Happy HalloweeM

Buen dia. Today is December 4^th, 2011 and its been over a month since I’ve blogged; I don’t even know where to start. I know I have said this before, but it isn’t until I actually sit down and write my blog that I really see how much has happened in such a short time. My memories from the end of October begin with planning for the Peace Walk/March on 11/25 (International Day of Elimination of Violence against Women). I was part of the planning committee for this march and my personal task was to find/organize information/statistics/data regarding violence against women, domestically here in Paraguay, and worldwide. There is an LGBTQ/Feminist/Human Rights Center (only one in Paraguay) in the midst of the main city, Asuncion, which I have been to twice now.  A woman who works there, Cynthia, hooked me up with this thick Human Rights book specifically for Paraguay in which became extremely useful in planning for the walk. THANKS CYNTHIA! What else? We bought cereal with our stipend money this month for the first time which was a really exciting event for us! We got these honey graham square thingys-YUM!

We are still teaching English class to the kids here which is always so fun. It is starting to become normal when you walk down the street and hear the kids yelling “Profe! Profe!” (teacher). The kids are so much fun; its always a fresh of breath air to be around their light energy. The kids range from 9 to 15 years old. We have one student named Paula, our only 9 year old, who continues to impress me with her ridiculously fast learning pace. The girl is brilliant. Then there is Barbara, Miguela, Augustina, Brian, and more. One of my favorite parts about teaching the class is just being a witness to these kid’s personalities, lives, education, and spirits. With trying to master Spanish, trying to make the tiniest bit of sense of their foreign (to me) tongue “guarani”, teaching english, and connecting to words of silence- language continues to be one of the most intriguing concepts to me. I used to think language was about stringing together the right letters and moving my tongue a certain way to make the noise of the letters sound like the correct pronunciation. As each day goes by, language continues to unravel itself as it's own unique world with many intricate layers. To say language is a textbook, a piece of paper and a pencil, a memory game- is to completely miss the beauty of communication. To bring a close to the communication world, my dreams here continue to be their own voice which has been a whole other world, in it of itself.

What else? There is this small circle in the Asuncion. The only thing I can compare it to is like the subway area in Union Square, NYC, across from Whole Foods, where you get all the street performers and where they set up Christmas tent sales during the holidays. There are hundreds of tents set up here (and by tents I mean tarp and tree sticks). People have been living here for years and years specifically to bring awareness to poverty and to say “WE ARE HERE.” Krystina and I decided to sit in this park after class one day. I caught myself staring at these three kids, all under the age of six years old-one of which had to be around 5 years old, holding her 1 year old baby brother on her tiny little hip. Beside trying to grasp their world, period, I was taken back by this stranger sitting on a near-by bench. He was backpacker who didn’t really have much in his backpack. He took out two empty rolls of toilet paper and pencil. He drew a face on these cardboard cylinders which became two dolls for these kids. This stranger that did not know the kids (and visa versa) sat there and played hide and seek and these games with these new dolls/toys. I sat there on the bench feeling so blessed to be a witness to life at its coolest. I was really taken back; it has been one of my favorite “movies” to be a witness to thusfar this year. It’s moments like this that really shove my face so deep into the ground; its moments like this in which things can seem so complex yet so so simple.

As October came to close, we found ourselves celebrating our first holiday away from the US, Halloween. Halloween is not a holiday celebrated here, in general. However, there are small pockets in the city which do celebrate it. The Sisters were away in Brasil this weekend so we took full advantage of the 2 day independence and spent Halloween weekend in the city with a friend.  One of the Halloween highlights was seeing all the signs that said “Happy HalloweeM.” It never got hearing or saying HalloweeM. I don’t even know where to start so perhaps I will just list some highlights:

1.                    Going to the Human Rights Center for “HalloweeM hangout,” to find out that the bar isn’t open because the 8 people that were throwing this HalloweeM hangout were in the back of the Center practicing a theatre act which involved 8 women ranging from age 24 to 50 years old (such characters), corny dances to the song Mama Mia (except with sexuality rights lyrics), one lady who creepily smiled and danced on the side to her own rythmn/completely different then the choreographed dance/ never said one word (SO RANDOM), as well as the brilliant director who was such a DIVA with his pinky held high while sippin’ on his beer can and demanding perfection of his actresses. The best part about all of this is that, we rang the bell of the center thinking we were going to a HallweeM hangout. A lady came to the door, didn’t say anything to us so we just walked in and followed her, passed the bar in confusion because it was closed, to realize a half hour later, the two of us are just creepily in the back of a center randomly watching a theatre rehearsal-while NO CONVERSATION from any of them to either of us occurred in the 45 minutes we were there. Obviously, I could not get enough of the randomness of it all. We eventually were asked to leave because we were laughing at the actresses being goofballs and our DIVA director friend told us that we were sweet but the girls and getting too distracted by us so we had to leave. Too classic!

2.                    Getting lunch with our priest friend Emmanuel who jams out to American hip-hop and rap, reads Paulo Coelho, ordered whisky on the rocks for his light lunch drink of choice, and plays soccer.

3.                    Watching Krystina belt out “Sweet Dreams” by in the midst of a Men’s Rainbow Kareyoke Bar.

4.                    Hollywood Dance Club-Casa de Diversidad. So many Awesomeee Lady Gaga Diva Costumes, dance trains, our friends Raquel and Sofia, getting our heads thrown down in this dance, etc.

5.                    Using our tee shirts as our shower towels for the weekend.

6.                    Running Water stopped/ no toliets/ pooping amongst banana trees while picking bananas for breakfast that morning. Survival at its classiest.

November 2^nd, marks two months here and we celebrated with Alfajors- triple layer cookie/cake thingy with dulce de leche in between/covered in chocolate.  We visited the Women’s jail again this month where we met and sat with this 23 year old girl from Latvia who got caught in the midst of trafficking drugs, in which she really wasn’t even fully aware of. Her story is incredible. I feel really sad for her; im not sure how long she will be in Paraguay jail for but I hope to visit her again soon.

            I finished The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho and of course I loved it and suggest it! There is this Water Intuition Meditation exercise that I’ve been all about this month.  What else? We had a new student join us this month in Spanish class. His name is Patrick and he is from Switzerland. It is so classic sitting there in a classroom listening to Monetti and I with our English accents trying to speak Spanish, German student Raquel with her German accent and now Patrick pronouncing Spanish words with his Friench accent. On top of that, our teacher Argentinian, not Paraguayan, so she has her own thick accent herself. So many different worlds colliding at once inside that small little classroom- love it! Hmmm what else? The rain (which doesn’t happen a lot) continues to be my heaven here. This little boy Ale (4 years old) is my new friend. We don’t talk to each other, verbally. His grandpa is the Sister’s gardener so he is always around. Sometimes when his grandpa, Don Raul, fixes things in our house, he follows me around (but doesn't talk) and I give him cookies. Even though we don’t verbally talk, we are definitely developing our own little unique friendship. He is the cutest.

            One last random highlight of this blog is mentioning that one of the retired sisters, Hermana Eufrasia, with such excitement on her face as though she just won a trip to Greece, asked us if we want to watch “beautiful music” on the television with her. We sat for an hour watching beautiful music with her. The simplicity of these retired sisters is on a whole other level. Never gets old. Well, that wraps up two weeks. Shall we continue…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMAFAqOxyOc