Paraguay's Bicentennial!

HAPPY BICENTENNIAL PARAGUAY!!
What a fun and amazing experience it was to be down here for this momentous celebration. Official Independence Day here is celebrated the 14th and 15th of May, with the 15th also being Mother's day as well. But activities were held throughout the entire month, all culminating to the big weekend!

The whole city was decked out - below are a few buildings with their cool lights/decor!












Friday the 13th, a group of us headed downtown to kick off the weekend festivities with everyone. We sat down for awhile at a show at a building called the Cabildo. The building used to be where all the political people met, but now it is a pretty cool museum. The photos below show some traditional Paraguayan dancing.






The next day we woke up to pouring rain and thunderstorms, so I actually didn't head out until later that day. But what a fun day it turned out to be. Behind the Palacio (basically PY's version of the White House) was a HUGE concert and it was FULL FULL FULL of people.I couldn't even begin to count, but it had to have been thousands and thousands!!! After various groups sang and danced, they showed this "video projection"on the back of the Palacio - I took a picture of the last part when it said "200." After that there was a HUGE fireworks show. Man, I LOVE watching fireworks, I really do. It really is my favorite part of the the 4th of July. Independence day isn't normally celebrated much here during the other years, so this was a special treat for everyone!








It took us forever to get back home that night - we probably caught one of the last buses leaving the city and that was only after walking quite a ways!! whew

But even after 2 long days, we still had more to see! We headed back out to the Palacio where they were trying to inflate like 5 or 6 hot air balloons that were supposed to take off after that. Unfortunately it was just way to windy and they gave up after awhile. So we just walked around and took pics. The beachy looking away is part of the Paraguay river that cuts the country in half. It was cool to see so many boats on the water!





Apparently, it was a miracle my friend Eli and I could be on the back stairs of the Palacio and have our picture taken. Normally the back part of the Palacio is VERY off-limits. If you try and get anywhere near it, the soldiers definitely get upset. But the whole back part was open this weekend so all the Paraguayans were taking advantage of it! It was very cool!



Some group shots of my friends!






It was a VERY long weekend, but it was sooo cool to be a part of this event and see the very strong national pride that the Paraguayans have!

Last year - the World Cup, this year - the Bicentennial. WOW - I am so grateful that I have been able to be here to see these special moments! =)

hugs to you all!

Paraguayan Wedding

Hello all
So a few months ago two good friends got married and it was fun to see all the traditions about weddings down here. The week of the wedding, we had the shower for Anita. Not sure why, but at the shower, the tradition is to dress her up all crazy, put crazy make-up on her..really just make her look horrible.Again, didn't really get the why, but it was fun to watch and of course take photos! LOL =) Other than that it was like a normal shower..presents, a couple of games, some sharing/advice and food. It was a really nice evening and since we made it a surprise for her, she was definitely encouraged! =)



So the day of the wedding,the ceremony was supposed to start at 8pm.But leave it to the Paraguayans to start late - LOL. I think most of the guests were there by 9pm, although many were still walking in around 10pm. The bride finally came a little after 10 and the party got started! It was a very simple, but sweet wedding ceremony. I think the bride and groom only stayed until 1 or 2am or so, but I am told many times everyone stays and dances until like 4 or 5am! Now THAT'S a party! haha


Here is a photo of Rolf and Anita.They didn't have bridesmaids or groomsmen. They just had 2 couples as official witnesses. I think some people do do the whole wedding party thing, but it also doesn't seem to be as big of a deal down here as it is in the US.



This is a picture of my friend Nathalia and I with the groom before the wedding.




Couple of interesting traditions...
1)After the first dance by the bride and groom. All the guys then dance with the bride and the ladies with the groom. You dance for a few seconds before the next person cuts in...it is done for luck.So, I of course danced a few seconds with Rolf - can't go jinxing myself here! LOL =)

2)They do throw the bouquet, but do not seem to do the whole garter belt thing.

3) They know about the old/borrowed/new/blue thing but couldn't really seem to get a feel for if it was really followed down here or not.

