoopie cushion my mom sent me. So strange. Who wants a whoopie cushion? Besides me.
Lassie and Chipa had baths the other day. They really hated me for it. Lassie was pissed but she was a lot easier to bathe than chipa who is stronger and terrified of water. I have some great pictures of them all angry that ill put up another day. Lassie has an eye infection. And mange again.
I don´t know. I don´t feel like thinking right now. Maybe I´ll add more later.

Oh Asuncion...

My rooster, and one of my hens butts

Chipa was a puppy once

Ma, Pa, and a cow head

My cat before the neighbors killed her

A glimpse inside the mandioca truck (above)

Ese Ka'a. The best Paraguayan Ska band in PY. And they are easy on the eyes too.

After being in Asuncion for close to a week for our "project management workshop,"and then a couple days rest over the weekend, I'm ready to go back to site. I checked out of the hotel, got all my shit together, and realized it is sunday and dont have a bus this afternoon. So I will be stuck here another night. Thats kind of annoying. Nothing really exciting has been happening to me. I saw 2 big wild parrots in the trees, and that was nice. They talked. I talked back. They didn't respond to me. Maybe they only speak spanish.

Yesterday a bunch of us went to a futbol (soccer) game. Olimpia vs. 12 de Octubre. Unfortunately, Olimpia lost 1-3. They played shitty. People were drunk and pissed. Not me of course. Alcohol is not permitted at the games, but at halftime you can order "leche"(milk), and that is apparently the code word for beer. We were in the crazy fan section where the band was playing, the people were waving their flags and singing songs that i pretended to know the words too, and whenever olimpia scored a goal the people at the top would run down to the bottom of the stands with a giant flag that covered half the stand. Good thing I was pre-warned, because when a goal is scored, everyone elses cue in the stands is to get the hell out of the way of the crowd of people running down the stairs with a giant flag. It's not the safest idea, but it was lots of fun.

Nothing else. I'm exhausted and my brain hurts.

Che rakuitereri. Atopase che chicorá.

Back in Caazapa for the day. Had to pick up my packages of dental hygiene supplies for the kiddies. I never really thought about it, but its kindof weird to think that I had to teach full grown adults how to brush their teeth. Just one of those things I think about sometimes. I came in on the mandioca truck again. I was invited to sit up front again as well. Silly me. I was tired and didn´t want mandioca sticking up my ass, so I didn´t object. I made sure to keep my mouth closed this time. Even when repeatedly asked why I wasn´t talking. I didn´t want to reply with ´I don´t want to eat your finger for breakfast, thanks.¨so i just left it.
Nothing exciting here. It hasn´t rained in a month. I have to go back to the city monday for a project design and management workshop. I just got back from the 40th anniversary tuesday, and really don´t feel like leaving site again. The city wears me out. Lassie had a bath yesterday, and then went and rolled in the dirt. I got angry. Tears were shed. My neighbors invited me over for dinner the other night. We had cow head. Cow head is gross. I don´t know what part they served me, but it was gross. I tried the brains. That was even worse. Never again. I don´t like chicken, but i must say, chicken heart is delectable. I have a crush on a 16 year old. Wait thats a lie, he turned 17 last friday. He´s moving to ciudad del este to work. I think its for the better. The boys my age like me, but they all have kids and have no teeth so I don´t like them back. Everyone keeps telling me that im getting old and need to get married soon. ¨Why dont you love the paraguayans?¨they ask me. It´s a tough question, that I hope to one day be able to answer.

no words. just pictures.

this is actually a surprise for sejal. the kids are just so darn cute, i had to post some pics...and ruin the surprise..

here you see chipa and lassie modeling their new collars mom bought them

being crazy on my birthday

poor robin trying to kill a chicken

celebrating my birthday at the paraguayan discoteques.

ninjas and prostitutes

It´s been exactly 2 weeks back in site, and I´m leaving again. This time its for the 40th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps in Paraguay. Very exciting. My ride back to site in the mandioca truck the other week turned out to be the most interesting yet. It was cold so I got to sit up front with the driver and his helper. I was nervous to be sitting up there alone with them because they are dirty old men who say dirty old men things. but luckily, the 19 year old prostitute (she really is, and her mother is her pimp), sat up front with me. Apparently she is dating the truck driver. He´s in his 50s. It was not a pleasant trip. I wonder how much he is paying her. The ¨helper¨guy wants to be my boyfriend. Yes, he tried to hold my hand and put his arm around me, nothing new. But out of nowhere he stuck his dirty ass mandioca finger in my mouth for no reason. I dont know if that has special significance here in paraguay, but to me it just means gross and uncalled for! anyway, it was the longest 3 hours of my life.
It´s finally starting to warm up. The 2 month long winter is just about over, and I have 10 months of untolerable heat to look forward to now. Everyones planting their summer crops, and lucky me, i get to help. Planting sugar cane sucks. Planting mandioca sucks even more. Using a machete to chop down everything in site to prepare a field for planting is the most amazing experience ever. i swear i felt like a ninja. you might think i was too if you saw me chop down a tree in one swoop of my machete. then you might laugh when you saw me struggling to cut a piece of tall grass, and ended up slicing my ankle in the process. Yes, it happened. But i didnt flinch. Im a ninja afterall.
what else? my dogs are good, im sure you were wondering. my cats still dead. my hens lay their eggs all over my yard, so i have to go and search through the tall grass everyday to find them. in my opinion, that just makes everyday easter. i have yet to find an egg filled with chocolate. one had a fetus, but no chocolate.
I have nothing else exciting to tell at the moment. But I have started a list of things you could send me, if you are ever feeling generous enough to send me a care package. it would be greatly appreciated. but mom, you can hold off for a while. I picked up 6 packages from you at the post office today.
so heres my list.
cinnamon toast crunch (sejal gave me that idea. best birthday present ever), tooth whitening strips (maté stains your teeth worse than coffee), magazines (any, the trashier the better), candy, cds (anything. my ipod broke, my radio broke, my cd player works. sometimes.), nag champa incense, egyptian goddess perfume ( if you dont know what it is, you wont find it).
thats the end for now. I will add more when i think of more.

