May comes to a close and Pete visits Paraguay!

May! May has been so fun! May brings about a feeling in me of excitement, content-ness, and sort of a proud-ness.  Its like I’ve been here long enough to feel comfortable, in my own routine, developed meaningful relationships that bring light to my days, know the ins and outs of my different jobs here, ya know- Just Living- here in good ol’ Paraguay. All the differences about Paraguayan culture has grown to be a part of me and while I own my North Americaness and love the US, I am proud to own a part of Paraguay that has literally grown inside me the past 10 months and become a part of me. It don’t know; its like Im proud, content and excited about everything right now! Haha. Excited to be here in Paraguay- just living. Excited to return to friends and family in the US soon too. I suppose May feels like—I still have time here to soak up more Paraguay awesomeness. But, I will be seeing my family and friends too sort of soon. Sort of like this in the middle super contentness. Ha

Anyways, what have we been up to this second half of May? We have spent some time in Aregua, a town about 20 minutes from us. Our friends Manuel and Emett live there- Peace Corps friends. Emmet’s parents and Manuel’s mom came to visit them so we met up with them in Aregua to meet their families. Manuel is out of control. He is pretty much Paraguay’s president. He gives tours to people for fun all the time and knows like every single fact about Paraguay, sometimes even more than native Paraguayans themselves. Ha. So, we hung out with the boys as Manuel took the moms and dad around like a tour guide, starting at Aregua’s big church.

Aregua is beautiful and very clean. They say out of all the Peace Corp placements, Aregua is the “castle placement” because youre literally living and doing service in this touristy/pretty town. VERY DIFFERENT from the campos.

That’s El Lago Ypacarai behind us. It is the same lake that is in other pics in my earlier blogs. Its like the only and only big lake here.

Closerrrrrrrrr

This is Aregua’s new logo to try to bring in tourists. The blue is a representation of the lake and the red heart shaped thingy is suppose to represent a strawberry because Aregua’s is known for its delicious strawberries.

After we made our way past some cows in the back dirt roads, we showed their parents the watercress. This was cool but also confusing on how it all works/grows/etc. So, basically some crops either need or better grow in flooded plains (rice, cranberries, etc.) and what they do in Aregua is dam up one of the small arroyos that feed to the lake and divert the water to the fields. There is obviously some CRAZY delicate about how the topography works to get the water through all the different plots and turned back to the arroyo. 

To the left is Maunel (Peace Corps friend/ Paraguay Wikipedia man), next to him is Emett’s mom, then Emett, then me, then Emett’s boyfriend (Paraguayan), then Emett’s dad.

Here is another pic included Maneul’s mom but missing Monetti.

This place is called "El Castillo de Carlota Palmerola." There is a smaller house next to it, where Manuel lives which is called "La Casa Amarilla". It used to be this politically important place involving some lady name Madame Lynche (forgot the details), but now it is used as a retirement and retreat center for Dominican Nuns.

Monetti, Manuel’s mom, and I waving like we are The Queen…

Hmmm what else, so most of our Peace Corps friends are involved in agricultural/environmental work. So, after visited Manuel’s wormy compost, we visited some of his gardens he has maintained.

Lechuga sprouts!! YUM!

Hmm what else?  We continue to hang out with our besties, the HERMANITASSSS!!! Passin mate, or having coffee and bread or watching soccer games with them, or just chillen. Older people are so cool. Im reading this book “Going Alone Women’s Adventures In The Wild.” Its cool- each chapter is written by a different womyn and her adventure. There is a chapter written by a middle aged womyn called “In the Tracks of the Old Ones.” She talks about how our American culture is so obsessed with aging- as we come out with a new “wrinkle-free” cream each week and as our “sexy” models are younger and younger each year. Anyways, she is totally this bad ass womyn that embraces each year of her life and I LOVE THAT!   She says “a reasonable person knows that age means more, not less.  She also quote Marilyn Monroe saying “I want to grow old without face-lifts. They take the life out of the face, the character. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face that I have made.” I LOVE THAT! Why am I sharing this random lines from my book with you? Well, its how I feel about the hermanitas- the retired sisters- so many years of LIFE experiences- so much life inside their tiny 86 or 94 year old bodies that shines out- its never gets old to just hang around them, just Be- with them. I don’t think I can go one blog without mentioning them. I’m not going to lie, on the bus ride home from Bolivia, I had a mini break-down about being really sad to have to leave them in a few months.  They are just such cool womyn, each one of them, in their own special quirky way, I feel so so blessed to have them in life. I really am so lucky.

