www.tembiuparaguay.com Without almidon making chipa may be difficult. Or if you are lazy and live in Seattle and want an empanadahttp://www.marialuisaempanadas.com/menu.html http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

5 Months!

It's been 5 months since David and I made our journey to the United States. 5 months of new experiences, good times and changes.

About 30 days after we were married David and I filed the applications for the I-485 (application for permanent residence (green card)) and the I-765 (application for work authorization). The I-765 is filed because the green card usually takes awhile so if you file for the I-765 you can legally work in the meantime.

A month after filing we received an appointment notice for the biometrics interview. So we went to the Department of Homeland Security office in Seattle and David had his picture and finger prints taken and then we were sent home. Not really knowing what was going to happen next. I assumed that the EAD (employment authorization document) would arrive shortly and David could start looking for work...

We then received our notice ( a month after the biometrics interview) for David's permanent residence (green card) interview that would be on February 1, 2012. At this point we still hadn't received the EAD card. Then a week before the interview David received his EAD card!!! Yay! I was excited that he was officially allowed to work but at the same time a little bitter. The application for this work authorization card cost about $100. And it came a week before the interview for permanent residence. I was thinking "what a waste of $100". I was thinking the EAD card was useless because we'd go to the interview, in a week, and the green card would be approved then he'd be a permanent resident and allowed to work and wouldn't need the EAD card.

Well we went to the interview yesterday, February 1st 2012. We took a translator with us because it would have been a conflict of interest if I, the wife, translated for David. The interview was SOO weird.

I had researched about these interviews and we were totally ready for tons of personal questions about each others families and about our marriage. My cousin and her husband also just did the green card interview and they told us to be ready to answer biographical questions about each other and other personal questions. Well the interviewer asked David how we met. He answered in English. She asked me where I worked. She asked us how the wedding was. We then showed her pictures. She asked ME to identify my family members. She asked how many people attended. She asked if we had a ceremony in Paraguay, we showed pictures of our going away party with his family and she asked DAVID to identify his family members. She then asked for proof of shared finances and that we live in the same place and that I've changed my name. I gave her all of our bank statements, lease agreement, health insurance etc. Then she asked the generic questions like if David's been involved in terrorist actives, if he's been involved in prostitution etc.

Then it was over. She asked NO personal questions. She said she didn't think they'd be needing any more documents from us. And that we'd be getting a letter in the mail with the answer. I asked how long and she said "as soon as possible".

Why didn't she ask any personal questions? I guess we should be happy that it went so quickly and was super easy. But its nerve racking that your future is in someone elses hands. What if they are having a bad day and say "no"? Was it so obvious that we are happily married that she didn't need to ask any questions? I had my dad call my aunt to see if my cousin and her husband got an answer the same day as their interview. They didn't. Their interviewer told them it could be 2 weeks to 3 months to get the letter in the mail!!!

So now I don't think the EAD card was a waste of money. Because if it takes 3 months to get the green card David wouldn't be able to start looking for work until then. He's English is improving rapidly and he is anxious to get out of the house. We've started working on his resume and hopefully within the next few days he can start applying for jobs!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

It's been a cold and wet

winter here in Seattle. That means lots of time spent indoors and lots of time

spent playing on the Internet, watching movies, eating etc. Last week David

didn't have school all week (snow days) and I was off work on Monday (MLK day) and then Wednesday and Thursday my

work was closed due to SNOW!

Thursday we managed to

leave the house after watching 4 movies on Wednesday and drinking a half a

bottle of whiskey! We went to get Pho with

Patrick in the International District and it was delicious. After that we

didn't want to go back home and sit some more. So we downtown and walked around

in the snow. It started to snow even more so we stopped for some coffee and

people watching. Our bus, the #7, got stuck in the snow going up Jackson Street

on the way home. So we walked up Jackson to Rainier and waiting for another bus

to pass by.

By Friday I was a little

tired of being home. It's not that I don't love spending time with David its that

we usually go out and do stuff, explore, but we were basically trapped at home.

David's snow pants were at Patrick's

house so we couldn't go sledding or partake in traditional snow activities. And

there was NO way I was taking my car out on the roads, people in Seattle do not

know how to drive in the snow. So yeah, Friday, I was ready to work. I would

have walked there if I had to!

David's English is Rocking! Yay!

February 1st we have his green card interview! I'm a little nervous. I have no

reason to be nervous but I am. I think it's the fact that Immigrations still

has the opportunity to say no. Although we have all of our documents in order

and are a REAL couple it's a little stressful! After he gets his green card

he'll be able to work.

It will be so nice once he starts working. We've been on a tight

budget with just one income so a lot of stress will be relieved once there is a

little more wiggle room with our finances.

In the end we are ok! We are

fat, happy and in love!

David http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Hurrican Ridge - Olympic National Forest

Gasworks Park- Seattle

Mussles for dinner!

Bike Ride in Seward Park- Seattle

Oregon Coast

Yerba!!

Bottle House Wine Bar- Seattle

Sounders Futbol game- Seattle

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David really wants to go camping but it’s cold and rainy here in the Northwest so we set the tent up inside. We had a great night watching movies and giggling on our camping trip.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Our Wedding

So I am not sure if anyone is reading this still or ever was but I've decided I'd like to continue writing this blog "de vez en cuando" so David's family can see pics from Paraguay. They have yet to figure out the facebook we have set up for them so maybe if I just give them a website to go to they may see some pictures of the WEDDING! Yep, we got married! The wedding was perfect! We had so much fun seeing all of my family and friends. It was more than a wedding, it was a big family/friend reunion. It had been 2 1/2 years sense I'd seen anyone and David had never met anyone so it was nice. Two nights before the wedding my girl friends threw me a bachelorette party at Eagle Crest Golf Resort where the actual wedding was held. I got to see my Salt Lake friends for the first time since we've been back! It was so nice to see them! We drank gin and tonics and ate pizza, played drinking games, talked and watched brides maids like 3 times. It was a good night! The next day, a little hung over and exhausted, Felecia threw a beautiful bridal shower at Ginny's house, my next door neighbor. We ate yummy cucumber sandwiches, played "guess liz's age" and made wedding dresses out of toilet paper. Two hours after the shower ended we had to get ready again at go to Sully's to practice at the rehearsal dinner. At the rehearsal dinner only our immediate family, plus felecia and jake of course. We practiced our vows for the first time with Jim, the wonderful man who married us, and all of the other details that were to go into the next days events. The actual day of the wedding, November 5, Felecia and I went to get our hair done at 9:30 am then to makeup at 11:30. We went and picked up our bouquets and went to the River Run Event Center and met up with the crew! Lori, thank you, set up all of the tables with our flower arrangements, Nanduti center pieces, table names, candles and more. My father was in charge or the planning and organization of the reception. And he did an AWESOME job. When my dad and I were walking down the isle all I remember was trying not to blink. My eyes were full of tears I didn't want them to rush down my face, so I couldn't see anyone! In the end the ceremony was beautiful. Jim did a great job mixing in Spanish with English and was good at making people laugh. The Turner/Woodly family from Malin, our distant cousins, were in charge of the catering. We ate tri-tip with tulie lake horse radish, delicious chicken, agrauten potatoes, green beans, salad and rolls that were to die for! The "bebidas" were fantastic as well. We had Dan Tippy's famous Rock Chuck red as our house red, sangria which was made from an batch of rock chuck red and local beer from cascade lakes. The drinks were a hit because at the end of the night there was nothing left! Patrick and Felecia did an amazing job with giving toasts. That was actually David's favorite part, he later told me. Patrick made everyone cry when he busted out some spanish welcoming David to the family. The cake we had on our table, the really pretty one, was only good for being pretty. It was really hard to cut into and very dry. The Dj played the wrong first dance song, he was close by playing Bob Marley, but didn't play Is this love, he played One love. And thats about it that went wrong. Oh yeah a glow stick, bright green, exploded onto my wedding dress but with a little help from Kasey and some soap it came right out! Other then those very very minor setbacks we DANCED the night away. From the point when people finished eating until 11:45 we danced. http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

I apologize for not posting in a long time but I’ve been super busy with all sorts of things. I had my close of service as a Peace Corps Volunteer August 12, 2011. I really really enjoyed my time as a volunteer and will truly miss all of the people in San Salvador and the wonderful volunteers and staff of Peace Corps Paraguay. Thanks again everyone for making my service unforgettable!

On August 22, 2011 David was scheduled to have his K1 Fiancé Visa interview at the US Embassy in Asuncion. I was asked to go along as proof that we are actually a couple. I was so nervous, I don’t know why but I felt sick once we walked into the Embassy and were waiting to be called. The only thoughts going through my mind were.. “This is it; this is the last stop before going home so if anything bad happens now we may not be able to go.” We got up to the window and the visa officer asked how we knew each other, for how long and why we wanted to wait to get married in the USA. He asked about what David thought he’d like to do in the states and how we were going to financially survive. After waiting 40 minutes, paying about $300 and going through a 10 minute interview David’s K1 fiance visa was APPROVED!!!! That was a Monday. We had to wait till Wednesday to pick up the actual visa which was put into his passport. So Monday I called my mom and said “Buy the tickets we’re coming home” and so the tickets were bought for Thursday the 25th at 5am.

We rushed home, called his family and advised them they all better come by Wednesday to say goodbye! His dad came on Tuesday evening and his mom and little sister came on Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night with his brother, dad, mom and sister we shared our last asado, bbq, before going to the USA. It was a very emotional night. There was a lot of crying, hugging and more crying. The taxi picked us up at 3:00am on Thursday the 25th.

We checked 3 very large bags and each had a good size carryon. We flew from Asuncion to Sao Paulo, Brazil where we had a 5 hour layover. We were exhausted at this point and still had a long ways to go. We boarded our Korean Air flight to Los Angeles and flew for 12 hours and finally arrived in LA at 9:00pm. Our next flight wasn’t until 6:00am so we decided to check our bags though to Portland and get a hotel to try and sleep a little so we wouldn’t be so exhausted by the time we got to Portland. We stayed at the Best Western and went back to the airport at 4:30am. That little bit of sleep was much needed and really helped.

We arrived in Portland at 8am on Friday the 26th where we met my parents!!! It was such a good feeling seeing them waiting for us. The first thing we did was visit Mandy, she was about to have a baby, and meet her son who was born right before I left whom I’ve never got to meet. So that was nice to see them. Then we went to a Mexican lunch and drove over the pass to Redmond. While driving over the pass it we got to see all of the Hood to Coast runners and a group of fires that were just starting on the Warm Springs reservation.

Friday, the day we arrived, Patrick sent me a job announcement for a Credit Union in Seattle; it looked like a perfect fit for me. Over the weekend while adjusting to being home I worked on my resume and cover letter. Monday I applied for the job, Tuesday they got back to me, Wednesday I flew up to Seattle, Thursday I had my interview and Friday while driving home to Redmond with Patrick they called to offer me a job. They not only offered me a job I applied for but offered me a job that fit my skill level a little better. They gave me the weekend plus Labor Day to think about it and told me to call back on Tuesday. Tuesday I accepted the job and would be starting the following Tuesday.

I couldn’t start any sooner because I didn’t have my driver’s license and had to wait till Friday September 9th to take my driver’s test in Eugene. So that gave me a week to plan our wedding. My parents and Felecia and I were busy bees. We were busy making and sending invitations, planning the menu, getting a cake and flowers, buying Felecia’s dress, buying David’s suite, meeting with the seamstress to fix my dress and renting linens. Done…in a week. Who needs a year to plan a wedding?

Sunday September 11th I drove up to Seattle and went to Patrick’s house, where I’d be staying until I found my own place. I came up alone because it’s easy to crash in someone’s basement when you’re one person but two people would have been a bit difficult. Plus my dad had tons of work planned for David. We thought we’d be staying at my parent’s house for at least a few months. Everyone had told me it would take a long time to get a job therefore my dad had planned a lot for us to do. So David stayed with them to paint the house and do other various jobs while I moved up to Seattle. I felt terrible, I remember when I first got to Paraguay and it was hard to adjust but I had the Peace Corps support system to make it easier. He’s all by himself and now I had to leave. The good thing about it was he’d be forced to learn English quicker because he wouldn’t have me to translate and speak Spanish with.

So two weeks later here I am working and having fun with my brother and his friends. My brother has said I’ve domesticated him; we eat dinner every night together we go suite shopping, bed shopping, shopping for fabric for my wedding dress and go out to the bars. We’ve really enjoyed our time together. But I finally found a house so next weekend, October 1st, I’m going back down to Redmond to pick up David and when we get back we’ll move into our new home. I can’t wait to settle, and make ourselves a home.

I think Seattle will be a good place for both of us. There is a lot larger support network for immigrants and I’ve found free English classes at a Latino Center and they also offer help finding employment. Plus there is always something going on here, it will be fun. Oh and plus there are 3 other returned peace corps Paraguay volunteers that live here in Seattle. We’ve already gotten together for a dinner that consisted of typical Paraguayan food!

We’ve only been back about 3 weeks and we are well on our way to starting our new lives here in the USA. We still have a LONG road ahead of us with all of the paperwork and the process of getting a green card then citizenship but we can do it. We are so blessed with all of the goodness that has happened to us in the last few months I feel like now it’s my turn to give back. Oh wait I just did that for two years. We deserve all this goodness that is happening to us! http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

27 months is the amount of time I’ve lived in Paraguay either as a Peace Corps trainee or as a volunteer. 27 months filled with: hard work, learning, integration, drinking terere, making new friends, speaking Spanish and mishimi guarani, adapting to every situation, planning projects, hanging at the train station, riding an emotional roller coaster, fighting off mosquitoes and much much more.

The larger projects/ projects that I enjoyed the most

In the beginning it was about integration, learning the language and analyzing the community to see what they really need/want and adapt my abalities to those situations and try to help. It took awhile, a long while to find these “needs” in which I could actually do something. But while waiting for the right project I made some amazing friends within the community. I was assigned to work in the local savings and loan cooperative where I knew immediately I wouldn’t be spending much of my time. I was eventually inveted to a commuity and cultural center meeting where I fit right in. immediately we started working together on the planning process, making a vision and mission statement, making goals and then made the annual plan of activities. This basically took up all of my time for a god while. On the side I was teaching English, working in school gardens and drinking terere.

As the group became more formalized and the goals and vision of the group and the train station became clearer and larger we decided to apply for a SPA grand and improve the basic fixings such as lighting, bathrooms, bought chairs a printer and a desk and a few more necessities for the library which is located in the train station which serves as the community center.

About 6 months before the end of my service, February, I was asked by the principle for Borja, 2km away, to be the computer teacher for the entire high school. So every Wednesday until I finished I went to Borja and taught kids who had never touched a computer how to use Microsoft office, save documents, make folders and use a typing program. It was very rewarding work.

