Long Field Practice and More !

Last week we had our “Long Field Practice,” which basically means in your language groups you go visit another volunteer for 4 days. I visited a volunteer (a fellow Marylander) in “FulgencioYegros” (hope that is spelled right) about 2ish hours from Guarambare.

She is super guapa (hard working in PY) and super organized it was a great Long Field. I stayed with a host family; it was actually one of her host families when she came to site. They were an awesome family, 2 youngerish parents in their late 20’s early 30’s Ethel and Jorge and they had two kids Ingrid (8) and Jorgito (4).  I’m almost a little jealous she gets to spend so much time with them because they are awesome. Jorge the father joked that I was SUPER shy but it was really because it was SO difficult to understand, he mumbles so much. Ethel said that it is hard for Paraguayans to understand him though so I didn’t feel bad.

I was on a radio show! My volunteer and some other volunteers in the area to a radio show weekly. We helped with their show about High Blood Pressure, a huge problem in PY. We prepared ahead of time and I basically read straight from my notebook which was nice because I was super nervous. But, radio is easier than TV because you only have to worry about your speaking not your facial expressions and all that.

Maddie (another trainee in my group) and I also gave a charla (talk) about “Manejo de la Basura” (Trash Management) to a group of 3^rd and 4^th graders. I was a little nervous before hand but I think we did a good job and it helped a little that my host sister Ingrid was in my class. I wassurprised at howgood I was at thinking on the fly in Spanish.

As we were leaving heading back to Guarambaré we went to this place “I can’t remember the name of” that has these historical boats from The War of Triple Alliance (a very “interesting war” – you should look it up … basically PY tried to fight Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay all at one time). You could walk up on top of these boats – which was definitely “I’m in PY moment” because I was like this would never happen in the US because where you walk on top of the boat was super old and no one was watching you or in charge or anything, and at one point in the walk-way there was a decent sized  hole you just kind of stepped over. But, it was super cool and then we went swimming in the river.

When we got home from Long Field I got my first PY sickness. I got a fever and was throwing up and couldn’t really eat anything at all. My host mom and sister were so cute though they took super good care of me at one point they were both just standing there watching me as I was trying to sleep. It was really only like a 12 hour bug because I felt a lot better the next morning. But, in my feverish delirium I dreamt that I had Dengue Fever – a sickness that isn’t usually fatal really only if you don’t go to the doctor and leave it unchecked, but it’s nicknamed “Bone Break Fever” because it hurts so bad it feels like all the bones in your body are breaking. That morning I had helped build a fogon and was super sore and so because my body hurt I dreamt that I had Dengue, it was a very realistic dream but, I’m lucky it was that, only a dream.

So training is already half way over!!! This week I have language interviews to see how my Spanish is improving and Site interviews where they ask us questions about what we want in our future site, AND next week we find out our future sites and then we go visit them!! Ahh!