Monday, January 22, 2007
School starts in two weeks and I think everyone realizes that and is trying to enjoy the rest of summer vacation while it lasts. I spent a lot of time reading and visiting with people this week after three really boring days of trying to get more prep work done for school. On Tuesday we did a little outreach program at my friend Carolina´s house for the neighbourhood kids. They called it, to the delightful snickers of me and Ben¨Hora feliz¨ or ¨Happy Hour.¨ I think it was tremendously sucessful, very much due to the presence of pop, cookies, and four charasmatic clowns; I was a kind of dumb clown with a cone-shaped head and Ben was a grumpy old man who poked the kids with his broom. It was indeed a very happy hour and I probably enjoyed learning the songs and actions in spanish just as much as any of the kids there.
My best memories of this week are the times spent with Pastor Dario and his wife Marlene. I ate lunch there for the past two Sundays and spent all day Friday helping to prepare for a ping pong tournament. We were expecting about 20 or more people to compete and I made a big poster organzing the tournament with rules and eveything, and we even got a small trophy and some medals. Everyone would pay a 2,500 Guarani entry fee (about 50 cents) and the money was going towards a drum kit for the band that 5 or 6 of the boys from the church put together. Unfortunately there was huge storm and the electricity went out, so instead we sang and played games around the table and it was really fun anyways. I taught them how to play Phase 10, a card game that my mom and sister sent me, and we played it until I was totally sick of it. Dario and Marlene are not the wealthiest people, but their are so very rich in hospitality and I am looking forward to going there again tomorrow, when we will have a second attempt at the tournament.
I kind of laughed at the ping pong table when I first saw it, because it is just a big board that someone painted green and they set it atop of four ricketey chairs. But since then I have also seen kids playing volleyball with their feet/chest/head (piki volley) with an old cable strung across the yard, and other kids playing with part of a broken bench set on two stumps. They have to be very innovative here. I guess it´s not a big deal to not have great spots equipment, but I feel sad when I see kids who so badly want to play music but don´t have access to an instrument and can´t take lessons. And it makes me regret all the times when I fought with my mom over not wanting to practice piano, a talent I am so glad to have now. I want to help the band, ¨Harvester¨to raise money for the drums, which we would also use at church. (English names for a band or english writing on t-shirts are really popular, as well as english graffiti which frequently contains errors in grammar and I always take pictures of it; poorly spelled english graffiti is becoming somewhat of my specialty in my photo album. Harvester made t-shirts and on the back it says something like ¨a brite in the night¨I think a poor translation of that verse in Isaiah). So there is a light shining here in Paraguay and it brings a lot of hope: Hope for a building addition to the school, a drum set, a website, computers, and all kinds of material things. But most of all the refrain goes ¨Paraguay for Jesus¨and we hope that people´s lives can be turned around through our witness in the neighbourhood. People like the guys who hang out on the corner between my house and church and get drunk at 3 in the afternoon and make fun of me in ways I don´t want to write about in my blog.
My best memories of this week are the times spent with Pastor Dario and his wife Marlene. I ate lunch there for the past two Sundays and spent all day Friday helping to prepare for a ping pong tournament. We were expecting about 20 or more people to compete and I made a big poster organzing the tournament with rules and eveything, and we even got a small trophy and some medals. Everyone would pay a 2,500 Guarani entry fee (about 50 cents) and the money was going towards a drum kit for the band that 5 or 6 of the boys from the church put together. Unfortunately there was huge storm and the electricity went out, so instead we sang and played games around the table and it was really fun anyways. I taught them how to play Phase 10, a card game that my mom and sister sent me, and we played it until I was totally sick of it. Dario and Marlene are not the wealthiest people, but their are so very rich in hospitality and I am looking forward to going there again tomorrow, when we will have a second attempt at the tournament.
I kind of laughed at the ping pong table when I first saw it, because it is just a big board that someone painted green and they set it atop of four ricketey chairs. But since then I have also seen kids playing volleyball with their feet/chest/head (piki volley) with an old cable strung across the yard, and other kids playing with part of a broken bench set on two stumps. They have to be very innovative here. I guess it´s not a big deal to not have great spots equipment, but I feel sad when I see kids who so badly want to play music but don´t have access to an instrument and can´t take lessons. And it makes me regret all the times when I fought with my mom over not wanting to practice piano, a talent I am so glad to have now. I want to help the band, ¨Harvester¨to raise money for the drums, which we would also use at church. (English names for a band or english writing on t-shirts are really popular, as well as english graffiti which frequently contains errors in grammar and I always take pictures of it; poorly spelled english graffiti is becoming somewhat of my specialty in my photo album. Harvester made t-shirts and on the back it says something like ¨a brite in the night¨I think a poor translation of that verse in Isaiah). So there is a light shining here in Paraguay and it brings a lot of hope: Hope for a building addition to the school, a drum set, a website, computers, and all kinds of material things. But most of all the refrain goes ¨Paraguay for Jesus¨and we hope that people´s lives can be turned around through our witness in the neighbourhood. People like the guys who hang out on the corner between my house and church and get drunk at 3 in the afternoon and make fun of me in ways I don´t want to write about in my blog.
# posted by Ellen @ 10:45 AM 
