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.