Aqui Al Pie de la Cruz

This is the song I've been helping with the signs for. This is the first time they did it, andI was very impressed with how it turned out. Debora is the one on the far left, Yolanda is in the middle, and Gasparina, Debora's mom, is on the far right, closest to the camera.

Too Much Cuteness

While I haven't done as much actual teaching as I had planned, I absolutely love the kids here. They are incredibly enthusiastic and energetic and I just love watching them. Whenever they see me with my camera they all stare and smile big for it, even if they're supposed to be paying attention to something else. I can't help it. I'm supposed to be taking candid pictures.

In case you don't remember, there is a large epidemic of pneumonia-bronchitis-lung infection stuff going around Paraguay at the moment, and the schools' winter breaks were extended an extra week so that kids could get well. Not that this did much good, as on Monday, when they started back, less than half of the kids showed up. I have been gone for a month now, and in that month, I have been in the classroom twice and this is only the fifth school day I have witnessed.  Yet, after lunch today, when I came back to the school, the kids from the jardin class who were out on recess came towards me running, yelling, "Hello, Profe! Hello!" They are learning basic Engish and say things like hello, thank you, and I love you all the time. I've been in their classrooms twice, and they still call me profe,  which means teacher. Weird, yet sweet stuff.

Enjoy this familiar tune:

This week has been fairly uneventful. It's just me and Sis.Bir until next Wednesday, because Bro.Bir is in Argentina.  Sis.Bir and I didn't go along because of car trouble and the fact that school started back up this week. Oh well. Maybe another time. I've been busy making up pictures for posters and flashcards, and it's nice to have a lot to do and to help with. I'm not liking the 6:30-5 hours and the moment, though. Tomorrow should be a shorter day, praise God. I at least get to sleep in until 7:15 instead of 5:45. I'm making a trip to Cerro Lambare this week or next week, where I'll have to hike up the hill. That should be a story to share. I'm going with Diana either next Monday or next Thursday. Not sure which yet. I'll keep you posted on that and close with a picture of Cerro Lambare. I took this picture from the restaurant on top of the grocery store down the street from where I live, called SuperSeis. The grocery stores here have buffet restaurants on top of them, with delicious Paraguayan food. Even the Sopa Paraguaya wasn't bad, and I haven't been a fan of that so far.

More Recent Happenings

The past few days have been extrordinarily busy. I've been working on photocopying the church's constitution and titles for all of the properties that they own here in Paraguay so that they can get the taxes exonerated. It's a complicated process that has already taken roughly 600 photocopies and I'm about halfway through. The church constitution, a copy of the cedula, or identification, id number, and other required documents is about 24 pages. I had to run off 20 copies of that. I then have to run off all of the titles which can range from about five pages to fifteen pages, depending on how long the property has been in ownership. If this doesn't sound complex enough, the copier has been a fixture of the church for ten years and has made roughly a quarter of a million copies. For a machine that old, that pretty much signifies that the machine is on its last leg. Also the fact that it jams paper every other copy and when it's not jamming paper, the jam paper light comes on anyway just to make me happy.

It's hard to believe that on Wednesday, I will have been gone for a month. Also, that a few weeks ago, I was planning on leaving on Tuesday. I'm not planning on doing that anymore, but I still have my moments. Like last week.

Last night, we went out to the campo, which was a real experience to say the least. It involved driving out to the middle of nowhere, finding a house, and then following a dirt and rock trail through the woods to this church, which was just built.

Welcome to the missions field. That's what I was expecting to see when I got here. The floor was dirt and they had only a guitar. No microphones, no sound systems, no piano, nothing. And yet, they worshipped anyway. *gasp* Shocking, I know.

This picture is something that just blew my mind-

This kitchen is outside. It's mostly improvised and is seperate from the house. It's amazing when you see how lucky we are in the States. This was one of those moments where I realized how blessed I was.

Last Weekend...finally

I had the best day that I’ve had since I’ve been here last Saturday.

I got up at six in the morning so that I could ride the bus for the first time. We met at the church at seven, and had to walk for about ten or fifteen minutes to get to the place where the bus was. Transportation here is crazy. It costs about two mil, or two thousand, guaranies, to ride the bus. That’s roughly forty cents.  I had to take two buses to get to the city where the youth event was and it took about an hour and a half. I really kind of liked the feel of the bus. The wide turns, however, were not so pleasant. I kept thinking that I was going to fall out of my seat.

The youth service was pretty great. Not that I could understand anything while they were singing. As usual. But the sermon was illustrative, so I could actually kind of follow along, which was a nice change.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Christian school in this town and there was a volleyball court set up on some concrete, a table with some food, and goats. Goats, wandering around out in the middle of the field. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but soccer here is about as crazy as football. Therefore, I was getting quite an education in soccer. That is, what team I should cheer for, which happens to be Cerro, I guess. I don’t know anything about that team, but apparently they’re good, I guess. I got to see some real Paraguayan futbol (soccer), too, because there was a game going on at the bottom of the field. It was fun to get to see all of that, too, but the people are crazy. It is so much more competitive here than there.

