Monday, October 30, 2006
So, yesterday was the first day that I cried since I've been here. I was trying to be really sentimental and kept saying to myself that it was because I missed my family, but to be completely honest I know it was because I was so terribly overheated. And we were out of water, there wasn't even any to drink, and the electricity went out just as I was about to be able to talk to my sister on the phone for the first time since I got here!!! This week it got pretty hot. Once when i woke up at 4 in the morning, I checked the thermometer and at this coolest time of day it was already a little over 30 degrees. I admit I used to think that maybe people from south america were lazy or something, but I consider myself to be a pretty industrious person, and here I am lazy. i have to be. On hot days all i can do for about 2 hours in the afternoon is lay on my bed. Sometimes i have the prescence of mind to read or study some spanish, but often i can only lay there and concentrate on trying to cool down a bit. I kept thinking of the place in isaiah where it says, "in returning and rest and rest you will be saved; in quietness and confidence will be your strength" or seomthing like that, because I want to feel useful and like I'm doing a lot of things, but right now the best thing I can do is sit back and talk with the people and learn their language and culture.
My roommate Vivi has a discipleship partner, Laura, who she meets with on tuesdays, but this week she had to take my other roommate to the hospital (don't worry, she's better now) so she said that I could entertain Laura for the evening. I was very excited when laura said we could walk to the park, because up until now i didn't know a park exisited in my neighbourhood (but there is a very small one across the street from the partment that I am moving into in the new year). It turns out the park was fairly trashed; as usual, there were beautiful plants growing all over, but there was also tons of garbage and the kids had to play on broken rusted structures. Laura and I complained about it for awhile, but then she also said something that stuck in my mind. She hates how the people don't take very good care of their things, but at the same time she loves that relationships and other people ARE very important. I've been able to talk with a few more people on the same topic, and EVERYONE I've talked to so far says that this is home and they want to stay here for the rest of their lives, because they love the people here. One boy in the school came here with his family from south africa, and he too says he likes it here best because the people are so friendly. I have definately noticed the willingness for people to want to speak with me, and have been a recipient of much hospitality. One day I met a girl from the school in the "super"and she helped me do all my grocery shopping and then invited me over to her house. You can show up at someone's house any time of day and (if they are not sleeping a siesta) they will ALWAYS have time to sit around and talk with you, even for a couple of hours. Do you think it would be a good idea for people in north america to follow their example a bit? I suppose that is one thing that is keeping me from being homesick, that I can always just walk around my neighbourhood and find someone to talk to, anyone will invite you to come and sit on the porch and drink terere with them.
I guess another significant part of my week was the day karen couldn't make it to school (she's 8 months pregnant) and I had to teach her kindergarten and grade one english classes. I definately think they went better than teaching the phys ed classes like I did last week (did I remember to write about that?) , but a lot of the time I worry that i might go CRAZY being in a classroom full of kids for 5 hours a day. It was fun because I read stories to them first in spanish, then the same story in english. they probably paid more attention than usual jst because it is pretty hilarious to hear me reading in spanish. Oh yes, going back to the part about being surrounded by crazy kids, on saturday night I went to our sister church in the slum area. I wanted to cry when I saw the river, the banks were blanketed with trash, and I also wanted to plug my nose. As usual, I struggled to stay awake during the service (this problem should be improving now that I purchased a spanish english bible) but it was very exciting afterwards when all the kids were asking me what their names would be in english, asking me to teach them a song, telling me they don't have a sunday school teacher and would I come back tomorrow?, and asking me about professional wrestling!(??!!) It was amazing to be surrounded by about 10 sweaty kids(seemed like 50)all grabbing at you and yelling in spanish all at the same time. Th kids at are school are only slightly more well-behaved. I have big plans for trying to keep their attention and having more disciplned classes. the good thing about teaching a specialized subject like english is that I get 6 different classes of kids to be with, of varying ages. I guess i will write more about that when I actually have my own classes in november. For right now we are having fun planning what kind of trips we can go on during the summer, and of course hoping that we will be able to start building the new classroom additions. Just today ben told me that even if we don't have the clasrrooms, we are going to find ways to squeeze more kids in. HELP! It's already too hot and crowded! oh, and I should make a correction -it's not 60,000 just for the foundation, that's for the whole building. things are pretty cheap here. I think if you want to take a vacation just for a really cultural-shocking experience and eat yummy food but not have to spend a lot of money, you should come visit me here. You can buy gigantic watermelon's bigger than Karne's stomach for less than $2. My goal is to become a really good translator in case anyone comes, because I really appreciate it when people translate for me. But i guess I should stop writing, because I try to only speak english on weekends, and since today is monday I want to convince my brain to be in spanish mode. One last interesting thing that I did this week was helping our landlady fumagate our house for termites. they are really really gross and any time I look up and see the remnants of the little trails they made it gives me the willies. Thanks everyone for thinking of me and taking time to read my blog. I feel like I'm becoming a better person, and also that when I come back home there will never be anything to complain about ever again, except maybe if people are too busy. Yesterday I was walking up to my house under a tree and a mango fell and hit me on the shoulder. I've been eating at least 4 or 5 mangos a day and I have a blister on my finger from peeling them. I guess they are like the christmas orange of paraguay. dios te bendiga("God bless you" I hear this about 500 times at the average church meeting, but it always seems sincere when you're also being kissed and touched by other sweaty cheeks)
