The House Update!

Hey all! As I'm sitting here in the sweltering heat, listening to some Spanish guitar music, sipping on some terere, and reflecting, a lot of things immediately come to mind. Nothing would be complete without the story of my house, so I suppose I'll start there.

I officially live alone, having moved out of my host family's house on Saturday. A lot of factors had contributed to this move, but the main one was my want to finally have my own space and be able to cook my own meals. I love to cook, and have already started with pasta, salads, and Mexican food (tacos). We also received a cookbook that has been compiled by other volunteers, so that should be a lot of fun to experiment with.

One of the other main reasons I wanted to move on my own was to get my cat! A volunteer who was completing her service in December had talked to me about taking care of her cat Philipa after she had left. One of the main reasons I agreed was because the cat is used to living with Americans, house trained, and fixed. Plus she makes a great companion. The initial transition was a little traumatic for her, and she cried and hid under my bed. But after the first hard day, we've really grown on each other. She keeps the rats away, and even eats annoyingly loud crickets right in front of me (with a very loud crunch I might add!).

Aside from all the great things of living alone, there are a few setbacks. I truly miss my host family, and liked having people I could talk to all the time. However my host mom assured me I can visit whenever I want. I will definitely be visiting for the fresh bananas and mangoes that grow right in our front yard! :-) The other difficult thing about living alone is that I have A TON of free time now. This is great, because things that would normally take only a few minutes in the states have now been stretched across several hours. Until I come up with another plan, I am stuck hand washing my clothes, which is a long and tedious process. Also preparing food and cleaning my house take considerable amounts of time, due to the fact that the nearest sink (aside from the small one in my bathroom) is at my neighbor's house on the other side of the yard we share. She is more than happy to share this space, and besides the time consumption, it actually ends up working fairly well.

Another difficult aspect to living here in my own house is the sudden transition from a fairly Americanized house, to a VERY Paraguayan house, complete with plenty of interesting animals. I have stopped trying to identify the various bug species that enter my room with regularity, but to add to the list I also have (aside from my cat) birds, lizards, crickets, BIG spiders, a rat, and a frog who has taken up residency in my bathroom at night. Yes, I have considered opening a zoo down here, which I think would be quite successful. It's not as bad as it sounds; my cat keeps the bug, cricket, spider, and rat problems in line. As far as the birds, lizards, and frog, they are more than welcome to share my house. The main reason is that they also help to keep the bug population under control, and they aren't gonna scare me to death every time I try to use the bathroom in the middle of the night (which is quite the adventure I might add).


Thanksgiving here was not as bad as I expected it to be, even though I missed my family and friends back in the States a lot. We had a Peace Corps specially planned vacation and we spent 2 nights and 3 days in a nice hotel/resort near Encarnacion in the south of the country. We all had an amazing time, and being around other Americans, eating great food (yes a COMPLETE Thanksgiving dinner), and lounging by the pool for three days was definitely enough to take my mind off missing a real American Thanksgiving, if only for a few days. In addition to the relaxing atmosphere and great food, we had some incredible bonding opportunities, including a Peace Corps competition. We had relay races, diving contests, and a poker tournament. My volunteer group (G-33) is very close, and we are all great friends. This really shone through to other groups at Thanksgiving, who remarked that we were tight-knit. We're not really sure what brought us all together into such a great group, but whatever it was it still seems to be working. I am truly fortunate to have met so many people who instantly became my close friends.


In other notes, summer is officially here in Paraguay! Today is a "cool" 91 degrees with 63% humidity. Even writing that makes me almost burst out laughing. That is not even remotely "cool" for me. And the worst part is we haven't even officially entered summer - we're still in spring until December 21st. I'm still not sure yet how I will be coping with that heat. I think I will definitely be spending as much time as possible in my Cooperative, where they have air conditioning. I also will be teaching my English class starting next week in the Cooperative, which will afford me access to air conditioning almost all day Tuesdays and Thursdays.

In addition to the heat, it is as if summer has pressed a giant pause button here in Paraguay. Half of the activities I was doing were with schools and institutes, all of which have long breaks during the summer. This brings my official projects currently down to three, and also helps me to focus on what exactly it is I want to do here. English teaching is not a priority to our sector, but will give me something to do during down time, and also help me to meet more people in my community. The hospital project still soldiers on, and I am trying to help better organize their data. This is a slow and tedious process, but I am faithful that it will be worth it in the long run. And as always, I am still going into the Cooperative every day that it's possible. It's amazing how quickly going into an office where you know everyone can turn your day around, even if you're not really doing that much concrete work. I'm looking forward to the potential projects that might come from the Cooperative, and it's nice to feel like people want you to work someplace.

That's all for now, hope everyone is having a happy holiday season, and enjoying that cold weather! I'll post again soon!