New friends from Jacksonville

Although all the churches in Florida support the churches in South America, the church in Jacksonville has specifically decided to support the church here in Asuncion, Paraguay. So this past week, we were lucky enough to have 7 members of the church fly down here to spend the week with us. The group consisted of a married couple, their son and daughter and then 3 single women from the church. The group came down here to not only learn about Paraguay, but also to encourage the members, as well as to participate in 2 service projects. I was battling a cold when they got here, so I wasn't able to help out with their 2 projects. But, I know that they first helped fix up a family's house that was in desperate need of painting and repair. Then they also went to an orphanage Saturday afternoon, bringing them toys and spending time with them.

Here is a photo of us waiting in the airport for them. Yes, there are a couple of words that aren't spelled correctly, but I was told it makes the sign that much more endearing! I agree! =)


The group arrived late Wednesday night, so we moved our midweek service to Thursday night. After church, a group of us went to a fast food place called Pancholo's to grab a bite to eat. From left to right is Tere, April, Yessi, Guille and Guille. April is the girl who stayed with Guille and Yessi and I. She was super fun and we instantly hit it off and became fast friends! She unfort only knew a few words in Spanish, but with her personal translator (me - LOL), she did her best to talk with everyone!



Friday night, we invited all of the singles over to the house for a devotional and a traditional Paraguayan asado. We grilled beef, sausage and had many of the fixin's including mandioca (yucca), rice and potato salad. Everyone had a blast! In this photo is Ricardo, Alma, Vale, Derlis, Sarah and Nancy (in the back). Sarah and Alma were 2 of our FL visitors.


This is David and his sister Sarah and then April. I was told that David and Sarah don't like traditional poses for photos - hence the funny look David has! LOL


Here is a photo with a lot of the women who came. The girl on the left in black is Maria, the third single woman who came with the group. Alma is in the middle, April and Sarah up front.


Saturday night a bunch of us went to see a concert by a Paraguayan group. They had guitars, bass, drums and percussion - it was great. I love this photo b/c you can see the lead singer using a cow's jaw bone as an instrument - that was a new one for me! LOL


After the concert, we took a quick group shot and then went to go eat some dinner.


This is a monument for the dead Paraguayan heroes - just love how it looks at night!


This is the yummy fish stew thing I ate for dinner. It was tomato based with onions and potatoes, not spicy though (most food isn't spicy here at all!) - but oh so yummy!



On Sunday, the church invited a woman to come play the harp for the end of our service. Apparently, Paraguay is well-known for its harp music. In the middle a bunch of us got up and started dancing - it was spontaneous and so much fun!


As I have mentioned before, World Cup Fever is in full swing. We took everyone to the mall and some group had painted a horse with red stripes to promote the World Cup - too funny!


Here is a photo of all of us at the mall!


Monday night was pizza, card games and dancing at the house for all the singles - remember how I mentioned David doesn't like to do the typical pose for photos - this one was of course no exception. So, although he looks bored, he was just trying to be funny! =)


Here is a photo of Guy and Loretta Berndt - the couple leading this crazy group! LOL Guy is even wearing his new PY World Cup jersey - I need to get me one of those too I think!


They stayed for almost a week and I know that the Paraguayans and the peeps from Jacksonville all had a blast! I think we may have even convinced a couple of them to come live down here for a year or so - pray for that! They were all just such wonderful people, so encouraging and loving to us! I know everyone here was super grateful for their visit!

World Cup Fever is just beginning!

So the World Cup is starting up soon - the local newspaper even has a countdown on their website. Paraguay is of course going, as is the USA. I can't remember if I mentioned it in another post or not...but the night that Paraguay qualified for the World Cup was quite the exciting night!! Everyone was lined up along the streets waving PY flags, car horns were honking, people were cheering...it was SUPER exciting for everyone involved! They were happy that they qualified, but they were also happy that they had qualified before Argentina!! (pretty intense rivalry between these 2 countries). LOL

Anyway...so these World Cup sticker books came out less than a month ago and they have become a HUGE hit with all the children down here. What's funny is that I went ahead and bought one last week as a fun souvenir. But today there were 3 or 4 women standing outside the school giving the books away for free. Why, you ask? Because the money isn't in the books it's in the stickers that you put inside and I am here to tell you that it is QUITE the racket! LOL




Here's how it works: inside the book are two pages for every country participating. There is a sticker for every country, as well as a sticker for every player playing. There are also stickers for every stadium they will play in, as well as just official World Cup Stickers in general. IN FACT there are 640 stickers all together!!!! what is that about??

