Asuncion, Collectivos, and General Guay Para Comments

The days have been going by pretty quickly the last week or so. Training has been consuming a vast amount of our time, as we have been getting ready for workshops with Paraguayan teachers, studying a lot of Guarani, and also trying to spend as much time integrating in the community as possible. There have been a lot of very interesting happenings, and I think my next post is going to be a top 10-er, that is the top ten most shocking things about Paraguay that I already have started to take for granted. So everybody can look forward to that, I am still refining my list until later in the week though. For now just a general update.

Last Saturday I went into Asuncion with a few other volunteers and one of their host sisters, who served as our guide and made sure we didn’t get lost in the sprawling Paraguayan capital. We had decided on a day which would include comforts of home, feeling that we had earned it with all the community integration that we have been doing lately. We decided on watching Alice in Wonderland and going to Pizza Hut. In order to get to the movie theater in Asuncion from our little rural area just outside of Guarambare, we had to take 3 separate buses for a total of around three hours roundtrip. In Latin America the bus is called the ‘collectivo, and the colectivo experience is pretty unforgettable. Collectivos are more or less similar to city buses say, in Chicago, with a few exceptions. First of all, in the rural areas you can just flag down a collectivo anywhere on the road; there are no designated stop areas. Quite convenient, actually. It is not uncommon for a person to live 2 hours outside of Asuncion and take the collectivo to get to work each day. As you might be guessing, this leads to long, crowded colectivo rides with standing room only, and obviously there is no AC, that is just a given. So yea personal space is somewhat sacrificed. And sometimes they can get downright dangerous, like yesterday for example. I was the last of our group of 5 to squeeze my way onto an already sardine-like packed colectivo, and ended up kind of riding on the bottom stair for a few minutes. The door was open and I’m not gonna lie I got kind of a rush and it was a bit scary. Don’t worry I had a bar to grip though, so the actual possibility of my falling out was pretty slim. The funniest part, however, was when I finally walked up the stairs and stood on the bus for the next hour. Evidently this particular bus had been purchased from Bolivia, and as a result had been constructed with lower ceilings (or maybe high floors). To be precise, the height of the ceiling was around 5’8”. I am 6’2”. There was no way for me to quite lean or sit, so I had to bend my neck at a 45 degree angle for duration of the ride. This was hilarious to all of the other PVCs and I indeed got a great view of the tops of everyone’s heads for that ride. Definitely one of those times when I had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.

In other news, throughout the last couple of weeks I have taught my host brother crazy eights or ochos locos and B.S., or mentiroso. Crazy eights is a riot to play with my host mom and brother because abel just hoards the eights and my host mom consistently forgets that you can put down a card of the same number instead of the same suit, and also confuses hearts and spadesn, so Abel and I have to look at her cards and tell her what to put down. She still wins a lot though, it’s pretty impressive. I have went on a few runs here, which are pretty picturesque. Also I played soccer last week with some Paraguayans. They way the play is the everybody on the team needs to throw down a one mil coin, (equivilant of about 30 cents maybe) and if you win you get another mil and if you lose you lose your mil. Then everybody heads to the tienda to split a 1.5 liter of cocacola between 12 people.

On another note, I finally busted out my laptop in my room today in order to write this post, save it on a flash drive, and then bring it to the internet café so I can copy and paste my post. So I am sitting in my room at my desk, and my host mom keeps peeking through the crack between my door and the wall with one eye, infinitely interested in what I am doing. I did my best to explain to her that it was ‘digital’ or something along those lines. We do not even have a phone in my house here…yea we’re a little old fashioned around here. Needless to say I think she was flabergasted. I’m starting to get used to the lack of technology myself as well, I actually feel slightly spoiled typing and listening to music on my computer machine.

I am throwing some pictures up today, which can be found on picasa via the link to the right. Earlier today I tried to take a few pics around my house and property, so enjoy. Unfortunately uploading is extremely slow here so I had to pick and choose a few key pics until have a better uploading sitch. Today marks about 3 and a half weeks of being here in Paraguay, but all of the PC trainees agree that it feels like we have been here for at least twice that time. I already feel myself not being surprised by things that floored me when I first arrived, like making ice in plastic bags instead of treys and seeing families of 5 on motorcycles. Also, my little chicks have been growing a ton in the last week, and in fact they have stopped following their mother around which was a little sad. They are still cute though, no worries. Also pardon my lack of english language skillz today, I am starting to forget English with all the Guarani and Spanish being thrown my way. Hasta la proxima!