I'm Still Alive!

I was just cleaning my room and got really bored and that is when I realized it has been about 11 weeks since I have been home! That is insane, you have no idea how much I miss Paraguay, like you just can't imagine. First off I would just like to apologize for practically neglecting my blog, I feel terrible for not posting anything in such a long time. However I did start a new blog since I have been home, but I'm not going to give you the link because I don't want you to find it :P

Last night I had a dream about going back to Paraguay, it was really weird, but good at the same time because it really felt like I was there. I was going to Paraguay with a new group of exchange students and some other volunteers I know, only the students weren't getting families, they were just going there. On the way there we had a plane stop in India because in my dream world India borders Paraguay. So we spent a day in India because I guess we had an extremely long layover. We got on public buses and went to eat, I guess. Everyone said how the buses were bumpy and old and beat up but I told them to wait because the ones in Paraguay and an even greater experience. When we ate I told one of people that when we get to Paraguay I would probably go off on my own a little a visit my host family, then I started to cry. I felt like I had abandoned my family and I wanted to go tell them that I hadn't. In truth sometimes I do feel like I am just going to lose them some day and I am afraid of that happening. I mean no matter how hard I try I feel like it will all be gone, and its a terrible fear, but it is my goal never to let it happen. Anyway after India we made it Paraguay and I went to my house and surprised my family. It was as if nothing had changed and it was great! Eventually my dream got weirder and weirder until I woke up because my neighbor and some other random people started showing up in Paraguay and I have no idea way.

This is sort of how I felt for part of my dream

I know it is a really strange dream, but it made me so happy to wake up and realize that as long as I try hard enough I won't lose that bond with my host family. So far I have not lost the connection with my two exchange students and I know I never will because we care about each other enough and we'd never let that happen. If you set your mind to something then fallow through with it, that is what I've been doing, it's what got me to Paraguay in the first place.

Since I have been back I think about Paraguay everyday, my friends are probably sick of hearing about it by now. I gave a presentation to some exchange students who live near me, and my friend from Belgium came and stayed my me and my family for a few days which was really nice because I hadn't seen her in years. Sergio says he is coming over Christmas break, I really hope he does. I haven't talked to him recently because he was out traveling England and probably the rest of Europe (I am so jealous!)

Well I should probably get back to cleaning my room, filling out college applications, finishing Hamlet, or something a bit more productive, but I will try to update this blog more often, I can still go on and on about things I did in Paraguay, I hope you don't mind :)

Oh, I fond this, I think it's pretty funny, well if you speak Spanish anyway. Sorry for the word use, that is if you know what word it uses. I guess I'm not the only person in the world how doesn't like McDonald's.

This Isn't The End, Trust Me

I am not sure if anyone still reads this because my school starts tomorrow, so it is probably a given that I am home by now. It has literally been a week since I have been back (well, not including hours, I got back last Wednesday around 7). I went down the escalators in the Pittsburgh Airport and was expecting to see my mom and my dad, maybe my brother and sister (I wasn't sure about them though because just my parents originally took me to the airport). So as I descended I look around, I saw one guy I thought was my grandpa from my dad's side, but it wasn't him, and I hadn't seen anyone else familiar. Then from out of no where a giant group comes towards me (I was off the escalator by now) with a sign and balloons, it was totally unexpected, but great surprise.

Oh wait, I have to do the last 4 pages in my math packet....school does start tomorrow, so I will finish telling you the end of my trip when I finish my college statistics...

Thanks for waiting, so where was I...oh yeah, I found my family. My grandma and grandpa, one of my aunts and uncles, two of my cousins, my sister, and my parents were there! I wan't expecting any of it. My aunt brought me tons of candy, which I had missed (they don't eat as many sweets there even though they have them). It was like we were having a party right in the middle of the airport, next to the luggage carousel. I opened my suit case and just started pulling things out! My mom commented on the "HEAVY" sticker that even I had not seen before. They must have stuck it on there somewhere between airports. I did have to pay kind of a lot for it. I was supposed to get 70lbs free since I was coming from Brazil, I guess it just weighed even more than 70lbs (but I can actually believe that). I know I brought home so much stuff, but Paraguay is my second home, and these things are some of the only memories I have to keep what I had there alive. I know I will be back there someday, I just don't know when that day will be. Just as long as I make it back, that will be good enough for me!

Please, please, please forget how terrible I look in this picture! I have been traveling for over 24 hours, I don't normally look that particularly bad

I don't know if this will be my last post or not, so just check back in a month or so. But please, don't forget about South America, or Africa, or parts of Asia, and even parts of the US, people always need your help, don't forget about them, even the smallest of things will help, and even if it doesn't help them it should at least help you (I hope that makes sense).

Wait!

I know it has been a little while since I have posted anything, and I am sure you are wondering if I am home now or not, but just hold on, I will explain everything, but I'm currently really busy, so I will tell you in about a day or so. Please don't abandon my blog, I'm so happy people actually like it!

I Am Lost... Again

Thanks to everyone who has ever read my blog, I now have over 500 views! I do not really know why people keep coming back to it, I am not very interesting, but thanks, again!