Stuck in town

Sooo after waiting for 2 hours, in the blistering cold for my bus back to site last night, it finally came. Then they said they weren´t going any further because the bridge still wasn´t ready. Why didn´t anyone know that earlier? Anyways, on the verge of tears, I hauled all my bags back to the hotel I had just left and was giving back my room from the previous night. Just the way I left it, garbage over flowing, crumbs in my beds, dirty towel on the floor. Just like home. Luckily this morning I ran into Mr. Saro. The driver of the mandioca truck, which I normally depend on the get to and from my site. This truck passes my house every morning at 4am to bring all the women from my community into town to sell their mandioca (you might now mandioca as yuca in the states. a root vegetable. very popular here. eaten with every meal because its cheap, its everywhere, and it fattens you up. they call it ¨the bread of paraguay.¨) Anyway, he told me he will be leaving caazapa around 11am and passing my house. This means I dont have to walk 45 minutes to my house from where the bus drops me off with all my heavy bags of crap. What a relief. So we ride in the back of this oversized pickup truck (which recently got a roof installed) sitting on bags of mandioca, corn, oranges, peanuts, whatevers in season. It´s an experience. My parents know. You should come visit me. I promise I´ll let you ride in the truck to.

From the beginning...

I decided on a whim to start a blog. Mostly out of boredom. That was last night, while stuck in my pueblo, but then I deleted it like an idiot and gave up. So I will start again. I´m not very good with keeping in touch with people, so I will start from the beginning to update everyone. I´ll try to make it brief.

Last march I applied and was accepted to peace corps. I had my interview and talked all about my human development and familie studies major that I was about to graduate with and my horrible spanish speaking skills. That summer I received my invitation to Paraguay, to work in the field of agriculture. Crop extension they call it. First thought; where the hell is Paraguay? Don´t they speak spanish there? I don´t. Second; what the hell is crop extension? agriculture? My previous agriculture experience includes weeding my neighbors from steps for money in high school and refusing to eat the veggies out of my moms garden when i was younger, just because i thought that was gross. Yeah, so I was the perfect candidate for this job.

Anyway, I arrived in PY September 28, 2006 with 33 other bright young trainees/future volunteers. After 3 months of living with a host family and having training/school everyday to learn about agriculture, culture, and language (spanish and guarani), I was assigned to my site where I would be living for the next two year. Colonia Jerovia, Quinta Linea, Caazapa. I´m about 7 hours south of the capital of asuncion on bus. My closest town/pueblo is Caazapa, which is about 2 hours (30 kilometers) away from me. Once you exit the pueblo, its all dirt road to get to my site and we must cross 12 old as dirt, rickety bridges as well. One bridge just collapsed last week, which is why I am stuck in Caazapa at the moment. They just fixed it, so I will finally have a bus back to site tonight. I´ve been out of my community since monday. I went to the capital for medical issues. I think I have a parasite in my stomach making me extremely sick, so I´m getting my shit tested. Exciting.

So my life in site is pretty much routine. I wake up around 7, drink maté for an hour, poop in a hole, sweep my porch, eat breakfast, wash my clothes, visit people, drink tereré, eat lunch, nap, visit people, bathe in a bucket, drink maté, eat dinner, go to bed around 7. of course i occasionally throw in some language studying, lots of reading, oh yeah and i work sometimes too. having no background in agriculture makes it difficult, especially being a young woman. the men don´t listen to me or want to work with me. i hear everyday that women shouldn´t be in this field, and i should focus more on women jobs, which i have been. I work a lot with the women in their gardens, we make soap and we cook, i also do a lot with the chilren because there are sooo many in my community. I just gave a dental hygeine charla and gave out close to 100 toothbrushes and toothpastes to the kids, i teach them nutrition, we color, and i´m teaching 1 english.

I had to build a house. I have a fantastic garden with tons of veggies. I have two dogs who are my life, 4 hens, a rooster, and lots of mice that frequent my house and i frequently kill with a broom. I had a cat but my neighbors killed it with a machete. I would like another cat to eat my mice. i shit in a hole and bathe in a bucket. i have running water outside my house. when it rains my roof leaks. are you jealous yet? Its tough at times obviously, but I am so happy and wouldn´t change a thing. When I´m lonely or homesick I have special people in my community that always know how to cheer me up. I complain all the time (which is inevitable in my situation), but afterwards I can always laugh and I always have great stories to tell.

I´m sorry this turned out longer than I had planned.

I´ll probably end up writing more later while i´m stuck in town waiting for my stupid ass bus.

I´m starting a blog

I´m starting a blog tomorrow, because the really long one I just wrote, just got deleted and I am to upset to write another one at the moment.