Site in Limbo

Last friday (the 11th of December) we doned our best and headed over to the embassy to swear in as official volunteers. Following various speeches, including an excelent speech and interactive game by our own Carlos, and munching down on delicious fried chicken and the infamous swearing-in chocolate mocha cake, swearing in weekend began. We all stayed in a great hotel downtown, and days were full of eating all our favorite non-paraguayan foods we could find, and lounging at the hotel pool celebrating the accomplishment of 11 weeks of language and technical training.

But after a long weekend, sites were calling. While the city was pleasant, I must admit I was anxious to head back to begin at my site. Myself and my neighbors headed out from the hotel at 7 am and were on our bus at 8, we arrived in Caazapa at 2:30, where we proceeded to wait 4.5 hours (getting to site was not meant to be easy I guess) and I was finally dropped at my cruze at aroun 9pm. I was greated in the dark by my community contact, a random teenager on a horse, my host dad and his moto, and my host mom to walk beside me.

Getting back to site was great. I had a short first night of greetings, slept well, and awoke with neighbors already visiting to say hi. I dropped my extra stuff at my future house since I will be moving around every 15 days, and then headed off to beekeep with Karai Carlos down the road (he had shown up at my house at 8 am to make sure I could work with him that afternoon!). We worked bees for 4 hours in the blazing heat, but towards the end of our second traciego the bees started getting annoyed, and a very common event happened, I was stung.

What followed unfortunately was not normal. I became unusually hot, and worried, and I ignored it for thirty minutes and helped out, feeling very strange. When I finished and pulled off my gear, I found that my head and neck were itchy, my ears red and swollen, and I was very spacey. I somehow excused myself from a terere session and walked home. That's when I noticed I could not take deep breathes either, and as I rested, they became more shallow. I took meds, called the doc, and we monitered everything very well until the reaction ended.

Soooooo, the danger of the potential situation is evident. I was sent back to Asuncion (my sweet little family woke up at 3:30 am to hike me out to the ruta to catch the 4am bus, and have proceeded to call every day), where I have been since thursday (its now monday). They couldn't do anything until today, and then they drew blood. Results will not be back until Christmas Eve, so there will be no appointment until at least a week from today. Thus, they are letting me go back to site for Christmas.

I head back tomorrow morning, though uncertainty still looms. I love my site, I love the people, I want to stay. Unfortunately if I am severely allergic to something, I may have to be moved to a location closer to a hospital (when it rains at my site you cannot go anywhere for 2 days, and the nearest hospital is about 3 hours away on the sketchy dirt road anyways). I am trying to stay positive about either option. After all, I signed up for this knowing that I would have little control. I am only finding it hard as all my friend settle into their two year futures, and I continue to wander, not knowing for sure where my home will be for the next two years. For now I will just have faith, so far Paraguay has treated me well, there is no reason to think that this situation will turn out any other way.