Shout Outs!

Things have definitely turned around in the past couple of days for the better in terms of feeling happy, wanting to do the Peace Corps, not wanting to be in San Diego on the beach with a frozen yogurt in hand (okay, I definitely still want that) and just being content, feeling wanted and welcome and ready to do this whole Peace Corps thing.  And I have quite a few people to thank for this at least for the time being.  So here goes the shout outs:

-       To Ruth, my twelve year old friend who could not possibly have more fitting of a name.  Thanks for sitting next to me and smiling when everyone else would leave the room my first few days.  It meant the world.  Literally all my friends know you’re the only reason I came back.  I’ll tell you that someday.

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     To Mabel, my sister best friend contact’s wife in my community.  Thanks for chatting nonstop about anything and everything from what kind of plants are in your backyard to a history lesson of Paraguay’s last war and not caring that my response to all your sentences, questions or not is si because I clearly just am not following.

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     To Blas, my contact.  Thanks for telling me I’m cool, laughing at my sarcastic on the side of mean comments and for letting me call you Bobo. 

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     To Brigida, the nurse in the health post.  Thanks for saying “Hola Arianna” everytime you see me so it looks like we’ve been friends for forever.  And for that one time you sent me a text beginning with “hola amiga”.  You make this whole friends thing easy and simple.

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     To Ña Maria, my 94 year old rockstar.  Thanks for calling me guapa (hardworking) because I respond back to you with one phrase in guarani.  Talk about a confidence booster.

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     To Osvaldo, the doctor.  We’ve already been over this.  Reference my last blog.  But thanks for singing Florence and the Machine with me and making me feel oh so American.

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     To Ana, my 10 year old friend.  Thanks for smiling and waving at me from your classroom because I visited your house that one time.  I hope you didn’t get in trouble with your teacher.

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     To Mili, my 3 year old friend.  Thanks for giving me a hug in the health post and for telling me I looked pretty.  So did you my princess, so did you.

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     To Jesus, my 10 year old brother.  Thanks for being so beyond annoying that when I complain I complain about you, and not life in Paraguay in general.   Also thanks for letting me call you Jesus without the accent in English.  I wish you knew how funny that was to me.

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     To Aida, my 12 year old sister.  Thanks for defending me when your classmates were whistling at me and for letting me follow you everywhere like a not so cool older sister does.  You’re the best.  I’ll try not to embarrass you further but no promises.

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     To my abuela, thanks for the delicious empanadas after I choked down cow foot stew.  Enough said.

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     To Blanca, the 12 year old girl I met today.  Thanks for asking what my name was after I asked yours.  It’s the simple things for sure. 

And there are many many more but I’ll save them for another post.  And obviously a huge shout out to all of you that have been emailing, facebooking, texting, letters, the whole deal.  I’m going to set up my mailbox this weekend so I’ll have my new address soon.  Your support is my world right now.  And always will be.  So the biggest shout out is to you guys!!!  Love you!

Paraguayan Pancakes

Woah.  I have never been on a crazier rollercoaster of emotions than now.  One day, no hour, no minute I’m bawling my eyes out and the next I have all the confidence in the world and feel so Paraguayan I forget what burritos taste like (obviously I don’t considering every third blog post I mention burritos…mmmmm).  I’m going to be all positive right now like that obnoxious person that tells you everything happens for a reason when your smartphone falls in the toilet and focus on the good.  So here is a list because my brain is far too exhausted from the constant jopara language situation to form complete thoughts in English...or really any language for that matter.

 1) I have a bomb.com 94 year old friend that speaks rapidly in Guarani to me and doesn’t have a care in the world when I don’t understand anything.  She keeps talking with her walking stick in one hand and her machete in the other.  Keep rocking on Ña Maria, I love your style.

     

      2) My doctor (cute, mind you) speaks English.  Yup, English.  He uses words like oblivious and phrases like “My english is rusty”.  And says the word “like” every five seconds.  Just like me.  He uses English slang.  Fluent I tell you.  Oh my god.  Never been more attracted to someone in my entire life.  We talked about Burger King.  A lot.  Yes, Sierra, he is fully aware that you basically manage Burger King.  And that will be where he proposes so don’t you worry.  With a ridiculously rico (delicious) vanilla milkshake.  Okay, you get the point.

