Monday, April 30, 2007
Today was Day of the Teacher. It’s great because every class presents a song or poem and all the students bring presents and food and you get to have parties in class. I really fell in love with my students as I watched them recite poems and shower their teachers with gifts. Here is my inventory from today:
• An 8-inch tall clock shaped like a giant pink shoe with a boy standing beside it. The clock face says (in English) “Don’t forget it. I’m always waiting.”
• A necklace with a butterfly that already broke
• A box of yummy looking candies and chocolates
• A gift set of perfume and a pencil case (well, it’s probably a cosmetic bag, but it looks like a pencil case) that I might not open and possibly re-gift
• A little flower in a clay pot that has petals and leaves made out of coloured nylons
• Earrings shaped like a coin and with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth on it. For reasons unknown to me, these are very popular here, and people are interested to hear that Canadian coins have the same picture on them.
• Another school uniform t-shirt from the principals
Other teachers got sweaters and watches, rings and brushes. Last year Vivi got a huge wooden boat that you can plug in and it lights up. Although Paraguay is nowhere near the sea, almost every house I’ve been in has one of these wooden sail boats. I think they are fairly tacky, but I was secretly hoping to get one today. Once I told a friend I thought the boats were ugly, and when I went to her house the next week I saw that she had one too! The worst is that Karen also has boats and she is going to read my blog. But her boat is very small and inside of a bottle, so that kind of redeems it. My shoe clock is my prized possession, and I plan on bringing it back home with me, along with the clock I am currently using – a Precious-Moments-looking-boy kneeling beside an I-love-you-heart.
Ben gave me a book to read about a Mennonite from the Ukraine who ends up as a very influential missionary in Paraguay. I cried at one part because he spends Christmas all alone in this distant country, thinking of the rest of his family members who have been exiled to Siberia. He ends up marrying a Canadian girl whom he has never met before, only corresponded through mail. I cried for her too, because she was like me and had really high hopes of learning the language fast only to realize it would be more difficult than she thought. Plus her husband to be forgot to tell her that there was only cold water for showering, and even though she was a fine baker, she couldn’t use her skills because they didn’t have an oven. But like me, she realized that she could buy fresh bread from the store very cheaply, and so we are glad to not have to spend our time baking. I only miss not having an oven when we want to make pizza. Anyways, the part I really wanted to tell you about was her disappointment in the wedding presents. “Gifts were opened later at Tante Lena’s home and here again Anna felt the great contrast between Canada and the Chaco. In place of pretty gift wrap, the presents came wrapped in newspaper. There was an enameled pail, tea towels homemade from sugar sacks, and, instead of a dinner set, odd plates in assorted designs and colors.”
Sometimes when people give gifts here, they don’t even open them. And sometimes they just have a whole pile that they rip through and don’t really make a special effort to thank people individually. It is not part of the event that all the guests watch the present opening. I think they don’t make a big deal over presents because even at a birthday party it is unlikely that everyone will bring something, and the ones that do usually bring just something small. Since I am kind of a practical gift-giver, I found it difficult at first to know what to get people because I don’t like giving flowers made of nylons (that is probably why I like the shoe clock so much, very practical). But now that I have pictures on my computer of almost everyone, I like to get photos developed of the person and their family and give those, since most people don’t have a camera.
In case anyone is wondering, the book about the Mennonite missionary is called “whatever it Takes” by Dorothy Siebert. It is not great literature, but Ben says it is essential for understanding the history of Mennonite missions in Paraguay, and it is exciting enough to make me want to stop writing this blog and go back to reading it right now.
• An 8-inch tall clock shaped like a giant pink shoe with a boy standing beside it. The clock face says (in English) “Don’t forget it. I’m always waiting.”
• A necklace with a butterfly that already broke
• A box of yummy looking candies and chocolates
• A gift set of perfume and a pencil case (well, it’s probably a cosmetic bag, but it looks like a pencil case) that I might not open and possibly re-gift
• A little flower in a clay pot that has petals and leaves made out of coloured nylons
• Earrings shaped like a coin and with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth on it. For reasons unknown to me, these are very popular here, and people are interested to hear that Canadian coins have the same picture on them.