My roommate Vivi has a discipleship partner, Laura, who she meets with on tuesdays, but this week she had to take my other roommate to the hospital (don't worry, she's better now) so she said that I could entertain Laura for the evening. I was very excited when laura said we could walk to the park, because up until now i didn't know a park exisited in my neighbourhood (but there is a very small one across the street from the partment that I am moving into in the new year). It turns out the park was fairly trashed; as usual, there were beautiful plants growing all over, but there was also tons of garbage and the kids had to play on broken rusted structures. Laura and I complained about it for awhile, but then she also said something that stuck in my mind. She hates how the people don't take very good care of their things, but at the same time she loves that relationships and other people ARE very important. I've been able to talk with a few more people on the same topic, and EVERYONE I've talked to so far says that this is home and they want to stay here for the rest of their lives, because they love the people here. One boy in the school came here with his family from south africa, and he too says he likes it here best because the people are so friendly. I have definately noticed the willingness for people to want to speak with me, and have been a recipient of much hospitality. One day I met a girl from the school in the "super"and she helped me do all my grocery shopping and then invited me over to her house. You can show up at someone's house any time of day and (if they are not sleeping a siesta) they will ALWAYS have time to sit around and talk with you, even for a couple of hours. Do you think it would be a good idea for people in north america to follow their example a bit? I suppose that is one thing that is keeping me from being homesick, that I can always just walk around my neighbourhood and find someone to talk to, anyone will invite you to come and sit on the porch and drink terere with them.
I guess another significant part of my week was the day karen couldn't make it to school (she's 8 months pregnant) and I had to teach her kindergarten and grade one english classes. I definately think they went better than teaching the phys ed classes like I did last week (did I remember to write about that?) , but a lot of the time I worry that i might go CRAZY being in a classroom full of kids for 5 hours a day. It was fun because I read stories to them first in spanish, then the same story in english. they probably paid more attention than usual jst because it is pretty hilarious to hear me reading in spanish. Oh yes, going back to the part about being surrounded by crazy kids, on saturday night I went to our sister church in the slum area. I wanted to cry when I saw the river, the banks were blanketed with trash, and I also wanted to plug my nose. As usual, I struggled to stay awake during the service (this problem should be improving now that I purchased a spanish english bible) but it was very exciting afterwards when all the kids were asking me what their names would be in english, asking me to teach them a song, telling me they don't have a sunday school teacher and would I come back tomorrow?, and asking me about professional wrestling!(??!!) It was amazing to be surrounded by about 10 sweaty kids(seemed like 50)all grabbing at you and yelling in spanish all at the same time. Th kids at are school are only slightly more well-behaved. I have big plans for trying to keep their attention and having more disciplned classes. the good thing about teaching a specialized subject like english is that I get 6 different classes of kids to be with, of varying ages. I guess i will write more about that when I actually have my own classes in november. For right now we are having fun planning what kind of trips we can go on during the summer, and of course hoping that we will be able to start building the new classroom additions. Just today ben told me that even if we don't have the clasrrooms, we are going to find ways to squeeze more kids in. HELP! It's already too hot and crowded! oh, and I should make a correction -it's not 60,000 just for the foundation, that's for the whole building. things are pretty cheap here. I think if you want to take a vacation just for a really cultural-shocking experience and eat yummy food but not have to spend a lot of money, you should come visit me here. You can buy gigantic watermelon's bigger than Karne's stomach for less than $2. My goal is to become a really good translator in case anyone comes, because I really appreciate it when people translate for me. But i guess I should stop writing, because I try to only speak english on weekends, and since today is monday I want to convince my brain to be in spanish mode. One last interesting thing that I did this week was helping our landlady fumagate our house for termites. they are really really gross and any time I look up and see the remnants of the little trails they made it gives me the willies. Thanks everyone for thinking of me and taking time to read my blog. I feel like I'm becoming a better person, and also that when I come back home there will never be anything to complain about ever again, except maybe if people are too busy. Yesterday I was walking up to my house under a tree and a mango fell and hit me on the shoulder. I've been eating at least 4 or 5 mangos a day and I have a blister on my finger from peeling them. I guess they are like the christmas orange of paraguay. dios te bendiga("God bless you" I hear this about 500 times at the average church meeting, but it always seems sincere when you're also being kissed and touched by other sweaty cheeks)
# posted by Ellen @ 11:34 PM 
