champagne wishes and caviar dreams

Chicken Assasins. Word.

2008-09-26T08:27:00.007-04:00

Kai Pyrahe, Mandioca smuggling, and a touch of emotion

2008-09-26T07:53:00.003-04:00

Been a while since my last entry, eh? It may be that I have run out of exciting stories to tell. Maybe they sound exciting to you, but to you they have become routine. My life. My life that will be over in 2.5 months and then it´s back to America to start all over again. I was told that once we go back, we must now get used to not really knowing how to function in American society anymore. We must adjust to never feeling like we will ever fit back into that jigsaw puzzle because for the last two years I have been learning how to fit myself comfortably into a completely different, one of a kind puzzle that can´t be replicated. Maybe us former peace corp volunteers should start our own colony like the lepers. I had a small preview this august when I went home for three weeks and felt like a total alien. Like a tourist on vacation in some foriegn country. Don´t get me wrong, I had a great time. I love my friends and my family and I especially missed driving my car and drinking good beer. It´s just culture shock in its rarest form. Culture shock in the country that I have spent 23 years of my 25 year life. I guess I am angry though. I mean, how can they (who is they anyway, relaly?) expect us to come here for 2 years, establish a new life, build a home, a new family, new close friends, and then we have to just leave it all and what, forget about it? That seems like the easiest thing to do. I am trying not to think anout leaving, but it´s hard not to when it´s just around the corner. I can´t look at my neighbor, Maria without getting nautious knowing that in 2 months the family I have spent everyday with for the last 2 years will be completely erased from my life. Unless I come back here I will never see them again. But I plan on comming back for a visit. Who knows when, but my pops wants to come with me so I am sure we will arrange something.

Anyways, on a lighter note, I had my first Pombero encounter last night (you know, the short little troll looking mythological paraguayan creature in the loin cloth who likes to mess with us and scare us, but I am pretty sure that he is harmless. He will supposedly leave you alone if you leave him liquor and cigarettes in your oven. Kind of like a twisted santa claus). Well, it all started when I was reading in bed (Absurdistan, I recommend reading it) and I heard my wire fence making a commotion and then something ran across my porch and through my yard. I´m convinced it was a large dog. Then around 10:00pm I began receiving a series of texts from the neighbor boy who lives next door in grandma´s old house. He is 21. This is what they said:

9:58pm Him- Sara, I am really scared, the pombero is after me right now and I can´t sleep. He threw an apepu (orange sized, kumquat tasting, fruit) at me. I am really scared.

10:03pm Him- Sara, the pombero is after me and I am really scared. He threw an apepu at me and I´m frightened and this is serious.

10:07pm Him- If you don´t believe me, go outside and you will hear the noise that he is making on the wire fence and he threw an apepu at me.

10:09pm Call- Sara please answer my texts (hangs up)

10:10pm Me- What do you want me to do? I am sleeping and I don´t hear anything

10:14pm Him- I only wanted to tell you that the pombero was after me. He came into my house and threw my notebook, my clothes, and my radio and I am very frightened truthfully. Thank you for responding to my message

I am convinced that is was the ghost of grandma screwing with him because she was always awesome like that. Needless to say, I didn´t sleep that well, especially when the power went out shortly after and I was left in the pitch black to comvince myself that I don´t believe in mythilogical creatures and that there isn´t one at my neighbors right now, and that I didn´t have to pee because I was too scared to get out of bed. I felt like a little kid again.

Well, the mandioca truck was packed to the brim this morning with mandioca and passengers. We were packed like sardines, on top of so much mandioca that our heads were almost touching the roof (at least mine almost was, but I am the abnormally ¨gigante¨american so that doesn´t say to much). Anyway, I wish I took a picture because we looked like a bunch of illegal immigrants trying to cross the border, while smuggling a ton of yuca in the process.

I had puppies once

2008-08-12T08:54:00.002-04:00

2008-08-11T15:51:00.002-04:00

My Ode to the Mandioca Truck

2008-06-04T12:28:00.002-04:00

I wrote this song in my head at 4:00 this morning while trying to sleep in the back of the mandioca truck. Maybe its a poem. No offense to the truck. If it weren't for the truck and it's piles of mandioca I would still be rained into site, and wouldn't have made it to Asuncion today.

The road is so bumpy,

My eardrums are shaking.

The red clay mud on my clothes

Is drying and caking.

The sun's not yet up,

My poor head is aching.

Not even the confused rooster's

are ready for waking.

2008-05-27T08:08:00.000-04:00

2008-05-26T08:54:00.002-04:00

Well this weekend marked the one year anniversary of my parents visit to my site as well as the anniversary of the saint (Maria Auxiliadora) of my communities church, which means lots of food, music, and parties. Unfortunatly, this weekend, we also lost a very special person, my Paraguayan grandma, and next door neighbor, Bernadina. She died on Saturday, at the age of 82. These last couple of days have probably been some of the saddest and hardest that I have dealt with since arriving to Paraguay almost 2 years ago. Last week I was walking with Grandma back to her house from the other end of the community as she carried a large bundle of sticks on her head, that she refused to let me help her with. I asked her when her birthday was and she told me that she would be turning 83 in June. She also told me that numerous people have told her that she was going to live to past 100 because she was so healthy and still worked every day. I agreed.
A couple days later she fell and apparently broke her hip. She was taken to the hospital in Buena Vista, then to another in Villarica, and Saturday morning at 7am, while I was drinking maté on my porch with my buddy Antonio, watching the people decorate the church across the street and listening to the loud music and fireworks that had been going off since 3am, the news came that Abuela had passed. Out of respect and custom, the music at the church and throughout the community was shut off. Grandma was brought back home from the hospital in her coffin where she stayed over night until she was brought to be buried yesterday afternoon. All day saturday and throughout the night there were visitors and prayers. The immediate family members , and others very close to the family stay awake all night the first night after the death at the house of the deceased. I attempted to stay all night, but only made it until 2:00am, and after being harrassed by the town drunk(s), for most of the night, I decided that 7 hours of listening to them was enough. I am not German, but they can believe what ever they want. And no, I will not marry you. So I went home to get some rest, but after 6 hours of drinking caffiene filled maté it wasn´t easy.
This weekend I saw the toughest most intimidating members of my community show emotion and vulnerability. One of the hardest things I saw was my neighbor; the man who built my house, the man who never shows an ounce of emotion other than laughter or anger; with his body draped over his dead mother, sobbing, calling out her name, kissing her face, for hours. Her children and family members came from as far as Argentina to mourn her loss. Ña Bernadina was such an important member of our village. She was loved by all, and I found out this weekend that she was practically related to everyone as well, either as an aunt, mother, grandma, or inlaw.
I was unable to bring myself to go up to the casket to see her, which I regret now and I knew that I would. Apparently I have to much pride, and did not want to fall apart in front of my whole community. There will be a prayer service everyday for 9 days in a row at her house, and I will be attending them all. If you pray, please make space for her. R.I.P. Love you Aguela.

Proud Grandma

2008-05-09T09:45:00.008-04:00

Here are some pictures of the new addition to my family. The puppies are preety big now, and I've given away four so far. I am down to three pups at my house, and although it was hard to give the others away, it sure saves on dog food.

too tired for a title

2008-04-02T07:37:00.003-04:00

Ok so I´m in Caazapa today mainly to buy acrylic paint for a project I´m going to be working on at the school and to get more food for my dog because she is a ravenous new mother of 7, and I am working on 2 hours of sleep. Working is not actually the correct word, walking around town like a zombie is a more accurate description of how I am feeling today. All night I listened to Chipa´s puppies whining and howling trying to get comfortable. Even with plugs in my ears and headphones over top blasting Pink Floyd´s the Division Bell on repeat, I could still hear them and of course with any ounce of noise, I am unable to sleep. Finally around 1am they stopped. Right as I started to doze off, a lost baby cow started mooing for it´s mom in a loud, annoying, consistent, nonstop pattern, right in front of my house. Needless to say, the situation ended up with me crying and chasing the cow down the street waving my broom in the air. Twice. It still came back. Come to find out this morning that its because its mom was in my yard eating my beans. Eventually, the dogs started crying again and before I knew it, it was 2:30am, a half hour before I had to wake up and get ready to catch the mandioca truck to town. So I got out of bed, drank some maté, took my time getting ready, swept, cursed my dogs, cursed myself for not getting chipa fixed, and boarded at 3:45 a truck full of mandioca, beans, corn, ladies drinking maté and farting, and children just farting.
Prepared to maybe get 2 hours of rest on the ride, my neighbor asks me, ´Ejokose pa kumanda?´´Do you want to break open my beans?´Which actually meant, you break open my beans for me and I´m gonna sit here and drink maté and play on my cell phone. She knows that I caný resist de-podding a legume and took advantage of the opportunity. So for the whole 2 hours I broke open beans and filled up a plastic bag in the pitch black of very early morning, bouncing in the back of a big truck with a roof made out of orange tarp. But I wasn´t bitter. The way that I was balanced on top of three bags of mandioca, pressing my foot against the side of the truck for support, there was no way that I could have slept. If I had dozed off, it would had been a disaster. We would hit one of the many big bumps/pot holes, and I would have ended up in some woman´s lap or on top of a small child, and that would not have been pretty, considering how ¨gigante¨I am.