• Another school uniform t-shirt from the principals
Other teachers got sweaters and watches, rings and brushes. Last year Vivi got a huge wooden boat that you can plug in and it lights up. Although Paraguay is nowhere near the sea, almost every house I’ve been in has one of these wooden sail boats. I think they are fairly tacky, but I was secretly hoping to get one today. Once I told a friend I thought the boats were ugly, and when I went to her house the next week I saw that she had one too! The worst is that Karen also has boats and she is going to read my blog. But her boat is very small and inside of a bottle, so that kind of redeems it. My shoe clock is my prized possession, and I plan on bringing it back home with me, along with the clock I am currently using – a Precious-Moments-looking-boy kneeling beside an I-love-you-heart.
Ben gave me a book to read about a Mennonite from the Ukraine who ends up as a very influential missionary in Paraguay. I cried at one part because he spends Christmas all alone in this distant country, thinking of the rest of his family members who have been exiled to Siberia. He ends up marrying a Canadian girl whom he has never met before, only corresponded through mail. I cried for her too, because she was like me and had really high hopes of learning the language fast only to realize it would be more difficult than she thought. Plus her husband to be forgot to tell her that there was only cold water for showering, and even though she was a fine baker, she couldn’t use her skills because they didn’t have an oven. But like me, she realized that she could buy fresh bread from the store very cheaply, and so we are glad to not have to spend our time baking. I only miss not having an oven when we want to make pizza. Anyways, the part I really wanted to tell you about was her disappointment in the wedding presents. “Gifts were opened later at Tante Lena’s home and here again Anna felt the great contrast between Canada and the Chaco. In place of pretty gift wrap, the presents came wrapped in newspaper. There was an enameled pail, tea towels homemade from sugar sacks, and, instead of a dinner set, odd plates in assorted designs and colors.”
Sometimes when people give gifts here, they don’t even open them. And sometimes they just have a whole pile that they rip through and don’t really make a special effort to thank people individually. It is not part of the event that all the guests watch the present opening. I think they don’t make a big deal over presents because even at a birthday party it is unlikely that everyone will bring something, and the ones that do usually bring just something small. Since I am kind of a practical gift-giver, I found it difficult at first to know what to get people because I don’t like giving flowers made of nylons (that is probably why I like the shoe clock so much, very practical). But now that I have pictures on my computer of almost everyone, I like to get photos developed of the person and their family and give those, since most people don’t have a camera.
In case anyone is wondering, the book about the Mennonite missionary is called “whatever it Takes” by Dorothy Siebert. It is not great literature, but Ben says it is essential for understanding the history of Mennonite missions in Paraguay, and it is exciting enough to make me want to stop writing this blog and go back to reading it right now.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Two days ago I couldn’t go outside without sweating. Today I have goose bumps on my arm. It’s probably not that cold here, but the change was so drastic. I almost forgot what it was like to be cold. But I just have to remind myself that I got to skip out on half a year of snow in Edmonton, so I am willing to withstand having to put on a sweater in the evenings…
I learned that in the area I live, there actually isn’t a sewage system. Most of it seeps into the ground, but if it gets too full under your house, you have to call a truck that comes and sucks up the sewage. I told my friend I thought it was a little gross, but he says the ground is a really good filter…
My landlady drove me downtown today to sign up to get a landline. They said that some one should come with a month to hook it up. The thing is, when someone says they are coming the next day, it usually takes a week. I hope I get my phone before I leave so I can tell my mom when to come and pick me up at the airport…
I feel like I met lots of new people this week. First there is my landlady’s “chica,” a girl named Ramona who cooks and cleans house. She’s 18 years old and came from the countryside to work, because there are 12 kids in her family. I think I am pretty good at carrying conversation, and I know this is true even in Spanish, because I think I must have asked her about 50 questions in a row and all she said was “sí.’ Another new friend is Toti, a 74-year old man who claims not to be a fanatic, but when his giant tongue stars rolling around in his mouth as he talks about religion, I think that would be a pretty good word to describe him. I got to know him because he has the biggest hernia ever and can’t go anywhere so he sits on the street in front of his house and waits for people like me to walk by and stop and talk with him. Then there are the workers from jean factory that I stopped and drank tereré with when I was out for a run; Amari, a girl I met when we showed a video to night school class, who claims to have learned English solely by listening to the Beatles. I wanted to ask her why she doesn’t have a British accent when she speaks in English. I’ve always been outgoing, but I think I have reached a new apex here. I am really inspired when I go back home to live more like a “warm-climate” person who has time to speak to anyone who might cross her path. I’ve even started having conversations with the checkers at the grocery store. I can see why our church can grow so easily here, because it is so easy to start a conversation with someone and invite them to come to a meeting or to play sports.