4)The cake was the most interesting part I thought. First they tie different charms onto ribbons. Then they place the charms on the outside of the cake and frost around it. Then all the single girls go to the cake, choose a ribbon and pull out the charm. If you pull out the wedding rings, then you will be the next one to get married. So they do the cake first and then the bouquet toss. Didn't get either one though..maybe next time! =)





Dinner was a simple baked chicken with rice and bread.The cake had layers of vanilla cake and dulce de leche in between - very yummy!

My friends and I left around 1am or so.It was a really nice wedding and I am of course super happy for new couple! =)

I am back in the States!

Hello to all my family and friends!
I am officially back in Fort Lauderdale for the next 2 weeks - SUPER excited to be back here!

It was quite a busy and stressful 2 weeks just getting up here though. Before I got here, I came down with some type of bug along with an infection in my back molar - ouch! Fortunately, the dental industry in Paraguay is really good. My friends gave me the name of a dentist and she is super sweet and very professional. She got me hooked up on antibiotics and then cleaned me up before I flew up here. She thinks it is only a really bad cavity and not my root, which is encouraging. But I will go back and get it all officially taken care of when I head back down there.

Thursday night (9/16) my friends were so sweet and threw me a surprise "going away/have a great trip" pizza party. It was so super sweet of them. They were all quick to tell me though that I had better come back down to Paraguay and not stay in Florida! haha

Friday night I flew out and got in at like 7am in the morning. I was exhausted to say the least. Nothing like eating dinner on a plane at 1am or having "snack time" at 4:30am - really? what's that about?? do we really need coke or juice at 4:30am???

Harmoni and her daughter were nice enough to drive down to Miami to pick me up. We even hit Waffle House for breakfast - luv me some pecan waffles!!!! That evening we went out for some yummy Mexican food. The food in Paraguay is good, but very simple and usually not spicy. So I have definitely been looking forward to eting some spicy food while I am up there! Afterwards, we headed to the beach to look at some turtle nests. Unfortunately, the eggs didn't hatch on our watch, but they should be popping soon!

Sunday I went to church and just had a fab time seeing everyone again. I even had the opportunity to share in front of everyone about my year in Paraguay. I was pretty nervous, but everyone said it didn't show (thank you God for that! haha).
The church leadership conference will be this thu-sunday. I will even be talking for one of the classes on Sat for people who are interested in coming down to live and serve one of the churches down in South America. Still working on what I will be saying - pray for me please! =)

got plans to hit the outlets, the beach and just try and visit with as many friends as possible. YAY!

hugs to you all!

August update

Hello all!
Well I realize that it has been awhile since I have written a blog, although I have to say I don't think I have done anything super exciting since the last one! haha

In July, I did get a 3 week winter break from school, which was nice. The vacation is really only 2 weeks long. But with the cold we were having, the Ministry of Education decided to extend it for a week. The schools, offices, houses here are just not built for the cold at all. So it was decided it was better for the kids to keep them out another week. Ironically that third week was nice and sunny and fairly warm. But the week we went back it got cold and chilly again - too funny! I didn't do much on my vacation - aka didn't go anywhere. But it was nice to just chill, rent some movies, hang out with friends and not have to rush off to work!

July 17 was my one year anniversary for being down here and I am finally in a place where I feel comfortable here. I have made great friends, and I am working enough so I have a decent amount of $ to live on. Still lacking a lot on the Spanish front, but it has definitely gotten better. It was pretty chilly that specific day, so a few friends and I celebrated by watching a movie and chilling out together, it was really nice! =) It's hard to believe though that I have already been here for a year. I mean where the heck did the time go? weird!

I do have exciting news to share though - It's funny how much God has been working on my heart down here. As you all know, my original plan was to come down here for a year and then head back up in July. But as July got closer and closer, the more I realized I wasn't quite ready to head back to the US yet. So the fab news is that I will be staying down here another year and working part-time as an intern for the church! I will be working with the single/campus women in our church! I am SUPER excited and encouraged that God has made this possible. I totally believe that God has me down here for a reason (still working on what that is, but... haha). So I am definitely looking forward to another year here in PY. The original plan was for me to go ahead and quit teaching my third graders now. But with only 3 months left in the school year, everyone seemed to think it would better to finish the school year and end things well (i.e. don't burn the bridge!). can't say that I am super excited about it, to be honest. I am just sooo not an elem school teacher - it's weird I know, but middle schoolers are my fav age group! who knew? LOL But I also know that finishing the school year will be the best thing for everyone! =)

I am heading up to Fort Lauderdale in September though for the leadership conference. I will be there for 2 weeks and can't wait to try and hang out with everyone! I miss everyone so much! =)

I am also really glad that I get to head up to FL right now because I will be flying over to Portland, Oregon to spend Christmas with the fam and just wouldn't have time or the $ to head south. So, this works out perfectly!

