the paraguayan reverie

Okay. Im in asuncion finnally after riding on the collectivo for about 4.5 hours. My first update after a while so ive got a lot to enter in. The internet place near my site is non functional so for now im going to be relegated to usin the computers in the larger cities. But okay, so:

Got to my site with my huge frikin backpack and walked to my contacts house through the mud for a few k, fell in the mud, and enjoyed my first taste of gettin around. It wasnt too bad, but it certainly wasn't fun with 40 lbs of gear. Im stayin in the same place that i was at for long field so i know the family and everythin is pretty chill. Ive been living in a town thats on the outskirts of the other communities that i need to be workin in so its a bit hard to travel around to the other places. For example it took me about an hour to ride my bike to one of the neighboring towns after getting lost once and riding unneccisarily up a very large hill. But im mean, im not really complaining because when other time am i going to get to be able to ride my bike around in the country all day, talk to people all day and call it work?

I've been hanging out mostly with my site contact for the first two week and his family while also visiting with another teacher in a neighboring town. Its been good, and im getting used to the fact that I have to "make friends" with people before they even want to talk about working on anything. Its really not like the states when people can have professional relationships. I mean, for example, it took me 4 visits to the same teacher talking about whatever, making fruit salad drink for christmas and learning how to crochett before she would even have a converation with me about projects she was interested in for the school. Phew.

I think my second bout of giardia has finnaly dissapated thank god, but i still dont know what the source is, so ill probably end up getting it again...yay. Having giardia makes riding a bike on bumpy trails to places that are far and away slightly unpleasant. Speaking of trails, i cleaned up the trail that i ride my bike on daily so I can actually ride on it instead of getting stuck in thorny vines and falling over into ditches. I also got eaten by mosquitos. Eaten.

I'm making plans to move into my own home in about a month and a half, so im pretty excited. Its a nice place with two rooms and a detached bathroom, but im still going to have to make a number of improvements to get the place in order such as replacing all the lights, new plaster, fans, new sink, refrigerator, stove, matress, etc... this is going to be quite a bit of cash, but its offset by the fact that im not going to have to pay any rent while im here. Or utilities. Which means my most of my paycheck (after im destitute for about 3 months) will be going toward delicious food, yay!

Christmas was very unchristmas like here. I didnt like it very much, despite my best efforts to enjoy myself. Hearing white christmas and rudolfo la rena to an 80's synth beat coupled with pouring rain and nasty humidity made me want to stick my head in the freezer (which i actually did). They don't really do presents here, but they do have lots of family visit during the week of christmas and new years. Joy for me, of course, because i get to deal with more people (drunk) asking me questions to things I wont be able to answer. Whatev.

I went to this horse dancing thing the other week which was kinda fun. My contact brought a bunch of beer, and we watched people do turns in this big field which slightly resembled a stadium. There were about 8 thousand people there, kinda a big deal. But the whole thing didnt resemble dancing very much. But there was beer so it was okay. Then there was dancing to the polka in front of this big stage. This was also "fun" and quite easy, considering that the dance pretty much consists of bouncing your weight twice onto one foot and then twice onto the other. Boing boing. At least i can say that i did it.

New years was basically a continuation of christmas with more family arriving and more bbq and beer drinking. At least there were bottle rockets and firecrackers. I was supposed to go to another sortija (horse dance) but i decided to pass, given that the other one was supposidly the best. This whole season has left me feeling kinda worn out and disconnected. Im irritated that the phone thing hasnt been working out, ive been wantin to talk with people and hope to have it work better in the future. Ive been feeling a bit worn down by all these people incesently questioning me, so im actually pretty glad i had an excuse to get into the city.

School starts around my site at the end of february so im attempting to have something in the works so i can try to be helpful with the teachers that im getting to know right now, but i guess ill see how that works out. Im okay with just meeting people and having rudimentary conversation, but id like to be active doing something else as well. Ive still not received anything in the mail in terms of packages, so hopefully they'll come sometime in the near future. Im going to go shopping today for crafty items in the market, so hopefully ill find some good stuff to send home.

Alright! So for now, that's all ive got. But ill try to think up some more stuff to add for tomorrow. Ciao!