I’ve written before about Paraguayan holidays, but I need to add something else besides the fact that they celebrate weird stuff. I am used to even spacing between holidays – one day a month off work, a Monday. We went the whole month of February without a single holiday, but May is chock full of them, and only one is on a Monday! That is day of the teacher next week. And then Tuesday is Day of the worker. May 11th is mother’s day. The 15th is Independence Day. The 21st is day of the national anthem. On the 18th, there are no classes because the teachers have a workshop that day. Plus exams start on the 17th. So looking at my schedule there doesn’t seem to be many days of actual teaching this month. Which is okay because the evangelism team is doing lots of traveling, I found I actually like doing prep work here (lots of cutting and pasting and photocopying, and I have to do my own tedious laminating using packing tape), plus I have lots of new friends to visit!
I learned that in the area I live, there actually isn’t a sewage system. Most of it seeps into the ground, but if it gets too full under your house, you have to call a truck that comes and sucks up the sewage. I told my friend I thought it was a little gross, but he says the ground is a really good filter…
My landlady drove me downtown today to sign up to get a landline. They said that some one should come with a month to hook it up. The thing is, when someone says they are coming the next day, it usually takes a week. I hope I get my phone before I leave so I can tell my mom when to come and pick me up at the airport…
I feel like I met lots of new people this week. First there is my landlady’s “chica,” a girl named Ramona who cooks and cleans house. She’s 18 years old and came from the countryside to work, because there are 12 kids in her family. I think I am pretty good at carrying conversation, and I know this is true even in Spanish, because I think I must have asked her about 50 questions in a row and all she said was “sí.’ Another new friend is Toti, a 74-year old man who claims not to be a fanatic, but when his giant tongue stars rolling around in his mouth as he talks about religion, I think that would be a pretty good word to describe him. I got to know him because he has the biggest hernia ever and can’t go anywhere so he sits on the street in front of his house and waits for people like me to walk by and stop and talk with him. Then there are the workers from jean factory that I stopped and drank tereré with when I was out for a run; Amari, a girl I met when we showed a video to night school class, who claims to have learned English solely by listening to the Beatles. I wanted to ask her why she doesn’t have a British accent when she speaks in English. I’ve always been outgoing, but I think I have reached a new apex here. I am really inspired when I go back home to live more like a “warm-climate” person who has time to speak to anyone who might cross her path. I’ve even started having conversations with the checkers at the grocery store. I can see why our church can grow so easily here, because it is so easy to start a conversation with someone and invite them to come to a meeting or to play sports.
I’ve written before about Paraguayan holidays, but I need to add something else besides the fact that they celebrate weird stuff. I am used to even spacing between holidays – one day a month off work, a Monday. We went the whole month of February without a single holiday, but May is chock full of them, and only one is on a Monday! That is day of the teacher next week. And then Tuesday is Day of the worker. May 11th is mother’s day. The 15th is Independence Day. The 21st is day of the national anthem. On the 18th, there are no classes because the teachers have a workshop that day. Plus exams start on the 17th. So looking at my schedule there doesn’t seem to be many days of actual teaching this month. Which is okay because the evangelism team is doing lots of traveling, I found I actually like doing prep work here (lots of cutting and pasting and photocopying, and I have to do my own tedious laminating using packing tape), plus I have lots of new friends to visit!
Monday, April 23, 2007
This weekend I read a children’s book that Ben loaned me, called From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg. I think it made me somewhat homesick, because I read it on the day that I was missing my brother and my cousin’s college graduation, and it’s about a girl who runs away from and takes her brother with her. Claudia reminded me of myself because she was always bossing around the brother and correcting his grammar, and I could identify with her reason for running away: “to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation.” Even though sometimes my life feels difficult, I trust I have already been gone long enough to build up a lot of Ellen appreciation and it will be great to get lots of attention when I get back home! At the same time, I have built up a lot of appreciation for all my friends and family back home. Now I am going to write some things that might make my mom nervous and increase her Ellen appreciation even more…
One day I was walking to the grocery store at 9:30 in the morning with a girl named Raquel and her 2 or 3 year old son. As we passed by a ragged-looking man on the street, he slowly rose, mumbling, and drunkenly swung a loose fist at Raquel, tapping her lightly on the head. What was surprising to me was not the violent drunk in the street at that hour of the morning, but the fact that Raquel barely reacted. She calmly picked up her son and continued walking as though this was a common occurrence. I’ve decided that I actually live in a relatively safe and well-to-do neighborhood. My friend was robbed a couple of weeks ago; the thieves took the equivalent of about $4, which isn’t a ton, expect that she didn’t have any money to buy a bus ticket The worst part is that she asked for help and no one would give her money, and she couldn’t report it to the police, they wouldn’t do anything anyways. They say that during the reign of Stroessner from the 60’s to the 80’s there was not very much crime because no one could be out on the street late and the police had a lot of power. My roommate’s comment on the dictatorship was “at that time there were not a lot of thieves, but who was a greater thief than he who ruled?” Another 15-year-old girl told me that once she was held at knife point as some guys took the running shoes off her feet, but she’s not scared to walk alone. I receive a lot of warnings that people will steal my shoes or grab my purse as they get off the bus, or kidnap me because I am so obviously a foreigner. The worst I have suffered so far are drunk men (and sober men) who make rude comments. I don’t think I am in great danger of getting my shoes stolen, since I only wear flip-flops every day! my big fear here is still getting lost; I can get to Oscar and Karen’s by myself, but the bus routes and numbers are still totally confusing to me. I am reminded of the book title Trust in God but Lock Your Car. I know I am probably still a little naive of some of the things that go on even in my neighborhood, but at the same time I don’t want to live in fear. If I were worried about being safe I probably shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
It’s my mom’s birthday on Wednesday. I guess this blog about getting robbed and kidnapped was kind of a terrible birthday present. But in the From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the kids spend a whole week in New York and never get hurt. I loved this observation on how some mothers are: “…Jonathon Richter’s mother hadn’t let him go for fear he’d get separated from the group in all the jostling that goes on in New York. Mrs. Richter, who was something of a character, had said that she was certain he would ‘come home lost.’” Mom, thanks for raising me to not want expensive shoes that would be tempting to steal, for instilling in me the love of reading, and for appreciating me probably even more than I know!
One day I was walking to the grocery store at 9:30 in the morning with a girl named Raquel and her 2 or 3 year old son. As we passed by a ragged-looking man on the street, he slowly rose, mumbling, and drunkenly swung a loose fist at Raquel, tapping her lightly on the head. What was surprising to me was not the violent drunk in the street at that hour of the morning, but the fact that Raquel barely reacted. She calmly picked up her son and continued walking as though this was a common occurrence. I’ve decided that I actually live in a relatively safe and well-to-do neighborhood. My friend was robbed a couple of weeks ago; the thieves took the equivalent of about $4, which isn’t a ton, expect that she didn’t have any money to buy a bus ticket The worst part is that she asked for help and no one would give her money, and she couldn’t report it to the police, they wouldn’t do anything anyways. They say that during the reign of Stroessner from the 60’s to the 80’s there was not very much crime because no one could be out on the street late and the police had a lot of power. My roommate’s comment on the dictatorship was “at that time there were not a lot of thieves, but who was a greater thief than he who ruled?” Another 15-year-old girl told me that once she was held at knife point as some guys took the running shoes off her feet, but she’s not scared to walk alone. I receive a lot of warnings that people will steal my shoes or grab my purse as they get off the bus, or kidnap me because I am so obviously a foreigner. The worst I have suffered so far are drunk men (and sober men) who make rude comments. I don’t think I am in great danger of getting my shoes stolen, since I only wear flip-flops every day! my big fear here is still getting lost; I can get to Oscar and Karen’s by myself, but the bus routes and numbers are still totally confusing to me. I am reminded of the book title Trust in God but Lock Your Car. I know I am probably still a little naive of some of the things that go on even in my neighborhood, but at the same time I don’t want to live in fear. If I were worried about being safe I probably shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
It’s my mom’s birthday on Wednesday. I guess this blog about getting robbed and kidnapped was kind of a terrible birthday present. But in the From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the kids spend a whole week in New York and never get hurt. I loved this observation on how some mothers are: “…Jonathon Richter’s mother hadn’t let him go for fear he’d get separated from the group in all the jostling that goes on in New York. Mrs. Richter, who was something of a character, had said that she was certain he would ‘come home lost.’” Mom, thanks for raising me to not want expensive shoes that would be tempting to steal, for instilling in me the love of reading, and for appreciating me probably even more than I know!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Two weeks ago I had a strange feeling. It wasn’t homesickness or frustration with teaching or loneliness or sadness, feelings I experience on a weekly basis. I actually got bored. I had already spent a lot of time walking around exploring the neighborhood, reading, I had all my lessons planned, my house was clean. So I went to Maria Teresa’s work where she reupholsters cars, and had a great time playing a word game with her employees. If I were at home or somewhere in North America, I might have gone to a coffee shop or the mall or a movie theatre or library or a nice park, but none of those things are within my grasp here (parks, yes; nice parks, no). I have to rely solely on the handful of people I know from the church and school to animate my life. Before even going to the supermarket was exciting, but I think now it is starting to wear off just a little. Not a moment too soon, my relationships are starting to afford me with a lot of entertainment. The people are becoming more and more interesting to me, not just because they’re Paraguayan but because they are my friends and I care about them. I like to think I am becoming part of the group; my evidence for this is that I had a disagreement with they guy with whom I was leading games for camp and had to ask for forgiveness from each other, my roommate and I shared some things that annoyed us about each other, and there was a RUMOR going around about me! Arguments, brutal honesty and hearsay are not things that come about with a visitor, they are marks of being an insider! In case anyone is worried about me, you can also know that my relationships are strong enough that these things have quickly passed over, and in fact I am glad for them because I feel more confident and comfortable than ever now that I know I am able to resolve conflicts here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make for a terribly interesting blog because I can’t exactly write about any of the things. There is a terrible temptation for gossip because people like to tell me about things that happened in the past. They also tell me lots about of personal stuff. Maybe Paraguayans are just really open like that, or maybe they like having my trustworthy ear to listen because I am not fully capable of communicating their secrets to anyone else! I’ll tell you the GOOD things: Today I made fried eggplant and Emi thinks I am becoming an excellent cook. People are always telling me how much they will miss me when I leave and asking if I might stay longer or come back to visit (I am definitely on the downhill from here, less than 6 ½ months until I finish teaching on November 5!) I went to three people’s birthday parties this past weekend, but two of them were twins! (My birthday is a month from today. Normally I wouldn’t mention it, but people here make a pretty big deal out of birthdays and it has rubbed off a little.) I think I forgot to write that I went bowling 2 weeks ago. The bowling part was as lame as it is at home, but the company and the pizza from a Pizza Hut (!) place in the mall afterwards was excellent. I am embarrassed because I got the second lowest score. So I feel bad about feeling bored that one day…how can I ever get bored being with 80 kids every day in such an exotic place as Paraguay?! Besides, my aunt Loll says that only boring people get bored. By the way, there is no way you can say that in Spanish, they don’t really have a concept of the difference between bored and boring.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Today when she prayed before we ate lunch, Emi thanked God for the “agradable” weather. I couldn’t think of a better adjective than “agreeable,” and the great weather, plus a week of travel and vacation and spending lots of time with friends also puts me in a very agreeable mood as I write this. Actually, it rained almost the whole weekend we were at camp, but it turned out great that we could play hours of Bible trivia! I attempted to share my testimony one night, and once again I was greatly humbled. I thought of how I would speak at campfire at western camp and be flooded with compliments later, whereas here I am not even sure people understood me. At home I could teach the junior high Bible class or be the leader of the cabin counselors, but even the smallest responsibilities are a great challenge for me. The positive aspect of this is that I have learned to love helping others. I felt sorry for Karen and another woman Elena who basically lived in the kitchen, so whenever I had some free time I could go to the kitchen and help them. It was such a joy for me to be made useful there, and I learned how to make chipa! I also had a blast helping Ben make questions for “BIBLIGO” a Bible Jeopardy game with such categories as “fathers and sons,” finish the proverb” or “clothing.” I realized I could never have done a good job of these things by myself, but with Karen’s awesome cooking abilities and Ben’s superb ideas, I was proud of everything we did together. Last year in the hallway of the school there was a sign with this quotation by Tagore:
I slept and I dreamed that life was happiness I woke and I saw that life was service I served and I found that service was happiness
I went to camp and found it difficult to just hang out and talk, so I served instead and it made me very happy. Of course, this has all made me very nostalgic for Western Camp and I am intensely jealous of Ben and Vivi and Karen and Oscar who are going in July, but I am glad some of you will get to meet them. Tomorrow I go back to teaching. It feels like so long since I’ve been in the classroom (it’s only been one week) so it’s almost like starting over again, except this time I am four hundred times more confident. As always, I’ll let you know how it goes in a couple of days.
I slept and I dreamed that life was happiness I woke and I saw that life was service I served and I found that service was happiness
I went to camp and found it difficult to just hang out and talk, so I served instead and it made me very happy. Of course, this has all made me very nostalgic for Western Camp and I am intensely jealous of Ben and Vivi and Karen and Oscar who are going in July, but I am glad some of you will get to meet them. Tomorrow I go back to teaching. It feels like so long since I’ve been in the classroom (it’s only been one week) so it’s almost like starting over again, except this time I am four hundred times more confident. As always, I’ll let you know how it goes in a couple of days.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Easter break has kind of been like spring break last year, where I planned lots of work but ended up doing none of it. Last weekend I went with the “evangelism team” to a village clear across the other side of the country on the border to Brazil, about a 5-hour drive. Hernandarias has only one paved road and lots of kids born to very young mothers it seemed. When I arrived it was very windy and our car and our selves were immediately covered in red dust. A few hours later it rained a little and the floors got covered in red mud. I really liked eastern Paraguay because it is a little higher and closer to the ocean, cooler and fresher than Asunción almost to a degree of perfection. I fell in love with Paraguay again as we drove through the beautiful countryside, just in time for my 6-month anniversary with this place. On the way we stopped and bought the best chipa I ever had (a kind-of cheesy bagel made with mandioca flour) but then returning we had even better chipa! I learned that chipa and homemade bread are Easter foods in Paraguay. It seems to me that the “special holiday foods” here are the same as what we eat every day, besides maybe the fruit cake at Christmas.
I had an awesome weekend, probably because I got a lot of attention and made lots of friends. Some girls took me for a walk around the town (the highlights of the tour were the paved road, the high school one girl attended, and the two grocery stores) and told me that everyone knew each other, there was lots of gossip, they liked to cross the border to buy clothes in Brazil, and they all wanted to move to the city. I think small towns are the same everywhere in the world. The first friend I made was a 17-year old who had just broken up with her boyfriend and moved back into her parent’s house. The first night I stayed at town counselor’s house whose wife worked 24-hour shifts as a guard at a women’s prison, because the pastor’s house had no electricity. I would think a civil servant and a security guard would be a sufficient income, but their house was cluttered with car parts and plastic swimming pools, which the wife said they planned to cart to Asunción one day to sell. You know how sometimes things have “tricks,” like a light switch that you need to flick in a certain way to turn on or a door you have to close just so? It seemed to me like everything in this house, which was really a garage, had a trick. Yet in spite of this and the constant dirtiness I felt strangely comfortable. At the pastor’s house the second night, I went outside to wash my feet before going to bed, and ended up staying outside for two hours more talking with the pastor’s wife and her 20-year old sister who lived with them because she had a baby a few years ago. She wanted to dictate a letter to me, but she was very surprised when I wrote with “unconnected” letters. I told her about Google Earth and how their town could be seen from space. She told me about how before she and her husband were separated and how he was a drunkard and a womanizer. They lived only two houses away from the church and I thought this was because he was the pastor, but actually it was because they lived so close that she started attending the church. Her husband started attending two years after her, but the first few times he sneaked around the block so his friends wouldn’t see him enter. I thoroughly enjoyed staying up late and sharing our life stories, but I felt sorry for Elsa who was getting up at 4:30 in the morning to do her laundry!