At the same time that I started teaching computers I took two local girls to a leadership camp in wchi we were assigned homework in the end. The girls were to start a local youth group and do a community project. We formed a group of 11 girls and decided on the name MOCOS ( movimiento de companeros salvadorenos). MOCOS means boogers. The group decided to install trash cans around town. I’m not going into details because it was one of the most stressful projects, but a very good learning experience for everyone. I will say that working with the local mayor was a nightmare. But….in the end trash cans were installed. Then the girls had the opportunity to go to the follow up leadership camp as a reward for all their hard work. Well..no one went. So basically I would have done the project if it weren’t for them and the homework from the first camp then no one went to share their experiences….!

It may seem that I was always working but really there was a LOT of free time. I took a month vacation when my parents and brother came, to Argentina. Hung out and drank terere with my buddies in site. Chase and Kimmy were able to visit after being stuck in brazil with out a Paraguayan visa, yes all Americans need a visa to visit Paraguay. Liz also came for an awesome week. Although it rained almost the entire time, and we had a crazy ciudad del este experience, it meant a lot to me! I was also fortunate to make great friends with in Peace Corps. That allowed me to travel around Paraguay and see how other Peace Corps volunteers live and be a tourist at the same time. And of course I can’t forget about David. My rock. He defiantly helped me understand all of the awkward cultural moments and he was the shoulder in which I cried on when I missed home, had hard days work or just needed a cry. We always have so much fun together and I am excited to continue the journey. I was NEVER board when he was around. I am the luckiest girl in the world to have found my best friend and fiancée while in the Peace Corps.

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As my

service is coming to an end I am starting to make reflections back on my two

years as a Peace Corps volunteer and on my life.

Before

coming to Paraguay I was doing fine, I´d finished college, worked a little in Kenya

with microfinance and was pretty sure I wanted a career in microfinance.

Looking back on that time period and even earlier on in my life I´ve realized

that I´ve just been going with the flow or doing what was expected of me and

didn´t think much about what I was actually doing or actually wanted. Just an

example…In college I got decent grades and managed to do all my work, but the

truth is, I don´t remember much of anything, how I felt, what subjects I really

liked etc. Taking for granted the awesome opportunity my parents gave me.

After two

years, of lots of free time/time to think, I´ve realized how much I´ve really

gown as a person. I can honestly say now I am an experienced leader who wants to

do more with her life, more than just get by and have fun. Paraguay and the

Peace Corps have taught me how to plan and execute projects, write grants,

organize groups, speak Spanish, adapt to a new culture, be a better person and appreciate

all the work that people do within their communities to make it a better place.

I´ve become a lot more patient and flexible which I consider qualities very key

in the success of any project, job, family etc.

I´m not

trying to put myself on a soap box, I just wanted to write down how I am feeling.

I really do feel Peace Corps has enabled me to develop as a person and find my

true self (and true love) finally.

Who knows

what the future holds. I do know that I will give 100% in a job hunt in which I

hope to find a good fit for my skill set. Also I will give my all at whatever

job comes my way and hope to be able to contribute in more then what are my responsibilities

are in any give task. I fell as if I could be a success story of the Peace

Corps, maybe I´ll end up being a recruiter…

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Well as you all know, I think, David and I are planning on getting married. Around Christmas time he had proposed and now we are waiting until I am done with my service as a peace corps volunteer. Our plans are to go back to the United States with a fiancée visa. The fiancée visa allows only 3 months to get married and if we don’t get married before that time is up David will have to return to Paraguay. Luckily I have the love and support of my family which is VERY helpful; I don’t know what we would do without them. I am so excited and can’t wait to start planning everything but I have to be patient because we have a long road ahead of us.

There are plenty of twists and turns, jumping in and out of hoops and much more involved in the process of actually getting married. Some say that love doesn’t have boarders, but it’s not as easy as that. The United States has its process, for good reasons, and we are going through it right now.

Right now we are waiting to hear from Immigrations. We had filled out about 5 forms, letters were written, photos and a check were sent to start the process. Online it says the California service center takes about 5 months to process this first round of paper work. Our papers were accepted on February 10th so 5 months would be in July. Now we are just waiting, patiently. I finish my service in August to hopefully by then we will have heard something.

Once he’s accepted by immigrations we have to go through the embassy. There is a whole other set of paper work and back round checks to go through there. He will have to get a medical check and go to an interview at the embassy. I hear this process is shorter than immigrations, I hope. Therefore if things go smoothly, cross fingers, we will be home in September or October.

So keep us in you thoughts. We are very excited to get married and start the next stage in our lives, together.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

SPA stands for Small Project Assistance. Peace Corps Paraguay receives a bit of money each year from USAID to give out as grants to volunteers who solicit them for sustainable projects within their respective communities. Once all the money has been used the volunteers who want a grant have to wait until the next time when money arrives.

I decided to apply for a SPA grant with the association that works with the community and cultural center that is located in the train station. We had done a needs assessment with a German NGO called, GTZ, and our number one, two and three needs were illumination, bathroom and chairs. I thought to myself, hey we have the opportunity to access some money why not try.

So after three months of filling out the grant paper work we were ready to turn it in. It was quite the process. First..I've never written a grant and having to do it in Spanish for the first time was hard. Second..Paraguayans don´t like to do paper work, so it was like pulling teeth for them to come over and help. Third...Once we got the money EVERYONE wanted to be involved and change the entire project for their personal likings. That was really hard for me. Ony about half of the association helped write the grant and do the research for the budget on what the project would cost.

Well once we had the money a few issues came up. The people who would be installing the lightning wanted more money for labor, people from the group wanted more lighting here and there, well why not just build a modern bathroom instead of fixing up the latrine? We had received the exact amount of money that we asked for. There was no room to budge. I don´t know if it was my fault and that wasn't clearly stated in the beginning or if the people didn't understand the concept of a budget and that's why we needed a list of ALL the materials we would need for the project before hand to be able to make a list of all the costs. But luckily the president is a very smart woman and put the money in the cooperative so not just anyone could go spending money.

Literally two days after we had the money I made it my personal mission to buy the chairs. The train station had about 8 chairs making it hard to have meetings, classes or any other event at the station. Cynthia and I went into Villarrica and bought 45 beautiful plastic chairs. In the budget we had gotten the price for 50 but after 2 months of waiting for the money the prices went up. But we still got 45 chairs.

Next the lighting guy (who upped his labor 300 mil), Julio and I went to Villarrica to buy all the materials that would be needed to redo the entire lighting system of the train station. The association wanted to fix the lighting because there was the problem of low tension in the station due to the neighbor being a carpenter and every time he used his machines the lights would turn off and on inside making it impossible to use the computer. Second there were two lights in total out side that worked making it hard to have activities at night. So we made a whole new line of electricity which is now apart from the “house” part of the station where the people live and have their workshop.

We had decided to fix up the old latrine that has 4 stalls instead of building a modern bathroom. That was an essential need because whenever there are events held at the train station there was no where to use the bathroom, very unsanitary. The bathroom was cleaned, floors were fixed, painted inside and out, New doors were put onto every stall and locks installed.

Also in the budget we put in a printer and acrylic white board which were bought. We left those to be the last things bought due to a rise in cost in a lot of materials so we wanted to make sure we had enough money.

Since we've bought chairs, installed the lighting and fixed up the bathroom, night meetings have been arranged to be held at the station, we've had cultural events without having to rent chairs saving money and new courses are now being offered. The train station is a beautiful place and a key part of the history of San Salvador. Just a little bit of sweat and hard work paid off.

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I live in Paraguay. I have been learning and speaking spanish for two years now. My english is terrible. I´ve was never a good speller in the first place and it has come to my attention that my spelling has become even worse. Along with bad spelling in my blog, due to using paraguayan computers that don´t have spell check in english, you´ll also find words used in the wrong context or words that just shouldn´t be there all together. For example..I said my house had a lot of "commodities" went I ment to say "amenities". Sorry for the craziness. Attached are a few more pics of my house and daily life here in paraguay living as a peace corps volunteer.

Laundry Mat

Day Spa ( liz came to visit)

The front of my house

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I’ve officially been in Paraguay for 23 months. Its defiantly been an emotional rollercoaster like they told us it would be in training. But there have, luckily, been more ups than downs. Well that’s besides the point.

This blog entry isn’t about my feelings or any of that. I wanted to take you on a tour of my “crib”. Instead of the tv show about the life of the rich and famous and their houses, cars and excess of unnecessary things, there should be a show about how us peace corps volunteers survive.

The volunteers in Paraguay are very spoiled. Every volunteer has electricity. Thanks to the Itaipu Dam one of the worlds largest hydroelectric dams which is split between Brazil and Paraguay. Almost all volunteers have running water, and if they don’t they have a well. If the volunteer brought a computer they have internet, thanks to Tigo and their internet modem. We all have fans, without a fan you would literally die. If the volunteer has a modern bathroom, which is likely unless they live way far out in the middle of no where, their shower will have a hot water head. Some have coffee pots, tvs, electric heaters, blenders, pressure cookers, comfortable beds, hot water heaters, electric ovens and other fun things.

I don’t know of any volunteers that have a washing machine but now days almost every Paraguayan household has a washing machine. There was once a volunteer I knew that had air conditioner, chuchi, but she finished her service. Other than her I am not aware of volunteers with air. But again these days in Paraguay it is becoming very common to have air conditioner. The poor little fan isn’t enough.

As for the style of the house there are a few basic designs. If you live in the “campo”, you house would most likely be made out of wood planks with a tin roof. The floor may be compacted mud, concrete, brick or tile. Other stiles of house are brick, which is cheaper, with a white wash finish. Then that white wash can be painted one or two of many beautiful colors.

My current house, where I’ve been for a year, is very nice. When I was preparing to come to Paraguay I would have never have guessed I would be living in a house with such great commodities and in such comfort, besides the humidity and bugs. Thanks to the volunteer who lived in San Salvador for 4 months before I came, I have a tv, which as helped improve my Spanish. In my house I have a living room with a big table and six chairs, two bedrooms, each room with a double bed and mattress, a modern bathroom with a hot shower, kitchen fully equipped with shelves, sink, stove and fridge. All of which came with the house, except the comfy mattress I bought. I pay 300 mil a month for rent which is about $75. My electricity bill is usually 30 mil or $7.50 and my water costs 13 mil, $3.25. It doesn’t seem like much, but being a peace corps volunteer I don’t get paid a ton so after rent, electricity and water it takes about a quarter of my monthly allowance. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of the only things that really sucks is washing clothes by hand, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it and will be very thankful for the washing machine when I get home.

My back yard is a mini forest filled with pomelo and mango trees. I have one mandarin tree and some other trees without fruit. Right now is pomelo season and I LOVE pomelo juice. I don’t have any animals but it looks like I do since my yard is always full of chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, dogs and the occasional cow that all belong to my neighbors. Sometimes I have the urge to kill them all but then everyone would hate me. Only if I take a neighbor some food will they give me an egg or two. They should really pay me for the food I feed them.

Here are some pics of my beautiful house and all its glory! Enjoy.

the back of my house/washing station

my moto

central heating and cooling

bed/office

where i keep food

beauty salon

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Where do I live? What does it mean to be involved in politics?

What actually is the job of the mayor?

Can a community actually work together to accomplish a common goal?

What does it take to look at a specific project and the benifits for the community instaed of what the personal benifits are?

These are just a few of the questions that were running through my head after I heard that there was a physical fight down at the municipalidad between members of the city council.

Backtrack..

Today I was talking to the secritary about how the council is so divided by the different political parties. She told me that nothing was going to be accomplised in 5 years, none of the peojects will get passed, due to the childlike behavior of grown adults acting as city council members who call themselves politicans.

The same afternoon I met with the mayor´s wife. I am going to teach computer classes at her school. We went to the municipality to print off my lesson plans. When we arrived there were tons of people and I felt awkward and told her I could just come back the next day, I didn´t want to be in the way.

That night is when it all went down. Apparently the council had asked the mayor to make a copy of the budget. He didn´t. So one of the members pulled out 50 mil and told the president of the council to go make copies for the group. He said since the mayor doesn´t have any money to do so he would just pay for the copies, the guy decided to be a smart ass. A guy on the other side of the table, from another political party, didn´t like the way the guy with the money was talking. So he stated to yell, the guy with the money pushed the table. ( oh yeah the room they are in is TINY) They both ran from their sides of the room and met in the middle. Throwing punches, wreastling, meanwhile the secritary is yelling for help out the window which over looks the city plaza. At some point in the midst of it all one guy grabbed the brick holding the door open and hit the other guys face with the brick. One woman apparently ran leaving one of her shoes in the room. Finally the police showed up and the two guys were haulded to Villarrica and the hospital.

Nancy´s husband, Oscar, said it perfectly “these people aren´t politicians, they don´t care about the town, each and every one of them is apart of the council for person reasons.”

That next morning I had to go to the municipality beacuse I had made a request for money to take participants to the business workshop, and it was the day before the workshop I had to get the money. When I arrived the mayor looked like he hadn´t slept at all. Luckily I got the money.

That evening I went to the mayor´s house because I had plans to print off my lesson plans with his wife. She made a funny comment “Good thing we didn´t stick around last night at the municipality for the party.”

Then I stated to ask myself, How does everything I am involved in right now have something or someone to do with the municipality?

What does it take to stop such a vicious cycle of corruption?

Will San Salvador ever grow up?

I am really fed up with corruption. The people are finatics for their political groups. They spend all day talking and stratigizing. Who they will vote for depends on what they get of the deal of voting. It has nothing at all to do with the person or their ideas, just what is in it for them. I know this has been going on FOREVER but I have never had to deal with it, see it, or hear about it all day long. I am tired of saying “you know the guy you are voting for is a narcotrafficer.” Equally they vote becuse that person gives them money.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

After returning from a wonderful and relaxing vacation in Uruguay, a beautiful developed country, I’ve been noticing a few things about Paraguay that I really love and a few things that I really hate. Paraguay is not a terrible place. Paraguay has been the catalyst to so much change in my life. It has been the place where I have grown so much as a person; I’ve found myself and the love of my life here in Paraguay. My time as a Peace Corps Volunteer has been amazing and flown by, in a short while my time will be done here in Paraguay and will cry when I leave. I guess it’s time to fill you all in with the love/hate relationship I have with this querido country, Paraguay.I Love that the yard of my house is currently filled with mandarins, pomelos, oranges and guava fruit. I Hate how things just don’t work or break easily. I Love the way of living, tranquilo. I Hate how so very few people have goals and aspirations. (Save the $ for school instead of buying a new cell phone or moto.)I Love how every time I am reading or on the computer the people automatically think I am studying.I Hate having to practically force people to want to work and do something good for their community. (It’s not like they are busy doing other constructive activities, at least here in San Salvador.)I Love fat. I have a new found love of meat fat. It’s so good. Why did I used to cut it off and throw it away?I Hate being so far away from home. I feel like this whole time I’ve stayed strong and really tried not thinking about home. But now that the end is getting close and I have other things on my mind, like getting married, I am starting to get anxious. At least I have lots of fun work to keep me busy.I Love chipa guazu. Muy Rico. In other news…We, the centro cultural, have receive the grant money for the project in the train station. Today I went with my contact and we bought 45 chairs for the train station to have, permanently. It was an amazing feeling. Today I accomplished my biggest goal, chairs for San Salvador!!! Hooray!!!It is still CRAZY hot. I have taken to showering about four times a day. I really want a kiddy pool.Went to another volunteer’s site one day and got a bunch of new movies and TV shows. But its actually kind of dangerous, because now I don’t want to leave my house. I learned how to make ñanduti, traditional lace work. Time keeps rolling on. I’m still trekking. But if it doesn’t cool down soon I may melt. At the beach in Punta de Diablo, Uruguay

The hand sculpture in Punta del Este, Uruguay

Nanduti that I made!!