2008-03-26T10:10:00.009-04:00

Semana Santa. The week leading up to easter. The week of unlimited, endless amounts of freshly made chipa (not as fresh by the end of the week). Week of greasy, cheesy sopa Paraguay, mandioca by the kilos, scents of pigs, cows, chickens, and sheep BBQing emanating from every house in the country. Week of tortas, boxed wine and coke, or beer and coke, or cana and coke, as long as it's mixed with coke, and more chipa washed down with coke. Every gluttons dream. My fridge is stuffed full of gifts of sopa, cake, various barbequed meats, and did I mention chipa? Though the site of it makes me sick after all that I ate today (I write this March 20th, Holy Thursday. Day of the asado. Today we feast and tomorrow we must only eat chipa). I had a huge lunch. Two actually. First at Dalida's (The greatest woman in the world) after preparing together all morning, then immediately to my neighbor's house ( I was hoping they would have eaten already), because they invited me too and I didn't have the heart/balls to tell them that I already had lunch plans, but maybe I cuold pencil them in around 2ish. Give me time for a nap.... Well I arrived just in time for lunch #2, and ate the same thing all over again (just not as much in order not to explode). After going home and bathing the greasiness off of me, I went and visited another family, whom I adore. Immediatly I am brought chipa and forced to try it while the whole family watches. I insist that I am stuffed. I tell them that I am going to explode, but that gets lost in translation and I just got really odd looks. I try a bite, tell them its delicious and place it on my lap until I leave. Then it's off to Grandma's house I go. She is so happy that I "remembered her," because she has been alone all day, cooking and sweeping, she loads a plastic bag full of chipa, sopa, and cake, but doesn't make me try it in front of her ( thank god!). She's really busy sweeping her yard and sends me on my way. She says to come back tomorrow if it doesn't rain, because if it rains, she'll just have to sweep her yard all over again and that takes all day. She's great. A little nuts, but I effing love her.

So, moral of the story is, there is such a thing as free lunch (who ever made up that saying has never visited Paraguay), but it's not always a blessing. It can lead to wicked bad indigestions and an awful stomach ache.

And after the chipa is gone, you will have withdrawals. I swear the secret ingredient in that stuff is CRACK.

P.S. Chipa had her puppies!

Welcome Home

2008-03-13T07:40:00.002-04:00

When I got back to site my power (only my power), had been out for days. My fridge stunk and was completely moldy. Everything inside it was ruined, including my heinz ketchup, rocher chocolate, dum dums and jolly ranchers.
I have mice now and they pooped all over my house. I had my cat sleep inside to kill the mice but instead, she pooped all over my house too.
The women who pawned her dvd player off on me in exchange for 50 mil (and convinced me to give her back the dvd player before i left for vacation so she could sell it and pay me back), up and left for ciudad del este while I was away. Serves me right for being an idiot.
It rained a lot while I was gone, which means in rained inside my house as well. The floors and everything on them are still damp and my bed smells like mildew.
Grandma gave me a giant squash to welcome me home, but while trying to peel it I stuck the knife through my thumb nail. Then I kicked the corner of my door running inside for a band aid and split open/ smashed my big toe.
Lassie continued to have seizures while I was gone, and Chipa got more pregnant (any day now). How nice of the paraguayans though, I have had numerous offers from people who are happy to kill all the female pups once they are born. Nobody is killing my puppies. I will find homes for all of them, even if that means they stay with me.
Thats all I have for news (good and bad). It´s great to be home.