After getting to watch some futbol, I got to see some more sights of Paraguay, which was great because I haven’t really got to see much since I’ve been here. We went to Villa Hayes, which is a town across the bridge that goes over from the Central department (departments here are the equivalent of states) to the Chaco department. The bridge crosses Rio Paraguay which is a huge river that divides the country. There are four districts on the Chaco side, and thirteen districts on the Central side. If I got that wrong, forgive me, this was a few nights ago, and that’s what I remember. Rude comments on how I don’t know anything about the country are not appreciated. Anyway, this bridge is a mile long and I have no idea how tall. You can see the skyline of Asuncion from the top and at night it’s all lit up. It’s really beautiful.  We went to the town of Villa Hayes, which happens to be named after Rutherford B. Hayes, who signed a proclamation granting the land for the town or something along those lines. There’s a big memorial to him there, so Debora and Gonzalo, who are the people I went with, showed me the memorial and wanted me to read them the proclamation in Spanish, because they don’t speak English, and couldn’t read it. Unfortunately, it was in very slanty cursive and in old language, and I just don’t speak that much. So, it didn’t work out well. After this, we went down and looked at the river. They told me about how when the church was first started, there was no bridge and people had to come across in boats.  Also, apparently, there’s a sinkhole that people believe sucks people under and they pop up on the other side of the river. That’s encouraging.

Oh, and while we were at the church at Villa Hayes, a lady came over and said there was a monkey in one of her trees. A monkey. There’s something you don’t see in Ohio. It was pretty awesome. And apparently they do have them frequently here. And parrots. I keep forgetting that I’m in the tropics.                                                                                                      

Better

I haven't written because the aforementioned situation has been resolved. Meaning that I'm now very busy. I think I have part of a day off tomorrow. so I'll play catch up then.

A note for you though. When showing a Paraguayan friend how to do a hairstyle, do not tell her that she has more caballo than you. This means horse and she will laugh hysterically at you. The word is cabello. Noted.

Sorry If This Is Getting Old

I have a nice post that I'm working on about this weekend, but right now, I need that to wait, and once again, I need you to pray for me. There are some things here that I really need to work out and deal with and talk through, and how that stuff goes will have a large impact on how long this trip is really going to last. It's not something that I'm going to go into, a few people know about it, and to some people, it's really not that big of a deal. But really, in the current situation I'm in, it's a huge deal. Just pray for me and for God's will. And that I'll actually know what that is, because it kind of escapes me at the moment.

Don't get me wrong, I really do love this country. But there are things that need resolved.

Thank you so much for the support you've given me so far. It helps a lot.

*yawn*

I'm too tired from a completely awesome day to tell all that happened. But here's a picture of my friend, Debora, who I'm always talking about and me at the big river that divides Paraguay.

The lights in the background are from Asuncion. We're in Villa de Hayes in the picture. It's named after Rutherford B. Hayes, who happened to be born in Ohio and go to Kenyon. Mad props. Long story, I'll explain later.

I'll also put up pictures of the monkey I saw in the yard of one of the church ladies today. Just because I love you and I think it's that awesome.

Walter Cronkite is dead and Milanesa is greasy

Milanesa is very popular here in Paraguay. I'm not a big fan of it. This is a picture of the milanesa from a very popular food court/free standing venor called Lomilandia that specializes in lomitos. Lomitos may be the most delicious things to grace the planet, especially when purchased from a vendor here called Monte Libano. It's a Lebanese place and it makes the greatest lomito arabes. Amazing. Anyway, what milanesa is is basically a chicken fried steak on steroids on a bun. It's ridiculously greasy and will give you heartburn and nausea within three bites guaranteed or your money back. Unfortunately, I will have to eat it on several more occasions while I'm here. This makes me weep on the inside.

So, I have been ridiculously busy this week, which explains my lack of presence on the blog. I'm in the process of creating another spreadsheet, but this time I'm being less creative and am cloning another person's program, but changing a few things so that instead of the missionaries' total funding spreadsheet, they can use it for the school, and then another one for the church's finances. This spreadsheet that I had to decipher was a monster. 39 lines on the top, upwards of 300 down the side. Please shoot me. On top of that, there were formulas adding together boxes on other sheets that had other formulas in them adding yet more formulas. Thankfully, I finally figured it out and have the rough framework on the school sheet done and will finish it up next week after the school's secretary enters some of the numbers.

The other major project this week has been getting used to the ancient photocopier in the office. I think Johannes Gutenberg used it. I've been copying pages for the Bible school's textbooks and for the Ladies' Conference in August. Next week's project, on top of finishing the ridiculous Excel sheet, is to work on the program for the Ladies' Conference. I've also been working with some of the ladies in the church on the sign language song and it's coming along great. They've been working really hard and I'm thrilled to see how great that they are doing.

During the ridiculous number of hours I've logged in the office this week came a not-so-pleasant experience. While I was in the office alone, a man came in, after having already come in once and talking to Diana, Sis. Bir, and Kathi, and asked about when Bro.Bir was going to be back. I told him  that I didn't know, and I thought he left. Apparently, after this exchange happened, he stole Diana's cell phone right off of her desk. Sis.Bir thinks that if I hadn't been in there, he would have taken all of our purses and her laptop bag, too. A very scary experience, although I'm thankful I didn't know the man's intentions while he was in the office, or I probably would have freaked out.