Our CHAIRS!!

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Here I am, still in Paraguay, and the heat continues rising. It is defiantly hotter than last year, but luckily the house I live in now isn’t an oven like my last house. I am able to sleep past 7 am without waking up sweating. So I am starting to get back to work after the LONG holiday season. During Christmas and New Years the people really don’t do anything. Their families from out of town usually come to visit, therefore when it comes to working and projects, nothing will get done. Oh and lucky for us San Salvadoreños our fiesta patronal happens to be January 6th but they always have the big party the first Saturday of January. Making the holiday season extra long. This year it happened to fall the 1st of January. Therefore we had a New Year’s party and the next day a huge patron saint party. Then the entire first week of January was filled with festivals, concerts, bull fights, carnival rides and much more. Therefore the second week of January the town was back to normal, silent. And I was really ready to get to work. The first thing I had on my plate was a Youth Leadership Camp, Ñande Ha'e Tenoderá, we are the future. I took two girls from San Salvador and we went to Tati Yupi the biological reserve that the company Itaipu is in charge of. Itaipu is the huge hydroelectric dam that is on the border of Paraguay and Brazil. The dam supplies almost all of the electricity for all of Paraguay. When they built the dam, obviously the water rose on the other side flooding part of the jungle. The now “lake” and land around has been made into a biological reserve with space to have camps. We were lucky enough to have the privilege to stay at the camp for 4 beautiful days. Filled with activities and talks such as; what is a leader, communication, human rights, civic education, how to plan projects, working in groups, self esteem and much more. We played tons of games, danced, sang and had a blast. The people from Itaipu also donated a tour of the dam at night to see the lights. Some of the kids said that these were the best 4 days of their lives. In San Salvador there is no Youth Group, and the girls I took have come back home with a lot of energy and really want to form one. The end goal of the camp is to have the kids go back to their communities and do some sort of project. They have six months to plan the project and finish the project, hopefully. Then six months from the first came there will be a reconnect camp to share their experiences of working with their communities. One idea we have is to form a youth group and do a project involving trash. Maybe giving talks to the youth of the community and then doing a project with garbage cans. There is one public garbage can in San Salvador. We have an oil factory here; therefore there are lots of big tin drums which we can hopefully get donated to make garbage cans. So we’ll see what happens in the next few weeks.Some good news…The SPA grant that I wrote along with the Association of the Culture and Community Center, the train station, was approved and the check is waiting for us to get in Asuncion. Included in the project will be the reinstallation of the entire lighting system inside and out. Also we will be equipping the inside of the station to be able to use the computer and other electrical devices. We will buy 50 plastic chairs to be able to hold more courses and events at the station without having to rent chairs, which gets expensive. We will also restore the antique latrines, putting in new floors, painting, doors, and lights. Currently the station doesn’t have bathrooms making it difficult to invite visitors and have courses. Lastly we will buy a printer and will the computer hopefully will be able to start computer classes. We are going to try and finish everything for March 31st which is the founding day of San Salvador and they also do a locomotive festival or a cultural week in the train station in this time. So this project along with the youth group will keep me busy for at least a few months! Then hopefully will finally be able to start the business course for youth that I’ve been wanting to teach for ages!Meanwhile I am going to Uruguay on a little vacation in February, I need to see the ocean and eat fresh seafood, it’s been way too long in a land locked country. Also…David and I have decided to get married!! The whole group!

Patricia, myself and Noelia- The girls from San Salvador

At the Itaipu Dam

The lake the used to be a forest

Human Chairs

The youth

we are the future

At the beach in Iturbe, not quite the same as the ocean...

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The beautiful sun set.

Cunchi and Jake

Are we there yet??

Trying to take our minds off the pain.

Myrtha fell and went boom. Getting some attention from the doctors.

All the people the in the morning.

Hanging out at camp.

Cunchi and Jake again

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The Virgin of Itape

Religious pilgrimages are a big deal here in Paraguay. The biggest one is for the Virgin of Caacupe which is December 8th. People from all over the country arrive in Caacupe by walking, riding a bike or taking a bus. People from really far will take a bus to a certain point, then will walk about 7 km. The second biggest pilgrimage is to the Virgin of Itape. Well Itape happens to be semi close to San Salvador. I remember last year I had just arrived in San Salvador at this time and had no desire to go with the people to visit the Virgin. Well this year I decided to join the people and walk 32 km to Itape.

We left at 5:30 pm, the hottest time of the day, and walked directly into the sun for 2 hours. Well walking wouldn't be the correct word, running is a better description of the pace we were going. About 2 km into the journey I started to hear; my feet hurt, its so hot, i need water, etc. At one point very early into the walk one woman, Mirta, was calling all the people she knew to come and pick her up. The local doctor passed by and she asked for a ride and he said he wasn't going there. Well about 2 hrs into the walk we passed by the town where there is another volunteer and picked him and his buddies up. Oh I forgot to mention, I was walking with about 6 women who are very "chuchi" or prissy. Cynthia, Cunchi, Noelia, Maria and Me

We picked Jake up and kept on going. By this time we were walking in the shade, the sun was going down and it was finally cooling off. My face gets very red when i work out but everyone was convinced that I was sun burnt. I was soo hot, soaking wet dripping with sweat, but my spirits were still high. I had to put my game face on because the only thing I was hearing was the complaining of the women. walking along the long dirt road

It finally got dark and the mosquitoes came out. We passed by a place to fill up our waters and one woman filled her bottle up with beer. We asked the owner how far to Itape and she said 5 km. We were close! Walking, Running, Walking, Running...5 km later, we still hadn't gotten there. We could see a town off in the distance that was at least 5 km more. By this time the people had slowed down a little but not much, and we still hadn't taken a break. My whole entire body was stiff. I could hardly bend my knees and couldn't feel my feet. But I didn't express my pain to anyone wanted to keep moving. Oh yeah since I've been in Paraguay I really haven't worked out or done much exercise.

We were 1 km away and the women wanted to sit and take a break. I said "don't sit down, keep moving we are so close." We arrived at the main street that would take us to the Virgin. It was full of vendors, food and people. I felt like I was at the state fair. Of course in large crowds people get separated. But at least we had a meeting point, the medical tent. The local doctor, who originally wasn't going there, was there and the other nurses from San Salvador. It was hilarious; every person would go up to the medical tent and ask for muscle relaxers or something for the pain from walking. We finally all met up and then looked for a place to set up camp. Imagine a huge fair ground with people sleeping on every inch of the grass. There were probably about 5,000 people sleeping.

We put all our blankets on the ground and laid down. It felt soo good. There was a party but I had no desire to go dancing. We sat there and listened to the mass at midnight meanwhile trying to sleep. But not possible. At 4 am there was another mass. And at 5:30am one of the women called her husband to come and pick us up. The main mass was at 6 am but she had no desire to stay. Neither did I to be honest. So we ended up leaving at 6 am and got home by 7 am. The other people who stayed didn't get home till 6 pm, the bus broke down along the way home and no one had the energy to walk. All in all it was a good experience, I got to know some people from my town a lot better, I was able to see the beautiful country side and see the Virgin of Itape. But I don't think I'll walk it again!

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Melissa, me and Angelic at Thanksgiving.

The sunflowers infront of my house.

Yummy quiche that I made.

English class graduation, and their sweeet shirts

Veggies from the school garden

And summer is Hot, Humid, and Sticky. Luckily it started a little later this year. We actually had a very pleasant spring with a few hot days broken up between crazy rain storms. There is no such thing as "drizzle" here, when it rains there is a crazy show behind it all.

My summer is pretty packed with happenings so hopefully I'll stay busy enough I'll forget about how hot it is. One of the stores in town started selling ice cream, and I think I am their more frequent customer.

Ok...sense its been a long while sense I've written I do a little update of things that have passed.

-The school year ended, and our school garden was a huge success. I had them all write poems about the garden and they were super fun to read. Oh and the veggies are still growing and delicious.

-The nuns sabotaged the Halloween party at the train station. Now I am stuck with 2 bags full of decorations. By the way...thanks mom for dragging those down here from the states.

- I wrote and finished my first grant ever and it happened to be in Spanish. The grant is funded through USAID. We, the Association, are fixing up the train station, which also functions as our community and culture center. There are no chairs, so we'll buy those with the money. There is no bathroom, so we'll make that will the money, and the lighting system is going to be reinstalled, making it possible to have night events, plug in the computer, and the new printer we are buying with the grant. All in all the station will be a place where everyone in the community can go to take different courses offered there with all basic necessities met.

-Chase and Kimmy came to visit. But only after getting to brazil and realizing that to enter into Paraguay you need a visa. So their visit was cut down to 2 days. But two of the funniest days in paraguay! We went to Aregua to see the lake, and hung out around Asuncion.

- Peace Corps Paraguay thanksgiving was held in Encarnacion this year. A blast as always. Lots of good food, good people, new friends, boos, sun burns, and laughs.

- We had our 2nd year english class graduation. The girls were surprised when I presented them with the shirts that say "english class 2010" that some friends at home helped buy. Thanks again everyone, the girls started to cry.

- The first "Feria Atesanal" is going to be tomorrow. The Association with whom I work is putting on a fair for the women in town who make traditional artisanal work. We've been very busy prepping this, I hope they have success and can sell some stuff. I have a feeling I'll be one of the baggiest clients buying Christmas presents.

- Both of my cats had kittens, so at one point my house was full of 11 cats. Yes I was that crazy old cat woman. Now I'm down to 3.

Now a few things I am planning on for the future.

- I am finally going to start the business class for youth. There is A LOT of movement going on right now in San Salvador with the construction of the new road, and lots of construction going on in town, the people need to take advantage of the movement and open some sort of businesses. they would make a killing off all the workers.

- I am taking two youth to a leadership camp in January that will focus on civic education, leadership, and much much more. Our goal is to come back and start a youth group.

- We have more art fairs planned for january and march.

- Our patron saint day is january 1st so there will be a week of parties. - Angelic, Melissa, and I are going to take a vacation in February and go to Uruguay for a week. Yes the beach finally. Its time to get out of this land locked country and see some salt water.

- Jake, the volunteer closest to me and I are planning on doing a few weekend summer camps filled with sports, geography, art and much more. The kids have NOTHING to do here in the summer so hopefully we can have some fun in the heat.

- In march there will be a business workshop that I'll hopefully take two people from San Salvador. There is such a huge need for business here and hopefully we can get some going.

Well that's about it. I am really starting to miss home. Starting to think about the future, what the heck am I going to do after Peace Corps.?? Makes me a little nervous and anxious.

I really truly miss everyone so very much. I hope everyone is doing well and has a great holiday season. Enjoy the snow while I die of heat.

love

liz

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Last night at about 11:30 pm I went to the bathroom. In the bathroom there is a window pretty high up and it was open. I could hear the sound of a cow eating grass, and realized that cows had entered into the yard. I ran outside, grabbed a bamboo stick and started chashing after the cows, making the sound vrrroomm vrrroom. The cows ran to the back enterance, which they had opened to get in. The cows, and the baby ran to the yard of our next door neighbor. One cow ran sraight to the washing machine that the neighbors have outside, which is literally right next to the house and started licking it. Meanwhile the baby went to see what was around the corner. I heard the noise of a plastic bucket. The baby cow came around the corner with the bucket on its head. I was on the ground laughing. What a scene, a cow is licking a washing machine while a baby cow runs around with a plastic bucket stuck on its head. The owners never woke up to see the action outside their house.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The English class that I have continued to teach consists of 9 girls ranging from 12 to 15 years old. We are currently in our second "year" of English class. Without fail they come to every class which are held Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5pm-6pm in the train station.

Besides just English class we've gotten involved with the World Wise School Program that Peace Corps does. It is basically a pen pal program. The Volunteer, Me, is set up with a teacher in the states, my mom. First I wrote a letter to her class explaining what Peace Corps is, what I do, and about Paraguay. Then we decided to start do to pen pals because my mom's class has a lot of spanish speakers. The 7th and 8th grade science class of my mother wrote the letters first. The letters were in spanish and the girls were very excited. Then my girls replied, they were supposed to be in English, but some of them wrote in only spanish and sealed the envelope without showing me. In the letters we receive photos and send photos, the girls LOVE it.

We've gotten to know each other at this point on a more personal level so I feel like our English class has become more of a girls club more so than only English. The other day we were locked out of the train station, so we played charades outside with action phrases. For example; eating ice cream, throwing a ball, holding a baby, blowing bubbles, sewing fabric, and riding a bike. We ended up just goofing around and talking and then one of the girls said can you print off song lyrics in English, we want to learn Lady Gaga. Then they started to make a list for me of the songs they wanted to learn in English. Then another girl said " lets raise money so we can go on a field trip." It was a good idea. Lets do it I said. Then the topic changed to, lets raise money so we can make t-shirts that say "English class". Then the argument started. What color are the shirts going to be, what picture is going to be on it, but the decision was made to raise money to make shirts.

The next week we had class at my house. I had printed off the song "paparazzi" by Lady Gaga, and we started to sing. They wanted to know what every little word meant, I said it doesn't translate well and a lot of the phrases don't even make sense in English. So we just practiced the pronunciation. They want to sing the song for their graduation of English class. Then we decided the next day we would make cup cakes, something they have NEVER seen before, to sell and raise money for their t-shirts. We made a list of ingredients needed and split them up between everyone. The next day, without fail they all showed up, with ingredients in hand. I decided to make a simple cake from the Peace Corps cookbook. Therefore I had the measuring cups and spoons out, and the girls were so confused. In paraguay they don't measure anything. They just know how to make a cake apparently. So they thought we weren't making a cake, it was something else. Then we decided to dye the cake green, and blue. We went over to my host families house to use their electric oven because I didn't want to use all my gas. We put the first batch in and waited. While waiting we played "telephone" in English, and charades again.

The first batch came out, and the girls bought them all and ate them. Then they liked them so much, they pre-paid for the second batch, and waited very closely to the oven. When I took the second batch out the girls ran to me, and were taking the cup cakes out of the pan even though they were really hot, burning their fingers. Some girls paid but didn't get their cup cakes because the other girls ate them, so they had to wait for the third batch to come out. They ate every last one of the cup cakes. I didn't even get a cup cake, neither did my host mom or dad. We didn't even get to go out and sell the cup cakes. They raised money for their shirts, but it was their own money.

