Hello! Today’s theme is a compilation of stories, true events, which happened to me here that, would NEVER happen in the states. Or maybe they would, but I still think they are worth telling…
1) My volunteer friend Danielle recently married her Paraguayan boyfriend. I went to the wedding. And this is the story of how I got there…Originally, I had arranged for my friend to drive me; however, when I arrived at his house at approximately 11:00am he was still drinking from the night before and couldn’t manage to get much out of his mouth except for a bunch of jumbled Guarani…and the only thing I took from that gargle was Che raku (I’m horny). I said Baby, I don’t see anything wrong with your hands, and I started the trek out to the ruta to wait for a bus. About 10 minutes into my walk a truck pulls up and said “Get in!” Oh, alright if you insist…I will take a ride in your air conditioned lindo truck instead of sweating to death during my hour long walk. They ask if I don’t mind running a few errands with them and then they would drop me off in San Ignacio. Dale. I got all the usual questions…What is your name? Are you single? You just watch you are going to take a Paraguayan back with you too. You know, I knew this American who got married here (they always do) what are you doing here? Where are you going? We were driving through all kinds of back roads in my community into other communities then we stopped to pick up another man and were on our way again. We were drinking terere (drinking terere while driving is my favorite). We came across this girl walking in the road so we picked her up and took her to her destination as well. The driver of the vehicle told me he used to be really poor and had to walk 17k to and from school every day and nobody used to pick him up in their autos when they drove by. That was when he decided he would always offer to drive people when he passed them walking on the road when he had his own car (Que amable!) So then we stopped at this other house in the middle of nowhere and loaded the entire back of the truck up with giant bags of cotton. And then we were on our way…San Ignacio bound. The whole time the driver kept telling me he was going to show up at the wedding to be my date…he would bring us a bottle of wine and we would dance. And I about shit my pants when he actually did show up at the wedding later that night….
2) So the day after the wedding I woke up at 7am to head to the ruta and wait for a bus back to my site. I needed to be back early because my commission was throwing a horse race for a fundraiser that afternoon. I arrived back at my house and passed out until about 12:30 because I was told I needed to be at the horse race at 1:00pm. I arrived at 1:15pm and everyone else showed up around 4:00pm. Really guys? I could have used the extra 3 hours of sleep. I was sent over to one of the entrances to collect money and I was bored out of my mind because nobody really came in from that entrance. Around 7pm I wandered over to one of the neighbors’ houses with my friend Teresa. The family was out back sitting around a fire…well cooking over the fire…but also sitting around it. Mind you, it’s 110 degrees outside. So I sit down by the fire and am immediately offered wine. I said no thanks, I’m still detoxing from last night (and Ffffffff it’s so hot right now). The father would not take no for an answer with the whole wine thing so I’m sitting around a fire drinking wine when its 110 degrees outside. Then I’m handed a plate of piping hot fried chicken (and mind you I have NO APPETITE whatsoever at this point); However, it is culturally insensitive to not eat food you are offered in this country, and this family is particularly poor so I felt very honored and thankful that they were offering me all this, but I was seriously struggling and sweating bullets. And then they all started commenting on how much I was sweating…Hmmm I wonder why? Haha.
3) I’m currently taking care of one of my volunteer friend’s dog, and he has several little girlfriends in the community…just like your typical Paraguayan man. The difference? Tucker’s neutered and is not producing little bastard children…I mean, there are a handful of quality men in this country. So one day, one of the novias and my favorite little puppy came to visit me and I was so excited to see her! Then…dun dun dun…Perruna, my neighbors’ dog,…the bitch of the neighborhood comes over. This dog is such a meany…attacks everything, but she LOVES me; however, she’s super jealous whenever I’m paying attention to anything but her so she starts attacking this darling little puppy. And I mean biting her neck and whipping and throwing her around…I thought the puppy was going to die. I’m in my front yard screaming at Perruna throwing my shoes at her and hitting her with my broom (no wonder I’m the main topic of conversation) and she is not stopping so I stepped in between the two and grabbed the puppy and ran inside my house with her and locked Perruna out. The puppy is freaking out, but I finally got her calmed down and then noticed I had blood running down my arm so I went to the bathroom to wash it off. Apparently, Perruna got a good bite on me as well because I had three puncture marks on my hand. Then I walked out of the bathroom to find the little puppy taking a GIANT dump in my living room. Apparently, Perruna literally scared the shit out of her haha. I had to take a surprise trip to Asuncion the following day for a precautionary rabies shot. 9 hour round trip for a vaccine. Love my life.
4) Monday, February 13, 2012 I went to bed around 11:00pm dreading the next day…Valentine’s Day…My 23rd Valentine’s Day by myself…spent in a country where the most important thing in life is having your significant other…well this is getting old. So I’m sleeping when a phone call from one of my friends, Mario, wakes me up at 3:00 am…Hello? “Hey Casey! Where’s your house? I can’t remember…we’re at the police station right now…we’re coming over!” Well you need to turn around because you already passed my house. But it’s 3am, I’m sleeping, what’s going on?! “Come outside we’re coming over!” The only thing that’s running through my head at this point is…Oh my God, what am I going to do…people are going to see me with this boy at my house at 3am and they are going to say I’m this giant slut, and there are going to be all kinds of (new) rumors about me…OMG! And then they arrived. My friend Mario, his brother in law, a girlfriend, and another friend…and they came to Serenade me! His friend plays the violin so he played me some romantic music for a good half an hour and we all just stood there and listened and drank some beer while all the dogs in the neighborhood went CRAZY! I’m sure all the neighbors woke up…but then I decided I don’t care because I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m just getting serenaded people, don’t mind me…go back to bed. Then we all migrated to my porch, drank some more beers, vodka (gotta love the city dwellers…they know about vodka!), sang and danced to some fantastic songs and did a flabongo for good measure. My best Valentine’s Day yet!
