So been slacking on keeping ya'll updated.... Sorry!

So, so sorry people.... Writing in my blog lost the allure that it did oh, about a year ago.  In the end of April I will have been in my site, of Campo Verde, Capiata for a year.  And well, everything that was once exciting, shiny and new, is just life....

I've realized no matter how many blogs I write, you will never even have a small taste of what this experience is really like. 

Sadly, another thing I've realized as reviewing most of my blogs, is I seem to write out my frusturations with the culture a lot, instead of highlighting all the postive things that I find here in Paraguay... So I want to make some amends right now.

No matter what culture you go to, you will find new ideas, concepts and customs that will not fit into what you find as "right" or "normal", but mostly you will just find them "uncomfortable".  But, there are also so many different ways of being that are so different that you will learn to appreciate and cherish.  Paraguayans have such a mothering sense of wanting to take you in, care for you, feed you and make sure you are comfortable.  The number of lunch invitations with generally curious sweet people has more than I can count.  Paraguayans will give you their bed, while they sleep on the floor to make sure you are comfortable (no joke, you can try and refuse, they won't hear it).  They fill your plate sooo full, and are like Jewish Mom's when it comes to second helpings (which was probably why I gained weight when I first got here!).  You rarely see homeless people in Paraguay, not even in the cities.  Paraguayans will sleep 10 to a bed instead of one family member sleeping in the streets.  It doesn't matter if Unlce Juan is an alcoholic, or Great-Aunt Maria talks to herself all day, or the Grandpa needs to be bathed: they are not put in nursing homes, they are not thrown out on the street.  The Paraguayan Family sticks together through everything.  That doesn't mean they approve of Uncle Juan's drinking, but the thought of kicking him out over it, would just never crosses their minds.  Families stick together.  Period.  In our society we value independence beyond all.  18 is when you leave the house, and go off to work study, supposedly the first baby steps into becoming a "real", self-supporting adult.  The concept of going away like that to "prove" yourself simply doesn't exist here. 

You can say it's because of a lack of opportunities.  Money plays a huge role, as well.  But even so, while I admire and relish and our American Indpendent Spirit, I can also appreciate the pitfalls of this independence now, too, in a way I couldn't before.  As well, as I can see all the positive and negatives of the more collectivist, Paraguayan society.

Before we landed in Paraguay, during our "Staging" Event in Miami, the woman who spoke at our event was a former Paraguayan volunteer who told us, "If Paraguayans see the world through red-tinted sunglasses, and we see the world through blue-tinted sunglasses, at the end of this experience you, too will be able to see through the blue-tinted sunglasses, right?  Wrong.  This experience allows you to see Purple."

As the days go flying by here, and my trip back to the States (YAY!) keeps approaching, I wonder what it will be like to try to enter back into my own culture.  Will it be like putting on a favorite pair of comfy old jeans?  Will it ease back on without any issues?  Or will I put them on, and find that I have changed, and they don't fit like they used to?

I know, I am different now, than I was a year ago.  How?  That is harder to explain.  I know better the struggles of people who live without basic rights and power.  I know how a good majority of the world lives day to day, so different than how spoiled we are with our washing machines and cars and Starbucks!  But, the material things are all adaptable.  That is not what this experience is about, learning to live without.  I know a different mentality, I different perspective, a different way of viewing the world.... it has negative and postives... just like our North American take on things.  Because it is so hard to explain, I will probably just come home with a few choice stories.  You will find that I will focus on you, what's going on in YOUR life... I will ask, tell me about you!  Because, I find that its just to hard to try to explain about me.