I guess that is it for now!
hope you all are well!

World Cup Fun - so much fun, so sad to see it over!

Although soccer is not very popular or interesting to many who live in the USA, it's a whole other story here in Paraguay and I am so glad that I was here to witness all the fun and excitement of the World Cup!

The very first game we played was on a Monday at 2:30pm. The president called it a national holiday - this meant for me that classes got canceled and I didn't have to go to work. SWEET! (other people still had to be a work, but no one worked once the game started!)

As Paraguay progressed further along, the fever got even stronger! On June 29th, we played Japan at 10am and boy was that an amazing game! I watched the game with my friend Eli and her son. But before that I hit the mall to take photos of all the fun festivities. This first picture is people starting to line up in the food court to watch the game. There were 2 HUGE screens and then like 3-4 other TVs for people to watch. I took this photo about 30-40min before the game, so the place only got fuller once the time got closer!



Outside the mall they put up this huge tent for more people to watch the game inside. It had bleachers and huge TV screens. There had to have been at least a couple hundred people inside there!


that's the TV screen in the back there by the HALLS and Trident posters.


I of course bought the PY jersey. Eli had the flag for me to use for the photo, although I prob should buy one of those too!



Eli, her son Walter and I.




What an exciting and nail-biting game it turned out to be. When the 90 minutes ended, the score was still 0-0. They then played for another 30 minutes and the score remained 0-0. So then it was time for the shootout. One Japanese guy missed a kick and so the final score was 5-3!! UNBELIEVABLE! The city went CRAZY!!! CRAZY CRAZY!!! This was the first time that PY had advanced into the quarterfinals and so everyone was SUPER excited! I had to race out of Eli's house though and get to work - I couldn't stick around to celebrate with them. But the cool part about this though was that I had to take a bus and cross the city to get to my school. Normally it would be like a 20-30 min bus ride. This day it took prob 45 minutes because of all the traffic. As you can see from the photos below, EVERYONE hit the streets. People poured out of their offices to wave flags and cheer. People loaded into cars and drove around, honking horns and waving flags. I just sat in the bus and took photos of it all (i.e. why some of the photos aren't the best quality b/c I was in the bus!). It was soooooooo fun to see all of that!


















If you look closely below, you can see that all of these people are standing on the island in the middle of the busy street. There were just people EVERYWHERE!!





These are all my students - most of them wearing their PY jerseys!


I took the photo below 3 hours after the game ended! People were still honking and cheering, just hanging out and having a great time!



On Saturday July 3, we played Spain. Before the game, the city went crazy again! The malls were packed, people were honking their horns, fireworks... They opened up stadiums for people to go watch the game (it was like 90 degrees that day too!). Everyone was so excited! Unfortunately, due to a bad ref call (sound familiar US team?), we didn't get a goal that a player scored and so in the end Spain won 1-0. sooooo sad! Although everyone was clearly disappointed, I could tell that everyone was still super proud of the team for advancing as far as they had! They came back and received medals from the president. I know everyone still loves them! I sure was hoping we would win though. I wanted to see the city erupt in craziness again! haha.

DALE PARAGUAY!!

Some random PY info for you on this cold rainy night

So it started raining earlier today. It has been raining off and on now for the last couple of weeks. Tuesday night was super cold, but it has been a bit more temperate since then. But since I have no desire to go out in the rain and do anything, I figured it was a good time to write a blog and pass along some general PY info that I have been meaning to get to, but just haven't done so yet!!

So for all of you Jeopardy fans, here goes...

