Monday, October 09, 2006
well, I have been in Paraguay for 3 whole days now, and I feel like I would need to post a new entry on my blog every hour if I wanted to tell you about all the new and exciting things I've experienced. But since I have to wake up at 5:30, I'll keep it short. On Friday I spent the day at the school. It is a simple two-storey building with small classrooms and a playground(with a wooden slide!) and a court for playing the 3 favourite sports: soccer and volleyball and handball. I don't even attempt to play the first with them, but the fourth-graders (my favourite class so far) asked me to play handball with them, and all the girls who didn't get to be on my team cried.
Yesterday Ben and his financee Vivi took me downtown. I am going staying with the missionaries right now, but am moving to live with Vivi and her sister Emi tomorrow in an apartment about the size of our living room. I get along very well with Oscar and Karen and their two boys (they like me too, the boys were won over by my ipod!), and I adore Vivi, I can see why Ben fell in love with her. She speaks enough english for her and I to communicate with much difficulty, everyone else I can barely understand a word! When a boy asked me what I liked about Paraguay, I said "todo"-everything- and everyone started laughing. I learned the important lesson that a "d" must be pronounced "th" because to pronounce it like I do in english makes its sound like a rolled "r," so he thought I said "torro," meaning, of course, "bull."
I do like the bulls though, and the skinny horses that feed untethered beside the city roads and the roosters that wander around and all the stray dogs. I like the salty corn bread with whole kernals of corn and the empanadas (deep fried pastry filled with "carne") that I've eaten everyday so far and a drink called mate (ma-teh) in which you pour a few tablespoons of hot water into a cup with what looks like tea leaves and drink it through a straw. Everyone shares from the same cup, and when it's drunk cold it's called terere (teh-reh-reh).
In another couple of days I'm probably going to get a little sick as my digestive system gets used to the water. I'm also going to go crazy trying to have the simplest of conversations and having it take forever. But the people are very patient with me, and I hope you will be too as I probably won't have the chance to write again until next weekend. I want so badly to be able to tell you what it's like here, but I just think everyone needs to visit. It is amazing. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Yesterday Ben and his financee Vivi took me downtown. I am going staying with the missionaries right now, but am moving to live with Vivi and her sister Emi tomorrow in an apartment about the size of our living room. I get along very well with Oscar and Karen and their two boys (they like me too, the boys were won over by my ipod!), and I adore Vivi, I can see why Ben fell in love with her. She speaks enough english for her and I to communicate with much difficulty, everyone else I can barely understand a word! When a boy asked me what I liked about Paraguay, I said "todo"-everything- and everyone started laughing. I learned the important lesson that a "d" must be pronounced "th" because to pronounce it like I do in english makes its sound like a rolled "r," so he thought I said "torro," meaning, of course, "bull."
I do like the bulls though, and the skinny horses that feed untethered beside the city roads and the roosters that wander around and all the stray dogs. I like the salty corn bread with whole kernals of corn and the empanadas (deep fried pastry filled with "carne") that I've eaten everyday so far and a drink called mate (ma-teh) in which you pour a few tablespoons of hot water into a cup with what looks like tea leaves and drink it through a straw. Everyone shares from the same cup, and when it's drunk cold it's called terere (teh-reh-reh).
In another couple of days I'm probably going to get a little sick as my digestive system gets used to the water. I'm also going to go crazy trying to have the simplest of conversations and having it take forever. But the people are very patient with me, and I hope you will be too as I probably won't have the chance to write again until next weekend. I want so badly to be able to tell you what it's like here, but I just think everyone needs to visit. It is amazing. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
# posted by Ellen @ 12:00 AM 