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      3) I made my first joke in Guarani.  Which keep in mind it is highly difficult to make any sassy, obnoxious, slightly rude comments like I would in English with a vocabulary that is limited to “how many years do you have?” and “where do you live?”.  And granted the joke was simply a scream showing my reaction to the cow foot that was placed on my plate this afternoon with a little “Mba’epa koa?” (what is this) on the side.  Four ladies were laughing way more than they probably should have been but all in all success.

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     4)  I made a baby smile.  That sounds creepy all by itself so I guess I’ll just add this sentence after to try and reduce the creepiness.  Nope, still weird.

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     5)I can now successfully take someone’s blood pressure.  I’m basically a nurse.

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     6) I don’t mind washing my clothes by hand.  It’s kind of therapeutic and I feel very accomplished when they’re on the line to dry. 

     

     7)  I made pancakes…twice.  Without a spatula, and over a fire.  Just call me the Pancake Queen.

     8) I did a pirouette with a 4 year old….and she was impressed.  Thanks for all those dance lessons Mom and Dad.

     

      9) I milked a cow, again successfully.  I’m just one big ball of success right now.

     

     10) An 11 year old girl literally started crying when I told her I’m from the states because she thinks I know Justin Bieber.  I confirmed that yes, he lives in my house.

     

     11) I may have found a potential house to live in after a couple of months with this family.

     

     12) I hiked to a waterfall.

     

     13) I became friends with a sweet taxi driver, so when all of you come to visit and don’t want to ride the Paraguayan buses with your bags I’ve got it all sorted out.

And that about wraps it up.  And that helped.  Because now I just feel like I can’t imagine a better week.  When you’re up you’re up.  Hope you guys are crazy successful at home and if you’re feeling like you’re not just wander around until someone invites you into their home to eat fried bread.  That always does the trick for me.  Love you and all of your successful selves.  Miss you terribly.  

Don't let it fool you...

Our first three months in site our one and only job is to integrate.  We went from having every hour of our lives scheduled during training to being told “just integrate” and we’ll come back in four months to discuss your sites.  We’re not supposed to start any projects, but solely just to get to know the people in our communities.  Because of our supposedly achieving American personalities we were given a census to do where we ask 50-60 families about issues regarding health, make a map of the resources in our community and write a report on where the community is at in the beginning of our service.  But given my experience in college I can write that report on one rainy afternoon so basically you have to fill your time in an unproductively project way while at the same time a productive relationship building way. 

It’s been a week in site today (Saturday, April 19^th) and I do not have internet in site so that’s why this is late.  So far it’s been pretty hard.  I am a first time volunteer in my community so most people have never met someone that isn’t Paraguayan before.  Everything from their refusal to believe that my hair color is natural to the fact that they ask me if I understand all of English because they don’t get that in other parts of the world Spanish and guarani are not spoken, their lack of patience with guarani because they’ve never tried to learn another language, them asking if I came to Paraguay on a bus, to what am I doing here. 

So it’s been a whirlwind of a week of emotions.  I’ve met a solid amount of people but seeing as our only job is to meet people my achieving American personality thinks I should get out of bed on this rainy day and meet some more people.  But by meet I mean I sit there and smile while the other people talk about me.  But that’s about all I can do right now.  I am definitely not confident in either language so hopefully that will improve.  I started a book where each page is going to be the recipe for a traditional Paraguayan dish with a photo of the cook and the food too.  It’s an “integration project” that I randomly thought of with a little bit of self-esteem on the side with the photos.  So far I only have one entry but more will come.  Cooking is a fun way to pass time because it gives you something to do, will be highly useful for when I live on my own, not much language is required (hand motions work wonders), and is something Paraguayans take a lot of pride in.  

I’m also searching for a place to live on my own for after but haven’t been successful and I’m hoping this coming week to start a garden at my contact’s house because it’s already fall here and the more vegetables the merrier. 

So yea, definitely some ups, also some downs.  Paraguayans aren’t big on showing emotions so when I was crying at my grandma’s house on my birthday morning they just ask why are you crying and then let you be because they’re not used to it.  But without internet, and my phone service was down because of a storm so I couldn’t even talk to friends in Paraguay I was feeling lonely and therefore sad.  But I later received a message from my contact and one of my guarani professors that made me feel very loved.  I also made banana bread with my sister which was delicious to her surprise.  And I received a used, quite dirty, apron from my grandmother and a pair of very pink much too small pants from my family.  So all in all, not such a bad birthday after all.  First breakdown of I’m sure many….