So, I went ahead and bought 2 packs of stickers for about $1. Inside each packet, there were ONLY 5 stickers...TOTAL racket I tell ya! Can you get a grasp on how much $ these parents are paying here? craziness!
With all the doubles/extras, the students at my school have even started some game to try and win stickers from other kids. Not entirely sure how it works yet, but they are all VERY addicted to it!

Here you can see the page for Paraguay - very excited to already have 2 players from the team.


Here is the US team - nothing yet!


So, will I be able to fill my book, no probably not. But am I still going to spend a few bucks to get a bunch of stickers, yea I will! =) It's fun!

Go PARAGUAY!

A funeral here in Paraguay

I wanted to write a quick post about my friend Guille's dad suddenly dying last Thursday. It was quite sudden and therefore extremely unexpected. He is hanging in there, I haven't actually had a chance to talk to him since last week.

But that night, a bunch of us drove to his family's house 2+ hours away that night for the wake. I wasn't sure what to expect, but since it was different, I thought I would share the death/funeral traditions here.

Basically when someone dies here, they have a viewing/wake like we would. The difference though is that it is at the person's house. So when we got to his parents' house, the coffin was open and on their porch. It was a simple wooden coffin. His dad was lying in this beautiful lace material. There were wild flowers at his feet and the cloth covered his eyes. Behind the coffin was electric candles and a figure of Jesus on the cross. Then behind that were the HUGE flower decorations that people had sent. By huge I mean like min 3 feet across! I wanted to take pics, but got the feeling it wasn't super appropriate. Under the coffin there is also a cup of water in case the dead spirit gets thirsty (Catholic thing I think, or maybe a PY Catholic thing, not sure about that).



So everyone comes to the house to pay their respects. It was actually SUPER cold that night. So they passed around hot coffee and mate and then cookies and stuff to munch on. A few of the women did a Catholic praying thing with the Rosary. Frank used the Bible and shared some scriptures for everyone. We prayed and sang some songs. Guille and his sisters shared a few kind memories and that was it.


If you can, most people stay through the night and on to the next day. At 10am the next day, I guess they took the coffin to the cemetery where he was quickly buried. My friends and I ended up leaving around 2am, so I didn't see that part. Gotta be honest though, I am really glad we don't have the tradition about staying up all night. It was super cold and most people just sat around outside in plastic chairs all night! But it was really cool to be able to share about our traditions in the US and to hear about their traditions here. Most were surprised that we wait a few days before the actual funeral. Although I am told they have funeral homes in Asuncion, they don't in the country-side, which is why you need to bury the body quickly. But the tradition still holds in Asuncion.

Anyway, just thought you all would be interested to learn the cultural differences down here.

I definitely love and miss you all very much!
Thanks for all of your prayers and continued support!

Hangin' with the singles for Semana Santa

Easter weekend, also known as Semana Santa here means a 4 day weekend for everyone here. Most people work a half day on Wed and then get the rest of the week off. Good Friday is actually the day when everything is closed down. With most of the country being Catholic, Good Friday is their big holiday. So Friday a group of singles from my church and I traveled about 30-45 mins away and stayed at this hotel/"resort" area. The place has an actual hotel with a few rooms, but also has cabins that you can rent out, which is what we did. It was absolutely gorgeous there and we had a blast!

Here is the gang:


The place had a small lake with a boat and a kayak that you could you take out for a bit. Here are the girls in the boat; the guys are in the next photo! All the girls wanted to sit in the boat so they wouldn't fall in...as you can tell, the guys weren't really concerned about that! LOL







A couple of photos of me and the bridges they had over the lake:







Before dinner, (hamburgers that the guys grilled for us) I pulled out the cards and ended up teaching the guys how to play poker and everyone blackjack. None of them knew how to play, which really surprised me. They all enjoyed blackjack more though, mainly b/c I think it was easier to pick up! We used pebbles to bet with, which was fun.



After dinner, we went for a walk around the area. We even sat for awhile and people told ghost stories. They wanted me to tell one, but I just couldn't think of one, plus I don't know that my Spanish is quite up to ghost story-telling level yet! LOL




Saturday we got up, ate breakfast together and a bunch of us ended up spending most of the day swimming in their Olympic size pool (4 - 25 meter lanes, for those who know swimming) Most of them couldn't swim very well, which isn't too surprising since a) we are not near the ocean and b)pools are only for the rich here. But everyone eventually got in and paddled around if nothing else! =)
While we had to be out of the cabin around 3pm, we ended up sticking around until 6 or so, just swimming and chatting. It was so much fun! A few of us even ended the trip with a stop at an ice cream place in town! I am so glad that we were able to do this, I enjoyed it so much!