5) A journal entry: “There’s nothing like writing in my journal by candlelight. The power’s been out for approximately 6 hours. Loving life in the campo.”
6) My next door neighbors are my best friends. I spend all of my free time over there and they are absolutely amazing to me. I eat almost every meal over there, I wash my clothes over there (they have a washing machine woo hoo!), and they understand (better than anyone else I’ve encountered) how hard it is to be a foreigner in this country/community. The parents treat me as their daughter and the daughters treat me as their sister, and I feel like part of the family…it’s amazing. So Sunday there was another horse race in the community. I was bored (per usual) so I went to hang out. I met up with Lorena (one of the neighbor girls). We bought some wine and coke, planted ourselves on a nice patch of grass and started drinking. In the words of Lorena, “Vamos a pasar bien… y bien barracha.” I like the way you think. Mission Accomplished. Thankfully, I didn’t make any bets on the race because the pretty Black horse that I wanted to win definitely lost. We headed back to Lorena’s after the race to hang out. At one point Lorena said go get your speakers and let’s go to the high school. We need to clean the boys’ bathroom. Mmmm alright. So we show up at the high school around 8pm with our pitcher of wine and coke, jamming to some super sweet Brazilian music (Michel Techo “Ai Se Eu Te Pego” and Gustavo Lima “Balada” seriously look them up) and cleaned the boys’ bathroom. What is my life? Haha
7) I’m still working with my bathroom commission and we’re still in limbo waiting for something to happen. I went to talk to the interventionist a few weeks ago and he said he was going to give us all the materials for inside the bathroom-the toilets, sinks, and showers etc and have them delivered to the community once he received the funds to buy them. I said SWEET that is fantastic news. The following day, the president, the treasurer, and a commission member came over yelling at me at how unhappy they were with this news because they wanted money to buy all the materials themselves. Mba’e. The only reason I was able to keep my cool is because I don’t know how to go off in Spanish or Guarani (it’s better that way…or else I would have gotten myself in a lot of trouble by now) but beggars can’t be choosers people. We had a meeting a few days later with the entire commission. I told them all the news and someone proposed the idea of selling ME to the governor for a weekend (he likes his ladies) so that they could receive the money for their bathrooms. Mmm I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer not a prostitute, people.
8) School started back up again. I’m co-teaching Monday and Wednesday mornings in the high school. Mondays I’ll be doing “Como Planear Mi Vida” themes which touch on values and decision making, self esteem issues, how to plan for the future, etc. And on Wednesdays I’ll be helping out in the English classes. Yesterday I went to English class for the first time. The professor had the “Our Father” prayer translated in English on the board for the first lesson of the year. Interesting. So we read the prayer and then I taught them the usual greetings and then we went over some common classroom commands and called it a day. I went to my neighbors for lunch then went to the elementary school in the afternoon. I’m currently helping the third grade teacher (my good friend/next door neighbor Doris) make some materials for her classroom. Yesterday, she received a call about 10 minutes into class and abruptly grabbed all her things and left. I was just sitting at the table finishing up the calendar I was making when the Director walked in to take over teaching and said “Oh good, Casey’s here” and turned around and walked out. Alright I guess I’m teaching third grade today. OMG WHAT DO I DO? I have no lesson plans, I have no materials, text books don’t exist in this country, I have no idea what these kids are supposed to be learning right now, and I’m in charge of a classroom full of 7 year olds for the next 4 hours. Luckily, I was in their classroom the day before so I went over their homework with them and we played this charades type of game that they had also played the day before. Then we made BINGO cards and played BINGO with upper and lower case letters because they are still learning their ABCs. Then we were saved by the bell…RECESS! Hooray. Terere break with the teachers. Doris had to run out because her dad and her little brother got in a moto accident. Thankfully, they are okay, but her little brother broke both of his arms L. After recess we played another game to help with communication skills, and then I read them a story (which made me feel slightly mentally challenged because I couldn’t pronounce all the words #Istillstrugglewithspanish) and then we were saved by the bell again! Phewww….I did it! I just taught third grade all by myself…and in my 2nd language!
All in all things are going great! I’m glad school is starting back up to get me into more of a work groove. I feel like I’ve been doing A LOT of just hanging out recently, and I’m excited to have busier, work filled days. I’m heading into town tomorrow to celebrate Carnaval in San Ignacio…I’m super pumped to jam to the songs I mentioned earlier, have foam fights, and hopefully lay my eyes on some pretty Brahma Boys. Then Saturday I’m heading to visit my host family from training for the weekend.
I hope everyone is doing well…send me your updates!
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