Tomorrow is another youth thing in Luque. I have to get up at six, be at the church at seven, and Diana and I are riding the bus to Luque, which will take about an hour and a half to two hours and two or three buses. I've been instructed to carry a copy of my passport and visa, carry a small bag instead of the big one, and very little money. Also, to sit by the window and not by the aisle where someone could grab my stuff. Not sure how I feel about those warnings.  I will take lots of pictures and be back on here tomorrow!

Pwnd

Remember back in May when we all joked that we would epically fail the AP Spanish Language exam? That we would all get 1s, which is the lowest possible score. It’s the score you get for writing your name. Remember when we would laugh about that?

Remember how today my scores came in? And guess what the number was? Anyone? Anyone? Beuuuuuller?

No wonder I can’t understand these people. Sheesh.

The Mosque

This story has already circulated to quite a few people in the church and food bank, so I figured I might as well post it on here, too. Feel free to mock and laugh at my stupidity.

The first day that I was here, I got woken up every morning by a chant. It sounded to me like a call to prayer and so I asked the missionaries if there happened to be a mosque nearby. Bro.Bir told me that Ciudad del Este, a little bit east of here, has the largest Muslim population in South America, and that millions of dollars are funneled to Bin Laden annually. It has the third largest black market in the world. Who knew? I assumed that this is what I'd been hearing and told my family and friends about the mosque, telling them how it annoyed me every morning by waking me up.

The other day, I was sitting in the church office at about ten in the morning, I heard a very familiar sound. This was unusual, because usually when I heard the mosque, it was at 8:45 in the morning. I asked Sis.Bir what the sound was.

"Oh, that's a horse cart carrying produce with a megaphone. They're very loud and annoying."

That's when I listened very closely to my mosque. And could actually understand what they were saying.

 

"NARANJAAAAAA! MANDIOCA!!!"

Asuncion

After a long week of working on Excel sheets, today we day tripped it to Asuncion and saw some of the sights. Unfortunately, I didn't get to take all that many pictures because of how rainy it was, but I got some good pictures and got to see some of the cool stuff in the city. The picture above is of the Presidential Palace.

The thing that I thought was amazingly cool was that the natives are all up and down the street working on their crafts and trying to sell them. Very persistently, I might add. The lady in the picture, in case you can't tell, is weaving a bag like the one next to her with her hands and her feet! It's like that all up and down the streets. They have native products and there's also a very big demand for pirated goods like movies and games. They have a big problem with these vendors not only selling pirated goods but also selling pornography on the streets along with the movies. A lot of the movies they sell are not even on shelves in the US yet.

The natives also tend to protest a lot downtown. This is a picture of a protest camp on Plaza Uraguaya. It's right in front of the government buildings and apparently they usually protest for land. They camp out here until they get the land they want, sell the land to a third party, and come right back and ask for more land. It's a never ending cycle.

Soccer is huge here. This picture is of the official stadium for Paraguayan futbol, or soccer. Soccer is to South America as football is to the United States. It's absolutely huge. There's a giant soccer ball in front of the stadium, but I didn't get my camera out in time to get a picture of it. Street vendors were selling a lot of the jerseys and stuff and were making a lot of money off of them because of what a big thing soccer is.

Finishing off the day trip was a trip to the mall and McDonald's. This is a Paraguayan Oreo Milka Paradisio McFlurry. The ice cream is dulce de leche soft serve with hot fudge and white chocolate chunks with chocolate chips mixed into them. It is absolutely delicious. Pizza Hut here, however, is not good. I had it at the mall today and they put pretty much no sauce on your pizza. I ordered a combo with a personal pizza  and breadsticks. The personal pizza was about six inches across and absolutely tiny and they gave me four huge breadsticks. Good thing I like breadsticks.

Tonight, I started working with some of the ladies in the church on a sign song. It's an interesting thing, working with sign language and music in Spanish because of everything being backwards, but I think it's going pretty well. We're trying to get all of this ready for the Ladies Conference next month. Sis.Crosley, the missionary's wife from Argentina, will be speaking. I'm pretty excited about all of that.

Tomorrow, I have the day off and will be doing my own laundry again after sleeping in until who knows when. I'm getting into the routine here but it's getting pretty exhausting sometimes!

Recovery and Impending Road Trip

I'm doing much better, and have been much too busy to really get to sit down and write out a well thought out blog post. I've been working in the church office all week and really, really like doing this work. I've been doing data entry on Excel sheets for the padrinos or sponsors for the kids at the school. Nuevas Alturas provides free education to the poor of Lambare, but in order to do that, people need to choose a child to sponsor and pay for the education, which comes out to $10 per month, per child, and they try to raise at least three padrinos per child. It took about two days to enter the renewals and new sponsors and to color code who was new, who renewed, and who needed to be sent a renewal notification. I came up with the system myself because the one that the Birs were using was extremely complex and I decided it was easier just to use my own. It ended up being faster, too. Today I took the addresses from the Excel sheets and put them into Microsoft Word and printed off a few hundred envelopes. I then had to sort the envelopes according to the same color coding system that I used on the Excel sheets. It's a tough job, but they really needed someone to do it and I love being able to help. Also, I'm a huge techie nerd, so this is awesome for me.