Work Update: Started back teaching in the schools this week :)  Believe that I will be entering the highschool next week, 3 more classes for a total of 8 classes a week.  A Colgate/PeaceCorps Program of donations of toothbrushes/toothpaste for children and didactic materials for teaching oral hygenie for teachers should be coming up the next 2 weeks or so for my school.  I will hopefully be working with the teacher to encourage continued education of oral hygenie and how to use the teaching materials to continue the learning after the donations are received.  Whats the point of giving out all that free stuff if the kids don't use it, or continue, is the idea?  Sadly, the radio show has been put on hold as the youth I worked with has started a new job working at really big butchering place for more money and will not have time to work at the radio anymore!  I need to talk to to the director and other DJ's to see if maybe I could get an hour just to myself... but it's hard to do a radio show by yourself!  So, we'll see.  Other than that, Red Cross neighborhood clean up projects for Dengue and Yellow Fever are still going on... that's about it!

Life Update:  Sooooooooo.... I guess I have a boyfriend, now.  Many friends and family members have asked me if I have met up with any Latin lovers.  The men in Paraguay aren't normally my cup of tea, seeing as how a grand majority of them are pretty "machismo" and degrading to women, or whatever.  But, well, I met this seemingly nice guy last year, before Christmas sometime.  We talked, he worked close to my radio (in the electronics section of Supermercado Espana, which is actually a pretty decent job here in PY) and I would visit him at work as I did my grocery shopping.  He invited me to visit his family for New Year's Eve, but his real family lives 5 hours away, which is far to go with someone I haven't known very long, in the end he ended up not being able to take the time off work, and didn't go either.  But we started talking..... He didn't really start pursuing me pursuing me until January.  He now tells me it's because he didn't have time or money, and he didn't want to pursue me without money!  So, we started hanging out, meeting for lunch, ice cream, drinking terere.  After my birthday party, he asked if I would be his girl friend.  We hadn't been hanging out for that long, so I thought it was kind of early, but that just a difference in culture for you.  I thought about it for a few days, and said "yes".  Then, I went to visit his family, 5 hours away. And of course, hello, I'm a norte, they love me.  He has since moved back to his family's house in the state of Caazapa.  It's complicated.  He WAS supposed to move Buenos Aires, Argentina to work with his sister who owns a pizza parlor there.  He was tired of working at Supermercado Espana who were taking advantage of him with long hours, same pay, and had moved stores on him, twice in the past 3 months.  Then, he decided he didn't want to go that far away (from me!) and is now cultivating the vast amounts of land his mother has with a super nice garden, small fields and plans to sell vegetables and what not.  He came to visit this month.  I will go to visit next month, and we will continue like that, until we tire of it.  He may move back to Capiata after harvest, 6 months or so.  If we are still going strong, maybe we'll live together???????  Big question mark.  But, all I have to say about him.... is he is a sweet, honest, hard-working, sincere, humble boy from the rural part of Paraguay.  Cross-culutral dating is not easy, but he's just such a good catch.  He also cooks, cleans, irons and does his own laundry!! That's super hard to find here in Paraguay!  And he's super cute, too!! Ja ja!  So, we'll see where it goes.  I'll throw you a picture.

DSCN2261

That's him cooking for me.  He insisted I take a foto of him cooking for me, to show my family he's a good guy.  I told him it's not quite as impressive, a man cooking in my culture, but all the same, I took the foto.  Ja ja......

PS. I am up to 25-30 minutes of running for those of ya'll who I've told I've been running.  I try to go at minumum 3 times a week, maximum 4 or 5.  My friend is training for a marathon, she has all her weeks laid out in front of her, I am going to be trying to go with her schedule (It comes from the book Training for a Marathon for dummies) and we're using the Super-New to Running training guide.  I don't really have the desire to do the Marathon (maybe a 10K or something, but 26 some miles.... not yet!) but I'm still going to try to keep up with her training.  Who knows?  I checked with the doctors, I am officially 15 lbs lighter than I was in the USofA.  Here is a picutre of me with a Paraguayan youth in the radio, that I think highlights me slimmer face.  And you can see my collar bone!!  Wow!

DSCN2259

OK. 

That's all for now, folks.

Love you all,

See you all soon!