We decided the next time we'll make 4 times the batter and actually go out and sell the cup cakes. But the whole novelty of the cup cake is what blows their mind. They have never seen them before, and because they are in their own little spaces, its not cake. Thanks mom for bringing the cup cake pans, a real hit!!

Other news...Hesaka my cat is now a mother, I am now a grandmother. She has four beautiful little babies. Ndikuaai is pregnant also and will be giving birth soon. When I told a fellow volunteer she told me, "you're supposed to be the responsible american and get them fixed." I am guilty, I am irresponsible. But only this one time. I went to the vet, and I am going to get them fixed when they are doing nursing. He also told me he can sell the kittens that I can't get homes for. Yes I am that crazy person with the house full of cats.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

This past weekend I went to my first concert in Paraguay. It just so happened to be the 2nd annual Reggae Festival. Last year the Whalers were the headlining show, and I heard so many great stories I decided I would go this year. There wasn’t a lot of advertisement done for the show, but of course the American Peace Corp volunteers are the first to hear about the show and buy tickets. The advertisement that was done was this…

When it comes to racism in Paraguay there is a lot of it, or its not that they are being racist they just aren’t conscious of being racist. For example, David’s skin tone is a little dark and the people call him Morocho instead of his name, Morocho meaning dark skin. When explaining how a person looks the first thing they say is if they are dark or light skin, then if they are fat or skinny. In Peace Corps Paraguay there are African American Volunteers, here in Paraguay they are automatically Brazilian, a famous singer, or in some cases the president of the United States. When my friend Paulette showed me the advertisement for the first time I was shocked. Did they seriously paint a Paraguayans face black? Do only “black” people sing or listen to reggae music? In fact at the concert there was only two groups, one from Jamaica and the other Bolivia, who were from African decent. The other bands were white guys with dreadlocks from Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.

When entering the concert there was security, like at all shows, who looked in our bags. I had a bottle of water they took, out of Angelic’s bag they took her pen, meanwhile she had a bottle of water, and Joan walked passed with a bottle of water in her hand. I am pretty sure every security guard had this assigned object that they were looking for and didn’t bother with the other stuff.

At the show I was amazed by the turnout, there were tons of people from all different styles of life. The diversity of the youth in Paraguay is astonishing. Living in the campo the youth don’t get to express themselves like they do in the capital of Asuncion. Therefore I have yet to experience this crowd. The people at the concert knew the words to the majority of the songs, danced along to all of the music, and had a great time. Nosotros, the volunteers enjoyed ourselves as well.

The music was very good. A few of the bands had the feel of Ska music mixed with Reggae. My favorite band of the night was called Nonpalidece from Argentina. The other bands were The Skatalites from Jamaica, Notevagustar from Uruguay, Matamba from Boliva, and Ese Ka’a and Ripe Banana Skins from Paraguay.

They also had a Hippie Market; yes above the stands it said “Hippie Market”. Again, racisim..? Anyways there was some very nice jewelry and other handy crafts for sale. My favorite item was the stand with Mobiles, made out of origami cranes and different types of local seeds.

All in all the entire concert was a success. I thoroughly enjoyed myself along with all of the Paraguayans. I learned that the Paraguayans are good clappers, when the band tells them to clap, they clap and continue to clap, unlike some people. http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

I admit I feel like I've gotten a little lazy with the blog. Its not that I don't want to write, I just don't have time and when I do have free time I choose to do other things like; ride my bike, make ao po'i, play in my garden, or visit my friends. But I feel its time to update you all on what I have been up to, what is occupying my time.

In July I started a school garden with the 8th grade class. Every Thursday and friday I go to their class and either give "charlas" or work in the garden. All of the students know about gardening because their families either have them or have had them in the past. What my goal was to teach about new ways to plant veggies, about the eco system, and about making a compost pile. I started out with a "charla" about basic gardening tips. What plants you should transplant and what ones you should just leave in the raised bed. We talked about companion planting, for example, if you plant basil and tomato together its proven that the tomato will grow faster. We talked about what plants are best for winter and summer and made a list of the vegetables that they wanted to plant. I suggested a few veggies such as broccoli and jalapeño to try something new instead of only lettuce and carrots. It took a few weeks to get the garden ready to plant. We had to build a fence, clean the soil it was full of rocks and who knows what, and make the raised beds. Paraguay gets a lot of rain therefore a raised be is necessary. When it was time to plant the seeds the teacher, who only stands on the other side of the fence and never enters, started ordering us around. He always left the room when I gave the "charlas" with the kids, so he didn't know what we had planned. But he had the seeds and told us what to plant and where. I tried telling him that we had discussed companion planting and trying new veggies but he wasn't about to listen. So our garden has a huge raised bed of carrots, half of parsley, half of green onion, some radishes, and some beets. We planted lettuce in a tub in the school that we will transplant when they are big enough. The latest "charla" I gave was about compost piles. It's something I should have done before the garden but we started late in the year and need to get things planted, if we want to see veggies before the school year ends in late November. The people in Paraguay use cow manure, dry, to fertilize their gardens. One of my goals, again, was to teach them a new way to do something, that hopefully when show a better result. So the kids brought more bamboo to build the compost corner, and went around looking for fresh cow poo, grass, branches, and leaves while the others had brought food scraps from home. While we started putting in the different layers of Carbon, Nitrogen and Other nutrients the teacher came over and said “I think that’s sufficient for the entire garden." What he didn't understand because he missed out on the "charla" is that a compost pile will take up to 3 months until there is compost and that every day we should be adding something to the pile. The worms will eat the materials and with the sun and the process of decomposition the materials will get smaller. So that is where I am at now with the school garden. I have “charlas” planned on nutrition and about how all of the “things” in the garden are all apart of the life cycle helping each other grow stronger.

I have also started teaching English again. I started a class for adults on Saturdays, and continued with the same 9 girls that I taught last time. The community wanted me to teach more, but I do not have the time or energy to teach another class. People from both of the schools have come to my house asking me to teach English in the school. I said no.

I also became a member and started working with, The Comision Centro Cultural y Comunitario “La Estacion” San Salvador. It’s basically a community center and/or group of people who are working together to bring life to the train station. We are working with a German non-profit called GTZ. They came in and helped develop an annual plan, mission, vision, and strategy with the group. Everything that we did, I know how to do and could have done it but, being a young American girl with no money to give, not a lot of people listen. So when an older German man with money came to talk they were all ears. With GTZ we made a plan of what we want to do this year with the group and the train station. Every person is responsible for something. For example 2 women started a reading club with kids 6-10 years old, I am teaching English in the station, and we are planning on having a Play later this month. One of the biggest problems in the station is that the lighting system in the station is terrible. The computer turns off and on because the system isn’t strong enough. We want to have movie nights at the station but can’t use the projector, we can’t have night events because they lights will turn on and go off for a few minutes and turn back on. Well with Peace Corps we have the option for a grant called SPA. The money comes from USAID, and up to $5000 is donated for projects that are for development. I thought to myself, “hey, I could get the group together and we could do the paper work and try to get this grant to fix the lighting system in the train station.” This morning in my house I was supposed to have a meeting, but no one showed up. So we’ll see if the grant paper work ever gets done, because I am not doing it alone!

The cooperative is falling apart. I am trying not to get involved, but it’s hard when everyone trusts me and tells me their side of the story. To make things short… There are three employees in the cooperative, the cashier, secretary, and assistant cashier. The secretary is my contact. She is very hard working and smart. I’ve been teaching her more than anyone how to use the computer and she understands best how to use the system. Apparently one day the cashier went to my contacts house to ask for the key to the cooperative to open a little early. She said that she had to call the president first to see if that was ok. The cashier has been working in the cooperative since the day they opened so he feels that he has the right to open the cooperative. He said he was quitting after that. The assistant cashier went to Villarrica to deposit money, came back and it was 12:34 and hadn’t opened yet. The president went to his house and yelled at him saying that people were waiting and that he was late. He was tired of her and quit. Well I don’t know what was said in the meetings but both of them are back there working. Well at least until yesterday. The cashier didn’t go and apparently isn’t going to say anything and never go back. Well it just so happens that the cashier and my contact are both in my English class. Neither of them came plus the others didn’t come. They are causing so much drama that no one wants to be around them. One girl came to my class, the girlfriend of the cashier, and only wanted to know what my contact has told me about what is going on. I do not want to be in the gossip circle so I kept my mouth shut. But from what I can tell, is the problem is big, and is going to blow up sooner or later. Oh and in the meantime we were so close to using the computer system, but I have a feeling its going to take a lot longer.

I took my contact to a workshop that lasted 3 days it was called Community Project development and management. We got a lot of great ideas on how to start and continue with community projects, and want to get started working. But being that my contact is the person that not many people like right now is going to be hard, becasue no one will want to work with her.

David's nephew, Juan David 5 years old, came and stayed with us for a week. We had a blast coloring, playing soccer, riding my bike, and going to the train station. But a week was plenty!

So there is a quick update of the bigger projects that I have been working on. I hope everyone is doing well!!!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Every morning I wake up, open the windows and doors and go outside. Out the front door I am greeted EVERY morning by an old man sitting on his front porch in a Poncho and cowboy hat drinking mate. This man looks about 90 but in reality is only 73 years old. I think the reason he looks so old is because he has lived his life working in the chakra and raising his 12 children. He lives with his son and daughter, Maria Justa, who has her three children. He doesn’t just sit on his porch in the morning to drink mate, he sits out there ALL day long. Usually he is along on his porch, occasionally his son or daughter will sit and drink terere with him, or his grandkids will sit and talk but that is the extent of his visitors. I notice that he goes inside to eat lunch and take a nap but is back on the porch by 3 pm. Every time I walk by I say hello and he returns the hello.

About 2 months ago he started having health issues. His children say he started feeling bad long ago but didn’t want to bother anyone so he never said anything. Some people say that back when he was younger working in the charka he smoked a carton of cigarettes a day. The day before I left on vacation with my parents I ran into his daughter walking quickly down the street. She told me her father had gotten sick and they were taking him to Asuncion to the hospital there. I was surprised to hear this people he showed no sign of being sick. Apparently while on vacation he spent 20 days in the intensive care almost dying several times. He had problems with his heart and it was too late for surgery. When he returned a part of his heat was “dead” they say, some of the muscles weren’t working anymore. I returned to my house from vacation and there he was sitting on the porch like always. I had no idea the kind of health issues he had been going through. ( side note: his daughter passed away while I was on vacation, she had been battling breast cancer for 3 years. So not only was their father sick, their sister had just passed away.)

Angelic and Paulette came to visit San Salvador for a weekend. One day Paulette woke up before anyone and went out front to drink mate. When I went outside to sit with her she told me to look to my left. I looked and it was the old man sitting on his porch in a red poncho and black cow boy hat drinking mate. It would have made the perfect picture. The days passed and he stayed on his porch. I noticed that when I would say “adios” he would return the “adios” but using a lot of strength. It seemed like it was very difficult for him to talk.

5 days ago his health worsened and a few of his children took him to Asuncion to the hospital, but not without a fight. He didn’t want to bother his family, make them go out of their way to take care of him and he just wanted to stay on his porch. But his children insisted and took him to the hospital.

Yesterday at 11 am the old man passed away. I was in Villarrica, but when I returned home the house was full of women sweeping, washing, and cleaning the house to prepare for the funeral. Chairs had been delivered, and the visitors were starting to congregate. I have never been to a funeral in my life, let a lone a Paraguayan funeral. I had to ask David what you say in Spanish to someone who has lost a loved one. I sat in my chair outside doing Ao Po’i while the women continued to clean and prepare. Maria Justa, his daughter, my neighbor came to the fence and called me over. She started to cry and told me her father had passed away; I told her the phrases I learned and told her I would go over a little later. I went over at about 4:15 and her father still had not arrived. They were all waiting anxiously. Every time a new person came to the house they greeted all of his children and then sat in a chair. I had to go to English class at 5 pm and when I arrived home at 7 pm the yard was full of people.

I changed my clothes and went back to their house. A rosary had just started to I stood with the people until it finished. All of the visitors sat down, and the children stayed in the room with their father crying. One of his sons is a Priest; another of his sons is the head of all of the police of the department of Guira. At one point 6 police officers dressed in their nicest uniforms came in with beautiful flowers. The rosary was prayed every hour. Only the new visitors and some others with go into the room and pray while the others sat around the yard. A waiter would come by every once and awhile with soda, candy, or cookies. There were around 75 people sitting around the yard praying and talking to their friends. While sitting in the yard I could hear his daughters crying, I started to get a little choked up. My throat felt like it was closing up and I felt tears building up in my eyes. I really didn’t even know the man, I kept thinking about how I will never see the man sitting on his front porch drinking mate again.

The process of a funeral in Paraguay is long. The “resa” lasts nine days. That means for nine days the house will be full of people saying the rosary and sitting their yard. Most of the people stay up all night long. I am sure his children are exhausted and would probably want some privacy and rest. Another job of the family is to feed all of the guests the entire 9 days. This morning I woke up and there were about 50 people sitting outside, while neighbor women cooked behind the house.

I started to think…This man, sense I’ve been his neighbor, he has never once had a visitor that wasn’t a family member. I had never even gone over there to visit him. Then why, once he has passed away, does the entire community go to visit his family and pray for him? Wouldn’t he have been happier if these people visited him while he was living? Isn’t it a little late? I started to think about when I die I don’t need people I don’t really even know to visit me. Why go sit and mourn the people who have passed away, why not go and visit your friends and family and the people you really love? Make memories, have fun while we are still living and when the time comes for one of us to pass away we will die satisfied knowing we are loved. From now on I am going to make a vow to be a good friend, daughter, and sister and never forget about the people I love, no matter how far away we are from each other.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Wow. The Tippy Family had a blast in Paraguay and Argentina. I don’t even know where to begin but I guess it would be best from the beginning.

On June 21st my parents arrived to Asuncion, Paraguay. I found them at the airport with a checked bag and a carry on bag for each one, plus a large duffle bag full of goodies for me!! With that being said a local bus was out of the picture, even though it could have been very fun and interesting. We took 2 taxis because the driver told us it would be safer that way, instead of putting the four of us with luggage in one taxi. ( it didn’t make much sense but whatever.) The first night we relaxed in the hotel and went to dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant. I know they came here to try the local foods, but while in the capital I was taking full advantage of it and eating foods I rarely get to eat. On the way to dinner we passed by a San Juan festival at the mall, where they were making all of the local foods and much more. I didn’t want them to try all the foods yet because I knew that when we got to my house they would go to a San Juan festival.