We are officially into fall, but it is STILL hot and sticky here. But I am LOVING all the flowers that are still everywhere. Here is a tiny one I found in the grass near our cabin.



Easter Sunday was a normal day here. Everything was open as normal. We ended up having service at 6pm to give everyone time to come back into town (most people head out of the city to visit relatives in the country side). But unlike the packed Easter services in the US, ours was pretty light. There was some easter candy/chocolate being sold in the stores, but that pretty much seemed to be the extent of Easter here. Def no colored eggs or easter egg hunts to be found!

My B-day in Paraguay

Thursday, March 25 I officially turned 35 (dang that feels old to say!) and had my first birthday here in Paraguay. The tradition here is that you celebrate your birthday on whatever day it falls on. Whoever can come heads over to your house around 8 or 9 and then the party begins!

I hit a party supply store a couple of a weeks ago and found the cutest Strawberry Shortcake dessert plates and decided that that just needed to be my theme! I LOVED her as a kid. I had the sheets, sleeping bag, dolls. I think I even had the lunch box! So I decided it was time to bring her back. I bought a plastic tablecloth and then some strawberry candies to throw on top of the table. I also had red, pink and white balloons hanging up – SUPER fun!

My mom was nice enough to send me money so I could throw a pizza party for everyone (THANKS MOM!). You all know how I love pizza and so I definitely wanted to make that happen!
The pizza was SUPER yummy. We had 4 types: cheese, pepperoni, ham and cheese and veggie. As the night wore on though, they quickly became a mix of everything! I think I have mentioned before how everyone LOVES ham and cheese down here – ham and cheese sandwiches (if they are toasted, they are called mixtos), h&c empanadas…everything! But they also LOVE LOVE green olives, so every pizza MUST have green olives. Me, not so much of a fan of olives, but I bought a ton for the peeps! LOL!

This photo sums it call up!
(the kids who came to the party took the candy and wrote my name SUPER sweet!)

Here is a group shot of everyone.


Here is a photo of my friend Eli and her son


Here is a photo of my friend Paty and me.


Some more photos!

(the pizza with just sauce is just baking to set the crust, we added toppings later and then put it back in the oven)


Since it was a Thursday, most of the singles who didn’t have cars left around 10:30 or so to catch a bus. Those singles and marrieds who did have cars stayed until about 12:30am. A very successful and encouraging birthday!

My trip to Encarnacion

A couple of weeks ago my friend Karina invited me to travel to Encarnacion with her to visit her family. Encarnacion is a 6 hour bus ride away and is on the southeastern part of the country. It was a city I had been wanting to see, so of course I said yes! Just about all of her extended family lives in Buenos Aires., so over the weekend, her family was basically having a big reunion and I got to be a part of it. Many people from Paraguay end up moving to Buenos Aires because the job opportunities are better than Asuncion.
Here is a pic of me and the fam.




Here are pics of her house.



OK side note here: One thing I realize that haven’t talked about is the “national” drink here – mate or terrere. Whether it is winter or summer, they put herbs into a cup called a “guampa.” You can buy a bag of the herbs in the store, but the true traditionalists use fresh herbs and have their own special recipe! Then if it is winter time, they pour hot water over it (mate) and drink it. In the summer it is ice cold water (terrere). Everyone here loves it and everyone here loves to sit around drinking it. In fact there is usually one person who pours the water and passes the cup to person A. Person A then drinks all the water in the guampa and hands it back. The person then pours in more water and hands the cup to person B and so on and so forth. Personally I don’t like it at all, but then again I have never been a big tea drinker in general. They hate it when you say no, although most are fairly understanding about it. Most people will also tell you that in the summer, they feel it quenches their thirst better than just plain water – guess I have to trust them on that!
Here is a photo of a thermos used in the summer. This is of course an expensive version – many just use plain thermoses (yes it is a regular thermos covered in leather). The thermoses in the winter are the tall, skinny, metal kinds that you usually see people have when they drink coffee.


Here is a photo of a VERY simple guampa – there are definitely MUCH fancier ones (hmm will try and get a photo of some of those later). The straw-thing next to it is called the “bombillo” and is what you drink the water with. You can see the holes at the bottom that will keep the herbs separate from the water when you drink it.


Cultural note:
Argentina – ONLY drink mate, and usually add sugar to it to sweeten it up. They also don’t carry it around with them. They prefer to sit in their houses and drink it/share it.
Uruguay – Again, ONLY drinks mate, but EVERYONE takes their thermos EVERYWHERE. I mean on the bus, to work, to school, to the mall, to the beach (don’t get that one personally). You always see people carrying it with them.
Paraguay – Only country to drink it hot and cold (mainly because of the extreme heat here) and they too carry it everywhere.
They don't drink this is Chile (at least not that I saw), and am not quite sure about Brazil. I have heard they use fruit juice instead of water, but not sure if it is the whole country or just specific places.