Integrating is hard people.  Don’t let it fool you.

Swear-in

 

On April 10^th, 2014 I swore in and officially became a Peace Corps volunteer.  I was honored to be chosen by my group (G44) to represent us in a quick speech during the ceremony, tri-lingual that is.  It was an awesome morning as we all made the transition from trainee to volunteer and we will have to wait until August when we will meet up for another few days in training.  Miss you guys already! Here’s some pics from the ceremony.

Cordillerita

Cordillerita.  Where to begin? On my site visit for five days, now two weeks ago (sorry, campo internet life is limited) I was less than pleased.  I actually cried more than I have in forever.  Nobody was talking to me, everybody left when I entered the room, and I felt like all the other volunteers were having welcome home parties with their communities while I was sitting on my bed in my room shared with my uncle sobbing.  And my little hermanita Mili who is 3 years old and I would have the same conversation, every hour it seemed… Mili: why are you crying? Me: I’m sad. Mili: Oh. (leaves room) and this was the life.  I couldn’t leave the house because it was raining and supposedly unsafe to go alone but nobody would go with me either.  The school was closed for rain one day, and conferences in the pueblo the next day.  I went to the health post and awkwardly sat waiting to introduce myself to the nurse who was the only one working and clearly did not have time to chat.  I panicked and did the 2 hour walk into my pueblo to pass some time without the family planning to take the bus back…and the bus didn’t come.  So I walked the 2 hours back.  And yet, this was my favorite day.  And so overall, not good.  Not good at all.  But I did realize a few things once I returned and took a long nap in my home in my Guarambare training community. 

 

1)       How obsessed I am with my host family in Guarambare.  Obsessed.  I wasted all my phone credit calling and texting them for the week telling them that I was yet indeed still sad every hour. 

2)      How scary it is to move out on your own, solita, into a culture that is so different from what you’re used to, in a language where you can only express your basic needs, not what you’re actually feeling.  And to not take the laughs, the stares, the constant talking about you while you’re standing right there, personally. 

3)      How hard peace corps is.  Up until now it has been smooth sailing.  My guarambare family is wonderful, crazy as I prefer and I didn’t take advantage of that enough.  I was also constantly surrounded by 24 of my new best friends estadounidogua for support and to confide in how much we hate eating slabs of fried meat and with a side of fried bread for lunch, how hard guarani is to learn but yet how patient our professors were repeating the same exact phrase 10 times.  And then suddenly with only a ceremony and a dinner inbetween you’re on a bus to the middle of nowhere. 

So I’m feeling nervous.  Will Peace Corps be everything I’d hoped it to be? Will people want to work with me or just wish I wasn’t there? Will I ever be good enough in Guarani to fully communicate and do my job?  Do I have the skills to even help them?  Who knows? I don’t.  I’m 90% nervous.  10% excited.  And as I’m constantly told…… FUERZAAAAAAAA (Translation: strength). Wish me luck. 

 

Site Selection Day

A lot has happened.  Last week was site celebration day!  You know, the day where some random person arbitrarily decides where we will be living and working for the next two years.  Before finding out, we were distracted by a short cultural trip to Aregua.  

And don't worry all my San Diego loves... i have found the beach after all.  My marine science degree is relevant in Paraguayan community health after all!  

But then our mini-vacation ended after an extremely fancy Spanish meal and we found out our sites.  

And naturally, I was the first one to be picked out of a hat to find out and drumroll please..... CORDILLERITA!!!

It is about two hours east of Asuncion on a bus right outside of a bigger town or pueblo called Piribebuy.  

I went to visit for a few days this past week and it is absolutely gorgeous.  There are rivers everywhere, with coconut trees and sugarcane overwhelming the beautiful red dirt roads.

It has a health post and a primary school up until 9th grade but kids have to travel into Piriibebuy if they go to high school.  There's a church that doesnt have mass every Sundays but more whenever they decide to.  Talk about tranquilopa.  I love it so far and will write more about my visit soon.  Hasta luego!  Hope you all are well!