Ok, so I lied, we are not in Asuncion today, but we do find out our sites today, Which is awesome, and exciting, and really scary, and I'm very nervous to leave the safety of the training community, but thats how it is. Yesterday we had out final Dia de Practica. As you may recall from my last entry, I have been working with another volunteer named Ali, on cleaning out and building a new top for a well.

This is what the water looked like after we removed the top, and cleaned away and accidentally dropped in some leaves. Very dirty, and well, I wouldn't drink it. This by the way is their back up water, they have running water, but its not very reliable.

The dead frog that we fished out of the water, I'm guessing it had been there for a while it was pretty bad, we also removed a few live ones.

This is our second try at a tapa, the one from last week didn't work out the bamboo was to young, and so it shriveled up, I still can't tell the difference but I hope its better this time.

And the complete tapa with access door.

Tomorrow we are going to shock the water with chlorine, this will kill any parasites and bugs still living in the water, and make it drinkable. All in all I think we were very productive, and I feel like we accomplished something.

Last week was also Easter, here called Semana Santa.

For Semana Santa, everyone makes chipas, which are made with flour from corn, and mandioca, eggs, Paraguyan cheese and pig fat, sounds good doesn't it. Actually they aren't too bad, but when you eat them a lot, or at least for me, I'd rather have a bagel. So my mom is a Chiperia, and so we made close to 300 of them, maybe even more.

This was the second batch of chipas from wed we made about 2 more that night and then 3-4 batches on Thursday.

This was a huge family effort

One of my sisters, very happy with her Chipas.

My mom making the chipas (she's a bit camera shy)

And my Aunt putting a batch in the tatakua (guarani for fire= tata hole=kua)

They would only let me cut the banana leaves that the chipas were on but thats ok, I didn't want to mess with tradition.

Semana Santa was a lot of fun lots of down time for reading, and chatting with my family. I'm going to miss living here

It maybe a while before I can post again, next week we might be in Asuncion, to find out out future sites, and the week after we go to visit those sites and sort of see where we are going to be living for the next two years, and also to meet one of our community contacts, one of the people who is going to help us in our community.

While in training we have whats called A Dia de paractica, where we started by getting to know our community, and seeing what it was we could do to help them, sort of like being a volunteer, which by the way, I will be one month from yesterday. So for our Dia de practica, Ali another Volunteer and I met a woman called Ña Rosa, and she showed us her well which right now looks like this.

The top isn't so safe, and aside from the fact that its easy for stuff to get in there, there are vines growing down into it… not so good.

Here is the inside of the well where you can see the vines growing in to it.

So we asked her if we could make her a new tapa (thats the top thats keeps stuff out) and clean the water as well. So today Ali and I began to build the tapa, with the help of our friend Amanda.

This is me wielding a machete Hake (Guarani for careful)!

The we cut down Bamboo, in guarani Taquara, and measured and cut it

And this is as far as we got, to be completed next week.

So next week we will finish the tapa by adding the rest of the bamboo, and making a door. And finally maybe darning her well so that we can go in it and clean the bottom, but we have to talk to her about that. Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, and Passover to others, and to anyone else I left out, Happy first week of April.

As always heres a sunset!

Long field practice is … LONG!

So it poured really hard here when we left form Santo Domingo, and all the way to Ca'aguazu which is where we were for long field, we had to push the van like 3-4 times.

So we finally got there, and I was the last one dropped off, the farthest away from our volunteers site, about 1.5k (not really to far, but to have to walk it 3 times a day…) and monday night after it rained, we didn't do too much, just hung out and chatted about what we were going to do for the rest of the week. Tomas, our volunteer lives in a veer small house, next to his old host family, and has to use their bathroom, I hope thats not my situation (but I don't want to jinx myself), and his huerta (thats spanish for garden for vegetables), and his pigs.

Tuesday morning it was pouring again so I decided not to go, and ended up sitting and chatting with the Señora who was hosting me, and watching her cook some Paraguayan food which was really cool. And she said that my spanish was really good which was great to hear. Then in the afternoon after it finally stopped raining, we met up again, and had a small sort of language class, where we worked on charlas-- which is spanish for chat, but really means a lesson your giving in a school.

I had to leave at 5:30 because the Señoras husband works in Ciudad del Este during the week, and she didn't like to leave the house open late.

Wednesday morning we did some more work on our Charlas, and talked about a different charla, about parasites, and also how to make fabric softener, we were doing both of those things that afternoon with the committee of mothers and fathers, but Wed. afternoon it rained again, and so that was a no go. Much later in the afternoon we began work on our fogón, which we didn't get to far with because we had to did a hole that ended up being about 6'ft deep to get to the red clay dirt, which is what you use as mortar for the bricks.

Thursday we gave our lesson at the school, which I guess was successful, but the kids are really shy and quite when they don't know you especially with the americans. Later in the day we worked more on the fogón, and pretty much finished, except for the last part of the Chimney.