1) The people of Paraguay have been through two MAJOR wars. The first one is known as the War of the triple Alliance and was in the late 1800s. PY fought against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay and unfortunately lost. "Paraguay was defeated in 1870 after five years of the bloodiest war in South America." (although Wikipedia may not be the BEST source, I know this time it is fairly accurate! LOL) Because of this war, Paraguay lost a TON of land (almost half of the country I think), including ocean access. Bolivia and PY are actually the only land-locked countries in S. America. It was also during this war that a large portion of the male population in PY was decimated and it was up to the women to rebuild the country. "Paraguay's prewar population of approximately 525,000 was reduced to about 221,000 in 1871, of which only about 28,000 were men." Although you can still see the Latin Machismo here, there is still a definite respect for women down here because of this time period! When a bunch of us are standing up in a full bus and a seat opens up, I am often given the seat by one of the guys standing nearby - always sweet!

2) The north part of the country is known as the Chaco. I haven't been there yet, but the second war in the 1930s was fought over this land. This too was a long and bloody war. But although PY did defeat Bolivia, they still lost some of the land due to the treaty that was made!

3) Yes, people here are still quite bitter about all the land they have lost due to these 2 wars - and rightly so I think! There is also VERY little love between Paraguayans, Argentinians and Brazilians. In fact, Paraguayans will flat out tell you that they hate anyone from Argentina! You think your college rivalry is bad...

3) PY Independence day is May 14 and Mother's day is May 15. What's interesting is that nothing really happened on May 14. I was told there was like a concert and some speeches somewhere, but it was pretty low key, all things considered. All of my friends were amazed to hear about the grand celebration that we have on July 4th. Of course one friend was quick to point out that the actual act of independence was pretty low key here. Apparently some guy from Spain came over, they signed a treaty and that was that...vs. the bloody war that the US went through to gain our independence. One can then understand our need to celebrate! However, Mother's Day is a different story. On this day, very few people have to work, and most of the shops are closed down. The restaurants are open, but usually just for a lunch buffet. Again because it was the women who had to rebuild the country, the government decided to make this the more important holiday - I think that is pretty cool actually!

4) Typical day in PY:
I have mentioned before that breakfast here is usually just coffee and bread/toast, something simple like that. They will of course have this before work.

12pm - is lunch, like on the dot. seriously, if you go to a buffet at like 1pm/1:30, there will be like nothing left!

4-6pm is called merienda here and it is basically like British tea time. This is the time for more coffee/tea and then maybe pastry/dessert...something just to tide you over until dinner.

8-9pm is usually dinner time here. I didn't think I would like eating that late, but I actually don't mind it. It is usually not a big meal though, portion-wise lunch tends to be much bigger.

The people here always think it is so funny that we eat dinner around 5-7pm. "Aren't you hungry later though?" Most people ask after they hear that. I tell them that we eat dessert after dinner and not before! LOL They will RARELY eat anything sweet after dinner, they have a strange "can't let different foods mix in your stomach" thing. Like after eating an asado (their BBQ), they hate to eat dessert b/c it won't mix well. ??? Don't ask, I am at a loss as well. They of course think it is funny that I will eat whatever, whenever! LOL cultural differences!

5) Speaking of which, after I had been here for a few weeks, my brother asked if there was something that I did that definitely made me super American, vs. Paraguayan. The first thing that came to mind was the fact that they eat pizza with a fork and knife. ????? I remember going to a b-day party at a pizza place, eating pizza with my hands and quickly realizing that was I the only one doing that! (no one said anything though) Fortunately, since then I have told everyone here that everyone in the US eats pizza with their hands, just so they know what's going on! I have even convinced a few of the guys that it is the better way to go! haha ;)

Well I had hoped to get some photos posted with this blog, but for whatever reason the photo uploader doesn't want to work - probably due to the rain/storm. Most of my photos do still get posted to Facebook, but I do also post daily photos to Flickr, for those who are interested.

hope you enjoyed the PY facts!
hugs

Videos of traditional harp music and dancing!

So I was FINALLY able to download a couple of videos to show you all - yea, that took awhile! LOL

Video #1 - For the Jacksonville crew, the church invited a woman to come in and play the harp for our Sunday service. Paraguay is known for its traditional harp music. It was really cool hearing her play!

Video #2 - For their last service with us, a few members of the church did some traditional PY dancing for them. The lighting in the video is horrible, but hopefully you can at least get the idea! =)

Enjoy!