Before I left to Paraguay my friend and I put our selves in the middle of Pittsburgh and said if we got lost it was just part of the adventure. Well, I knew Pittsburgh, its my home, so we did not get lost, but here, well that is a different story. I can not rememember the first time I got lost here, but I am sure it was sometime towards the begining of my trip. To my surpise I never got lost going from my work to my old home, not even on my first day! But my new house, well that is a different story. My biggest and worst ¨lost¨ story was on my last day at my old house. I needed to go home so I had to take the bus. I went to the bus stop and got on 61, the one I take everyday, and it even had my cities name on it so I knew it was right. It was going in the opposite dirrection of home, but buses loop around, right? Hey, I was told to get the 61 at that bus stop, so I know it was not my fault that bus did take me home.

Just picture me, sitting on the bus, a bit sweaty because this weather is not cold anymore, it is hot, like PA summer hot, and I thought it was supposed to be winter?! Anyway, we keep going, I see different things, some cows, feilds with palm trees (but those are common) ,and I think, This is cool, I did not know I live by these things. We keep going, and I started wondering when it was going to loop around again, or when I would see something familiar. That did not happen. I did take lots of pictures of what I saw though. In the middle of no where the only other people got off, and I was alone, with the bus drivers. Here there are things you NEED to be careful about: do not be on a bus when you are the only passanger, do not pull out your phone, camera, or ipod on a bus, do not ride a bus when it is getting dark or it is dark, do not walk alone in the dark, and do not pull your money out in public. I am proud to say I have done all of those things, and look at me (well read my blog) I am fine. I was only going against the ¨being the only passanger¨ and ¨do not use your camera¨ rules on this trip, but being the only passanger was not really my fault. They drove a little and asked me where I needed to be. I said Luque. They said other things, but my Spanish is terrible, and when someone speaks a mix of Spanish and Guarani (which I am sure they where) that is when I am completely lost. They kept saying things. Then it just sort of stopped. They kept driving though, they stopped at someones house, I was really confused. They got off the bus, the one went inside. What was I supposed to do, they did not say anything to me. The first time I just stayed on the bus. Then they drove to another house, that time I got out and stood by the bus door, there was no way they where just going to ditch me there! Some new driver guy came, he was kind of creepy, but at least the other guy was still there, for some reason I trusted him. (I am not sure why, but lots of times there are two people in charge of a bus. In the frount there is a little seat for they guy who is not the driver, to sit. Its kind of strange, but I find it, and everything else about the buses here interesting! At the second house another girl got on the bus, she just sat in the back of the bus, I think she knew the drivers though. We drove a little and then stopped, they did not know where to take me. I asked them if they knew the big Catholic church in Luque, but they did not seem to know, I was surpised, it is right in the middle. I called someone to try to give me a common place they might be able to take me, but they did not really help much, they did give me the name of the church, but then I remembered the stadium (where I get off the bus everyday) and they said they could take me there. So we left. I sat in the front and talked to them a little. It was kind of weird, I thought about asking to take a picture of them before I left, but I never did. At first, as we got to a town I did not think we were in Luque, but then I realized we were in the mercado. Right when we started to go into the town, the one guy just stood in the door for the rest of the ride, and the driver told me to sit in the very front see, next to the driver. I did, it felt weird, but cool. I thought, hey if I am in Paraguay, and I have already been on a crazy bus ride, why dont I just relax and sit in that cool seat. So I did! I told the driver I knew where I was, then he asked me for my phone number, 1: I did not want to give it to him, that is creepy, and 2: I did not know my phone number, so he wrote his down and gave it to me. I still have it, but I will never call it, that guy was weird, and had an even weirder beard thing. Then I got off at the mercado, quickly, and walked to the restaurant, from there I took a taxi to my house.

That guy straight ahead is the nice bus guy who was not creepy and did not give me his number.

That was just one of my lost stories, I have more, they are just not as interesting, or scary, well that was scary for me anyway. The day after the long bus ride catastrophe I was taking the bus home to my new house. The bus ride went as normal as ever, but when it came to finding my house, I did not have a clue. My house is kind of in a neighborhood of other houses, and dirt roads. You get to it off the high way, I guess, and if you go the correct way it only takes about 3-7 minutes to walk to my house. It took me about an hour that day. I walked down the right roads, but then I did not know when to turn so I kept going and I turned on wrong roads. I ended up walking very far away. Then I remembered that the day before, when we were driving home, we turned onto a road between the super mercado and the big ice cream shop with a giant Pepsi bill board. I went that way, and then I remembered that my house had very square cut bushes, so as I walked down the road I looked for the bushes and then I found it. That whole hour I did not know what to do, I did not have a phone, it was really hot, and I ended up walking at least a half a mile away from the Pepsi bill board even though it seemed like it was just a few streets. I did it though, and when I got home, the girl at our house was waiting for me, as soon as she saw me she knew I had been lost.

I think they are supposed to be yelling, but the one guy looks like he is singing and the other just looks weird.  The one kind of looks like one of my friends.

The next day I had bus troubles again, but nothing as bad as the other bus problem, and I was not as lost as I was the day before this either. What happened was, I got on the bus and I asked him if it was going to Shopping del Sol, when I meant to ask him if it was going to Los Jardines. So  I ended up going not quite half way between my house and the mall. I did not know if I was going the write way, and I was afraid that if by the time I found the neighborhood I would not be able to find the house again. This time was pretty nice. The only bad part was the long walk in the sun, and not knowing if I was actually right or not, but it turned out I was. I found my house easily too! After that I have not really had any problems with getting lost. I guess Luque really is my home now, but I leave in about 5 days. To me, sometimes it only felt like 6 days, but other times it felt like 6 years. 

I will try to write some more before I go, and I am going to try to squeez in a few last minute things, that is if I do not get eaten alive by the bugs first, they are killing me!

Oh yeah, and once again, I am sorry about spelling and grammar problems, all of my posts have had and will have them...

La Comida

Before I came to Paraguay I tried to look up what kind of food they have here, what I saw online is totally different then what they actually eat here =)  Almost all the food is different in some way or another. The only thing I have eaten that is the most similar would be my chicken sandwich from Burger King, but even that was different. The chicken was not as good as in the U.S. which kind of suprised me, and they have McDonalds fries, and the ice cream was not as thick. It was not bad though. Right now I probably sound like a pig because I am discribing in full detail my fast food, but I have actually only had fast food twice since I have been here, and once was last night (that is why I can remember what I eat so well). I have seen more Burger Kings than McDonalds, but I hate McDonalds so I do not mind.

Lets forget the crappy fast food that I barly eat and I will tell you about normal food here. Before anything though understand that meals here are different. Breakfast is small, and they do not have pancakes or waffles. I usually have cafe con leche and bread, maybe with some fruit. I have also had chipa for breakfast too. (I will explain chipa later.) Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. It is like dinner. It took me a while to ajust to it, sometimes it makes me feel like a pig. It is usually rice, or sometimes pasta with meat, but almost never chicken. Between lunch and dinner is merienda around 5-7 and it is usually cafe con leche, bread, cookies, sometimes empandas or tortillas, just light things. Around 7 or later people have dinner, which it light, sort of like lunch, sometimes sandwiches, or empanadas.

This is merienda, but it is not a good example of it.

Common food here that I have never seen in the U.S. would be stuff like mandioka, sopa Paraguaya, milanesa, empanadas, and a crap load of eggs. Mandioka is like the only food here that I just do not like. For some reason I just find it really hard to swallow. It is a lot like a potatoe, but when you see it and taste it you know it is some how different. Sopa Paraguaya sort of looks like corn bread, but even though it is not like it, it still is pretty good. It is a bit dry or crumbly, but at the same time moist. It has onions and corn, and is not sweet like corn bread, well at least corn bread is sweeter. I was addicted to empanadas earlier into my trip, them and bread, bread is everywhere too. You can get them really small, or just like normal sized. Carne are the best, do listen to what others might tell you. Oh milanesa, that is probably my favorite new food here. It is sort of like country fried stake, sort of. It is very common and I think usually eaten with mashed potatoes. Here, eggs are everywhere. The are on hamburgers, any sandwich, sometimes with rice, in empanadas, with fried mandioka, and lots of other things. I do not like eggs, but since they are in lots of my food I eat them and I have started to forget that they are even there. Other typical things are rice and meat dishes, soups, and rice and bread with pretty much everything. Fruit is common, but not with meals, and the only vegetables are those in your salad, and you do not always eat salad. I do miss vegetables. There are lots of other foods, like lomito, andstuff, but I can not write down everything.

This is milanesa with potatoes and onions.

This is me and my host mom!

I forgot to mention drinks, so I will do that as quickly as possible. Fruit juice is everwhere, and it is cheep, I like to buy it when I can. People here drink a lot of Coke, not really Pepsi. When you buy a big thing of Coke, or any pop, it comes in a glass bottle that you have to return to the store when you are done. Pulp is a drink from Paraguay. It is like an orange pop, I like it, and I do not really like many pops! Coffee with milk and sugar is something I drink at least once a day, it is really good. They sell lots of carbonated water, but I always buy sin gas, or regular water. One drink that is only in Paraguay, or some small parts of Argentina is terere. It is like mate, but you drink it when it is hot out side and it is a cold drink. Mate is always hot, and is all over South America. Mate is usually common with adults, or even older people, but everyone drinks terere. It is a part of the culture. When you drink it you carry around your terere, the cup, and your thermal. The cup is always needing to be refilled. You fill it with the yerba stuff and it starts of strong but as you keep drinking it, it gets less and less. People pass it around and you drink it out of a metal straw. At first I did not like it, but now I drink it everyday.

This is to make your own yerba, but most people just buy it. 

It is in my hand, we were teaching English, but people drink it and take it EVERYWHERE!