The next day we walked around down town a little then went to the boat dock. My dad has been waiting to ride on a boat on the Rio Paraguaya for about 6 months. Therefore we got on a little boat that the driver had to crank start and went over to a little island called, Chacoi. My dad had the biggest smile on his face the entire time. There wasn’t much to see on the island so we just walked around a little bit then got on the next boat that came to go back to Asuncion. When arriving to the dock in Asucion there was “Tippy” biscotti truck on the ramp waiting to load food onto a boat. The driver of the boat knew our last name and said TIPPY! We told him we were the owners. For lunch we ate at Lido Bar and had fish soup, chipa guazu, chicken empanadas, and milenesa napolitana yumm soo good!!! Then I decided to introduce them to the national past time or drink of Paraguay, terere. It was a lovely day and so we sat in the park, and rented a terere equipo. Luckily they didn’t get sick! For dinner, I took advantage again, and we ate Sushi. It was a very fancy, and over priced place, but well worth it. ( In my eyes).

Lots more shopping was done, hammocks bought and much more. Therefore a box needed to be shipped home. After shipping we were low on time to get to the bar where we wanted to watch the USA world cup soccer game so we went to the food court at the mall and watched the game while eating asado. That night we ran into another San Juan festival in the plaza. We ended up staying and watching a Torin. It’s a Paraguayans version of a bullfight, drunk men messing around with steers.

We had to leave really early the next morning in order to get to my host families house in Paso de Oro in time for the Paraguay world cup game. To get to her house from down town consists of 2 pretty long city bus rides. We were going to do it, but the guy at the hotel suggested taking a taxi. An agreed price of 120 mil was set but after an hour and 3 kilometers more of a crazy sand road he charged us 150, but it was well worth not stressing on the city bueses. We watched the game at Tita’s house with Tita’s daughter, Analia, Lucy, and David’s sisters Sonia and Yessica. We although were the only ones with Paraguayans jerseys. We had a lovely stay at Tita’s house, even though my family speaks no Spanish and Tita and Ramon speak no English. Tita and Ramon never actually thought that my family would actually stay at their house, they were very honored and happy! Another taxi was taken from Tita’s house to the highway to catch the bus to Villarrica. Luckily there were 4 seats to sit for the ride.

We got to Villarrica and while my mom and brother watched the stuff, my dad and I ran to the bank, and to the grocery store to stock up on food for the few days we would be at my house. From Villarricac another Taxi was taken to San Salvador where David and the cats were anxiously waiting for us. There wasn’t much time for chit chat because we had to shower and get ready for the San Juan festival that my town was putting on the night we arrived. We got to the train station where the festival was and the party was just getting started. Kids were playing with pelota tata ( fire soccer balls) while my host dad ( Dj Ricardo) played the music. All of the women, and even some men were cooking (frying) all of the traditional foods. We ate, drank, and danced. Watched the people dance in a line, and the train car almost burn down. But thanks to the mayor with his one small cup and a little puddle the fire was put out. At one point the women told me to sit down to take a picture of me cooking beju ( its like a pancake). After they wanted my dad to sit and get his picture also. Well little did they know how much skill my dad has. I told him to flip the beju, he did it, and the crowed went wild. An American man flipping a traditional food was amazing to them.

In San Salvador we spent a lot of time at my house relaxing. Well washing clothes by hand. Not very relaxing but my family got to integrate into my daily life. We walked around meeting the people of San Salvador. And seriously the same questions were asked by EVERY person. The first being, What do they think of Paraguay? Do they like it here? Also saying how I looked like my mom and my brother my dad. Do they like David? What do they think about where you live? Are they happy here? Of course they couldn’t respond so I got to answer the questions.

The last day in town we went fishing with my friend Nancy and her boyfriend Oscar. With our little bamboo fishing polls and worms we didn’t do so bad. We sat out at the pond for about 5 hours and caught enough fish to make fish soup that night. Nancy and Oscar came to make the soup, it was delicious. Cook onions, tomatoes, and garlic in oil. Then add your fish with skin and bones. Add milk let it boil. Then add cheese. And some oregano. Try it!

We took the bus to Ciudad del Este during a Paraguayan world cup game. Right when we got to the terminal it was time to watch the penalty kicks to determine the winner. Thank goodness Paraguay won! Then all of us (5) david came too, got in a taxi in the crazy crowded streets and went to the port to get on the ferry. At the port you can see Brazil to the left and Argentina to the right. We took the ferry right in the middle of the two countries on the Rio Parana, leaving Paraguay behind. We arrived in Puerto Iguazu and went straight to the hostel. The next day we went to the Iguazu Falls. They are so remarkable that words can not describe them. One fun thing we did was get into a boat that took us right underneath the waterfalls. It was like splash mountain times one thousand. We were completely soaked down to our underwear, well everyone except my mom because she had rain pants and a rain coat. At another point in the park you walk for about a mile over an enormous river that takes you to the Garganta del Diablo, the devil’s throat, and then you are literally on top of the falls, breathtaking! The waterfalls are one place that I suggest if anyone ever goes to South America, they have to stop by and see them!

Our next stop was a place called Colonia Carlos Pellegrini to see one of the biggest wet lands in the world called Esteros Ibera. Well it´s not the easiest place to get to. From Puerto Iguazu we went to San Ignacio Misiones on a night bus where the driver dropped us off on the side of the road at 2 am, and then we walked about 10 blocks to our hostel. That next morning we went to see the Missions. That afternoon we took another bus to Posadas, a large town in Argentina which is just across the river from Encarnacion, Paraguay. We spent the afternoon walking along the board walk and in the centro. Our hostel was called Vuelva el pez, Return the fish, and we hung out there drinking beer and playing uno. The next morning at 8 am two trucks came to the hostel to pick us up and take us to Esteros Ibera. It was a 4 hour drive and 180 km of the drive was on a dirt road. Thank goodness it hadn´t rained in awhile because they said the drive takes 8 hours because of the muddy roads. We stayed at a very lovely place called Ypa Sapukai. The owner spoke English so my jaw got a break from being translator. The first day we arrived we went on a boat ride into the wetlands where we saw jakare (little alligator type animals), carpinchos ( the largest rodent), deer, thousands of varieties of birds; including cranes, hawks, storks, the red headed black bird or the black butted red bird as my dad would say, and many more. We even saw baby jakare, a baby boa constrictor and monkeys. We took 3 boat rides, 2 in the day and 1 at night. One of the days we spent in the campo (country). We spent the entire day on horseback in the middle of what felt like nowhere, but we would come upon houses where the women would serve us mate, and little snacks, show us their handicrafts and then we´d be on our way. Mom and Patrick´s horses were a little slow, while David and I had fun galloping on ours. While on the ride we saw lots of Rias, it’s a large bird like an emu. At the end of the ride we arrived at estancia of the owners of the hotel where we were staying. They have a very nice meal set up for us. Asado, wine, salad, and bread. The meat was so tender we didn´t believe that it was beef, we thought for sure it was pork, but the owner assured us it was beef. The best beef we had ever eaten. We had a very nice relaxing afternoon sitting in the shade and enjoying the scenery but it all ended when listening on the radio we found out the Paraguay had lost the world cup futbol game. Argentina had lost that same day and our driver was not very happy, every time he had to get out of the truck to open a gate he would stroke his head and say “que verguenza” , how embarrassing because they lost 4-0. That same driver drove us to the town of Mercedes where we would catch our bus to Buenos Aires. His truck was so old, and not in good conditions to be driving on the road to Mercedes. 4 hours on a dirt road going around 20 mph was very painful. I told my dad I would from now on never call him a turtle again for driving too slow.

The bus ride in total was about 16 hours to Buenos Aires. We had rented an apartment, so we took a taxi there where the owner was waiting for us to pay her and sign the papers. We did a lot in Buenos Aires because we stayed for 7 days therefore I am going to mention the highlights.

- The food, or steak to be more specific. We succeeded in eating our weight in beef, and pork. We even went as far as going to an all you can eat Parilla (grill) where we sat at 10 pm and ate our way till 12 am.

- Walking to all of the more popular barrios. Palermo, La Boca, San Telmo, Centro, Puerto Madera. Walking, walking, walking. David´s legs and feet hurt. He wasn´t ready for a Tippy family “Vacation” or marathon.

- We went on a tour of the Boca soccer stadium. One of the most popular teams in Argentina, where Maradona played.

- Tango at El Tortini. We saw a wonderful show of 4 couples tango and a live band.

- Shopping. Leather. Boots. Purses.

- Patrick cooked a wonderful lunch (stew) for us while we watched the semi finals of the world cup in our apartment.

- Eating lunch in La Boca, where my mother tango danced on the street with a stranger.

- Tango show at Bar Sur, a very intimate environment. My dad learned how to tango. David, my brother, and I also learned how to Tango. It is very difficult with all the kicking and jumping I was so nervous the whole time that someone was going to get hurt.

- Eating. Eating our way across Buenos Aires. Even when we weren’t hungry we ate.

We had a very wonderful time in Buenos Aires, but the time had come and it was time for us to move on. That meant sadly that David had to go back to Paraguay while we continued on the adventure. He took a bus from BA to Asunción Paraguay almost 24 hours. While we flew from BA to Salta, almost the same distance but it only took 3 hours.

We arrived late into Salta and went directly to our hostel where we had made reservations in March. We had to make reservations so early because it is winter vacation for the Argentineans and everywhere was filling quickly. We arrived and they had no record of our reservation. We even had a paper with conformation numbers and everything. Luckily the guy found another hostel for us to stay. The owner from the other hostel came and picked us up. But the room they had for 2 of the 4 nights was dorm style bunk beds, without heat, and we had to use the bathroom outside, literally outside. But it was probably the only place in town that had an opening that wasn´t super expensive. The first day we spent wondering around Salta visiting the churches, and went on a gondola ride to the top of a hill to see the view of the city. We ate delicious empanadas, and watched great street folklore street music.

The next day we had made plans with a tour company to go to a town called Cachi, which is up in the mountains on crazy windy roads. It took the whole first half of the day to get there, stopping along the way to take pictures of the gorgeous views. The guide gave us all coca leaves to put in our mouths to prevent altitude sickness and calm our stomachs from the windy roads. They seemed to work. No one got sick. Along the way is a national park that is filled with Cardons, huge cactus like the ones in Arizona. The driver had told us if we were lucky we would see Candors flying above. We had spent so much time driving and stopping along the way that when we arrived in Cachi we only had 2 hours, 1 hour to eat and an hour to see the sites. It was such a quiet and quaint town with a beautiful church and plaza. We got back to the hostel pretty early and went out to eat. We went to a wine bar first where we drank a bottle of wine and a sample platter of some of the best salamis and cheeses I’ve tasted. I was full, but that wasn’t dinner, we had made reservations at a place with a dinner/show. So we went, watched dancers dance and a man sing, all while falling asleep at the table. We left early to get some sleep before the next days adventures.

We left at 8 am and went north up to the hills of the 7 colors, purmamarca, humawaca, and miamara. The drive was spectacular. Every kilometer the scenery was changing colors and formations. Its amazing how beautiful the country side is. We had waited to do some shopping until we got up north ( almost in Bolivia) because people had told us tapestries and hand crafts were cheaper. We had a delicious llama lunch and went to the streets. Oh did I mention at this time it had gotten very very cold! My mother bought a beautiful tapestry with people woven in, all hand made. We didn’t have much time in humawaca either because we had spent so much time on the road stopping and searching for lost papers that we had to leave shortly after arriving.

From Salta we decided to make our way south, very far south, to Mendoza. My family was not going to miss out on lots of wineries and wine tasting. We hired a private tour company to take us south because it would have been a 24 hour drive in a bus, and there is gorgeous scenery and national parks a long the way where we knew we wanted to stop. We left Salta and it was starting to snow. Well the higher in elevation we got, the more snow there was. We first passed through Cafayete which is the northern wine country of Argentina where we tasted a bit of wine and ate lunch. Continuing on we passed through Quilmes, an old fortress what was made 400 years B.C. and has been restored. We were supposed to stay in Tafi del Valle that night on the other side of the mountain, but due to snow we couldn’t pass that night and stayed in Santa Maria in the only hotel whose pipes weren’t frozen, and that had heat. We got lucky. By this time it was VERY cold. I was not prepared. The next day the passes were still closed so we had to backtrack 300 km to Salta. No one was complaining because the scenery was beautiful, and we promised the driver we would only ask to stop 2 times to take pictures. That day we drove about 1,000 km to the town of Rojia. Stayed the night and left early the next morning to get to the National Parks. The first park was Talampaya, at this national park there were petroclifs and beautiful rock formations. The second park, I don’t remember the name, is where they have found some of the oldest dinosaur bones. We could not pass through because a lot of snow fell and made the sand very muddy, therefore cars could not pass. That night we stayed at nice hotel in a small town that I don’t remember the names of, but it was pretty!

We left the next morning to get to Mendoza. After 4 days of travel we arrived in Medoza around lunch time. We ate lunch with our three wonderful guides and then they were on their way to Cordoba. We took laundry to be washed and hit the town. It had finally gotten a little warmer so we were happy to be outside without 12 layers of clothing.

Day 1 wine tasting- Our first full day we decided to go to Maipu, one of the parts of Mendoza that makes wine. There we rented one speed bikes and decided to follow the guide that consisted of 12 wineries and 12 km. We went to the first one, La Rural or Rutini, where my brother knew he wanted to try the reserve wines. So we paid extra and tried 3 reserve wines, we got two servings to share between the 4 of us and it ended up being about 2 bottles, the pours were enormous. But we were off to a great start! After that we decided to go to the furthest winery and make our way back. Well it was an incline the entire way, and with one speed bikes wasn’t easy. My mom and dad decided to take it slow, and we made plans to meet for lunch. So Patrick and I continued on the journey. We went to one winery called, Serno, before lunch and sat outside in the sun tasting 8 different wines. After we got on our bikes, put the box of wine in the front basket and rode to where we were going to have lunch. We arrived very hungry! My parents had not arrived yet, but we decided to eat anyways. We decided to try two different glasses of wine at lunch and not do the tour of the winery. The food and wine were fantastic, and the brownie with ice cream at the end even better! We tasted at one more winery before running into mom and dad riding down the road. They didn’t make it that far but did taste some great wines. By this time it was almost 7, time to return the bikes. At the rental place we drank a cup of fruity not so great wine, while waiting for the taxi to come pick us up.