I always really enjoy my visits to the country, but I am also glad that I live in a bigger city. In the country the preferred language is Guarani, or at least a very strong mixture of Spanish and Guarani. Another thing is that the kids are so bored that it is difficult to sit down and read because they will follow you everywhere and ask you to make elephant sounds. But it was good because they taught me a lot of Guarani. Today I am leaving for church camp at Rancho Alegre, Happy Ranch! I am in charge of games and am very excited to play “Biblgo” my version of a Bible trivia game, and capture the flag. The camp schedule is basically the same as western camp except that dinner is at 9 in the evening. Happy Easter everyone! As silly as the Easter bunny might seem in North America, it makes even less sense here where we are getting into fall time. Also, I thought yesterday about how strange it will be for me to say “Santa Claus,” now that santa is the word I use to describe the Bible or God’s Spirit, and how Santa Claus kind of makes Christmas the opposite of holy. But everything is opposite here, instead of chocolate I will be eating cheesy chipa and homemade bread.
I had an awesome weekend, probably because I got a lot of attention and made lots of friends. Some girls took me for a walk around the town (the highlights of the tour were the paved road, the high school one girl attended, and the two grocery stores) and told me that everyone knew each other, there was lots of gossip, they liked to cross the border to buy clothes in Brazil, and they all wanted to move to the city. I think small towns are the same everywhere in the world. The first friend I made was a 17-year old who had just broken up with her boyfriend and moved back into her parent’s house. The first night I stayed at town counselor’s house whose wife worked 24-hour shifts as a guard at a women’s prison, because the pastor’s house had no electricity. I would think a civil servant and a security guard would be a sufficient income, but their house was cluttered with car parts and plastic swimming pools, which the wife said they planned to cart to Asunción one day to sell. You know how sometimes things have “tricks,” like a light switch that you need to flick in a certain way to turn on or a door you have to close just so? It seemed to me like everything in this house, which was really a garage, had a trick. Yet in spite of this and the constant dirtiness I felt strangely comfortable. At the pastor’s house the second night, I went outside to wash my feet before going to bed, and ended up staying outside for two hours more talking with the pastor’s wife and her 20-year old sister who lived with them because she had a baby a few years ago. She wanted to dictate a letter to me, but she was very surprised when I wrote with “unconnected” letters. I told her about Google Earth and how their town could be seen from space. She told me about how before she and her husband were separated and how he was a drunkard and a womanizer. They lived only two houses away from the church and I thought this was because he was the pastor, but actually it was because they lived so close that she started attending the church. Her husband started attending two years after her, but the first few times he sneaked around the block so his friends wouldn’t see him enter. I thoroughly enjoyed staying up late and sharing our life stories, but I felt sorry for Elsa who was getting up at 4:30 in the morning to do her laundry!
I always really enjoy my visits to the country, but I am also glad that I live in a bigger city. In the country the preferred language is Guarani, or at least a very strong mixture of Spanish and Guarani. Another thing is that the kids are so bored that it is difficult to sit down and read because they will follow you everywhere and ask you to make elephant sounds. But it was good because they taught me a lot of Guarani. Today I am leaving for church camp at Rancho Alegre, Happy Ranch! I am in charge of games and am very excited to play “Biblgo” my version of a Bible trivia game, and capture the flag. The camp schedule is basically the same as western camp except that dinner is at 9 in the evening. Happy Easter everyone! As silly as the Easter bunny might seem in North America, it makes even less sense here where we are getting into fall time. Also, I thought yesterday about how strange it will be for me to say “Santa Claus,” now that santa is the word I use to describe the Bible or God’s Spirit, and how Santa Claus kind of makes Christmas the opposite of holy. But everything is opposite here, instead of chocolate I will be eating cheesy chipa and homemade bread.
