Zumbahape

For over a year now I have been trying to start an exercise group of some kind with the women in my community but never with any success. Paraguayans think that exercise is only for fat people and have a lot of shame doing it publicly because its not part of their culture like it is in the States. But somehow I got lucky and my two neighbors and two other members of their family and I have a zumba class going!! We do it Monday-Friday in the afternoon (okay let's be real, some days we skip) but it has been fairly consistent for almost a month now which is a huge success I never imagined! The attendance varies greatly and sometimes its just the kids that follow me around everywhere but for the most part I'm really excited about it and they love it too! Something new and different and they are excited about the potential weight loss (who isn't really?) and yay yay yay!

A quick funny story related to zumba is that we were doing it behind the health post because its the only really community space that is somewhat hidden so people can't watch us. But one afternoon one of the kids left the water spout open so water was draining out of it and we didn't notice so the entire community was without water access for the whole evening and next morning. Oops! Sorry community, my bad! And so we are now banned from doing it there and had to switch to a woman's house haha. Not my best moment....

Kids Day for the Win

Kids Day! It is something I always remember asking why America doesn't have it when I was younger. We have mothers day and fathers day and I was a selfish little brat who wanted her own day too. Well better late than never, Paraguay has kids day and youth day (two separate days) and people go all out! The school throws a festival filled with chocolate milk (the treat of choice for little paraguayans) and music and dancing and its always a ball.

But this year kids day, August 16^th, fell on a Sunday and for weeks I kept asking around what activities were planned in the community to celebrate kids day and nobody knew of anything. I was shocked and decided to take it upon myself to throw them a celebration in my yard. And it was a blast! Almost thirty kids came, some who I hadn't met yet, and we played games for days it seemed. Coloring, sack races, pin the tail on the elephant, tug of war, face painting, tails, wheelbarrow races, and more! The pictures explain it better than I can so here you go!

Props to all the teachers in the world

Condoms! Condoms! Condoms! For the love of god I hope they use them. In the beginning of August I started a sexual health class with 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th graders and it is definitely.....interesting. And exhausting. Yet rewarding. And fun. Yet makes me question how anyone can ever be a teacher. To all the teachers out there, props to you! Seriously. Between these weekly classes and my half hour weekly health sessions with preschool-3^rd graders I am so tired. It's so hard. Granted the hour long walk each way in the hot Paraguayan sun to the school is definitely a little more taxing than the average American teacher commute. And I am teaching in a 3^rd language I am far from fluent in (I still secretly say “really?? wow!!!” to most things the preschoolers tell me. And it usually works). But not only do you have to keep 30 kids alive and have them not bite each other and to clean up after themselves but you also have to teach them something! The amount of times we have sang songs about wearing shoes (to prevent parasites which most kids have), drawn pictures about wearing shoes, played games about wearing shoes, did skits about wearing shoes is too many to count. When just a few hours after class a kid shows up to my house barefoot part of me dies inside. And to finish a full day with these lunatics and then go home and grade their homework and plan for another full day. How the heck do you guys do it? I have never had more appreciation for a job, and I also am learning that teaching is definitely not for me.

But in the meantime, I am learning a lot about myself :-). I enjoy the hugs and excitement to see me of the little ones so very much and I can't help but smile every time this one kindergartener calls me “Profesora Sevo'i” which translates into Teacher Parasite. And she honestly thinks my name is parasite so thats awesome. It also does feel really good when you see a kid leave the bathroom and wash his hands with soap (the little things in life). And they make me feel like a popstar walking down the red dirt roads of my community yelling my name from all sides.

But, I am really really really enjoying the sexual health class. It is making me realize that abstinence only education is just about as dumb an idea as you can get. I think back to middle and high school and all I can remember is watching a movie about a uterus shaped like a pancake and not wanting to eat pancakes for 3 years. And everything after that is plain experimentation which is exactly what we don't want. Teenage pregnancy is a huge problem here in Paraguay and I honestly think me being a 25 year old, single, with no kids, and happy is the most successful project I will have here. Almost everyone I know has kids by age 20 because that is the culture, but we are little by little trying to change that.

I have had classes on everything from imagining our ideal boyfriends/girlfriends to talking about cultural myths about sex to thinking about the costs both in money and emotional of having a baby at a young age to just recently a condom demonstration where we talked about the myths associated with condom usage and then practiced putting them on bananas. And my favorite part was that the teacher thanked me for doing the activity because it is really hard for him to do it because the moms get mad and said he wanted to continue doing hands on activities with me! Which was awesome!!! Even one of the kids came up to me and said thanks for talking about it with them because all their parents are very closed and don't want to talk about sex but they have to learn from someone!

So all in all the school has been a wonderful experience and I am wrapping up in the next few weeks as the heat is already starting and summer break will arrive sooner than we can count. It has boosted my confidence and improved my relationships with the kids and adults with my community and I couldn't be more grateful for the experience. I mean, if I can spin a condom in the air while talking to kids about STDs in a third language then what can't I do???????

Winter Break Camp

Blog catch up time!!! It's been 4 months since I've last written, yikes! I've been meaning to write for a while but I've been busier than ever and just enjoying my Paraguayan life while I still can. I don't know where the last 4 months has gone! Everything also just seems so normal to me that I find it hard sometimes to think of things to write about. But I'm going to try to wrap up the last few months in a few different posts :-)

I got back from the most beautiful trip to the USA in the beginning of July only to jump right into winter break for the school. The winter this year was not bad at all, rarely dropping below 50 but 50 feels like death because there is absolutely no way to escape it and no insulation. Over the winter break I did a “Planet Earth” themed camp for the kids in my neighborhood because the majority have never been outside of a 20 mile radius of their home, and I'm not exagerrating. So in order to try and give them a glimpse of the world I did a jungle day, space day, and oceans day. We played games, drew pictures, watched videos, and all things fun! I had a blast and I'm pretty sure the kids did too!

Here are some pics of the kids at camp!