Day 2 wine tasting- We hired the boy who works at the hostel to drive us around the second day because the place where we went, the wineries were more spread out, and we wouldn’t be able to do it on a bike. We first went to the Pulenta Estate winery, this winery is at the foothills of the Andes. There is a huge long story about the owners, to make it short they are really rich sons of a rich wine maker who died and sold his enormous winery. So the all of the sons with that money bought their own land and started their own wineries. The two owners of Pulenta Estate are race car fanatics, they even have a label with Porsche, and Carrera written on them. Downstairs in the cellar, there is a business room that consists of glass for the walls, and while we were down there we got to see the owners, with their wine consultants talking about wine and tasting it too. We were the only visitors at the winery which was really nice and personal. The second place we went to, Villalba, we were the only visitors also. We decided to skip the tour and go straight to the tasting. Come to find out the owner is another brother from the family of wineries. The third place we went was Septima, which is enormous compared to the other two places. The export I think over 70% of their wine to the United States. The guy tried telling us quality was more important than quantity, but when you produce millions of bottles of wine a year…The last place we went was Ruca Malin, we had lunch reservations there. We arrived, and whoa, it was fancy. We were not expecting this. We sat down, they brought us the set menu for the day, which was 6 courses and with each course a wine or two that was matched with the type of food. We were ok with this it looked fantastic. First course we ate a quinoa and granny smith apple salad with foam that came in a little shot glass, with a nice white wine. Second course we ate a baked pumpkin empanada with a little meat skewer thing and a good wine. Third course was a homemade cheese with a cracker and delicious sauces, and wine. The fourth course was the main course. A steak with chopped veggies and a smoked eggplant paste, this came with two types of wine. The fifth we had a lemon sorbet, that was to clean our pallet. The sixth and the best was a fried banana and white chocolate dessert. Two and a half hours later we were Very satisfied. We had just eaten the most outstanding gourmet lunch, and realized that it was a once and a life time meal. Oh the best part, there were huge windows in front of our table overlooking the Andes. After that we got in the car fat and happy and went back to the hostel.

The next day was my flight home and my parents flight to Peru to continue on their journey. The Tippys succeeded to do it again, have a fantastic, unbelievable, perfect vacation. Thanks to the months of planning that my parents did, and the wonderful people of Paraguay and Argentina we had a great time. My parents say it’s a once in a life time vacation, that they planned so much to do because they will never come back to South America, but I say for sure they will come back!!!!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

I safely returned to Paraguay while my family is in Peru doing the trecking to Machu Pichu! It was an amazing time, and a blog is in the works. It was such long, and fun filled vacation its taking a little while to write. I just wanted to let you all know what pics and stories are to come shortly!!

Lizhttp://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Hey all. The Tippy Family is finally together again, but this time south of the boarder. We are having a great time. I made a facebook album with lots of pictures. Check out the Link.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015120&id=187300103&l=cc8351ff0e

The adventures have only just begun. But we have been lucky to have the San Juan Festivals in Paraguay, so they have tried lots of traditional food and see lots of kids play with fire.

When I have more time. I'll tell more stories!!!

See ya!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The questions that I have been asked since I've been in Paraguay have been very interesting. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Today's question knocked me out of my socks. "Is South Africa in South America?" After answering the question, "No", it was hard for me to hold back and not give an entire geography lesson. I thought I would leave that to their geography teacher. After telling my host mother about this incident she was taken back also, because "everyone should learn geography in 7th grade" she said. Then she continued to tell me about her cousin who lives in the United States, when I asked what state she said Canada. Again I was shocked. She is a very proud woman therefore I did not feel it was the place to be giving her a geography lesson. This prompted me to go to the school and talk to the Nun's in the afternoon. The Nun's are in charge of the private catholic school in town. I told them that I was very interested in doing a world map project. Peace Corps has all of the information on how to do the project, only money is needed, and this is something that the school does have. The problem is finding a place where we can put the map, where ALL of the kids can see it and study every day!

In my house I have a world map, a map of paraguay, and a map of the united states. I literally find myself staring at my wall. I can't get enough! Also whenever someone comes and visits me they look at my maps and ask me questions like "how many continents are there" or "which state are you from." In situations like those I am very happy to talk about what I about geography.

With the world cup coming up, only days away!!! I've been watching the commercials and hearing the same world cup songs for about 4 months now. Therefore I am looking forward for the games to begin! When the people here found out what countries Paraguay would be playing, a few young girls came over and asked me where slovakia and italy are on the map. They had looked in their encyclopedia but couldn't find Slovakia. Another great time for a geography lesson. I explained that before Slovakia it was Czechoslovakia and now it is two different countries.

One day in my class of Informadores Turistico our activity was to draw a map of Paraguay, with its rivers, departments, and capitals. The students in the class really had no idea where to start. They couldn't even start by drawing the shape of their country. The professor was very mad, and instead of assisting the students, started to yell and draw the outline. Then one of the students found a magazine in that had a drawing of Paraguay and everyone continued to copy the drawing.

I am not sure where I am trying to go with this, but it has been a constant theme in living in Paraguay. And my host mom was wrong when she said that everyone knows their geography because they do not learn it in 7th grade. In the schools the students arn't the most important. A lot of teachers are only there for the pay check, teachers are some of the highest paid and one of the most secure jobs in Paraguay. You really have to screw up to get fired, yeah it is ok to date students. Therefore a lot of the teachers don't care about the education of their students and if they are understanding what they are teaching. Also it is ok to cheat on tests here, everyone does it, college students pay for test answers to get accepted into the program they want.

Again not sure where I am going with this, but the kids are missing a lot of relevent information that I hope I can help with just being their friend.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Since my mom didn't give me a big birthday when I turned 15, I've been looking forward to going to a quinceañera the whole time I've been in Paraguay. Well I've been here a year, and girls have turned 15 but the ones I am close with don't have the 5 thousand dollars or so that it takes to throw a good party, therefore I hadn't been to one, until last weekend!!! The birthday girl Lumi is from my training community therefore I got to visit and stay with my host family. I really didn't bring appropriate clothes for this type of party, so I went paraguayan jeans shopping. Oh did I score big time...they are technically jeans, but look more like spandex, would NEVER buy anything like this in the states but... when in Paraguay do what the Paraguayans do.

The party was supposed to start at eight but David's sisters, who started getting ready at 6, weren't ready until 9:30. When we got there Lumi was waiting in her beautiful white dress next to a box, we entered she greeted us all then took the gift we brought and put it in the box, and we were escorted to our table.

While we were sitting at the table waiting for the rest of the guests to arrive they brought one soda and one beer to the table. After most of the guests were seated the birthday girl went around passing out red roses to all of the guys. I was mad that I didn't get a rose, but the rose is what you offer the girl to ask her to dance.

David and his brother Juan, with the red rose.

Then the waltz starts and the birthday girl starts out dancing with her dad, then one by one the guys ask her to dance, only long enough for the photographer to take a picture then the next boy comes in. After the waltz the dinner was served. Chicken, with rice salad, and sopa paraguaya. It was delicious. After dinner we sat at the table a while longer waiting for things to get started.

Lucy with her cousin who was in the cutest little tux!

While waiting for things to get started, it starting to sprinkle, then started to rain, A Lot. Everyone went under the mango trees to wait it out, then it didn't stop, the birthday girl was crying so we all started to dance in the rain. After 10 minutes of dancing, soaking wet, the lights went out. We went over to lucy's house under her porch, because there wasn't enough room for everyone at the house where the party was. About 45 min later the lights came one, the out again, still raining. The birthday girl was inside her house with tons of people and wanted to cut the cake but the photographer had left, so called me over to ask if I would take pictures.

The tradition is the girls stand by the cake first for the picture, and they all have a string that is attached to something in the cake, one string has a ring and the girl that pulls it out will get married first. David's sister Sonia pulled out the ring!!

Then all the guys get around the cake for their picture.

Remember that all of this is going on in the smallest house every while the lights were out and everyone was soaking wet. Then the birthday girl ( she's in the pink now) wanted her picture with EVERY person at the party.After we ate the cake we were forced to go outside, the house is tiny and the mom didn't really like all the dirty and wet people inside her bedroom. We went back over to Lucy's house for a bit and hung out. At about midnight I went home, because I couldn't feel my feet any more. Unfortunately the next two days were beautiful and sunny the only night of rain was the night of the party. Now I can say that I've been to a quinceañera!!!

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My new house.

The side view of my house.

About 2 months ago I met a girl named Elizabeth. I was waiting for a bus and she came by in her car and picked me up. We've stayed in contact, she's giving me a few rides to Villarrica but we've never hung out. Well David and I went to Iturbe, where she lives and owns a gas station infront of the organic sugar cane factory, and hung out with her. She invited us to go to an Asado at her boyfriend Estancia. So that night after a meeting I had she picked us up and we went to his estancia. I was picturing nice houses, and what not. We get there and its a one bedroom mud hut with a bed on the floor, a fire outside with three men in bullet proof vests standing around watching the meat. There was a building being constructed behind, and lots of work equipment. Her boyfriend is in the business of fatting up cows, and sheep to sell and is just starting to build his estancia. We sat down and the men in the bullet proof vests were stairing at me. I had a really funny feeling and was sure I would be kiddnapped or murdered! While thinking that I was living my last night the boyfriend of Elizabeth invites us to go look around at his estancia, in the pitch black. At this time I was sure that it was the end. We walked around, looked at the electric fenses, his pond with alligators, oh thats where I thought he'd throw us, then talked about the building that was being constructed. We get back to the fire, luckly without dying, and ate lots of meat and chorizo. Well they didn't kidnapp or murder me, the night was kind of fun, but the guys in the vests were creepy. So I asked if they were body guards, no. They are other estancia owners that are very rich and are scared someone wants them. So I think the conclusion is, Elizabeth is nice I would like to hang out with her, but the boyfriend and his other rich estancia owner friends, no I would not like te hang out with.

Yataity. The captial of Aopo'i the traditional craft. I wanted to go to get new ideas for my own things that I am making. Get up at 5:45. Pooring rain. Wait for a bus. 3 busses pass becuase they are completly packed and won't let anyone else on. Finally the 4th stops and get to Villarrica. Now i have to get on another bus to Yataity. The driver tells me yes, the bus will pull into the town. While in rute the bus breaks down, get out and wait for another. Yes still raining. The next bus comes, but won't pull into the town, so I get off at the enterance and walk 2km in, still raining. Get to where I am going there are 5 other volunteers also doing the same thing I am or ordering special things for their parents. We have a good time eat good food, make cinamin rolls and gossip. When it's time to leave there are no buses, and walk 2km back to where the busses would be. Its pooring rain. Get to the road, and wait, no busses. Finally we wave down a car, get in and get to Villarrica just in time for the last bus into San Salvador. I get home and am completly wet, muddy, and smell a little.

Its starting to get cold, really cold. It's been raining for a week, and the road almost flooded, again. Everyone is getting really excited for the world cup. All of the media and propiganda is about futbol and how many days till the first Paraguay game. Well June 14th Paraguay plays Italy, then 20th they play Solvakia and the 24th they play New Zeland. GOOO Paraguay!!

My kitties being cute!

Playing soccer. Yeah pretty sure i almost died!

My new friend Elizabeth and I

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So the move into my new house went well, a horse and cart came to pick up my stuff to move it to the new place, which was very helpful. I have a GREAT talent of accumulating things. Not sure how I do it, but I do it very well. The new place is very nice, actually a lot nicer than the old place. It has two bed rooms, a front room, kitchen with sink, and modern bathroom and the best part is ITS ALL INSIDE!!! I no longer have to run outside when it’s poring down rain to use the bathroom or wash a dish! The house came with; table and chairs, fridge, stove, and two beds. Another great thing is during the day when it’s hot outside its nice and cool inside and at night when its chilly outside, inside its nice and comfortable. Oh wait you haven’t heard the best….I don’t have bug bites all over my body. I still itch a little but my legs, back, and butt aren’t covered. Today I went to the owners house, it’s been about a few weeks since I’ve moved in and the first thing she noticed is that my legs looked normal! Ok so the conclusion is, new house rocks!

My English class is winding down, our graduation is April 24. The day that I was prepping to give the class a charla ( little chat) about the united states, I went into Villarrica and received the letters from my mom’s science class. She has a few students from Mexico or that can speak Spanish and they wrote letters to my English class, including pictures. My girls ( English class = all girls) were sooo excited. They loved the photos and were fighting over the letters. Their homework was to write back, using as much English as they could. I took their pictures and they should be done and ready by the graduation. For their graduation, every one of them will talk in front of their families or friends that they invited. They all wrote something about their lives in English and have been practicing for a few weeks now, so it should be very fun!

I am currently prepping for my first charla about business. In the class of Informadores Turisticos we are starting to talk about if a tourist was to come, what kind of business would there be. The homework for the week was to come up with a business for San Salvador. Then the professor asked me to give a charla for the next week. So I am pretty excited. I have materials, it’s actually a business class, that I have taken themes from and am getting everything ready! I want to start the business class for the community, but I am going on a vacation when my parents come, and am going to wait till I get back so I can be fully dedicated.

Ndikuaai was acting kind of funny, not eating much, sleeping a lot and I could tell she was sick. I took her to Villarrica in a box, which she escaped from as I was getting onto the fully packed bus. Sat in the front next to the driver, with her in my hands the entire time. I got to Villarrica before the vet opened so we had to sit on the side of the street for about a half an hour. While in with the vet, he took her temp, 40 degrees Celsius, I went to get money, not wanting to watch him give her shots. David stayed with her, and when I returned I was told she didn’t like the shots and bit the doctor. Oh yeah she doesn’t have her rabies shot yet. Oops! We left her at the vet while we went to look for something to carry her home in. At the grocery store I found a plastic picnic basket which was perfect. On the way home in the hot bus, she cried, puked, and was not happy. Its been 3 days now and she still isn’t a lot better. She has been throwing up her food, and the medicine, but has been able to jump out the window and chase bugs. So there is hope.

I have been learning the traditional craft well its like cross stitch or something like that of the Paraguayans, Ao po’i. I had become friends with a girl, Nancy, who was my age and I would go to her house every day and she would teach me, we drank terere and talked girl talk! Well after two weeks of fun, her and her boyfriend decided to move to Ciudad del Este because they found jobs there. So she left, and I am left with the search for another good girlfriend, and someone to teach me more Ao po’i! These constant changes are getting exhausting!

I have also started a garden, I’ve cut down about 1/5 of the bamboo that I need, but things are coming together! I am excited to have some fresh lettuce and other veggies.

Well its starting to rain, again, and should probably turn the computer off before the lights go out. I am thinking about everyone back home, and have been really missing everyone lately. Can’t believe its been almost a year!

Love and hugs!!!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

My life story. Packing bags, and moving, from house to house, state to state, city to city, or country to country. I was excited to be in one place for 2 years! I can't remember the last time I was in the same house for a long period of time.

Today at 9 am the owner of the house came over and told me that I need to be out in 2 days because her ex husband and her are getting back together and are going to live in the house. 2 days to find a place in a pueblo where I've been for 4 months looking for other options because I wanted to pay less in rent. So I went scrambling, asking every person I saw in the street if they knew of a place that was available to rent. The thing about the house now is that it has EVERYTHING the only thing I've bought is a mattress and dishes. Therefore most likely I'll have to start ALL over and buy or borrow everything needed.

I went and looked at a few places...The first place very nice, cute, big yard, lots of trees. But..no running water or bathroom. The second place very nice, beds, sink, windows, big yard,bathroom outside, but its very far from any neighbors and next to the busy road therefore I wouldn't feel very safe all alone.

Also right now they are planning on paving the road therefore all of the construction workers are moving into town taking up all the available places.

So the hunt continues. Wish me luck!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Happy Easter/Pascua. It was a good semana santa here in San Salvador and a little sad to see it end because it brought a lot of life to the community, oh and a little dengue. All of the relatives from the cities came to visit and transported the mosquitoes with them on the busses.