Friday morning we went to a plantation for murukuja which is Guarani for Passion fruit. That was really cool for me, they are really good and pretty easy to grow. We harvested a bunch of them, and so got to keep a bunch, I'm harvesting the seeds from some so that I can grow them at my site.

Because it rained so much I didn't get to take many pictures but I did take a few pictures of the plantation, which I'm sorry to say are all over exposed,

This is a murukuja -- Passion Fruit

And this is the row of vines they grow kind of like grapes.

And here's a cool sunset from last week.

Last week we had our Tech overnight, which is an opportunity, to go and stay with another volunteer, see what their community is like, and to live with another family, and also to do some kind of work, that you will do possibly as a volunteer. My group went to a place called, Costa Ju'u, in the Department of Paraguari, and our Project was to build a fogón and a Pileta.

A fogón is a large brick, wood burning oven sort of. Its base is 2 meters by about 60cm, and 7 bricks high, then you fill that in, the top past has a hole for wood, and on top or that is a stove top, and an oven (which is just a metal box set into the bricks). The idea is that many women here, cook on the floor over an open fire, and it take a long time to cook if thinks have to be cooked separately. The fire in the fogón heats the entire stove and oven all at the same time.

The pileta is 3 brick columns that you can place a sink on, so that your washing can me done at waist heigh instead of having to bend to was in a basin, and the water in the sink can be drained into a bucket and used for chickens or watering trees, and what have you, if there is no running water.

We build the fogón at a school

This is the beginning step

Then we had to mix the mortar, which in this case was dirt from a hole that the had dug at the school, this is Lauren standing in the hole.

And this is the mortar being mixed, which is the dirt, water, a little bit of cement, and cow manure, which works really well.

This is the finished fogón

And the finished Pileta

We weren't able to completely finish the fogón, which needs a chimney, but while we were building, it began to rain really hard, and you can't lay bricks in the rain.

And finally this is the storm that prevented us from finishing, and prevented me from being able to use the internet last week to post this.

This week coming up is Long field practice, where we go to a different site, for five days, and sort of get and inside look at really being a volunteer. We will be building another fogón, a latrine, and giving talks to a school and a women's group about dental health and nutrition. Should be interesting.

Ok so this is a really random post, but I woke up this morning and there was an ox cart in the pation so I took a picture

Then later my sister came into my room and told me there was a monkey, and I though she was pulling my leg but then I could here the OoOoOo of the monkey.

So here are the bigfoot type photos where you can really see,

so I ran back to my room to get my other lens, and here is the monkey.

Asuncion is a really nice city here's what happened dung our trip:

First we took a bus into Asuncion, it's really hard to say where the country ends and the city begins, its not really a city like you or I would think, it actually reminds me of like ocean parkway; no tall buildings at least not where we were. So that was fine, the first place we went was Terminal Ominbus, where you ca get buses to other cities or to other countries, for a lot of Guarani but the cost is actually pretty low, like $110 to take a bus one way to Chile, which is pretty cool. Then we were told that we should take the 51 to our next place and that this buss would go all the way along Ave. Rep. Argentina, which it doesn't. So we asked this woman who told us to get off and that we would just have to walk 2 blocks to find the place we were looking for. Well we got off the bus and asked around and ended up having to walk 10 blocks. We did finally find it a company called Fundacion Moises Bertoni, they do sustainable development and basically tack care of 2 mature reserves in Paraguay, and are trying to fight the major deforestation going on in Paraguay. The last place was a really big super market, that was super expensive. After this we took bus 31 and our teacher told us to get off when we saw a church and a cemetery. So we did and walked around the cemetery for a while it was cool, but really creepy. It was raining but i did take a few pictures of the cemetery.

My partner and I were walking in separate places, and I found a mausoleum where the door was open, and one of the shelves with a casket on it had fallen and the casket was broken and open, boy was that creepy! So then we left the cemetery and asked some people where the street we needed was and they pointed us in the wrong direction (we ended up waling all the way back to were we got on the bus and had to get on it again). We finally got to the Cuerpo de Paz headquarters just on time.

This past weekend the trainees all went visit a real volunteer, to get a chance to chat with someone who had been through this, and see where they were and what sort of things they were doing with their service. I was at a site in Fulgencio Yegros, which I think is between Ca'acupe and Caraguatay.

So this is Carla's house, she lives on the ruta, which is interesting for a "rural" health volunteer, but I really liked the different dynamic of people she was able to work with because of that. It was raining very hard (which it sounds like its going to do soon again) so I wan;t able to take pictures on the way. I had my first mate when I got there with was really hot, and burnt my lip, but thats ok, it was really good. Carla's friend came over later in the afternoon, and we all made bread, which was great, and much then most of the bread I've had here. On monday we went to the Basilica of Ca'acupe, which was very beautiful, and had some awesome stained glass work. We visited with some neighbors, and sat in on a reunion for the health post, which is like a meeting, they are trying to raise money to expand so that they have room for a dentist, and on tuesday we went to Caraguatay, to the raido station that she does with three other volunteers. All in all a really great fun weekend, very informative, and is a jumping off point for me to know what I want out of my service. Aside from the fact that Carla was just really chill and I'd like to hand out again.

Here are some more pictures not all from this weekend though:

This was a really sweet sunset a few days ago, taken from my front yard

We had a really great lighting storm last week, the clouds here are so cool so sorry in advance, there will probably be lots of cloud pictures for the next 2 years.

This is from the side of my house, its the neighbors mango tree

And finally this is my sister Fátima, she's a really great kid, I'm working on the rest of my family, maybe I'll have pictures of them next week.

Oh and a freaking gigantic bug from Carlas yard, her hand is in the photo for reference.

This all for now, language is coming along, I think were going to start Guarani in a week or two which is great because I feel like I need all the time I can get with that.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would be great if possible to send me music, it's weird, listening to the radio here, you only get latin music, Paraguayan polka, and Lady Gaga.

Paraguay a small glimpse

So here are pictures as promised, and a quick explanation of each.

In our yard there are two giant mango trees, that provide a lot of shad from the hot Paraguayan sun.

This is the house I'm living in, the door that you see is the door to my room, which is modest but conformable, with a bed, end table, and armoire type thing.

This is on the walk to my house from the main road (the ruta)

This long straight road with no shade is the walk I do about four times a day to the Peace Corps school (CECP'i) and at the end there is a left turn and 3-4 more minutes to the school. All in all about a 10-15 minute walk from my house to school.

This may be silly but I'm not use to seeing roosters around much less living with them.

.

This is the kitchen my family has, its outside and not actually attached to the house.

We've had a lot of information thrown at us recently, I'm doing ok absorbing it. A lot of language, since thats your main survival skill. My family has been teaching me Guarani, or maybe more like they are talking and a word will stand out to me so I have them repeat it bunch until I think i have a grasp on it.

Mba' eichapa - is the typical greeting its like Hola comma esters (hey how are you)

Usually it take me asking my family again the net day, for me to actually remember it, but it totally depends on the word, some of them just stick with me, and some I forget five seconds after they tell me, but thats true in spanish too, unless I'm writing it down or see it written, I seem to remember better that way.

Saturday 20/2/10- The Peace Corps hosted a small "summer camp" for the local kids. It was two hours in the morning and it was really about teaching them about their dental health. We had a health volunteer come to our Village, to conduct the camp. It was really great to see the techniques used to make it fun fr the kids, but also so that they retain somas of the knowledge. And the Peace Corps provides all sorts of aids like scripts and cutouts and ideas to make it fun. This sort of class (charla) is the kind you usually do in schools along with a project like getting fluoride into the schools.

Its really beautiful here, which makes it fun and the atmosphere is very relaxing, no one rushes anywhere, which is nice. I do miss the hustle and bustle though, I guess when thats what you grow up with, thats just what you expect, but a change of pace is always good. There is a lot of bamboo here, and its tall, like 2 stories tall, and when the wind blows hard it has an eerie creak that I'm really stating to like, and it sways really far over, but I guess since its so strong, no one worries about that.

Thats all for now, Wednesday we go into Asuncion with a partner and have to find someplace on our own and learn how the busses work, and eventually end up at the Peace Corps headquarters. I think that when we get there we find out were we're going this weekend, we get to visit a Volunteer over the weekend and see what this is really all about which I'm very excited for.

Wish me luck in Asuncion.

Hey all-

There´s so much to write about i´m not sure where to begin. The plane ride was painfully long and flying into Paraguay the plane missed the runway. It is crazy hot here, but I´m adjusting to that well, its nice when its around 85. But dispite the heat, Paraguay is beautiful, the sunsets are amazing and everything is so vibrantly colored. My family is really cool, My mom is Doña Clara ( a house wife), and my dad is Don Diosenel ( bricklayer) I have an hermanita(litte sister) Fatima who is 14 and Javier who is 4, plus a ton of exteded family. Our village is used to having traniees im my parents 5th. In our village we have our small center for tranin which is called a CECPí when you as i to the end of someting it becomes small. The other trainees and I have all quickly bonded though we don´t all live in the same village. Half of the health is in

Well its the new year, and I leave in a month. Tomorrow mom and I are going shopping for all sort of stuff I'm going to need.

These are my friends, at Bill's (center) New Year's Eve party. I'm kind of counting down the last couple of time's I'm going to be able to hang out with everyone, at least for a while anyway.

I'm still scared and excited , mostly excited though.

Today, I accepted my invitation to join the Peace Corps, and I'm freaking out. I mean I'm totally excited its just crazy that in a little over a month I'll be living in a different country speaking a different language or two... So I kind of feel like I have this look on my face, that "deer in the headlights look" when something is coming at you and your not sure which way to go. But I'm sure it'll be great, and exciting, and hard work. I can't wait, I just wish it wasn't so hard to leave everyone here.