3rd World Country

Before I came to Paraguay I never realized what a 3rd World Country really was. Sometimes now I find myself close to tears at the fact of different lifestyles are and how people around the world forget the fact that there are other people just able to get what they need. Aside from the people you see that the roads, the water, and the plumming suffer too, but the people are the most important to pick up on. The other day at my work my "boss" took me into her office and asked me what I like about Paraguay and how is it different from my home? I told her that in the U.S. people and kids need technology and things to keep them entertained and happy, but here from my work I have learned that even though you might be extreamly poor and not able to afford anything keep you entertained you can have fun even though you have nothing. She started to cry. She said that the kids at my work come literally from nothing and she wishes she could give them more, but it is very hard. I started to tear up too. Every where you go you see poverty. When you come to a big intersection there are people who come and wash your windsheild for small change, seeing the little kids, 5-10 years just makes you want to cry. They do not have shoes, they are very dirty and they keep running around through the busy traffic, I guess after time you just pass them by, but for me to see it, it is just so painful, in the U.S. people spoil their kids all the time and these kids will be doing this terrible job for the rest of their lives, and for what? Little food and a place to live. One of the saddest things I have seen here, actually lives in my house. My host family has a 14 year old girl living with them, she asked them if she could stay with them and help them around the house so that she could earn money for her family. She has 12 brothers and sisters and they are very poor. It makes me want to cry, but she is so nice and happy. She does not like to visit them though, I do not think she likes it at her home, but my host family is very nice Here she is treated much like a part of the family. I just find it so sad, but here it is normal.

We feed them breakfast and lunch, the biggest meal of the day. I do not know if we feed them merienda or no, I leave to early.

Coming into Luque (my town) there is a group of people living in little houses that seem to be made out of garbage bags. It looks like Occupy Wall Street, except worse and it is their perminite home. It is sad to drive by, but the people are really only friendly to eachother, and I have been told they hate white people, like me, so I do not think they ever get much help. Here things are so different, and so sad. 

This is not the best picture of it, but I hope it gives you an idea.

Even though people here have very little they still keep strong faith. It is strange, it seems that people who have so much in the U.S. never go to church, or even truly believe in God. Some people have candles burining in their homes, I have seem perminite nativities outside of peoples houses, and on busses or buildings it is very common to see pictures of Jesus, or statues of Mary or other saints. The other day I saw Jesus stickers for sale in the grocery store. If something like that was in the U.S. there would probably be some kind of law suit. These people are thankful for everything they have, and do not really ask for much. People in other countries have become full of greed and have to have the newest thing, here the only expensive thing I have seen everywhere are Black Berrys, no one has iPhones. Many people do not have cars, you see tons of motorcycles everday. I heard that 5 people die in Paraguay everyday because of motorcycle crashes, I am not sure if  that is exactly true, but I have seen motorcycle crashes before and they are very scary. 

This is a sign for food, but if you see on the right it has a picture of St. Joseph hold baby Jesus.

I have been to one house that was very poor, it seemed like it would fall apart. Here it is common to see, I guess I would call them, crappy houses. I like my house it is very nice, but some houses have poor doors and windows, I do not know what they do when it gets cold (not that it gets that cold, but it still gets pretty cold). It is also common to live on a dirt road, I have stayed in two houses, and both have been on dirt roads. They are not completely dirt, its more like rocks and dirt. It is very common to see roads like this, even in the capital. The dirt is not like the dirt at home. It is redish and sandy. I do not understand how anything grows in it. At first, at my work, I thought they brought in sand for the kids, but now that I see it everywhere I realize it is just dirt, and there is lots and lots of dirt. It is hard to keep your feet clean, but I like it, it shows I am on a true journey. 

Both these pictures are not very good. The dirt is redder sometimes and the stones are bigger and bumpier.

I am going to quickly say a few more things that make it obvious that Paraguay is a 3rd World Country. Here you cannot flush your toilet paper. It did take a while to get used to, but now that I have it is not a big deal. I will be happy when I come home and I will not have to worry about the paper clogging the toilet. Also the water is not clean enough for me to drink. The Paraguay people can drink it because they have for their whole lives, but I have to buy my water. It gets annoying, sometimes I want to drink it just to see if I get sick. I have had juice they made at home and I think that has sink water in it, and I am still fine. Another common things is dogs. Most people have pet dogs, I have 5, but the one just had puppies so now there 14. But I do not mean pets, stray dogs are everywhere. And they are dirty so when they come up to you all happy you just have hope they do not jump on you or lick you or something. You see dead ones on the side of the road too, it is sad, but I try to think of it like they are deer or raccoons or something. 

This picture is random, but I thought it was funny that they spelled Welcome wrong =)

Even though Paraguay is so much different then the U.S. I know I will miss it here, I will always remember it and I know I will be back! I think of it as my home now, and even though it is 3rd World it is still a nice country that is not worth passing up! But the next time you are upset that you cannot go on a trip or you cannot have something you really want, think of the people living here, or in Africa, or somewhere less fortunate, and try not to be so upset.

This is just me having fun in Paraguay!

Oh and I am 100% sure there are spelling errors in this, I wrote it quickly and I do not have spell check, so I am sorry, please just deal with them =(

Esta Complicidad

I was planning on writing about my house and restaurant, but some problems have pop up and I am now living in a new house. This is as of a few hours ago so I dont know what it is like to live here just yet, but when I do I will update my blog as soon as possible.