I have become a neat freak while I've been here. You may all gasp and faint now, if you'd like, especially if you've seen my room in its....special state. Cleaning here is a great way to zone out. I've become insanely organized, because when you have limited things from home, it's easy to freak out if you can't find something because you can't exactly go to Wal-Mart and replace whatever it is. So, if I start getting bummed out, I'll straighten up my room or reorganize my shoes or something. It helps a lot. Hopefully it will stick and stay when I'm home.

Rain here is a huge issue. This is their winter season, and they don't have snow. Today was about the same temperature as late October to early November and is about as cold as it gets. The real problem is the large amounts of rain. It doesn't rain buckets, but even a little rain here can cause huge problems because of the lack of proper drainage systems and the condition of many of the homes and neighborhoods, as well as the roads, which are the most atrocious roads that I have ever seen. Do not complain about a US street until you have driven down the roads in Paraguay. They are awful. But, because a lot of the neighborhood roads are dirt or stone (No, not brick. Jagged stone.) and there isn't a developed gutter or drain, the roads flood terribly.

 Sis.Bir says that the flooding in these pictures isn't even really bad compared to what she has seen while she's been there. She says that water has been known to get to the hood of their truck! This is why it's very hard for people to get to church or school when the rains hit. It's really amazing how much we take for granted, like gutter systems.

Here's something that I thought was actually better here. While I'm not incredibly crazy about the Paraguayan food overall, with the exception of empanadas or giso, meat here is so much better, and seems to be a lot...fresher. After I took this picture, Sis.Bir finally told me that you're technically not allowed to take pictures in grocery stores, which is a real shame. The delis here are insane! It's like being in Anatomy and Physiology all over again. Fresh liver, and when I say fresh, I mean, it's bleeding and was probably removed from the cow five minutes before I saw it, right out in the open for you to check and pick and choose. It's amazing and I really hope that I can somehow sneak a picture before I leave. It's fascinating. But, this is one of the meat stands, right next to the baked goods. The cows I saw in the random field were missing yesterday. I think I found them.

Speaking of the baked goods, there they are. Be jealous.

I got some really good news today, too!

I may being going to Argentina at the end of this month! Bro.Bir has been asked to go to Rosario and Buenos Aires and they are going to take me with them for a week! I'm really excited because although I flew through Buenos Aires, I wasn't able to see anything that I had wanted to. I've wanted to go there since I was little, and I 'm really excited to finally have the chance. I'll post more details as I get them!

Well, I thought I was doing better...

This morning I woke up and while Sis.Bir was cooking, Bro.Bir asked me to sit down with him and have a talk. My heart instantly sank because the words “have a talk” just don’t give you an air of good tidings and joy. I was worried I had offended someone or he thought I wasn’t doing my share, which I was really trying to do, but whenever I asked, nobody needed my help. What he told me wasn’t much better, actually. “It’s pretty obvious to the whole world that you’re not incredibly happy here.”

Well, crap.

I’ve really been trying to do better, and I thought I had actually been succeeding. The past two days, I didn’t cry at all. I had so much fun at the youth thing and at church yesterday, that while I was still homesick, I wasn’t feeling like curling up in a ball and dying. The first days were really hard, but I tried to put on my brave face. But last night, I even told Dawn and my parents that I didn’t feel like I was ready for six months yet, but at the moment, I wasn’t feeling like if someone says you can go home tomorrow, I would jump at the chance. I like it here, but I’m still homesick. The 1-3 month thing seems more doable all the time.

But, Bro.Bir expressed concerns that he and Sis.Bir had done something to make me unhappy or hurt my feelings, and asked if I felt like I needed to go home. I told him that, no, he hadn’t hurt my feelings, and I was actually feeling much better  than I had been the past few days and told him just what I had told Dawn and my parents the night before. He assured me that if things got too hard, we could go and change my ticket tomorrow. Note how I didn’t jump at this chance, like I did in the previous statement? I assured him that no, that wasn’t necessary, and he asked if I thought I would need to go home sooner. I was completely honest with him and said that I had talked to Sis.Bir the first night about staying for 1-3 months instead of 6, and I honestly can’t tell how he felt about that. He said some stuff about if I just stayed for the next couple of weeks and helped with the padrinos, which is what I’m starting today, and which means doing the excel sheets for the sponsors of the school, then I would already be an incredible blessing and when I needed to go home, just to let him know.

I’m not sure how I feel about being told that. Is that an out? I really don’t know.

I thanked him and we talked some more about things contributing to why I was feeling the way that I was. I told him that it was just a matter of learning to live with very different personalities than my parents in a new place, with a new language. The experience was not at all what I expected.

“Well, what did you expect?”

I don’t really know what I expected. Just not this. I told him that and he asked if it was worse than I had expected. I assured him that that’s not at all what I meant, and that in some ways it was better and true, there were some things that I really just didn’t care for here. He asked what I meant and I told him that I enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t completely unable to talk to people, like I expected, but I didn’t like things like the lack of sanitation and that I wasn’t incredibly fond of working in the school, because it just wasn’t something I was used to and I couldn’t really understand the kids because they talked so fast.  

