Sunday, October 22, 2006
I thought maybe by now I wouldn't be so excited to write because I am more used to things here, but then this weekend a group of four of us from the church went to a little island for an outreach program . On the way we passed by a woman lying dead in the street with tired tracks on her arms from being run over, it was terrible. But that incident aside, the country here is beautiful. It is a nice mix of fields and myriads of different kinds of trees and plants, and for 3 hours along the highway there was just a string of houses and stores and animals which were all very interesting for me to observe. We took a ferry across the lake that had been made when they dammed up a part of the river. The island-life there was extremely rustic. It felt like we were on a camping trip, and I didn't even feel that dirty, so didn't take a bathe(in half of a tire) at night. I guess the people all thought this was pretty weird, and Ben and I later reflected that if it was your life all the time, bathing before bed would be an important ritual. I liked pulling water out of the well, and it tasted so good and fresh. But I didn't like sitting in the kitchen where they cooked over an open fire and it was just filled with smoke. It seemed like everyone there had at least 6 kids (and the lady across the street had another just as we were arriving), and I guess they never have any problem getting kids to show up to sing sings and hear Bible stories, and of course, eat snacks. the programs we did for the kids went really well. I don't know if I mentioned this, but everyone here is bilingual; they all speak the native language called guarani. Everyone gets a kick when I answer them in guarani phrases, it's a very accented, nasally language. On the island they didn't even know spanish, so Ben and I played the fools, literally and put on a few very sucessful sketches. When I am able to post pictures, it will make my blog that much more interesting.
My favourite part was sitting around at night at the neighbour's house. He was asking me questions which first had to be translated from guarani to spanish by Grasiela, and then from spanish to english by Ben. I suppose normally a conversation like this would be annoyingly tedious, but when you're on an island where there's nothing else to do and to sit on the porch under the single incandescent lightbulb, it's okay. One thing that made me sad is that i could see that many of the kids were malnourished; their joints stuck out far, the end of their dark hair was lightened and a few even had really big stomachs like the pictures you always see of starving african chidren. the worst part is, I don't think it's for lack of food, the people simply don't know anything about eating fruits or vegetables. We ate really yummy food, like chicken covered with deep-fried tortilla, but the whole times I was just dying for something green. Ironically, they produce tons of bananas because everyone on the island is a farmer...they are probably so sick of bananas they don't even think of offering them to guests!
On the whole, it seems most people don't eat very healthy. It's a shame because the crops are so readily available, but I guess people just don't know how to cook them or anything. People are very proud of their paraguayan food and are very pleased when I tell them that the chipas or croqueta is "rica." I like to tell them that in North America when we say food is "rich" it usually means it is food that makes you fat!
I'm sorry my blogs are so disorganized. I always have to end up writing kind of late (even though right now there's REALLY loud music playing outside the window, people here love to play so everyone in the neighbourhood can here. It only bugs me when I'm trying to take a siesta, which, by the way, I spelled wrong in a previous blog, how embarassing). Anyways, I wanted to talk about one really important thing concerning the school. Karen has told me a lot about the history of their church here. It's hard to believe the school was only actually started 4 years ago, it's such a big project just to maintain with the few people and small plot of land we have. Anyways, now they are planning to build an addition so they can have more classes (every classroom is just packed full!) and to go up to the tenth grade (currently we go from kindergarten to grade 9). Besides the fact that it will be a ton of work, they also need $60,000 just to build the foundation. In some ways I think that it will just never happen because it's too big of a project. But then, so did the church and the school that exist here already. From the stories of the church here, I've learned a good way to keep the church from being stagnant is to plan projects that seem too big and difficult. Also, maybe this would work in our own personal lives too, if we decided to set out to achieve more than we think we can. I'll stop writing because this is sounding so cliche, but I felt the need to tell you about this project, and maybe we will be able to get enough money to start building (it will also give me a lot of work to do over the summer!). I know they also want to improve the roof over the sanctuary. First of all, it leaks a lot. Secondly, it is made of tin and when it rains we can barely hear each other over the noise.
In case anyone wants to know, I've totally chickened out and barely wash any of my clothes by hand. Instead, I bring them to Karen's on the weekend when I also come to use the internet and play chess with Gaby whom I've now beat 3 times. Tomorrow is excursion day and I am going with the grades 4-6 to learn about buying organic products. But I probably won't be able to learn much. I am a fairly good reader in spanish and I can speak with Vivi and Emi my roomates, but most people speak too fast and don't enunciate clearly. Also, my vocabulary is very limited except in the area of "cool" exclamations, superfluous adjectives and names of food. Everyone, don't forget you can post comments or ask me to clarify some things if I breeze over things. Only very rarely do I get discouraged about not being able to communicate clearly, or always being sweaty or how annoying it is to wash dishes or thinking about being here for such a long time. Mostly I am very happy and I always pray that I will have joy in what I do and share the joy with others here. I pray that you too will remember that God invented pleasure and wants his creatures experience these delights in the way he intended. I write this because in the car on the way home from the island I was reading "the screwtape latters" by C.S. Lewis and in one letter the senior demon rebukes his protege for letting his "patient" that he is trying to tempt go for a walk in the countryside and drink a cup of tea at his favourite place. My favourite part was when the demon says it's terrible when someone reads a book because they really like it and not just so they can talk about it to other people to impress them. So remember to take time to do those kinds of things that really enliven your spirit and remember to be grateful to God. You might think the people here aren't as happy because they can't go out to eat all the time or they have to spend more time doing housework, but then again, maybe you haven't seen with what joy the kids can play a game of soccer. until next week...