I just wanted to write something today because I said I would yesterday. I have another post in mind, but Im going to get ready for bed now. Here is an interesting picture I found of Paraguay, cheer for us in the Olyimpics! I will write to you soon =) (I know this is not from London, but we are still there!)

My Job: Part II

I took some pictures of my work for you guys, well also so I will be able to remember it forever, but I finally found time to upload them. I really am sorry that I am not very consistent with my post, hopefully my pictures will make up for it! All the kids are really cute!

This girl always tries to get me to pick her up but I usually just hold her hand and we go on walks because the other Tias say she doesn't need to picked up.

Sorry this is to the side, I couldn't fix it. This is the two ladies I work with the most. These are just some of the kids. Friday there were only 8 kids, today there were 12, everyday is different.

He was acting like a dog to get that banana!

I know she looks sad, but she not actually crying. These 3 are usually here everyday. 

These are the youngest 3, the girls are twins. They eat in their strollers, but and nap time everyone gets pushed in the strollers at some point.

Here is where we feed them lunch.

Most can feed themselves, but some I have to feed. I'm always busy at lunch.

This is right inside the gate. The kids always look out, but they aren't aloud in the front, only the back, on warm days.

This it Tito, he's so cute, but man can he crawl! He also loves to stand when he has something to support him.

I hope that even though this post doesn't say much you still enjoyed it. Plus a pictures worth a thousand words, and there's like what, nine pictures there? Tomorrow I will try to make a good post, hopefully I'll find time, this are actually really confusing for me right now. If not, just keep looking at my pictures, all the kids are so cute, even though some of them don't ever listen to you.

My Job

It acured to me that you probably don't even know that I have a job here. Well if you do know then that is great, but you still probably don't know what I do. I work at a day care for kids who have very poor families. Technically it's not a "job" I don't get paid, I came to Paraguay for a Community Service Project, so that's what my job is. I truly enjoy it, but I'm not exactly sure if I work very well with kids, but I try.

Here is my daily schedule:

Wake up around 6:30
Walk to the bus stop at 7:30
Get off the bus at the stadium and walk to work around 7:45
Get to work and start work at 8:00
Leave work around 11-11:30 and walk to the restaurant
Hang out there until 9:30-11
(most days I walk to the market or the plaza or something, but not really at any particular time)
Go to sleep usually around 10:30

Some days it gets boring, but everyday is always different from the last. At work I usually do the same sort of stuff too. Usually I'm with the littlest kids, and I like working with them much more so I'll tell you what they do: in the morning when I get there they watch TV, usually The Backyardigans, Zoboomafoo, or Bob the Builder, they are all in Spanish which is strange because I've watched all of those in the US before. They love  The Bacakyardigans, when it comes on they sand and sing along and smile, it's so cute! They also play with the toys as they watch TV. On nice days we take them outside to play with all slides, swings, and spinning things that I don't know the name of. Oh, and you know how in Spanish class they always teach you to say "montar en el caballo" and you sit there and think, "why do I need to learn this in Spanish, I barely use it in English? Well, the little kids love riding the rocking horses and they use it all the time, so now I finally see its point! After that all of the kids, except for this one, go inside and we put them in strollers, give them milk and push them back and forth until they fall asleep. The one lady always tell me to much them very fast and crazily like she does, but if I was being pushed like that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep. Eventually, they all do though. The one kid though, he just has to play, yesterday they had me play with him outside with the older kids. He went on the swing and I swung him for a long time, after a while he fell asleep. I brought him inside, but the lady acted like I needed to wake him up. I don't understand, he obviously needs a nap and all the other kids are sleeping, why can't he sleep too, there is room. Another lady told me to put him on a bed, and he got to sleep for a little. When they wake up they play for a little bit longer, then around 10:00 or 10:30 they eat lunch. Usually it's some kind of soap, it always smells really good. At least half of the kids can feed them selves most of the time. There are two little babies the one lady has to feed baby food to, they're twins, and they seem to really like my hair! After lunch, which can sometimes give me a headache, some of the kids put up a fight when it comes to eating, they go back to the main room and watch TV. The thing is, by then there are no more kid shows on so they watch this dance show, I think it's like "So You Think You Can Dance," except they dance and dress extremely inappropriately, but no one seems to care, I don't really understand it. During that time they change their clothes too, I don't know what the point is to that either? I'm sure they have some good reason, but that is right around the time that I leave so I don't really know what they do for the rest of the day. (Sorry for such a long paragraph, I tried to write this quickly.)

When I'm done with work I walk back to the restaurant, like I said, it doesn't even take 15 minutes so I don't mind. After that I wait for my host siblings to come, but that can take a few hours, at least on most days. So yeah, that's pretty much what I do everyday, well, I do walk around, but that's for a different post, I guess.

I don't have any pictures of my work, but this is the road that my work is on. The reddish wall on the right is a part of the fence that runs around the daycare. 

Fútbol

Finally, a new post!

Here every soccer game is a huge deal, especially if Cerro, Olimpia, or your towns team is playing. I was really suprised when Luque had a game and all the streets just cleared out. Everyone goes somewhere to watch the game, usually if they weren't at home they sit in a restaurant or crowd around a tv that is somewhere close by. People also sit on benches or the side walk and listen to it through the radio. Stay away from the crazy fans, at the end of the Luque vs. Olimpia some guy shot an opposing fan in the leg. They so crazy over every single game. Turns out last week was like the superbowl. I didn't realize it though until it was over and the winning team was holding a big soccer ball thing. It was crazy, the restaurant closed early and like all the other games, when someone scored you could hear people going crazy everywhere. The game was Cerro vs. Olimpia, they are the two biggest rivals.

I, along with almost all of my host family, wanted Cerro to win, and they did! The final score was 2-1, I missed the beginning because we where getting back from the mall, but I still got to see all the goals scored. This isn't the end of the game, but I thought I could show a clip so you guys would see what it was like.

When it was over we drove to Asuncion and the streets were crazy! It probably took twice as long to get there, but it was fun to see how everyone was reacting. We drove to the aunts house and stayed there for about a half an hour. My host siblings spent the night, but I had to visit my work the next day so I went back. Coming home was just as hectic. We saw a bus with all the Cerro players on it, I took a picture, but by then it was further away. Oh and all my picture didn't really turn out very well, sorry.

Can you find the bus?

Here are some more of my pictures, and a video, but like I said, they aren't very good.

I was trying to show how crowed the streets were and how crazy some cars were, but everything around me at that moment was boring.

Groups of people were like this everywhere, this isn't a good example though. They were also blasting music.

I was only able to take a picture of this doll from the back because the people in the car kept staring at me. They told me something about Olimpia, but I have no idea what it was. We sat next to them in traffic for a long time.

Now soccer won't pict up for another week or two, they have really short breaks between cup things. I'm hoping to go to a game, I can walk to Luque's stadium! Hasta pronto 

I Saved a Puppy!

The past 3 days I have done some pretty fun stuff! On the 5th of July I met up with another exchange student only she has been here since March, I think. We walked around Luque, where we both live. She helped me get some Guarani. Turns out she only lives a few hours away from me in the US! We went to one of the malls in Asuncion. I got to ride the buses. Here they don't call them autobus, like I am use to, they call them colectivo, I'm still not used to saying that. Anyway, the buses here are bumpy, but that's mainly because of the roads, but a lot of times they are decorated and look really cool. It cost about 2.4 mil Guarani which isn't bad. (The exchange rate is 1 USD = 4477.6727 PYG.) Sorry if I use . as , and mil as a thousand, that's just how the money is here. So we took the bus for a while, but got off and then on again, I guess we went to far. We walked a bit too, but it was raining. When we got to the mall all we did was walk around, the mall is just as expensive as in the US, I wasn't expecting that, from now on I'll shop in the market. We did get some coffee because of the time of the day. I learned a few things though, I need to be more secretive of my money, she told me multiple times not to take it out so much, also to keep my bus ticket, they check for them sometimes, and to get a bus you stick your arm out. You don't have to get a bus at a bus stop.

                                              

                                                                    Sorry for the poor quality, the bus was bumpy.

Yesterday I visited downtown Asuncion. It was really cool! It's a lot tighter then in the US and I didn't see as many office buildings, but I saw guards and tall apartments. I was surprised at how many unpaved roads there were there, I thought that since it was the biggest city it would be more paved. It wasn't more than normal (Paraguay), just more than I expected. I tried a drink native to Paraguay, I don't know what it was called, but I think it's a tea with lots of sugar and milk. It was better than I thought it would be! I actually sat in the car the whole time we were there, but I know I will go again and I'm sure I'll go downtown again and get a better feel for it. We go through other parts of it all the time. Yesterday was extremely cold, my mom told me to stay in the car. Today she gave me a warm coat, it gets colder than you would think. 

They sell a lot of things by the side of your car in Asuncion, but this guy wasn't actually in Asuncion...

Today, I went to buy some shoes, but I only have the equivalent of $20 so I couldn't buy the ones I wanted. On my way to the only ATM that I can use my sister and I passed the cutest stray puppy sitting on the corner. We pet it and it had a really large stomach, so something wasn't right. Some ladies told us it has worms. We felt so bad and we couldn't just leave it. We call our mom and she said we could keep it! We put it in my bag and brought it back, but our mom didn't realize it was sick and said we can't keep it because it would be to expensive to help. We tried feeding it, but it wouldn't eat. In Paraguay there aren't really animal shelters. We took it to a vet and they gave it what it needs to get better. Turns out it has some kind of fungus though, so in order to use my bag they said I have to boil it? After that we took to their friend who will give it a bath. She lives in a very rural place and all the roads were dirt. It seemed to take a while to get there, but coming back, it wasn't too fare away. Now I'm home, I still can't take naps. Later I'm going to get some money, hopefully no more dogs get in my way. Oh, and here's the puppy, we named her Carlotta, or Charlotte. After she's clean we will put her back in the market and the people there said they will take care of her.