Wednesday the 31st of march started semana santa with the making of the chipa. There was a countdown for a least a week or more before. 3 weeks before I saw people buying their cheese and corn flour to make the chipa. People had been hording their eggs for months, and 2 days before there were no eggs in san salvador, and no one was nice enough to give me some. All I wanted was a fried egg, I wasn't going to make 10 kilos of chipa. Chipa, a traditional Paraguayan food. I think I've talked about it before, delicious.

Anyways....I was asked by every single woman, man and child if I was going to make chipa. No I said to all, but I was going to help someone. I was invited by my new friend Nancy to her house to make chipa. I arrived in the early morning and 5 hours later we had 11 kilos of chipa, 1 jakare, the chipa that looked like and alligator that I gave to david,and 3 birds, my wrists were killing me and I told myself, never ever will I make Chipa alone. I am willing to pay 2 mil when I want to eat chipa.

Thursday is the big food, feast, bbq day. David and I were invited to the same place for a sheep bbq. They had to kill their sheep because their house and yard were flooded with the rain and the sheep broke his leg so they killed it before it got a fever. I had told the family the day before how the tradition on Easter in the United States it to paint the Easter eggs and hide them, not chocolate eggs, but hard boiled eggs, and how my parents would forget where they hid them and 3 months later we would find rotten eggs. They thought it was hilarious. My job was to bring a potato salad to the feast and so I boiled some eggs and dyed them and took them to the house to make the salad. Well of course we all know that when you dye the eggs a lot of times the dye gets on the white part too, so the salad had a nice color of red and purple. After eating we drank wine with Nancy and her boyfriend, oscar. They are going to be good friends. We're going to go fishing together.

Friday... Good Friday. You can't eat, well you can eat chipa. The people think because you can't eat meat, you can't eat anything. I mean what else is there..? Its also the day where you do nothing. There was nothing open and noo movement in the town. I was really bored really quick. So after eating, well i was hungry, David and I went fishing down at the train station. Fishing...bamboo pole with a worm and a hook. Yea yea I know that’s how it was in the old days mom. We got some pescaditos, little fish, that i later fed to the cats. They were happy! David was hooked he made plans with the man who lives and cares for the station to go back later that night. He left at 7 and got home at 10:30 with a bag full of goodies. 2 big fish and 2 eels, i think, they looked like snakes. He was very happy.

Saturday... Things were open again and people were in the streets. After washing 50 pieces of clothing I went to go visit Cynthia and Juila. We talked, drank terere, painted nails, made empanandas de choclo, and drank more terere. They were all talking that the weather is finally going to change. It’s been hot for 5 months and that Sunday it was going to cool down. The mass was from 8 till 11. Then the Fiesta de Pascua started at 12 am. We went and danced until 4 am. Lots of fun! It has been awhile since I've danced. There really aren’t a lot of fiestas here in San Salvador.

Sunday...today. Its cold, the women were right. Good thing we washed all of the clothing yesterday when it was still really really hot. Today I woke up super early, couldn't sleep, I was itching. So sick of itching. Not sure what I am going to do today. I feel like making pancakes!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Last night March 22nd I went to bed at 10 o'clock and it was raining. I woke up about every hour because it was raining soo hard. At 6 am it was still raining cats and dogs. Well it rained soo much the town is flooding. Here are a few pics. I am ok. My house is pretty high compaired to others. But it will probably be a few days till I can get out of town.

Pig love

The town watching the water rise

The only way across ( to get out of town)

Buen Viaje!

Walking down to the enterance of town. Looks like a lake. Usually its all grass

The municipalidad

A house very close to my house.

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About a month ago Cynthia, the woman whom I work with most closely, told me about a course that was going to be offered here in San Salvador. It is called Informador Touristico, she really had no idea what it was about, the name explains a little, but the government was brining this course in through an organization called SINAFOCAL. If you take the course, 2 days a week, for 3 months you'll receive a certificate from the minestario de trabajo, and everyone LOVES their certificates. So Cynthia worked very hard to get people to go to the class. The first meeting there were 4 people, and to continue on with the course there has to be at least 25. So she went door to door and got 30 people to sign up on the registration sheet. Well the second meeting there was about 20. They did their course for a week, then Cynthia asked me to join the course, to boost numbers.

The first class that I went to we did group work, reading and then explaining to the group what we read. The reading was about tourism, what kind of tourism there is, why people go to the places they do, and how you can be a good tour guide. How you need to present yourself, be fully qualified for the places you are showing, know all the facts, know how to read a group if they are interested or no in what you are saying, so on and so forth. Pretty fun, and interesting. The group was asking me questions about my experience as a tourist and were really into the class.

The second class we did more ice breakers and team work stuff. The teacher of the course said that the most important thing was for us to become a team and work together before we can be good Guias de Touristica. So the teacher, and a few from the group decided to form a formal commission, to become recognized by the municipalidad to be able to ask for assistance easier. Because we are doing this class at the train station. There is a library and museum there, but no one really goes there. I am teaching English there to give the place a little more life. But..there is no bathroom, running water, a few chairs, no chalk board, or fan. So if a tourist were to come visit the station and need to use the bath room they would have to find a bush. Which is fine, but I don't think everyone would like that option. So as a commission we were talking about how we can mejorar the station.

The third class we did the voting and elected our presidente and so on. Cynthia was elected Presidenta, which is good because she has a lot of passion for the train station, being the director of the centro cultural. Then we made a list of activities that we can to do to start raising funds to mejorar the estacion. Volley ball tournaments, lotteries, bingo, different activities where selling food is involved, movie night, and parties ( the first will be held the night before Easter). The teacher throughout all of this is putting in her input and being very insistent about the group making decisions and making them now. So for the next class on Sunday we had planned a day to clean up the estacion, there are lots of spider webs, and cow poop and cook chorizo and sell it. It was planned very last minute and some thought that it should be just for the group and a team building thing, but the teacher insisted that we sell tickets for 5 mil, that includes 3 pieces of chorizo, mandioca and bean salad.

So the fourth class, Sunday, we met up and started cleaning the station. And in the meantime we started cooking. I had sold two tickets the night before to my girls Lola, and Dora. Lola showed up at around 11 and we had just started cooking the chorizo and shortly after Dora showed up, they saw how good the chorizo looked so they each bought another portion. They both brought dishes to take their food to go. So on they went and we stayed to eat the rest. Each of us had put in 5 mil as well. Well 1 kilo of chorizo has 15 pieces of chorizo, and if every person gets 3 pieces then a kilo would cost 15 mil, well a kilo costs 17 mill. So we had 5 kilos and were loosing 10 mil on the deal. In the end, with all the costs and what not we made 10 mil, thanks to me selling the tickets. Oh and I was the only one who sold tickets. After eating and gossiping we had our class.

Class consisted of an ice breaker that the teacher got from Peace Corps, many materials were giving to each group and we had to make a wedding dress. In my group I said, Hey lets do something different, and i had 3 of the 5 on my boat. We started with the black trash bag and came up with a theme that they were clowns getting married and the club. One of the women said, no way, absolutely not, there is no such thing as a wedding dress that isn't white. So she went and sat down, while sitting the teacher showed her the pics of the other group in another city and their final dresses, and immediately the woman says we have to copy this. So of course the rest of the team was down to copy. And franticly we started with another design. In the end when they were judging every teams they brought up our situation how we had an idea and changed it, and how they liked our original idea, it was different and out of the box. The woman started to defend herself saying that a wedding dress has to be white blah blah blah. The teacher called her out and said that it was her problem and that her head was in a box and needs to take it out!!! I thought I was going to die. Exactly what I wanted to say but was not going to the teacher said. About 10 minutes later the woman said she didn't feel weel and left, not sure she'll come back to class.

Me cleaning the roof the the station

The wedding dresses, ours is the dress on the far left. The dress in the middle won.

Playing volley after class at the station.

So we have planned, I made the flyers yesterday, is a Torneo de Volly for sunday in the afternoon. But we don't have a meeting before hand, and havn't planned what we are going to sell or a prize. A little unorganized. I feel that the teacher and a few from the group wanted to form this commission but the rest of the group signed up for the course to learn about tourism and what not, and its turned into a youth group doing activities stuff. Although one of our assignments it to investigate every date, and name about the train statioon. The idea is to get all the info together in one place and make a book thingy to sell at the train station for when visitors come.

Speaking of visitors my parents are going to be the guinea pigs!!! The group is excited to have tourists come and are planning activites for the whole community to be involved. I could tell what we are going to do but that would spoil everything for them!!

Oh and another thing about this class..I said to the group that a tourist wouldn't come if there wasn't any business, the case here in san salvador. So I made a proposal to, after this course, offer the business course that I have from Peace Corps. I pitched the idea to the teacher from SINAFOCAL, a non-profit, that teachers hundreds of courses from knitting, to repairing cell phones. They loved the idea and offered to send me one of their instructors to help teach the course. So probably starting after my parents come I teach a course called Building your dreams. If all goes well, and as planned.

Other things....

The road from villarrica to iturbe is going to be paved, that means no more cobble stone roads, and the trip will be a lot smoother and faster for me to get to Villarrica and Asuncion. Well whenever a big project is about to start someone has to say the first word...Well word on the street is that Lugo, the president, is coming to town on the 17 th of march. I won't believe it till I see it, he is supposed to be in lots of places and typically doesn't show up.

I've become very into cooking lately. I have made hummus, cakes, twice baked potatoes, salsa ( found tortilla chips!!!!!!!!), gizos, pancakes, a delicious curry, Mac and cheese etc. Totally from scratch. I am researching making bagels because there is cream cheese and the grocery store here.

The kitties are doing well, last night Ndikuaii ate a little tree frog, the leg was hanging out of her mouth. They are a great company!!

Ndikuaii climb up the pole becuase dogs were chasing her, well she couldn't get down becuase the dogs were at the bottom barking. David climbed up the pole to get her down!!

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Villarrica (the closest big town to me) is supposed to be the 2nd biggest hot spot in paraguay for Carnaval, so we thought we'd check it out. Despite being lost and by myself almost the entire time, I had fun, and can say I've see a lot of almost naked girls with beads, and been cover from head to toe in spuma ( foam ). Thanks to Daivd ( the wonderful photographer) some of the beautiful costumes were captured.

stew and his spuma shoes

Angelic and I

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So I finally walked my little lazy legs on down to the post office in Villarrica. The lady tried convincing me that there is a correo in San Salvador, but I gently assured here that it is no longer running. (the building is totally destroyed). I went to check it out, because someone told me I could live there.

Elizabeth Tippy ( or la Americanita) no you really shouldn't put that

Correo Central Villarrica

Gral Dias y Colon

Villarrica 5000

Paraguay

I would like a couch, carpet, a new bed, blender, dvd player, and a radio...oh and if you can air conditioner.

thanks!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

I can not remember the last time I went a day with out itching. My legs are not pretty too look at, all the Paraguays say " oh no, what has happened to your legs, what kind of bug did that to you?" My legs are still so white that the big red bites, and scabs stand out. Right now my back and stomach are also nicely covered, pretty sure the bed I have has bugs, spiders, and who knows what else. I feel I may be illergic to the termite dust as well. If I am lucky my house will stay standing for the two years I am here. Spiders big and small....soo many in my house. I think it makes for less mosquitos, but then how do I still have all these bites?!...All I can say is not sure what is eating me during the day or night, but I don't want to itch any more. I can't sleep with out benadryl and bug spray.

While David was here, we went into Villarrica one day to get groceries. We ate pasta and sopa paraguaya for lunch. Afterwards I was super fully and didn't feel well, maybe it had something to do with the ice cream that I ate after, not sure....Anways...after about 3 hours my stomach still hurt and we were waiting for the bus in the terminal. In the bus terminals you can rent, yes rent, terere. That means a guampa, yerba, bombilla, and pitcher with water and whatever yuyo you want. All smashed up and ready to serve while you wait for your bus. Don't think I will ever rent this equipo while I am here, especially in a bus terminal where is smells like throw up. So..we were waiting for the bus and I was complaing how my stomach hurt, so David went to the women renting the terere and asked what yuyo was good for an upset stomach, a random man heard david and said "i have the perfect yuyo, wait here". He left for about 5 minutes and came back with a wilted plant. I told david that I was not going to smash up a yuyo from the bus station and drink it without boiling the water. He said of course not. We get home, I am laying in the hammack, forget about the yuyo and David came with the terere. First ha, and I wanted to puke. It was sooo bitter and disgusting...He put the yuyo in without boiling. I wish I could say I got terrible sick and vomited but..my stomach ach went away. But it tasted nasty.

This morning on my way to english class I was wearing a light dress and flip flops sweating, dying in the sun and the heat. Right now 3 hours later it is pooring and I am freezing, wearing my fleece. Crazy paraguaying el nino weather.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

David being "guapo" and cooking some lunch with the kitties

Tita and her daughter Analia, I finally met her, she is studying in Buenas Aires

Happy Times

Aww cute kitty

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So finally after almost 8 months in Paraguay I feel setteled...like I have a routine, work to do, friends, things to do, a kitchen to cook in, and time to myself.

I hate to say it, because I love 25 de Abril and all the people there, but I think the move was a great thing. Being in San Salvador I feel like I have a purpose, and I am going to actually do something...The difference in communities is very large, some for the worse, but most for the better. The one thing that is so amazing is the people actually want to be my friend, work with me, and get to know me. Its not like pulling teeth trying the gain the trust of the people. I don't have to ride my bike 10 km every day to visit families to show that I am trying to integrate into their community. I can walk down the street, people I don't know say "Hi liz" and want to talk. I go to the store to buy 2 eggs and stay till midnight talking and eating with the owner.

I now kind of have a daily routine...ohh and I HAVE MY OWN HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( gracias a dios)

The morings I had free. Now Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 9-11 I teach two english classes. For what? Well over 50% of the people here have familiy in the U.S.A. and after high school most of them get private (expensive) tutors for English in Villarrica. So the community had asked me to teach a course to the kids starting at 7 years old up to 18. Its amazing the difference between the level of education in these kids and those in the campo. The kids here understand what is going on in class, pronounce the words almost perfect, and are advancing quickily. In 2 classes I am almost as far as 3 months in 25 de Abril.

I'll come home from lunch ( right now david is here so he'll cook a rico lunch...usually!)

At 12:30 I go to the cooperative. Right now they are inputing all of their information into a data base. All of the savings and loans of the people are in paper form, and now converting onto the computer. So its a lot of numbers, and names. But well worth it. So I am there to answer questions about excell and help teach computers to the employees. All of the employess ( the 4 of them) are really nice, and really want to work with me, egar to learn.

I'll get home around 4 ish. Eat a snack. Then watch my telenovela from 7-8.