Anyway, Saturday was a big dinner at a neighborhood club. We probably all went to sleep around 4am! So Sunday ended up being a lazy day. We sat around outside, chatted and chilled and they drank terrere (actually have no idea how to spell that word). If you look close enough, the uncle on the right is drinking and there is a pitcher of water on the table.


Later after lunch on Sunday, Karina took me on a tour of her city. Here are a couple of photos.



Encarnacion actually has 2 parts to it - a lower part and an upper part. The photos above are the upper part. The photos below are the lower part. Apparently the lower part actually lies below sea level, so it is extremely easy for water to accumulate there, as you can tell from the photos below. I guess this area used to be a big area of commerce, but everyone has had to move and now they are trying to build up the land so people can use it again.





I took a midnight bus back to Asuncion on Sunday night so I could have Monday (a national holiday) to get ready to start work that Tuesday. It was a short trip, and I know there was more to see. Maybe I will get a chance to go back and explore some more. But I know that Karina was just happy to introduce me to her family and show me a bit of her city!

FYI: I am currently teaching 3rd graders at an elementary school. I teach Mon-Thu 12:30-3:30pm. I am also teaching an English class on Sat morning for 12 year olds from 9am-12pm. So I am definitely staying busy right now! No time for traveling now! haha =)

My last day in Salta and what's up next...

I spent the last day of my trip venturing around the city of Salta itself.
Here is the inside of a Catholic church I found - super ornate and VERY pretty!


They have a huge hill and you can take a cable car to get to the top (takes at least 5 min to reach the top). It was only then that I realized just how big the city really was!







It was hard to believe though that my month-long vacation had finally come to an end! How can I work it out so I am permanently on vacation? Any ideas? LOL

So here are a few lessons learned on my trip/advice for you all ;)

1)NEVER leave the place you are staying without the names, address and phone numbers of the people who you are staying with! (just in case you get lost in say Montevideo...if you have these things, you won’t look foolish when people who are trying to help find your way ask “where are you staying?” and your answer is “no idea” or “what is their phone number?” “again, no idea”...you get the point!)

2)ALWAYS try and get rid of your change before leaving a country. The change houses will only change bills, NOT coins and so now I am stuck with all this random coinage. Kinda cool except I really don’t need like 20 Chilean coins!

3)Definitely take care of your camera at the beach or any other place with sand or dirt.
Just trying to help you all out! LOL =)

So, some of you know that I was not able to go back and teach at Trinity School. A long, frustrating story that basically ends up with them telling me right before xmas that I needed a work visa to keep working there. Getting this visa is expensive and takes LOTS of time, so I had to tell them that I wasn’t going to get it. Pretty frustrating since I turned down 2 jobs to keep teaching at that school! ugh
I tried to forget about the fact that I wasn’t coming back to a job on my vacation. I did a pretty good job of it actually. But then I got back to Asuncion and had to start thinking about what I was going to do. If I couldn’t find a job, it probably meant coming back to the States earlier than expected. However, God obviously wants me here a tad longer because I was fortunately able to find a job here right away. The week I got back, I sent my resume to an English institute and quickly got an interview. I am not sure of the specifics yet, but I will be teaching English classes there. However, they also run a regular K-12 school. Turns out the third grade teacher is pregnant and can’t start teaching at the beginning of the school year. So I am going to be covering for her until she comes back, sometime in May or June.
These kids are probably more like 2nd graders to us, but I will technically be the third grader teacher teaching them English Mon-Thu, 12:30-3:30pm. Hmmm 7 year olds... I have always said that I would rather teach a 7th grader than a 7 year old, a comment which always tends to surprise people! I have taught this age group before, but it has been A LONG time! So, I am going to have to get rid of the sarcastic teen/middle schooler in me and bring on my motherly elementary kid side (I am sure it is in there somewhere! HAHA). But hey, it is for 3 months and can’t be worse than some of the crazy 7th grade classes I have taught before (many of you know the stories!). Hey, I may even grow to love this age! =) Classes start March 2nd – pray for me please! =)

Quick weather update - sticky and hot here. Although I am told I missed the worst of it. Apparently the week before I got back, it was close to 115 here WITH high humidity. 115 in dry Arizona, is bad enough, I can't even imagine that heat with humidity. Thank goodness I was out of the country for that! (praying it doesn't come back either!)

Stay dry and warm all my "in the middle of winter/fighting snow storms" family and friends!