Okay, I can talk about the hermanitas forever so I’ll change the subject. Next funtivity: PETEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! PETE IN PARAGUAY!!! YAYYYYYY!!! 

Pete is the GSV program director and one of our biggest support systems for the past two years.  So, needless to say, we were so excited for him to visit us! 5 days of sugar and laughs pretty much sums it up. We took Pete to Lago Ypacarai, made him try all Paraguayan traditional food-chipa, sopa paraguaya, chipa guazu, empanadas, dulce de leche and the list continues. He totally spoiled ussssss. We went out to eat for EVERY meal except one meal that we cooked for him. We had sweets- and when I say sweets- I mean large quantities of sweets that is not okay to eat in one sitting—that we did, twice a day, every day for 5 days in a row.

Pete drinking terere and mate with us, passing around the whampa, going on a search for Pete to buy his very own whampa, bombilla, and yerba! LOVE IT!!!

Dulce de leche and chocolate sundaesssssssss!!

Pete got to experience one of main entertainments here in Paraguay- riding the buses back and forth looking at the beautiful landscapes. Pete getting a business phone call that he picked up on the bus-bringing US culture with him to Paraguay haha

Pete got to meet our leather man (the guy we work with who backs the aritsans work with leather)- DON BERNADINO!!! They hit it off and became besties instantly!!

Here is Hermana Julia, Hermana Neide (Brasilian sister), Hermana Maria Julia, Mo, Pete and I after a lovely dinner together. Sister Julia and Sister Maria Julia- in the blue shirts- are the two sisters that are “in charge” of us/our bosses.

Pete brought us pretzelsssss!! You know I was so excited!! (they don’t have pretzels in Paraguay.) Pretzels, twizzlers, smarties, tootsie rolls! Told you he totally spoiled us!

So, ya we had 5 days of literally, belly-hurting laughs- including and UNFORGETABLE game of Sherades, Pete feelings sick from too much dairy, artisan stands/artisan work in Plaza Uruguaya, bus rides, deep conversations over icecream or cookies or something sweet,  dinner/hang out with the hermanitas-DUH.

He finally got to meet each one of them – which was cool after he has heard us talk about them all year long haha.

Imelda. Catalina. Pete. Krystina. Elisa. Me

Pete’s visit was so simple with each day revolving around ice cream and meriendar. Krystina and I were talking about how lucky we are to have such an awesome director. With the nature of Good Shepherd Volunteers , with working at Euphrasian- Diagnostic Receptive Center Group Home for girls 12-18 years old, and this year with all the ups and downs of Paraguay- he has been all up in it. He probably knows more about our past two years than most of our family members and close friends. His office was 40 feet from the volunteers bedrooms last year when we lived in the top of a high school.  He’s heard about all the pains and joys of our last two years, its kind of crazy how well he knows us. He has seen us in every emotion- from cries to laughs to everything. I mean I make him celebrate my bowel movement with me! Haha Sometimes we forget he is our “director;” he’s more of like that cool supportive uncle.  You get my point- so it was just so much fun and exciting to have him visit/share a part of our Paraguayan life with him.  Pete, Super Pancho, nice man hands, Kah-tee-uh, Me Gusto (Pete kept saying me gusto instead of mucho gusto to people. Me gusto= I like you, romantically. Mucho gusto= Nice to meet you ahahaha Petee), etc etc. Fun times.

So, sad for Pete to leave but excited to welcome June in. So September to May= either HOT or VERY VERY HOT, anywhere between 80 and 105 degrees. June goes like this- 35-40s in the morning until about noon. Then noon to about 5pm around the 70s. Once the sun goes down around 5:30 it drops and drops and drops and we are in sweats and sweatshirts by night. June is winter here.

Just a typical night eatin dinner with Mo. Dinner beans, potatoes, cabbage, eggs, and yucca medly.

We went to Asuncion to visit VIVI!!!!!!!! We haven’t seen Vivi since December. Vivi was our Spanish teacher in October and November when we first got here. We haven’t seen her in forever so we called and she invited us over for lunch which was so so much fun. We got to meet her husband and kids and had a wonderful day with the Vivster and her fam! She is too good to us!