At 8 I go to the cancha de volley. There is a group of women, and their daughters that play volley every night from 8-10 that have adopted me. The court is full of toads, and bugs, but super fun. The owner, Maria, super sweet but hates to loose. They yell at me a lot and get really frustrated but I swear I am improving. They tell me if I go every night I'll be amazing in no time. David and I have been going together, and they love him cause he knows how to play. They keep telling him that he needs to teach me. I am really not that bad....I don't think.

Come home take a shower and go to bed. And while I sleep I get eaten by bugs. Not sure what kind but my back isn't very pretty.

In the near future I am hoping to start the business course that I have from the Peace Corps. Also I want to get a group of the kids and start a youth group. And in their winter break in July I want to do a day camp with art & crafts and games. So any good ideas with arts & crafts send me and e-mail. I know I was a girl scout for many years...but I don't remember a lot.

I hope everyone is doing lovely. I am very happy. Miss you all!!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The 100 year old almacen on the corner by my house

Paraguay is a very Catholic Country. Every city, pueblo, town, street has a patron saint. The patron saint of San Salvador is Niño Salvador. The date is January 6 but the party started January 2nd. On the second there was a Paraguayan style bull fight, then a huge party almost larger than the one i went to in asuncion for new years. Every night there was a mass, then 2 more bull fights during the week. The night of the 5th is when the celebrated the day of Niño Salvador. There was a mass, then a procession through the streets of San Salvador. The street were lit with candles in plastic pop bottles, and there was a truck carry the Niño. I was lucky enough to be hanging out with the women who decorated the float for the procession. I put some flowers around to deccorate, and the women were all happy to be there for me, and my first patron saint. The day of the 6th, there was another procession but during the day. The people here sure know how to honor their patrons.

The procession

The patio of the church decorated ready for the procession.

Ndikuaai sleeping in my purse

This one is for you, dad. Fixing the wire, in the rain. photo taken from my front room

Smile!

say cheese!

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The clown at the bullfight....what a mess they were...wasted

so they didn't actually kill the bull, they just tried to ride it

the ring and the people...scariest seating ever...flimsy boards and lots of people

New Years Eve...mateo, mary, me, david, and carlos

playing with sparklers before the party, didn't start till 12:30. We danced till 6 am

David and his nephew Juan David

Juan David drinking terere

David thought it would be a good idea to get his hair cut the day before Christmas, in San lorenzo, day before christmas shopping paraguay style.

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The enterance into my pueblo.

A view of where the train tracks used to be, now the cows graze

the old train station in San Salvador

walking back from the stream

Feliz Navidad y Ano Nuevo a todos y todas!!!! I hope everyone had a very linda christmas, I know I did. Its weird sweating, then eating dinner at 12 am chirstmas morning, going to a dance party after and that being chirstmas. No chistmas songs, snow, santa, or egg nog. But there is meat, gigantic nativity sceens, and reggatone. So i suppose its an equal switch.

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1. My family has 3 cars

2. When I told them the names of my cats (which are in Guarani) the daughter who is 23 asked if those were words in Guarani.

3. I've seen a computer in every house that I've been too

4. I can understand EVERYTHING because they all speak Spanish

5. We ate cannaloni for dinner, from scratch

6. I now go to exercise class every day at 6:30pm then play volleyball after until 10pm.

7. When the people greet me they will say "hello" and then "bye bye"

8. Had a full conversation in English with a man on the street my first day here.

9. There is a pretty sweet old train station here

10. The animals don't stay in their yard, the cows, sheep, horses, and pigs are free to roam the community.

11. Last night when I got home my host dad had a projector watching dirty music videos on the side of the big white church across the stree from their house. "sin verguenza" as their 11 year old daughter said.

12. There is a coffee pot, yes a machine to make coffee

13. Guitar classes every monday

Its so different, but so fun. I've already met a bunch of people, and girls my age. There are a few rivers very close that my host dad likes to fish at, and so we've already made plans to go to the river. They asked me to be apart of the living nativity sceen but I said that should be left to Paraguayans. I think I'll stay here in site for Christmas, and then be with David for New Years. Time is FLYING by.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Ndaikuaai and Hesaka my new kitties

At the Jesuit Reunions in Encarnacion

Serafin loving David....

I took David to eat Paella. He wasn't to sure about the shrimp with their heads.

Carmelo, Inosensia, Serafin, and Faustino

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Hello everyone...Just want to start out by saying thank you for all of your love and support I really apperciate it!

So...A lot has changed in my life in the last few weeks. First I get the call about we need to stop construction on the house and wait till further notice..Then I go into Asuncion for a reconnect with my group and the meeting for all the volunteers in the concepcion area. We talk about how we all feel in our sites, if we've noticed any changes in the community, and the future in the area. After the meeting I went to Encarnacion for a thanksgiving with other volunteers. The food was amazing, lots of swimming, dancing, beer pong, and drinking. Got back to Asuncion after 2 days in the sun, and relaxacion I recieved a call letting me know that I would need to change sites by the 20th of december.

I was really bummed out because I have spent the last 4 months making relationships with people, understanding their lives, understanding the coop, and making friends. Friends who text while i am gone asking when i am coming back, people who notice when I am gone. Something that I had been really working for. When going to the termial i randomly asked david to up with me to my site. He had clothes for 2 days, the time we were in Asunicion, and said that he'd go with me.

Telling my contact Serafin was the hardest part. Thank goodness davind was with me. I was balling, trying to explain why i have to leave in my second language. David then explained in guarani what was up. He ended up staying for a week! We visited all of my families, and danielle. Oh danielle. She was preparing to leaving while we were there. Tomorrow is her final day as a volunteer. We went to her despida and danced all night long. SO much fun being with here I really am going to miss her. What a great preson, and role model. While we were with danielle, she gave me the best gift of all. Her cat had kittens a few months back, and wanted me to be the mother of the kittens. How could I say no?!? David and I walked the 4 km back to my host families house with the kitties....Dikuaai ( I don't know, in english) and Hesaka ( clear, in english), they are both little girls. SOOOO cute.

Well Peace Corps has found a new place for me to live, and complete my service. The pueblo is called San Salvador, its just outside of Villarica, a very cuchi city ( rich). A volunteer from my group is here now, and she is going home, so i am completing the job. Not really sure what the job is...but we'll see. Leaving was interesting..not too sure that anyone realized thursday was next week, or tomorrow. So i left this morning only saying goodbye to two families. I cried. A lot. But I have my kitties, and some new energy to start over. Not that I did things badly in my old site, but i learned a lot. I am excited to start...something...After 7 1/2 hours on buses with the kitties i have arrived, and tomorrow i'll be meeting the family that I am going to live with, for at least a month, then look for my own place. This time there are places to rent, and the cooperative won't have to build me a house!

For packages..if you're thinking about sending one should be sent to the Asuncion address that I wrote in one of my first blogs. Now i am only 3 hours from Asuncion instead of 7 hours.

Thanks for all of the love and support. I'll keep you updated on my new adventures. Going to buy internet soon..i promise...Oh yeah. Going to see Daddy yankee in concert this weekend.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

hello. so the three months that i've been in site have been quite the emotional rollercoaster. its crazy how in one day you can go from being the happy most excited preson, to very sad and wanting to go home. i feel as though i am dealing with it pretty well being as i am still here, very excited to work, and making great friends. i actually feel loved in my community.

so i moved out to calle 11 where a lot of the socios live to get to know the people out there better for a week. the family i lived with was amazing!! i mean one night we drank beer and watched pulp fiction, not even at my request. great people, really wanted to stay out there longer but, its pretty far from the ruta and its getting really really hot. therefore if i still wanted to work for the cooperative and keep the relationships i have on the ruta i'd have to ride my bike in. well i did that one day and i literally thought i was going to die! while living with that family i got a text from my current grandma who lives next door to the family i was living (am living with) with on the ruta. the text "hi liz its dolly, grandma wanted me to send you a text message to say she loves you and misses you and we are wondering when you are going to come back and visit." this was the second day i was gone out in calle 11. it felt so good to know that i am making some kind of impact to have it noticed i was gone for a few days. plus grandma rocks.

so things up in concepcion are kind of weird right now. there was a kiddnapping awhile ago, and its gotten pretty serious. there is a "terrorist" group called the EPP and they are apparently the ones who kidnapped the really rich estancia owner. well he was from the concepcion area, and so is the EPP. there have been a lot of police up here, and they are looking all around in the forest for these people. apperntly its made international news. there is a lot they arn't telling us, the people, i am pretty sure. anyways, all of us up here in concepcion were on a stand fast, which means we were allowed to leave our communities for 4 days, becuase they didn't want us traveling around where there were a lot of police in the area, so stay clear of all confrontation. that was fine, that passed and all is good. i am safe. well i think.

now that sandia season is done, and pina season doesn't start for a month its perfect time to start buliding my house!!! we had a few meetings together, cleared the space in the forest where they are going to build it, bought a few bricks, bought gas for the chain saw to cut the wood and had a meeting with the constructor. monday, bought gas. oh yeah this is after 3 months of living with families and feeling that it is time to have some space, to think, cook, and breath. tuesday, start cutting wood. i get a phone call. "stop all further construcion on your house and dont buy any more materials" i asked if i should be scared. no. apparently the situation up here is getting pretty serious, even though i feel 100% safe in my community. we have a meeting next wednesday for all the volunteers in the area. and then i'll know what is going on. if i can build the house or if i have to leave.

i really dont want to leave. i love my community, i have made some great relationships, i finally understand what is going on in the cooperative, and it would be very very difficult to start the process all over again. the one thing that keeps running through my head is the cooperative and how "development" work acutally works. so in a perfect situation, i would stay 2 years, get the people used to peace corps think of some projects, hopefully get them started. have to set up so there is an end goal to work towards. have a follow up who can start the next step, so on and so forth. well if the situation up here isn't great, and the chances of me getting a follow up arn't known, well that that sucks for the cooperative and for me, becuase i know that once i am done, thats it thats all. kinda poopy. anyways so we'll see next week.

cross your fingers and hope that....i don't know...hope for the best!!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Hey ya'll. Sorry I have been so bad about writing. I feel like my daily life has become so regular that things arn't so "interesting" any more. Even though I do question daily if the things I am doing would have been considered "normal" about 5 months ago, they are completly normal now.

So Danielle, Johnathan and I decided to take the boat from Concepcion down to Asuncion on the Rio Paraguay. The boat, so I hear typically takes around 18-24 hours. Both Daniell and Johnathan have tried to take the boat in the past, but things never really worked out. For Johnathan the boat left at 3:30 am when usually it is supposed to leave around 5 am. So we all decided to go. Danielle and I left our site, she is the volunteer really really close to me, on Saturday at 5 pm. We got into Concepcion at around 6:30 pm, went to Johnathans house then grocery shopping, we needed supplies for the trip. We had sent his host parents on a mission down to the port to ask around what time the boat would be coming in. His host parents talked to some people and said that the boat wouldn't be getting in until around 11 am so we didn't need to get down to the dock really really. Which sounded weird because the boat usually leaves around 5 am. So we stayed up pretty late and didn't prep completly because we were planning on doing it in the am. Well at 5:30 Johnathan's parents get a call that the boat will be at the dock in one hour. So we rush, get stuff ready, his family goes ahead of us on their moto. While walking we get a call that the boat is there and we need to hurry they are holding the boat. So we run. It is hot. We get there...no boat. It was a different boat that his parents thought was the boat that goes to Asuncion. So we sit and waited until 11 am for the boat to get into the dock. In the meantime danielle and I took a little row boat over to the island of Chaco i ( the i sounds like e, and in guarani i means little) The boat arrived, we got on , and waited another hour for them to fix the rudder, it apparently wasn't working too great. At about 12:30 on sunday we were on our way. At 2:00 pm the boat broke down, Danielle and I swam while waiting, then we drank some Cana, the local whisky. We sat there for about an hour and a half then it was fixed and we were on our way again. Then at about 1:00 am the boat broke down again. And we sat in the same place from 1:00 am until 7:00 am. Luckely there were hamacks to sleep in, and it wasnt too hot during the night. At 7:30 am they told us the boat was broken, they wern't sure if the back up boat would be coming before or after lunch, and that if we stayed on the boat we would be getting in really late at night, monday. We were close enough to a port town that the Paraguayan navy came and picked us up on a little motor boat and dropped us off on shore in a place I think called Rosario. At 9:30 am a bus going to Asuncion showed up. We had no idea where we were or how long the bus ride would take. Well 3 hours later we got to a paved road, the bus was full and it was about 100 degrees. Then once on the paved road it was about 3 more hours to Asuncion.

All in all it was an interesting trip. The workers on the boat were great, and loved that Danielle spoke practically perfect Guarani, and we had a good time with the hamacks and cana. Maybe I'll take the boat another time, but not anytime soon, being to took pracitally two days to get here, and it usually takes 8 hrs.

Now I am in Asuncion, for about 2 days then back up to 25 de Abril. Where the Cooperative has exported more than 50,000 kilos of Sandia. Oh and about the last blog, the sandia are definatly lifted more than the number of times I wrote. All of the sandia that don't get exported are lifted at least 3 or 4 more times before sold. Good thing its delicious, I don't mind lifting it, as long as I get to eat it 8 or more times a day!!!!!!

Oh its getting really HOT!http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Lucy, Mary , and I at the Paraguay vs. Colombia game

David and I

Jack-o-lantern out of sandi

they all thought i was nuts, taking out the fruit and cutting a face

on the boat at sunset

drinking cana with the crazy boat man and Danielle

Johnanthan and the trix

Danielle and I in our amacas

Danielle, the volunteer who lives very close to me, i'll miss her!

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1. The watermelon is picked off the vine after 3 months of love and care then carried to a pile.

2. The watermelon is picked up out of the pile and put into a cart that is pulled by two ox.

3. The watermelon is lifted out of the cart and put into the arms of a person who then puts the watermelon in its place, for now.

4. The watermelon is picked up and put on a table to be washed.

5. The watermelon is washed picked up and handed to a person to get weighed.

6. The watermelon is put on the machine to weigh, picked up again and handed to a person to get a sticker put on with the weight and producer code.

7. The watermelon now is handed to the¨runner¨ to put in the correct weight group.

8. The watermelon sits for a bit, then is lifted to put into the truck. At this point its usually an assembly line, so therefore there are more watermelon passed quickly in the hands of many.

9. The watermelon is placed in the truck and taken to Argentina, the case of my cooperative.

10... Not really sure how many more times its lifted before its on your table, but probably at least 10 more times.

So from now on when you go to the grocery store because you have the craving for a juicy, red, delicious watermelon, think to yourself how many times your 8 kg watermelon was lifted and how much love and care was put into it. (oh and my arms and back are really sore!!)

Also...I knew that producers always got screwed on the money side of things, and that prices get jacked up in every step of the process but it is outragous at how little these amazing people are getting for every watermelon. 5 mil guarani. that is $1. In asuncion, the capital, you buy a watermelon for 20 mil guarani.

Not sure how to make it better, of if there even is a way to make it better but allf i have to say is that i really have A LOT of respect for these farmers, and have A LOT more apperciation for my food. especially watermelon.http://lizinparaguay.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss