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...