Week of Celebrations!

I've been in site for just over a month now and I'm not going to lie it hasn't been easy. A lot of volunteers say first month in site can be one of the hardest. You go from a family you have been living with for 10 weeks and that you have gotten comfortable with to a brand new one. You go from being surrounded by other Americans all day to being the only one for miles, and you go from having every single second planned out for you to having no set schedule at all. Guarani is also a lot more prevalent in my site than it was in my training community which has been another added difficulty.

But I've made it through the first month, taking each day at a time.

Last Tuesday was also my 24th birthday! My friend Alex (also in G-38) came to hang out with me and my host family for the celebration. On the day of my birthday we made whole-wheat pizza and drank "Paraguayan Sangria" (aka Wine and Orange Fanta). It was a fun first birthday in Paraguay.

Made a Pepperoni Pizza and a Veggie Pizza

Alex, Host Mom (Margarita), Me

2 of my favorite girls in my site so far -- Maribel, Lizzi with my host mom, Margarita

The next day after my birthday it rained all day so Alex and I decided to make a Pumpkin Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. A few things ended up going wrong ... we didn't have enough powdered sugar for the icing so it was more like a glaze and we didn't bake the cake long enough but we were impatient and ate it anyway.

Doesn't look the prettiest but it sure did taste good.

The next day after that was "Dia de Maria Auxilliadora." She is one of the Patron Saints of my town. My host grandmother had been preparing for this day at least 2 weeks or more, painting the house, buying food (lots and lots of food), renting chairs and even wiring the outside of the house with speakers. It was a  long day of eating lots of food, praying to Maria Auxilliadora, dancing, drinking and even doing a small procession around town. Oh and did I mention this all took place at my house.

Decorating!

Sooooo much meat!

Alex and I enjoying some Terere

Sopa Paraguaya

My host Grandmother

All the people at my house

Procession through town

The next day Alex and I left for Asuncion where a bunch of our G-mates got together for the weekend to celebrate my birthday and David's birthday. It was so great to see all my friends again, I didn't realize til I went to site how close I'd gotten to the rest of my G-mates, this experience really bonds you together. We went out for dinner, one night to TGIFridays and out to a bunch of other places around Asuncion to celebrate.

Amy and I sharing a romantical moment

The group at TGIFridays

Alex y yo

100 Days!

"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time"

- Abraham Lincoln.

I have officially been in Paraguay for 100 days. Time has both flown by and gone incredibly slow at the same time. But, so far I feel like this is exactly what I should be doing.

Republica o Muerte!

That is the first line of the chorus in the National Anthem of Paraguay, in honor of today and yesterday ... the celebration of 201 years of Independence from its colonial rulers.

Let me give you a little background:

Paraguay was ruled by Spain, but in the early 1800's Spain had a lot of other stuff on its plate and pretty much neglected Paraguay. Over in Argentina the Viceroy of Spain had been overthrown and the "Administration" in Buenos Aires vowed to rule in the name of the Spanish king, and tried to assert their power over Paraguay. Lets just say this did not go over well in Paraguay which eventually led to a blood-less revolution on the 14th and 15th of May, 1811.

To celebrate Independence Day, I went with my family into Coronel Oviedo, the closet city to my site. There was going to be a parade with all the schools from around Oviedo and both of my host brothers were participating. 

My little brother's class were assigned to dress like "professionals" - he's the one with the puppy because he is a vet.

Paraguayan Flag

Parade

Traditional Women's Dress

Traditional Men's Dress (my host brother is the one looking at the camera)

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Here is a video I made of a bunch of my pictures during training and some videos. I keep forgetting to put it up. So here you go. Enjoy.

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First Post From Site!

I have been in site for almost two weeks now. The first three months in site Peace Corps wants you to live with host families, more than one if possible so you get to know the community better. Also in the first three months they don’t want you to start any projects, just go around and meet people and learn about your community.

Well the first 4 or 5 days into site it rained every day, sometimes all day. In the campo when it rains nothing much gets done, people just kind of sit around and wait for it to stop. Kids don’t go to school and adults don’t go to work, sounds great right? Could you imagine if we didn’t have to go to work when it rained? Well a day or two of it is nice. But after 5 you start feeling a little claustrophobic. I was ready to get out there actually start meeting people. I spent a lot of those first few days reading, I actually read four books.

Luckily, it finally cleared up. But, the rain had brought in a cold front that I was not at all prepared for. One of my suitcases was still in Asuncion and was going to be brought to me at my site presentation. (Which I’ll tell you more about in a minute) So for a couple days I looked quite ridiculous with the most bizarre arrangement of layers on to keep warm. Everyone who saw me had to have thought, “Great we get stuck with the crazy Norte volunteer.” But, the good part was that I was finally out meeting people.

One day my host mom came to my room and was like get ready we are leaving in a few minutes. This was one of the first days that was actually sunny so I jumped at the opportunity to get out of the house. We were going to lunch at another ladies house in my community. There were A LOT of people there, at least 60. After lunch everyone just sitting around and then we were all gathered to pray around this makeshift altar. I realized that we were at an “anniversary” gathering, to honor the anniversary of someone’s death. After we had prayed and sang and the ceremony was over the widow broke into an uncontrollable fit of tears and sobbing. It was a very overwhelming situation and I didn’t really know how to act. It was quite an introduction to my community.

Next week is my site presentation. This is where our APCD (for the life of me I cannot remember what this stands for), the director of the Health Sector of volunteers will come to my site and basically present me to my community. Tell them about Peace Corps, what it is, what we do and why I am here in their community. It hopefully will be very helpful because I am a first time volunteer so a lot of people might not know what Peace Corps is, and a lot of my community doesn’t like to speak Spanish, they prefer Guarani so he will be able to explain to them as well.

I’m currently living with my main community contact’s (the person PC sets you up to possibly work with in your community) mother-in-law, who lives right next door to her. They are a great family, I have two little host brothers (12 and 7), host parents, and host grandparents. They are all incredibly welcoming and warm people and I already feel very included in their lives.

There is this penguin game on my computer that they love to play.