National Lampoon's Uruguayan Vacation

2008-03-04T09:05:00.005-05:00

I returned yesterday from my 8-day vacation to the coast of Uruguay. I left Paraguay super excited to go to the beach every day and eat tons of delicious seafood. Unfortunatly, it rained 7 out of 8 days of our trip, and the shellfish selection was extremely dissapointing! Our trip started out in the city of Montevideo for two days. The weather was beautiful the first day, but by the second day the rain had started. We did a lot of walking, eating at expensive restaurants, sightseeing, and overspending on clothes while in the city. Sounds like what most tourists do in most cities around the world, no? The city had a lot of really beautiful buildings and plazas, but also had some really shitty areas that made me feel like I was back in Asuncion, Paraguay. For our second stop, we took a 3-hr bus ride east to La Paloma. In La Paloma it was cold and rainy the whole two days, so I don't have much to say about the place. I bought a warm sweatshirt because I didn't think to bring one with me, and we walked up the beaches, went up into the lighthouse, which involved climbing a really scary ladder, ate yummy fish, and met lots of travelers at the hostel we stayed at. The last stop, and by far the best, was to Punto del Diablo, a small surfing/fishing village near the border of Brasil. As soon as the bus pulled into the town I knew I would love the place. The town is basically built on the beach, and consists of hippies and surfers. The first day we walked around the town and the beach in between the rain. The hostel we stayed at has a bar located on the ocean, so we decided to venture out of the hostal for dinner and drinks despite the torrential down pour. The staff from the hostel, and one other group of guess also were at the bar (but thats it). After sharing a sandwich and couple liters of cerveza with Carin, the power went out in town. The wind and the rain were so strong, the paint was dripping off the walls inside the bar. After heavy contemplation of how we could sleep comfortable on the tile floor of this bar, and after a few more beers, we decided to try to brave the elements and go back to the hostel. The rain was not letting up and probably was not planning on stopping anytime soon. The town was pitch black because there was no power, our brand new umbrella was inside out, and our mini maglite basically served no purpose. It was one of those things that you look back and laugh at, but at the time, it SUCKS! Day two surprisingly cleared up and we made it to the beach and I go to go in the ocean. We let the giant waves throw us around for a while until we realized we were in the middle of a school of jellyfish. I ran the hell out of the water, and then was too scared to go back in past my ankles. At night we had a yummy dinner with some kids we met at the hostel and then went to see a reggae band play at a bar on the ocean that totally reminded me of the Wheelhouse in Galilee, Rhode Island. At the hostel we met kids from England, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South America, Canada, France, and Massachusettes. Definately a more diverse crowd than I've ever experienced in Paraguay or Newtown, Connecticut. Anyway, It started raining again, but stopped by the time we left the bar. I fell in love with place, and have already inquired about jobs in Punto del Diablo for when I complete my peace corps service in December.

The next day, it was raining again, and we were depressed because we were leaving Punto del Diablo and heading back to the cityto catch our flight back to Paraguay the next day. A nice guy from France who was staying in our hostel offered us a ride back to Montevideo in his renta-car, and we gladly accepted the offer. This way, the trip was 2 hours shorter than a bus, and free. It ended up as 5 of us crammed into a little hatchback. The frenchman who was living in Uruguay and than Chile to work at winery's, two germans who lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina and were interns at hospitals, and then us, two americans who lived and worked as farmer's in the middle of nowhere, paraguay. We all shared the common language of spanish, even though it is none of our fisrt languages. It was an interesting, silent ride back. We had delicious sushi that night, at a restaurant near the hostel, went to bed, and woke up super early the next day to catch our a.m. flight that ended up being delayed until noon. But, we made it back to Paraguay, where its always hot and humid, but there are no beaches to make up for it. Although, the chaco hotel does have a 2 foot deep pool on the roof...

my very own casa de empeños

2008-02-18T06:01:00.002-05:00

Not only am I known here in my little as an ice seller, an egg vender, a photgrapher, and a money lender. A garden planter, a soap maker, a jewelry giver, and a banana bread maker (and apperently a nursery rhymer too), but now my house has officially been converted into a pawn . Yesterday a woman come to me with a brand new DVD player and a proposition. Her son needed to catch the noon bus headed to Asuncion, and it was not 11:45am. He needed 50mil for his bus ticket but didn´t have a dime. They did indeed have a nice new shiny DVD player, complete with remote, mp3 player, and 2 microphone input jacks for karaoke. Her offer was to let me hold onto the DVD player as an ´empeño´ (a pawn) if she could borrow the money until Friday. At first, I didn´t understand the question, and I thought that she wanted me to pawn it for her. Then I thought that she was just trying to sell the thing to me. ¨What am I going to do with a DVD player when I don´t even have a t.v?¨I asked her. She explained again and I finally understood. I reluctantly accepted the offer. Her son was going to miss the bus if I hesitated any longer. I gave her to 50mil and took the DVD player (which is now being used as a really short coffee table). At least I have some sort of collateral to guarantee that I get my money back. If not, I got a new DVD player for $10, that is no use to me in my televisionless house, but it works very nicely as a table to hold my trashy magazines and yoga books nonetheless.
Yoga. Thank god for it. I don´t think I would have survived this mornings mandioca truck trip to caazapa if I hadn´t been practicing my breathing and using yoga to calm and sooth my nerves. The truck arrived around 4am and was practically empty when I boarded ( a good sign), but kept stopping all through my community to pick up passengers (all which had at least 3 giant bags of mandioca; about 150 pounds each; to load into the truck). By the time we got out of my community and were on the road, We were all piled up so high on bags of mandioca, that our heads were touching the ceiling, yet somehow people still managed to step on me. I literally had a really pointy piece of mandioca sticking straight up my ass for the 3 hour trip. The 3 hour trip that usually takes 1 hour on a bus, but we were so heavily sardine packed into this truck, it couldn´t go faster than a snails pace. A poor little women next to me was sitting on a sideways bag of mandio and ended up in my lap for the second half of the ride. I tried to nap but If I wasn´t holding on the the side of the truck for dear life, I would fall inbetween the two bags I was sitting on, or bounce and hit my head on the ceiling. I closed my eyes, and took deep breaths. I did not get claustrophobic or angry at the woman next to me grinding her heel into my bare foot. Yeah I totally meditated and achieved om. No that´s not true. It was 4am in the morning and I was to tired to give a crap about anything. When the sun came up around 6, I lifted up the flap of fabric that hangs down as the roof to look outside. Aside from all the dust from the dirt road that hasn´t seen rain in way to long, it was beautiful. The red sun, the pink and orange clouds, the clouds of mist rising off the rivers, all types of exotic birds taking flight, outlines of palm trees, and the smell of the kids farting behind me. That instant made the trip all worth while.
And I am extra tired today from getting only 3 hours of sleep. I was all ready in bed with my book by 8pm, prepared to get a good nights sleep because I had to wake up at 330am today, when I get a text from my stalker (the same cowboy that I thought was so cute a few months ago). ¨I´m comming to your house¨ says he. ¨No.¨Say I. ¨I´m drunk and I´m crazy and I´m comming to your house.¨ Bullshit I think, and ignore him like I have been for the last 3 months, even when I get 30 missed call a night. 30 minutes later, ready to retire I hear a noise outside, but think its my dog. Its behind my house. Maybe its a toad? Then it starts knocking on my walls. ¨Toads don´t knock.¨I think to myself. Then it starts talking. ¨Frog´s definately don´t talk.¨ I think again. I ignore it and don´t move, until I realize my door is unlocked. He hears me get up. I don´t know what to do so I start yelling ¨Leave my house! Go away ! Your crazy!¨ My neighbors on both sides of me are outside bathing, talking, dining, but no one acknowledges my screams. Weird. He won´t leave. I grab my blow horn. ¨only to be used in case of emergencies.¨ Stressed to the people of my community by my boss that ¨if you ever hear this noise, there is an emergency and you need to come immediately.¨ I put the horn against the wall where the psycho is whispering and press on it hard. ¨a la puta!¨screams he. Still no neighbors come running. I wait in silence. My phone starts ringing. and ringing. Finally I answer to make sure he left. He did. I hang up. Calls keep comming. Drunken angry voicemail. Yelling. Finally I start answering my phone and letting him yell and drunken unintelligable guarani Jibberish. Paraguayans never have more than a couple mils worth of minutes on their phones, and his was bound to run out soon. He kept calling, yelling. ¨I´m telling the neighbors.¨I say because I can´t think of anything cooler to do than to threaten to tattle. He starts talking shit about my neighbors. Finally the phone cuts off and the calls stop. Victory! He has run out of minutes! Now I have to pee. What if hes waiting outside? I pee in a bucket, as instructed by a fellow volunteer who will remain anonomous. Get in bed. Toss and turn until midnight. Wake up every hour until my alarm goes off at 320. Get dressed. Get back in bed and doze until I hear the trusty old mandioca truck puttering up the road. And now I am here. tired. hot. out of money in my bank account. nothing at the post office. and have 4 hours left here until I have to get back on the truck home, and all I really need to do is buy cat food.

lets talk about poop baby

2008-02-03T12:32:00.000-05:00

I'm in Asuncion for superbowl weekend and Friday was spent in Villarica for Carnival. I am supposed to leave today to go back to site, but am easily influenced and will be heading back tomorrow. Last night a bunch of volunteers watched to super bowl and hooter's. Yes very Paraguayan. I almost felt like I was back in America. Football, Buffalo wings, Hooter's, oh yeah and there were hula hoops present as well.

Chipa is still in heat, and she finally got so sick of getting raped repeatedly on a daily basis, that she came to me for help. Lauren (a fellow volunteer and basically my new roomate; shes in the picture with me in a moo-moo. Thats right we bought moo-moo's and you are jealous) and I decided to put a pair of my underwear on my dog to protect her. We were smart as to cut a hole for the tail, but neglected to remember that dogs are not potty trained and cannot pull down their underwear when they have to poop. The next morning chipa still had on her pretty pink undies, but she brought me a steaming poopy surprise as well. I had poop stained underwear in my front yard for about 4 days until i finally swept it to the side of the house, where it will probably remain for eternity, or until a little kid finds it and tells everyone that the americana pooped her pants and left her dirty underwear outside.
Carnival in Villarica was a blast. Carnival is pretty much the Mardi Gras of South America. It's biggest in Rio de Janiero, Brasil, but Paraguay knows how to party too. It's basically a big parade with lots of feathers and pasties, lots of foam being sprayed, and lots of beer being dranken. We were to cheap to pay for the bleacher seats so we bought the 10 mil tickets and stood a long the street to watch. We couldn't see soo well through all the people, but Carin and I were lucky enough to find a ledge on the side of a building that we climbed and sat on. It was fun. I got foam sprayed in my eyes numerous times and it hurt. I slapped a paraguayan for that but that only provoked him more. Don't slap Paraguayans if you don't want foam sprayed in your eyes.

the monks know how to throw a party

2008-01-26T06:46:00.000-05:00

I´m going to try to write this blog over the awful music blasting so loud that the bass is making the computer shake from the bar across the street. It´s 9:00am on Saturday morning and the bars in Caazapa are still packed with people partying from the night before. I´ve been here since Thursday, and the place is insanity. Apparently, this is the anniversary of when the monks came to caapzapa way back in the day and found water in time of drought. The Paraguayans celebrate for weeks, but this weekend is the big weekend and its pretty nuts. Theres stuff all over the city including an expo, concerts, a carnival, and of course people getting wasted all day and night at bars. I´m an old lady and a wussy and was unable to drink or party during my time here. I spent the last two days with a massive headache and super dehydrated searching for a place to sleep. The first night I was able to stay in a hotel, but last night a group of us were sleeping on another volunteers tile floor because everything was booked for the weekend.
I hope what I´m writing is making sense. I haven´t slept in two days, and trying to type with the techno version of ¨me vuelvo loco tu tatu (your vagina drives me crazy,¨ blasting in the background is making it very difficult to think.
If you ever want a good laugh, bring a paraguayan from deep in the campo on a ferris wheel. The ladies from my community were in Caazapa yesterday morning selling their mandioca, so Lauren and I decided to convince my neighbor and her daughter to come on the ferris wheel with us. I went on with my neighbor Maria, and the whole time she was laughing her ass off while screaming ¨sarita you are crazy! your making my crazy! This is crazy! Im going to throw up! Get me off! This is so fun! Im scared! Im not scared anymore! Sarita loco! We are crazy!¨It was a lot of fun, and something that my neighbors will never forget. They immediatly went over to brag to all their mandioca buddies that they rode the giant wheel. Everyone thought they were crazy. I think paraguayans just like using the word crazy. I find myself calling paraguayans and myself crazy multiple times a day in conversation.
Well off to the market to stock up on veggies to last me until my trip to Villarica to celebrate Carnival (South Americas mardi gras) feb. 2nd. Until then, I´ll be sitting in front of my fan sweating my ass off in the campo. Think of me while you are roasting marshmellows, taking hots showers, using toilets and microwaves, and eating sushi.

