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!
# posted by Ellen @ 3:40 PM 