I was kind of blindsided by this conversation just because of how much better I had felt the first couple of days. It was not a good feeling noticing that I wasn’t doing as well at hiding my feelings as I thought I had been. And that I still seemed unhappy, when I really wasn’t and was feeling much better. Maybe it’s a sign. I don’t want it to be, because I really am giving this my best shot, but I don’t know. Just as I thought I was doing better, I turned out not doing well at all. 

The one thing that I told him that I absolutely loved was the church services.  The prayer is great, and although I can’t understand most of what they say in the sermons, they are very energetic and the church really gets with the preacher. It’s a really neat atmosphere.

Today I started with the office work and I like it much better than the school teaching. It's a lot of work, but I love it! 

So, tonight the Birs and I are going to watch a movie and eat pizza and ice cream. It should be a good end to my first day of work

Youth Services

Yesterday was the best day I’ve had all week. Going to the youth service was a great thing to do. Granted, I couldn’t understand anything they said during the actual service, but before and after was great fun.

I got there about half an hour early, because the Birs had to go to Luque, about 40 minutes away, to preach a service. There was a huge thunderstorm going on. When big rains come in Paraguay, it’s the equivalent of about three feet of snow hitting Ohio, because there aren’t really proper drainage systems here, so people at the church services after a rain are usually pretty sparse. There was a pretty good turnout, though. Apparently, there are about 40 young people, or jovenes, in their church. There were probably 25 or 30, which was apparently a lot more than they usually had after rain.  There aren’t really any girls in the 17-19 age range, so nobody really my age. There are a lot of 15 and 16  year old girls, whom Sis.Bir refers to as “silly and giggly”, and that’s mostly who was there when I arrived at the church. The first person I met was Cesar, who is the youth leader. He’s really nice, but he talks really, really fast. So fast that even the Paraguayan people  can’t understand him sometimes. Sis.Bir reminded him to talk mas linto because I spoke very limited Spanish and there seemed to be no problems. He introduced me to the rest of the group and I almost instantly forgot all of the names. One boy, named Moises, talked to me for a long time. He’s learning English, both in school and from Sis.Bir , and wanted to know all about the United States. He wanted to know if people in Mount Vernon, which he’s still trying to pronounce, are nice, and if there are lots of boys in my church. Cesar and one of the assistant pastors, whose first name is Salvador, but whose last name I can’t pronounce and neither can the Birs or the people from the church, so they just call him Pastor Kiti, wanted to know if I knew various people from different cities in the US, most of which the answer was no. They asked all about the church, the people, the size of the church, how many youth were there, and about my school. Moises is in ninth grade, and wanted to know how to say ninth grade in English. 

Service consisted of circling our chairs at the front of the church and Kiti playing his guitar for song service. Song service was kind of neat, because they played a few songs, in Spanish, that we sing in the United States, like “When I Think About the Lord” and “Open the Eyes of  My Heart”. I tried to sing along with the two songs that I knew, but the words are different, even if you translate them over to Spanish, because they need to  change some of the words to keep the beat and rhythm and rhyme of the song. So, altogether it was an interesting experience.

They had a few people prepared to speak about, from the four words I could understand, relationships with God.  About halfway through the discussion, which seemed a lot like the group dynamic in the youth group at home, the thunderstorm caused a large blackout. From what I could understand, the government shuts off the power during thunderstorms so that nobody gets hurt. But, my Spanish isn’t the best, so I  could just be making that up and the power just went out from the storm. Anyway, this happened and, much like young people do in the United States, everyone screamed and yelled things like, “We’re gonna die!”, except in Spanish. Some of the people went and got candles and mini pie pans, and what they did with them, I thought was pretty cool because I come from the land where we have everything and don’t have to worry about inventing out of necessity. They would take the candles, drip a few drops onto the pie pan, and would sit the candle on top of the drops. It would cause the candle to stay upright, which I  thought was pretty cool, considering that we have just plain candle holders. They sat them everywhere and until the power came back on, Pastor Kiti played his guitar and people sang some more. The lights came back on after about fifteen or twenty minutes, they finished the lesson, and then the youth went outside for some reason. I had no idea what was going on, and I was sitting with one of the teachers, who teaches first grade, Debora. Debora and I really hit it off and talked for a while about our families and the differences from schools in the United States and in Paraguay. She was telling me all about the colleges here and how they’re different and she told me that Moises is her brother. I told her about Michael and Gabrielle and about the high schools here.  She then explained to me that the youth outside were playing volle and asked if I played volleyball in the United States. I told her that yes, I had played it, but I was absolutely horrible at it, so we ended up sitting and talking more about the United States mostly. The most interesting topic of conversation (John, you should find this interesting) was guinea pigs. They don’t have guinea pigs in Paraguay and I didn’t know the actual Spanish word for it, and so she asked me if it was like a hamster, a rabbit, or a rat. We finally settled on that it was a hamster, but bigger, and this was settled once I asked Bro.Bir once he got there and there is no word in Paraguay for guinea pig. Debora showed me pictures of her dogs and some trips that the youth has taken, because she, like me, loves to take pictures of everything. The Birs returned at about 9:45 to take me back to the house, but Debora and her husband told them if I wanted to stay with them for a little while, they would be happy to take me home afterwards. So, I did, and around 10:15, we left, and Gonzalo, Debora’s husband, Debora, and Moises asked if I wanted to get pizza with them. I hadn’t had pizza in Paraguay yet, so I said yes, of course! The pizza was absolutely amazing and I wish I had taken a picture of it. It had strips of ham on top and olives and the pepperoni was underneath the cheese. And there was TONS of cheese. They drink tons of Coke here, but there is very little Pepsi. They kept asking me questions like if we had McDonald’s, Coke, and Pepsi in the United States and if I knew who Michael Jackson was because he died and was in the United States. This was all very funny to me, but I guess when you don’t live in the country, you really don’t know. They really like American Christian music. There’s a station that plays American music on Saturday nights, and Gonzalo asked me if I liked Hillsong, because he really likes them. I love Hillsong, so that was pretty fun. Moises and I talked about soccer, because he really likes soccer and so do I. Most of them here seem to like soccer.

