"To Lead People Walk Behind Them"

I am in the process of moving into my own house! It will be my first time in Paraguay not living with host families (and don't worry next week I'll post pictures and a whole blog just about my house), but, this post isn't about that. My new house is next to one of my favorite families in town and while I've been getting my house ready I've been spending a lot of time with them, especially the kids since they are on winter break.

So yesterday they came over while I was cleaning my house and asked if I wanted to go on a walk to the stream and I jumped at the chance to take a break. I thought this was going to be a little trek though to woods. Boy was I wrong. It was extremely muddy and at some points I was ankle deep in mud attempting to keep my shoes on. At one point I even fell, I took a kind of jumping step and basically ended up doing the splits in the mud. (Luckily, minutes before that I had let one of the girls use my camera and didn't have it with me when I fell, so it didn't get covered in mud AND there are pictures)

Even though I ended up covered in mud with a bruised butt (and wounded dignity) it was a great time and a incredible bonding experience with my new neighbors.

Climbing trees over the stream

My walking buddies (Top row L-R: Fatima, Mariana and AnaLiz. Bottom row: Elena and Alex)

Fatima and Alex

Trying not to fall.

Trying to stay clean ended about 2 minutes into the walk.

Man down.

* Title quote - Lao Tzu *