My favourite part was sitting around at night at the neighbour's house. He was asking me questions which first had to be translated from guarani to spanish by Grasiela, and then from spanish to english by Ben. I suppose normally a conversation like this would be annoyingly tedious, but when you're on an island where there's nothing else to do and to sit on the porch under the single incandescent lightbulb, it's okay. One thing that made me sad is that i could see that many of the kids were malnourished; their joints stuck out far, the end of their dark hair was lightened and a few even had really big stomachs like the pictures you always see of starving african chidren. the worst part is, I don't think it's for lack of food, the people simply don't know anything about eating fruits or vegetables. We ate really yummy food, like chicken covered with deep-fried tortilla, but the whole times I was just dying for something green. Ironically, they produce tons of bananas because everyone on the island is a farmer...they are probably so sick of bananas they don't even think of offering them to guests!
On the whole, it seems most people don't eat very healthy. It's a shame because the crops are so readily available, but I guess people just don't know how to cook them or anything. People are very proud of their paraguayan food and are very pleased when I tell them that the chipas or croqueta is "rica." I like to tell them that in North America when we say food is "rich" it usually means it is food that makes you fat!
I'm sorry my blogs are so disorganized. I always have to end up writing kind of late (even though right now there's REALLY loud music playing outside the window, people here love to play so everyone in the neighbourhood can here. It only bugs me when I'm trying to take a siesta, which, by the way, I spelled wrong in a previous blog, how embarassing). Anyways, I wanted to talk about one really important thing concerning the school. Karen has told me a lot about the history of their church here. It's hard to believe the school was only actually started 4 years ago, it's such a big project just to maintain with the few people and small plot of land we have. Anyways, now they are planning to build an addition so they can have more classes (every classroom is just packed full!) and to go up to the tenth grade (currently we go from kindergarten to grade 9). Besides the fact that it will be a ton of work, they also need $60,000 just to build the foundation. In some ways I think that it will just never happen because it's too big of a project. But then, so did the church and the school that exist here already. From the stories of the church here, I've learned a good way to keep the church from being stagnant is to plan projects that seem too big and difficult. Also, maybe this would work in our own personal lives too, if we decided to set out to achieve more than we think we can. I'll stop writing because this is sounding so cliche, but I felt the need to tell you about this project, and maybe we will be able to get enough money to start building (it will also give me a lot of work to do over the summer!). I know they also want to improve the roof over the sanctuary. First of all, it leaks a lot. Secondly, it is made of tin and when it rains we can barely hear each other over the noise.
In case anyone wants to know, I've totally chickened out and barely wash any of my clothes by hand. Instead, I bring them to Karen's on the weekend when I also come to use the internet and play chess with Gaby whom I've now beat 3 times. Tomorrow is excursion day and I am going with the grades 4-6 to learn about buying organic products. But I probably won't be able to learn much. I am a fairly good reader in spanish and I can speak with Vivi and Emi my roomates, but most people speak too fast and don't enunciate clearly. Also, my vocabulary is very limited except in the area of "cool" exclamations, superfluous adjectives and names of food. Everyone, don't forget you can post comments or ask me to clarify some things if I breeze over things. Only very rarely do I get discouraged about not being able to communicate clearly, or always being sweaty or how annoying it is to wash dishes or thinking about being here for such a long time. Mostly I am very happy and I always pray that I will have joy in what I do and share the joy with others here. I pray that you too will remember that God invented pleasure and wants his creatures experience these delights in the way he intended. I write this because in the car on the way home from the island I was reading "the screwtape latters" by C.S. Lewis and in one letter the senior demon rebukes his protege for letting his "patient" that he is trying to tempt go for a walk in the countryside and drink a cup of tea at his favourite place. My favourite part was when the demon says it's terrible when someone reads a book because they really like it and not just so they can talk about it to other people to impress them. So remember to take time to do those kinds of things that really enliven your spirit and remember to be grateful to God. You might think the people here aren't as happy because they can't go out to eat all the time or they have to spend more time doing housework, but then again, maybe you haven't seen with what joy the kids can play a game of soccer. until next week...
# posted by Ellen @ 10:49 PM 