I did my own laundry for the first time yesterday as well. The washer and dryer are ridiculously slow and it’s hard to figure out when things are done. But I managed to get the laundry done without shrinking or discoloring anything.

Today, I have church.  Bro.Bir has been out all morning preaching for a pastor who lost his wife to cancer a few months ago and has seven children. He’ll be back early in the afternoon and I’ll go to church at around three, because I’m supposed to help Diana with the Sunday School. Service is at five. We’ll have to see how all of that goes!

Just pray for me, okay?

Trust me. I really am trying. Really.

If the pictures arent' showing up...I'm sorry.

I’m still trying to adjust to living here, but hopefully the next few days will help me feel better. Yesterday was my first day eating something other than home cooked food. For lunch we tried some authentic Paraguayan cusine.

I must tell you, though, the burgers here are much better than the ones in the States. The meat has a lot more flavor and the tomatoes are a lot fresher, I think. Everything is just better. And cheaper. The ad, because you all probably can’t convert American dollars to Paraguayan Guaranis, says that the burger is roughly $1.50, and for about an extra dollar, you can turn it into a combo meal. A Whopper meal is a little less than $2.50! And the Burger Kings here have ice cream, unlike ours. They have sundaes and cones. I’ve never seen a Burger King selling cones in the United States. Milkshakes, however, are pretty much never sold at restaurants. And McDonald’s cones, which I love anyway, are apparently sold either vanilla or with a dulce de leche swirl. Also, Sis.Bir says that the ice cream here is more creamy and has more vanilla.

I had my first day of work after that. I like the school kids a lot. The preschool kids are really adorable, but they talk really fast, so it’s hard to understand them. They really seem to like me though. Yesterday they kept wanting me to tie their shoes. One little boy, whose name I don’t remember, came over and wanted me to tie his shoe for him. I did and five seconds later, he came over and lifted his foot again.

“Zapato?” (Shoe?)

“Tu zapato es bien!” (Your shoe is fine!”

“No es!” (No it’s not!)

“Otra vez?” (Again?)

He had gone over and untied his shoe so I would tie it again. It was so cute. The afternoon teacher in the preschool, Isabel, told the kids about where I came from and that I flew a long way on a plane. So one of the little boys, named Nestor, took a piece of paper and folded it into an avión for me.

I wasn’t a huge fan of teaching third and fourth grade, but they are incredibly smart and they love learning English. The kids are really crazy, especially this one little boy, who yells out all the time, and is frequently in trouble. But they all like to learn new words and seem especially enthusiastic about the colors.

After school, Bro.Bir had a meeting so Sis.Bir and I went out to find some dinner. The first place we went was a local stand that they always go to because they make the best empanadas and I had wanted to try some for a while. So, I ordered a carne empanada and a jamon y queso empanada.

So, while this lady takes our order, but then another customer walks in, and she begins waiting on her instead. Well, we weren’t extremely thrilled about that, but really wanted empanadas, so we waited. It was at this point that we noticed the woman cough. Without covering her mouth. On the food. And then, she wiped her nose with her hand. And continued to serve the empanadas.

“Do you want to leave and get something else?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

There is a lot of sickness here right now, and that really scares me anyway. There’s some kind of bronchitis-pneumonia thing going around. Three people have gone into the hospital since I’ve been here, including the couple that I will possibly living with later on. People in the grocery store yesterday were wearing masks, but Sis.Bir assured me that I would be okay and shouldn’t worry. But I’m a germaphobe when I’m in the States, so here it’s even worse. The country is really dirty, but that whole thing doesn’t really bother me. It’s that there is no real regulation for things like the handling of food. The empanada thing made me want to hurl.

So, instead of going there, we ended up going to a Lebanese food stand, which is very popular with people here.

And I just noticed you can see my hand and camera in the window’s reflection. Creepy. Another note, You may notice that the letters look kind of like the letters in the Walt Disney logo. Those letters are everywhere. I have no idea why.

