Mbaéchapa

OK. So, below is a blog I wrote a few days ago.. wanted to post it before I go visit a current Peace Corps volunteer in their site this weekend. I could be as far as 10 hours away from my current host family! However, last night my host dad cornered me to try to get me to convert to evangelicism, so leaving will make things likely less awkward. Today we are in the big city and about to go to the peace corps office, so i have to go. But I hope you all enjoy!

Mba’echapa!

My life has become Paraguay, and fortunately the glitter and glam that newness provides to what I have heard others call a flat and dreary land has yet to wear off, I only hope it never does.

The repetitive every-day schedule of intense Guarani lessons, attempt to integrate Guarani into a Spanish-dominated lunch conversation and afternoons of lectures, crop practice or beekeeping has already grown weary mostly due to exhaustion and lack of time.

But beyond the confines of time, the lessons themselves have been pretty cool so far. Guarani reminds me of an Asian-ized Spanish, and while difficult, is fun to attempt to speak. So far the most I can figure out is that endings are very important, as adding a few letters to the end of a word can both change its tense and add entire ideas to it, such as where the object is or who you did the verb with. Also, tones are important, and so far I have found that I tend to get them wrong, and the words end up being sexual rather than the temperature or vegetable I am trying to talk about… pero, tranquilopa, ndaipori problema, I will learn.

My family is still great. My older sister Cindy is in town and the fam is at church now, which explains the blaring reggaeton from the kitchen. (Normally it would be Christian music… Pastor lives here…). My mom and I are also tight, we talk a lot and she has already promised to visit me at my site. Vamos a ver.

A lot of people have asked about food. So before I get to posting pictures I’ll talk abit about that. So far I like it a lot. Today I had sopa paraguaya, which is not a soup at all but an oily cornbread with cheese, milk, and egg involved, and spinach spaghetti with a rough meat sauce that included hot dogs. Breakfast is mostly bread, dolci de leche and mate with milk. And Dinner is generally the same as breakfast. Lunch is when we have delicious fried tortillas (little eggy, cheesy, puff balls of dough that melt in your mouth) or begu (the g pronounced as a y) which is corn and wheat flour mixed with cheese and pressed with a spoon in a buttered pan until it gets hot enough to melt together. It is my fave.

In other news today my family castrated our little bull. Or the vet did, but as you can see below it was a family affair. The majority of our group came to watch, it was quite the experience.

We also had our first experience in the apiary with killer bees (see photos). The bees are definitely aggressive, and though they flew straight into my veil about 800 times, pegging it, bouncing off and returning, I somehow escaped without a pulsing and itching sting (a trend I hope to keep up).

OK, now I would put some photos but they are NOT loading fast enough and I have to jet to the embassy. Next time I promise!!!!! From now on I will try to post more often, especially since I now feel safe breaking out my laptop and typing posts up on my computer in my room while the fam sings and dances at church on Saturday night.

Jajotopata (See you later)

-Jess