Made it!

So this is the first post from Paraguay, and rest assured I have a mountain of things that I could write about, and I really don´t know where to start. It is Saturday afternoon right now and I am in an internet cafe in Guarambare attempting to download skype, which will give me some time right now to write a post. This is going to be stream of consciousness so bear with me.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon to Paraguay around 1 pm local time, where we were met by PC people at the airport. They transported us to the PC headquarters in Guarambare, where we had a few quick bits of orientation as well as host family interviews. At about 4:30 pm we drove to a smaller very rural town outside of the city where I met my host family, which is a 68 year old lady and her 11 year old grandson. When I got the sheet that said I was living with a 68 year old, I didn´t know what to expect, but she is defintely a young 68, like the type you could expect to find dancing till 2 am at the local shindig.

My house is quite simple, and includes just 3 rooms, her and her grandson´s bedroom, my bedroom, and the kitchen. I didnt know quite what to expect as far as how formal things would be and stuff (if I should keep on khakis and my nice button shirt, possibly even for dinner) but when we ate outside for dinner, my 11 year old host-brother was all about being comfortble in soccer shorts and no shirt (it is ridiculously hot here, even at night) so I joined in by throwing on a v-neck ribbed t shirt, which made the heat a little more bearable.

Shower is pretty primitive, up until this morning I was not aware of the fact that I had hot water, and I then realized that in 100 degree heat why would I even need hot water? So I have been taking cold showers, which I enjoy. Basically there is a cement outhouse, probably about 6 feet by 6 feet with a toilet for doing business, a mirror for shaving, and a showerhead to the side of the toilet from which water falls, and it is possible to get a little water pressure if I keep turning the knob to the left, but then the water heats up (the pressure and heat are on the same knob), and it gets really hot, which is not desirable when it is hot out.

I will be doing most of my training in the satellite school for education, which is literally a stone´s throw from my house. I am the closest volunteer to it. As a matter of fact, I got myself into a bit of a pickle the first night at dinner when I spent about 3 minutes trying to explain the English idiomatic expression, and Kuke (my host mom) and Ibel (brother) kept trying to understand me. Obviously there was a lot of smiling and nodding going on through this conversation. Eventually I gave up and tried to drop it, but they made me keep explaining. I´m still not sure if they got it or not.

Two days ago, on the way home from the city, somehow two other volunteers and I managed to miss our stop. Long, long, long story short: what should have been a 5 minute bus ride turned into a 3 hour adventure. At one point, we used a phone from a local that we met to call our host moms, and so by the time we finally made it home I´m pretty sure the whole town knew about our little mishap on the busses, because a 12 year old girl that only one of us vaguely knew walked up to us and told us that everyone was looking for us and that we should come with her. Thank you small town Paraguayan hospitality. When I got home my host mom acted mad, but then laughed about it. We have been joking about ´the bus occurance´ for the last couple of days.

Other than that, things have been awesome thus far. I have to add some pictures soon because it is very hard to describe what it is like here just in words. At my house we have 3 chickens, one hen who wakes me up every morning, and about 8 little chicklets. The house is surrounded by a couple of mango trees, banana trees, a lemon tree, a grapfruit tree, and yea even a couple of non-fruit bearing trees.

The other night there were about 30 guys huddled around a tv the size of a normal computer screen watching a soccer game. They went crazy every time something happened in the game. Yea, it looks like I´m going to have to get into soccer here.

The internet cafe I am in is starting to crank this crazy techno music so I can only assume they are transforming it into a discoteca pretty soon, so I am out. Miss everyone, and hope you all are doing alright in the snowstormy weather!