But this place is really, really good and is famous for their lomito arabes. They have beef, chicken, and lamb, as well as some mixtures of these. I had the beef and it was really good.

I also had the chance to have the national drink, Guarana. It’s a kind of pop with some kind of berry in it. It has a really weird taste, with kind of a bitter edge, but it really is delicious.

I also got to have my first grocery shopping experience in Paraguay yesterday. It’s not all that different except for the deli, which I didn’t get a picture of, unfortunately. There were chorizos and salchicas just hanging from hooks. The other cool thing was the cereal aisle. They have a lot of American cereals, because Kellogs apparently has a branch in Brazil.

The next two nights should be fun. And interesting. Last night a few of the youth people asked the Birs if they could take me to dinner tonight so that they could get to know me. Only one of them speaks a little bit of English, so it should be interesting. But I’m really excited, because maybe this will be a chance for me to make some friends and hopefully get my mind off of being homesick. Tomorrow night, there’s a youth service and one of the girls wants me to go to it so that she can introduce me to the forty people in the young people’s group. That absolutely terrifies me because my Spanish is fairly limited. I guess this is the only way for me to get used to speaking Spanish, but I’m terrified I’m going to say something stupid or that I’ll offend people or something.

Thank you for all of the encouragement that I’ve received in my comments and some emails. I love that you all are praying for me and rooting for me to stay the whole six months. There are just things that I need to make decisions on, and while if I could stay for the whole six months, that would be great, I think that emotionally, three months is going to be my limit for now. My visa is up in September and I can either get it renewed or I can just come home then. There are many things right now that I’m really dealing with, and it’s not just the homesickness. That is a huge part of it, but there are other things that factor into what I’m dealing with right now. I have been in a situation before where I was pressured to stay somewhere because people would be upset if I didn’t, and after going through that situation, I welcome advice, but I really don’t care to put myself through that again, especially I’m dealing with a country 6000 miles away from home. Nobody knows all of my situation right now, except for God, and trust me, I have prayed probably more than I ever have in the past week. If I keep the mindset that I’m not going to be home until December, I’m not going to make it. Six months is too big of a time frame for me to fathom with how I feel right now, especially since I now have technical difficulties and can no longer talk to my parents because my computer for some reason won’t accept the microphone.

Just because right now I’m feeling like this trip isn’t going to be as long or in depth as I originally planned, doesn’t mean that I’m writing off ever doing missions ever again. Right now, I’m actually thinking that I’m much better as a Metro Missionary, because when I went to DC without my family, I was fine. Homesick, but not distraught and not eating like I have been here. I honestly don’t know what this means right now.

My mom last night brought the story of Mark and Paul to my mind. Mark got homesick, went home, and later on Paul wanted him to come back, even though he had written him off for leaving before. Maybe now isn’t the right time. Maybe what I’m supposed to get from this is that I’m not supposed to do foreign missions. Maybe I’m really a home missionary. I don’t know. I’ve made it through three days without dying.

First Post from Paraguay

I’m sorry that I haven’t written for the past couple of days. Hopefully you have been able to keep up via Twitter, Facebook, or my dad’s blog to know that I have made it to Asuncion alive. I’ve had to make several adjustments over the past few days, and have not really felt up to blogging. I realize that there are people from church reading this blog, and I’m sorry if I bum you out at all with this post. I will try to dull down the bad stuff as much as I can, and let you know more about the good stuff, but the truth is, being a missions worker is nothing like I expected, and I need to be completely honest about it.

The good stuff first.

Asuncion is beautiful. Lambare, where I am living is beautiful. However, they are not, to the average American eye, major tourist areas. The architecture is amazing. Most of the homes are white with red, clay colored slate roofs. There is absolutely no division between la ciudad and el campo (the city and the country). For example, the Birs, and by extension at the moment, I, live in a very nice rancho. It has three bedrooms, two stories, two bathrooms, and a courtyard. Next door, there are three very poor families, with roosters. I get woken up by the roosters every morning. Yesterday, we were driving along, coming home from the school and the church, and I saw cows. Yes, as in “Moooo….”. Cows. Just sitting in a random patch of grass in the midst of a bunch of Laundromats and empanada stands. It was fairly surreal.

The school was amazing. It’s very small, with three classrooms, a kitchen, and an office, with a courtyard in the middle. The kids seem to like me. I got so many hugs yesterday. They talk very fast and I try to talk to them, but it doesn’t work out very well. “Mas despacio, por favor” (more slowly, please) has become my favorite phrase. I did manage to make a friend at the school- one of the teachers named Deisy. She speaks no English, but has very good articulation and speaks very slowly so that I can understand her. We were able to talk for about twenty minutes yesterday, about our backgrounds, our families, and all of that stuff. She thought that Teacher Academy seemed very cool. I made one of my first mistakes yesterday, though. Deisy was telling me about the temperature in Paraguay during the summer and how incredibly hot it was. She asked how warm it was at home during our summer. I told her that in Ohio right now it was summer, and was very hot. ”When I left home on Monday, it was ninety degrees,” I told her. She gave me this look like I was insane and said “Ahhh….si….en Paraguay en el verano es treinta, veinte….” (Ahh…yes, in Paraguay in the summer it is thirty, twenty) I forgot that here they use Celsius. And I have no idea how to use Celsius. So, she probably thinks I live in a fantasy world at the moment. I was also able to talk to the Guarani teacher, who also teaches second grade. Guarani is the native language and a Guarani class would be the equivalent of our English classes in the United States. His name is Elias and he offered to teach me how to say some things in Guarani and asked me how I liked Paraguay. The people working at the school all seem very nice and hospitable. I was also able to sit in on their children’s service yesterday, or “cuto”. Don’t ask me what that means because neither I, nor the missionaries , know why they call it that.