What I've Been Up To

Today is the start of my 6th full day with my host family! Turns out I was wrong about starting work yesterday. My liaison told me I start at 8 normally, but yesterday I was supposed to visit, but it rained (which I don't know why I couldn't go because of that,) but today I'm going to go in the afternoon and see what I have to do. Because I thought I started at 8 yesterday I woke up really early and started getting ready because I thought I was going to start working, I got all dressed, brushed me teeth, and then my mom told me that I'm going to visit the place around 2...eventually I feel back to sleep...

Last night my host siblings left around midnight to go on a school trip to visit a dam and stop at some other places along the way. My family really tried for me to go, I went and visited the principle two times. The first time she said all the buses are full. My sister, however, said that her bus has lots of room on it. The second time she said that it would make the parents mad. I guess that's a big possibly. I told them to take lots of pictures for me. They get to go though the forest and visit museums, it sounds like it's going to be really fun. I understand that I can't go, I'll just have to visit it another time!

On my first full day we went to the tallest (or at least I think it's the tallest) mountain in Paraguay. From the top you can see Asuncion in one direction and Argentina in the other! There is a giant statue of one of the first presidents of Paraguay on top. It was pretty mountain, on my way down, I saw a cart being pulled by a horse! I've seen a few of them so far. My host mom told me how they aren't common in the US but you'll defiantly see them here.

After that we went to a golf and yacht club. That place was really nice. It had a pretty beach, two awesome pools, and a huge hall that looked out to the lake. If you keep going on the lake you get to Argentina. They said that when famous people come to Paraguay they stay there. Enrique Inglesias stayed there along with a few others!

On our way home we stopped at one of the places along the road. I'm not sure how to describe them...They have lots of plastic table and chairs, most of them are red, and they make the food on a griddle thing. They make stuff from hot dogs to some kind of taco thing, I think. They are pretty big, but its nice to sit out side. There was a bar behind it and some guy kept singing karaoke songs over and over again, lets just say he wasn't good, even if he was singing in a langue I couldn't understand. It was still had a great time though.

I've also noticed that lots of little drink places (well I'm not sure what all of them sell) have bared doors. People just look inside and say what they want they they open  up a little hatch and sell it to them, I like them, but I've never bought anything from them, and they remind me of jail. The restaurant has a door like that that leads to the office.

Yesterday I road the bus, but that's another story. I have lots more to tell, just not all at once. Eventually I'll get up and type it for you...eventually.

What I've Noticed

I started living with my host family, they are so nice. The kids speak really good English (they have lived in the US for their whole lives), and my mom is really nice. I am really part of their family! We live in Luque, its about 15 minutes from the capital, the only time I was in the capital was when I was in the camp, but I think a lot of my exchange student friends live in the capital.

So there are a few things I have noticed since I have been here:
My Spanish sucks...yeah I thought it would, but I wish I could be better, I'm working on it though, that's one of my goals.
There are lots of stray dogs. I wasn't expecting it, but they are all very nice. We feed the one by our house, its going to have puppies soon! And there are two by their restaurant, we feed them too. You see them a lot when you drive around.
Oh yeah, my host family has a restaurant. It's nice and has an inside and outside. The food is good, and I don't have to pay for it since they own it!
The weather changes all the time. But it's like that in Pittsburgh too. Yesterday it was really cold but today its like cool with a medium wind (yeah I'm a great judge of the wind), but Monday was like 86. But it is winter so I'm expecting it to get colder.
There are lots of palm trees here, I like them though. It's cool to see there at night, I don't know why, but it is.
I haven't seen any McDonald's yet! I don't care, I hate McDonald's, I heard there is one (or a few) in the capital so I'm sure I'll see one eventually.
Below is Luques flag, I've seen it around, on I literally just realized what it is hahaha

I think I will start my community service tomorrow! I cant wait! I heard I will be working with preschoolers.


Sorry I haven't written much today, it's because I can't download any of my pictures so I'm just writing about what I see outside. I'll write more when I can.

Paraguay!

After we got off our plane we went to this awesome camp in the capital, Asuncion. I got so bit up there, but I don't care, I'm in Paraguay and enjoying every second of it! The AFS volunteers there were really nice, they even postponed our orientation until the next day! Our first night we just played around a lot.

First they gave us some Paraguayan snack cookie things, they were pretty good, some were chocolate and some were like biscuits. They also had juice, it wasn't as sweet as the ones in the US, but once you got used to the taste they weren't bad. At the camp there was a nice dinning hall, a big soccer field, a volleyball net, a play ground, lots of cabin/house things, awesome trees to climb, and also lots of space with trees. At first everyone played soccer, but I was put on the bench because I suck at all sports related things, also because some of us came for a soccer program, so there are some of us who kick "butt" in soccer. It was fun to watch. 

I played volleyball, and a girl from California tried to teach me and some others how to dance to this one song, but one guy laughed at me, that's how funny I looked. I don't care though, I was having fun! Eventually we ate dinner. Here in Paraguay they have "Paraguayan Time." That's what the volunteers called it. Almost all the time people don't come or do things at the time they say they would. We were supposed to eat when we got there I think, but we didn't eat at least for an hour and a half (I think). I don't mind though, I can wait forever. 