back to the campo life

2008-01-11T06:34:00.000-05:00

I made it back to site safe and soundly. I was most worried about carrying all my really heavy bags from the bus stop to my house, but my neighbor children were all waiting for me at the bus stop and they carried all my crap for me. I was also worried that my house would be moldy and flooded because when it rains outside, it rains in my house. Lucky for me, it hasn´t rained in over a month so my house was dry. Unlucky for the rest Paraguay, wells are dry, crops are dying, and its hot as hell. I was worried that my power would be out because it goes out every time there is wind, and all my food in the fridge would be ruined, but it didnt and my food was fine. Other than being covered in cobwebs and some giant spiders, my house was just how I left it. My garden looks like a jungle, and the neighbors did not water it like they said they would so my tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, green peppers, and some other stuff died. My beans and watermelon have taken over my garden, and i have about 500 jalapeño peppers. so if you have any recipes with hot peppers, please send them to me.
This morning walking to site I passed a drunk passed out on the side of the road. He looked to comfortable to be dead, so I tip toed by him, praying he wouldn´t wake up suddenly, grab my ankle, and demand more caña. Of course a truck passed by, right as I was walking passed him, but he still didn´t stir. If he is still there this afternoon when I go back to site, Then I will start to worry.

Welcome party

2008-01-07T08:51:00.000-05:00

I arrived back in PY on saturday after a really long overnight flight, and I go back to site tomorrow (tuesday). I'm not looking forward to lugging my 3 huge heavy bags 45 minutes from the bus stop, up steep hills, on a dirt road, back to my house. But, what can you do? Maybe I'll request back up from some paraguayans. Anways, I am once again getting used to the unbearable 100 degree weather. Thats not true, I never will get used to this weather. I'm still homesick and want to be home, but the other volunteers who just got back from vacation are feeling the same way as well, which makes me feel a little bit better. I know its not just me that would rather enjoy hot showers, toilets, comfy mattresses, good food, driving, old friends and family, etc., etc., at least for another week or so. I'm sure once I'm back in site and am reunited with my emaciated dogs, flooded house with a leaky straw roof, garden with no veggies because they either died or the neighbors stole them, my ripped, barely usable mosquito net, frog droppings, no food, no air conditioning, etc., etc., I will be overjoyed because I will finally be "home." yeah.

2008-01-03T12:58:00.000-05:00

I go back to Paraguay tomorrow, and I'm surprisingly really sad. I don't want to have to say goodbye to all the special people in my life all over again. I know it will be fine once I am back. I had an amazing vacation and don't feel ready to leave again yet. It went by too fast. I'll be fine. I'm just being silly.

A glimpse into my new years eve

2008-01-02T18:11:00.000-05:00

2007-12-22T08:07:00.001-05:00

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

2007-12-21T17:48:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-20T09:09:00.000-05:00

take me home country road....

2007-12-13T14:49:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-12-07T12:06:00.000-05:00

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..

2007-11-26T09:15:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-22T06:39:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-11-22T06:27:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-10-27T07:29:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-12T08:12:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-10-02T09:16:00.001-04:00

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

2007-10-02T08:41:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-09-18T07:22:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-10T08:14:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-09-02T10:01:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-08-24T08:24:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-08-19T09:42:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-17T08:34:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-04T09:06:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-08-03T10:10:00.000-04:00

From the beginning...

2007-08-03T09:07:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-02T17:43:00.000-04:00

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.