They are attempting to build a new school across the street, with six new classrooms. It was apparently supposed to be ready this month, but due to excessive rains, they haven’t been able to finish it. It was nice to be able to see the progress on the building after hearing about the necessity to buy this land on the DVD that the Goodrums gave me last year.

I love all of these things, but one thing is extremely hard here. I hate being away from home. I was never really at home anyway, because I was usually with Dawn or Mistie or, back during the school year, Rachel. Because of this, I always considered myself a fairly independent person. However, being 6000 miles away, by myself is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. People keep telling me that saying goodbye was the hardest part, but I really have to disagree with them. I have felt horrible since I left Houston. I was praying that I would have a fever at the Argentine airport so that they would send me back on a plane to the United States. But, I didn’t, and that airport was the worst experience. I got stopped at customs because they thought my books weren’t books, and ended up opening my suitcase to make sure that they were, in fact, books. The airport was huge, and although there was a McDonald’s, I couldn’t find it. In order to get into the country, I had to wear a face mask, because they were afraid of swine flu. Once I got to the Paraguayan airport, they didn’t make us wear face masks, or say anything about them, and when I got off the plane and into the place where my luggage was and my passport was stamped, I was horrified to see that everyone was wearing a face mask and I was not. The fear of disease is really getting to me. Sis.Bir made the mistake of telling me about Dengue. I have medicine to prevent malaria, but apparently, Dengue is a mild form of malaria, and there isn’t a medicine for it. She said that nearly everyone in the church has had it, and she is the only member of her family who hasn’t. Her neighbors apparently had notices put on their doors a little while back. She told me not to worry because people usually don’t die of it, but they are usually sick for about two weeks, with chills, aching bones, and flu-like symptoms. This terrifies me, because I haven’t felt great since I got here. I’m sure that it’s not that, but right now, I’m feeling pretty awful and am terrified that I’m going to get swine flu or Dengue and have to go to a Paraguayan hospital. Add to that, the fact that Pneumonia and Bronchitis are going around the school, and I’m a nervous wreck.

I haven’t really been able to eat since I left. In Houston, I picked at my dinner at Chili’s, causing even the waitress to comment that “You didn’t even eat it…”. Airline food, obviously, is just disgusting. Even here, I haven’t been able to eat, and we haven’t really eaten anything Paraguayan. We’ve had sloppy joes, pancakes, fried chicken, and mixtos, or grilled ham and cheese, since I’ve been here. I’ve just not been able to eat and Sis.Bir is convinced that I’m hungry and trying to be polite. But I’m really not. I’m just ridiculously homesick. I’ve slept a lot, not eaten a lot, and every chance I get, I’m on Skype with my parents or friends, because I go insane when I’m thinking of home and can’t talk to anyone. My first night here was horrible. I talked to my parents and when I got off to go to sleep, I couldn’t sleep because I found letters that they had written me and stuck in my suitcase, and started crying really hard, after trying so hard to keep my composure in front of the missionaries and to not cry. Then, for some reason, after that I couldn’t stop worrying that something horrible was going to happen to someone in my family, and I was going to have no way to find out because my BlackBerry doesn’t work, I have dial-up internet here, and even if I could find out, it’s a 21-hour trip home, at least! I feel so lost and alone. That night, I went and talked to Sis.Bir because I just couldn’t handle it any longer. I told her, point blank, that I didn’t think I could handle this six months. I missed home too much, and if I felt like this, there was no way that I would be any help to anyone. I was scared, sick, and just wanted to be at home, in my own bed. My family missed me, I missed them more than I could say, and it just wasn’t working for me.

This is the part where some of you may be frustrated with me, or even mad. Please don’t. I really am trying and this is really this hard for me.

She told me that she wanted me to commit to a month. Bro.Bir is going to Peru and she wants me to help her for the two weeks that he is gone and while winter break is going on. One month, and if I was still absolutely miserable, then they would take me to the airport, and I could go home. She told me that she thought I was incredibly brave for even getting on that airplane by myself at eighteen and coming over to Paraguay.

A month right now is my goal. I know that I’ve been working for the past year with a six month to a year mindset, but right now, the idea of a month is what I can handle. I have July 28th marked on my calendar, checking off the days. If after a month, I’m okay, I’ll try for another. The ultimate goal for me right now, although even this hurts to think about, is coming home once my first visa is up, in September. I’m sorry if this hurts or disappoints any of you. I honestly am going to give this all I have, but I really don’t know how much that is at the moment.