the paraguayan reverie

hey there hope everyone thing is going well up there in the northern hemisphere. Its wintery here, and cold, sorta. I went to a sortija last night, which i would most closely associate with a rodeo except the people just ride around in circles and crack their whips for no apparent reason. Basically its just an excuse for guys to get drunk and watch girls. I went with a few friends and met up with other people there, and after the horses stoped circling the band cycled up and people started dancing. There was polka and cachaca, paraguayan and columbian? music respectivly. The dances are kinda specific depending on the kind of music, so i spent about a half hour or so watching and drinking more cheep beer. I was told later by my friends from the collegio that i am a good dancer, but they were pretty sloshed so who knows if they were actually seeing strait anyway. Got to dance with a good many girls so i would consider the night a success.

Two days ago was paraguay independence day, and all the people from the companias came into tobati for a parade. All the kids from all the schools were dressed up in various uniforms quasi-marching down the street. All the girls from the collegios had 4-5 inch platform books and miniskirts, as well as some heavyduty makeup. This is not to say that im complaining, but it certainly was amusing watching them try to march to a beat in those big boots.

So another one of my shirts was consumed by a cow. Well more precisely it was riped up into little pieces. Therefore i have a shirt request from threadless; maybe someone could send it over to me? Heres the link:

http://www.threadless.com/product/1219/My_Fantasy_World

Work is moving along, im just not quite sure in what direction. Im kinda at an impase with the collegios students and their planting trees at their houses, so ill have to come up with something new pretty soon here to keep them occupied. Thinking of doing the same project with the students in costa alegre, so ill see how that goes.

I received three packages in the mail while i was visiting asuncion. Two of them had the books in spanish for the kids at my host fams house and the other one had the design books. I gave the kids the books and they imediatly started reading them and seemed to be enjoying them. And then the next day they got a computer game for their dads computer and started playing that instead. Reminds me of the states. Im starting to make my way through the design books and they´ve got a lot of good case studies and pictures if the people here ever wrap their heads around getting the school project going.

Well thats all for now, be back later.