After dinner we played Sardines for a while, the place was really good for hiding! Some us hung out before we went to bed, I think we all had a awesome day even though we had been up for at least 20 hours (or at least I had been). 

I've gotta go, but I have so much more to tell! I'm actually really behind, I've been living with my host family for about 3 days now! Adios

Getting There

Because I haven't posted anything in  a long time I'm just going to start from the beginning and take it one step at a time.

Paraguay isn't one of those places where you can just get a direct flight from your near by airport, and because I am with an organization I had to meet up with them before I left. I left my house at 5 am on Wednesday to work my way down to Miami to meet up with the other AFS students going to Paraguay. In Miami we had our leaving orientation. I had never traveled alone before so I was pretty nervous, especially because I had to fly to Atlanta which  is the busiest airport IN THE WORLD! Everything went great though, I got on my flight in Pittsburgh without a problem. I just remember when the flight took off in Pittsburgh I kept thinking, this is it, I'm finally doing what I've always wanted to do. I had about a two hour layover in Atlanta so I ate a brunch thing from Donkin Donuts and tried to connect to wifi, but none of the 5 airports I used to get here gave you internet access, even if they said they did, that was really annoying. As I drank my coffee I talked to a Russian lady going to Russia to visit her family.  She told me that Moscow is boring and that I need to visit St. Petersburg. She also said that they don't label streets and buildings in Russia so it's very hard to get to some place new. This kind of stuff fascinates me, I mean, I love hearing about different places and different cultures, and just by randomly letting someone share a table with you, you can learn so much!

On my flight to Miami I sat next to a man maybe in is 50's or 60's. He had is Kindle out but I still didn't want to sit quietly alone the whole flight so I got a conversation going. I learned so much! I told him how this was my first time flying alone and he told me that the first time he ever flew he had to jump out of the plane. He was a paratrooper in Vietnam, he said that once you jump out of a plane so many times its not scary at all. He said that you land a lot harder than you think and that it isn't as easy as it looks. We talked the whole way down, I don't think he cared that he didn't read because when we got off he made sure I got my luggage and met up with the AFS volunteers. I am so happy to have met him.

I went and sat with a volunteer and about ten other kids. For some reason I felt like I wouldn't be able to relate to any of them, but at the end of the day I was proven wrong. We had to wait there for 10-20 minutes then we went out side to get on a bus to our hotel. Miami was hot, but on top of that there was tons of humidity, I could just feel a gross residue on my skin. In the hotel was fine though.

We all had to wait in a line to sign some paper and then we went in a small ball room thing to have our orientation. There was assigned seating because 1/2 of us were going to Paraguay and other 1/2 to Panama. We had to play a game and we needed a team name, we called our selves "The Minorities" because in real life everyone at my table was a minority, but me, but at our table I was the only full white person so we called ourselves the minorities! Our team lost the game though, but we didn't really care. We all got along really well. I talked to a lot of them, the one is Japaneses and his name sounds like tofu so I, and one of my new friends, call him Tofu.

The next day we left for Brazil, but we didn't leave for the airport until 4 and our flight wasn't until 8:15. In the morning my roommate and I looked at the lizards outside, we are both from Northern states so we thought the lizards were so cool. Most of the day I hung out with the minority people and we played cards. It was pretty fun. We found a worm thing on one persons back pack and it freaked us out! Before we knew it, we had to leave for the airport! Once we got past security all 21 of us were on are own until we made it Paraguay, its kind of a scary thought, some of bug the crap out of each other and others could literally beat the crap out others,(I heard some of them talking about it). But we had to make it work because we would be together with out AFS supervision for at least 15 hours.

The flight to Brazil was about 8 hours I think, and it was over night, but I think I slept a decent amount, I sat next to some of my friends, but I didn't feel like talking much, I, and everyone else, was pretty tired. We landed in Brazil at either 5:30am or 4:30am our time, and it sucked! The floor wasn't comfortable, but I felt bad for the girl from Alaska and the people from California, that must have really sucked.

To pass the 9 hour layover we sat around, played cards, hacky sack, talked, and at one point played ninja. When we played ninja everyone stared at us, I guess its only in the US. Oh and we seemed to be the only Americans in the whole airport so that drew us some attention too. We eventually got too tired and just sat around.

When we finally got on the plane to Paraguay, it made two stops. One in the deadliest part of Paraguay where I was told that the black market is there and if you see them but are not a part of them they kill you right on the spot. This story probably makes no sense, but hey, someone else told it to me, I didn't just make it up. On our way to the capital I talked to Paraguayan guy, he told me that there are no squirrels here, and he explained to me what's going on with the government. Then we all got off in Asuncion and met an AFS lady and lived happily ever after. Not really, we went to a camp, but I'm going to go now so I'll tell you about it latter, hasta pronto!

Finally Here!

So I finally made it, 4 nights ago actually, but I haven't been able to get internet access until now. It is so different here, but I like it a lot. For some reason today though, I think I got really home sick, I couldn't pinpoint what emotion I was feeling.

I'm going to go to bed now, but I try to write a good post tomorrow! Here's a picture! or two...