Thanksgiving in Paraguay

Our "chain of thankfullness"

If you look closely, you'll notice that cookies and ice cream made the list...

 

           Thursday was Thanksgiving, and what a Thanksgiving it was! I may be far from home and family, but I am definitely thankful to be surrounded by such  a community of friends! Twenty-six people crammed in our living room/dining room made for a very snug, fun day!

Our apartment all decorated!

Good food, fun times!

          For Thanksgiving I was in charge of the pecan pie, which means I spent my Wednesday night cracking about a billion pecans with my roommate.  Now I know why my mom always took the pecans we picked up at my Granny and Granddaddy's to the pecan-cracking place! We cracked the pecans with the bottom of a cup and the handle of some scissors (I'm really glad my aunt's recipe specified that the pecans should be in pieces). At some point, I realized we had plenty of pecans for the pie, but well, it was the end of our school week and we needed the stress relief...

          The pie turned out surprisingly good! I had to use a tarte shell instead of a pie crust and because the shell is really thin, I layered two together. As it turns out, this was a bad idea. Despite the many holes I poked in the crust to let steam through it still blew up and spilled some of the juice out on the oven floor. Cleaning hot sugar out of a hot oven on a 96 degree day is, well, a little unpleasant.  I moved the pie to my neighbors' oven and went and popped the crust every fifteen minutes. To my surprise, it still tasted really good, just very heavy on the pecans. :)

The indians came to visit!

(well, technically this is her house too, yup I live with this crazy person)

 

          We also got to have a turkey this Thanksgiving, a real treat in a country with no turkeys...Want to know how to get really good turkey? Move to a country where meat is a staple of the diet. That turkey may not have gone through some fancy brining process or whatever people usually do to turkeys, but it was AMAZING!!!! Since turkey is my favorite bird, this pretty much made my day. The rest of the meal was awesome and I really enjoyed spending the day with everybody. After the meal we watched a Christmas movie and played games.  I even played some football! I still don't see the point of it.

Yummyness!

          I'm actually kind of starting to get into a Christmassy spirit early this year. Usually I wait until about two weeks till Christmas to listen to any Christmas music or watch Christmas movies.  This November, the apartments are getting together each Saturday to watch a Christmas movie together.  It was kind of amusing the first week since we all gathered together and realized noone actually had any Christmas movies. We ended up watching The Holiday since it happens at Christmas... Now we've watched White Christmas (I even enjoyed it this time), and Miracle on 34th street, the new version.  It's fun to watch the movies together because you end up with 15 people sprawled on couch cushions around a tiny living room and up the stairs. Since the air is on inside the room, when you leave you go from a cool room feeling like Christmas to 80 degree heat outside. It's kind of a weird contrast.

     This Thanksgiving break has been full of other fun times, too (in addition to a great deal of sleeping in, just because I can).  I got to go to my first, bi-lingual Paraguayan wedding. Such a beautiful wedding! I also got to wear my pretty new dress!

Katie and Katie (Pre-K and K) Just two of the three Katies!

Also, just tonight my roommate Jacqui and I got the scare of the week when a giant beetle flew into our dining room and refused to leave. We tried calling on our male neighbors, but unhelpfully, they were all either asleep or (the horror) working up at the school.  So, we had to gather our courage and put a cup over it to take it outside.  It just barely fit!

Do you SEE those Pinchers??????  Yeek!

 

          I'm going to miss being here in Paraguay, but I am excited to go home for Christmas in two and a half weeks (I can't believe I've already been teaching for an entire semester!). I'll have a long break, because it is the Paraguayan summer break.  I'm looking forward to seeing everybody and getting a break from the heat!

Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

When you work in an international school, you get to experience international things...like new customs, holidays, and foods.
One of my roommates is from England, and for the last few weeks she's been bemoaning the fact that she wouldn't be home for Guy Fawkes Night (which is apparently as big in England as halloween is in the US). To make her try and feel at home, our apartments had a mini Guy Fawkes Night. It was fun! We lit a bonfire (well, technically, one of the guys upstairs came to the rescue and lit it for us...a sad day for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides everywhere...), and toasted marshmallows and even burned a Guy! Who says the nine-foot Goliath poster in my room was only good for Bible class? One couple even brought sausages for us to try roasting, mine, obviously fell on the ground prior to being eaten.  This included blood sausage (which, conviently is both European and South American?). I was adventurous. I tried it.  I'm putting a solid checkmark by that item on my list of foods to try and not erasing it. :P

The burning of the Guy!

In other news, I seem to be on a bit of a clumsy streak.  Since Friday, I've broken a plate and a mug. And gotten a large bruise on my hip from slamming into the chemistry lab counter.  My roommate informed me that I am "quite dangerous". Obviously not too dangerous, because she let me help her try out chemstry experiements this weekend.  Copper Sulfate makes some seriously cool crystals! She told me that she figured the added danger of the copper sulfate and the hydrocloric acid in another experiment would encourage my subconcious to try and keep me alive. It did. Yey!

So, Mondays are just as hard to get up for in South America as they are in North America.  Then one of my students came over and leaned on me at lunch and said "Ms. Crickett, you are the best teacher. I love you!"  Monday made. Week made.  :)
Camp went well with the kiddos.  They had a lot of fun and we sent them home very tired.  I'm sure their parents were grateful.  I co-led the arts and crafts, which was right up my alley.  It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed seeing the different takes the kids had on the crafts, even if they were pre-packaged.  My favorite were the airplane hats.  They were insanly hard to do in a large group (not VBS friendly at all), but they turned out amusingly cute.

Iguazu was AMAZING!!! Even if it did rain the whole stinkin' time.  At least it rained the whole stinkin' time when we weren't under shelter.  The rain kind of made it feel like we were in the waterfalls, as well as seeing them.  The only issue was the times that it started lightning, because we were walking on metal walkways. Either way it was a lot of fun, becuase we got to see the waterfalls really up close and even walk over them! It was very "up close and personal".  The biggest waterfall, Garganta del Diablo "The Throat of the Devil" is even bigger than Niagra!  I had a lot of fun walking around listening to the rain on my poncho and seeing the waterfalls. Once we got back to the hostel, having retreated from the park during a huge bout of the lightning storm, we rested and had fun watching Thor. It sounds pathetic, but it was fun! Very "girl's weekend" like. :)

And these aren't even the big ones!

Three countries, one picture...cool, huh?

The one on the upper left is the best one!

I've officially been to Brasil. We drove through it to get to Argentina and we got out of the car for coffee. Therefore, I've officially been to Brasil.

I'm excited about the upcoming holidays.  The top and bottom floors of the apartment are competing to decorate the floor.  Upstairs has Christmas, and downstairs has Thanksgiving. It. Is. On! Losers buy the winners some amazing fruit juice from a nearby restraunt called Lemonade. I think we're about evenly matched, upstairs has crafty people and an art major, and downstairs has the same...plus the Pre-K and K teachers (hee hee). It should be quite the festive atmostphere come Thanksgiving! We're planning on weekend Christmas movie nights and maybe some caroling to the admin.'s houses.  Scarves and hats in 95 degree weather...that should be...sweaty. Either way, it will be fun!

I can't believe it's already been three and a half months, but in just a month and a half I'll be heading back to the states for a while.  I can't wait to see everybody again!

See you soon!

Prayer requests:
My students are starting to blossom, or race ahead, in the reading. Pray that this continues till break!
The high school students are trying to maintain that revival felt at camp, please pray that they would continue to seek the Lord fervently, rather than fall into old habits.


PS. I figured it out, click "no comments" That's the comment box.

Saturday Adventures with the Roomie

Let me just start by saying-I love Paraguay.  Just wanted to put that out there, because it's pretty much what I've been thinking all day.
 I also love my room.  With two big windows right by my bed it makes for a great breeze and on these beautiful spring days I feel kind of like I'm sitting in a gazebo in a park, not on my bed. :)

Anyway, life here in Paraguay is good.  My roommate and I seem to have started a tradition of going on adventures together every Saturday. The first time we went to Lambare (on accident), the next week we tried again and ended up in the area we had intended to be the first time, and found a great cheap store where Jacqui was delighted to find a little teapot for her tea. It's kind of fun having an English roommate! I'm learning all sorts of neat history and cultural things.  I now know the lineage of the royal family and who gets to be called a prince and princess, and I know the difference between a cookie and a biscuit, among other things.

Today we went to Aregua.  I was excited to go, because when we went to the strawberry festival we didn't go to the town proper.  Today we stopped in the town and looked at the thousands of pots and clay animals that they make.  Most are made from a mold, but we also found a little shop that did lots of handmade things too. The best part about this is that because she sold the handmade stuff too, the lady sold the molded pieces cheaper than other shops.  Jacqui and I had lots of fun picking out Christmas gifts for family members.  Just as we were leaving, the shopkeeper gave us a little gift as a thank you. For those of you worried about my marriage prospects in another country, I've now got it covered, or at least the chickens do...
                                          Meet Amor (love) y Suerte (luck). 

Jacqui and I had already picked out a pair of bigger chickens for us to put in the apartment, so between the two of us we should have a line of men knocking down our door any day now!

 

Aregua is a neat little town, and I'd like to go back and explore it a little more now that we have a tourist map of the place (a precious commodity, because maps are hard to find here because tourism isn't a big thing in Paraguay). We also managed to score maps of Aregua some other neat towns in Paraguay, so our Saturday adventuring can get a little more adventurous! We are hoping to go to the town that makes Nanduti lace, Itaugua, soon. 

I don't know why, but Aregua loves it's frogs...

which is funny because the locals are terrified of the massive toads here,

they think the pee makes you blind

 

"Don't even think about kissing me, you dirty human"

 

I'm excited that November is almost here. Since most of us leave right after school ends in December we won't really get to celebrate the Christmas season together.  As a result, the apartments have decided to make November "holiday season". We will be decorating for Christmas and Thanksgiving and having Christmas movie nights and caroling throughout the month.  We also are going to try a new holiday from England "Guy Fawke's Night"! It should be fun.  Now I just have to live up to my Southern roots and pull off a pecan pie for Thanksgiving supper...know any good recipes? Or how to make brown sugar?

 

In the meantime, elementary has their camps next week.  Upper elementary is going away to camp, but lower elementary has two days of Day Camp at the school.  It should be fun; we'll have water games and other fun stuff. I'm the co-leader for crafts, and also I'm also co-captain for the Yellow team (I'm really glad we have a camp shirt, because I own nothing yellow).  I like that the grades are all mixed up for teams, because I'll get the chance to get to know some of the first and second graders that I don't already know. The big thing is that since both of the other Lower Elementary teachers will be gone next year it's up to the Pre-K teacher and I to pay close attention to how camp goes so we can help lead it next year!

Please keep the upper elementary camp in your prayers this week.  The camp had some damage occur last week during a big storm and God really protected the middle schoolers that were there at the time. Hopefully all the downed trees and damage will be completely repaired when elementary gets there on Monday. God has done some great work in the High schoolers and Middle schoolers this month and we are praying the same happens again with the Elementary kids.

 

That's all for now, I hope to write again soon. Next weekend I'm going to see the Iguazu Falls in Argentina, so I'll have some cool pictures to post then!

 

We see the same moon, but I see different stars...

 



And all the little animals said...BE QUIET!!!

So I've been here almost three months and I've pretty much settled in.  Wanna know how I know? Because I've named the roosters.  There's High, Low, and Long (they are named after their crows, that's right, I can tell them apart from each other...).
A few nights ago, I say night, but really it was about 2 am. I was laying awake regretting the fact that I had fallen asleep earlier in the afternoon and suddenly I hear Low rooster start calling. My first thought was "Where are the other two?" Not "Annoying" or "Seriously?", but "Where are the other two?"  That's when I realized just how settled in I was.  You see, the three roosters almost always go in the same order: High, Low, Long. I know this because I hear them all the time. This particular night, apparently Low was bored.  He kept calling and calling until High and Long finally answered, along with about four of the neighborhood dogs.  As a group they all yelled at him until he finally quit, at which point the whole neighborhood became almost instantly quiet. It was really amusing, actually.
So, I'm enjoying teaching Kinder.  It's quiet an adventure, but I'm enjoying it. My kids are quite a bunch of personalities, but they love me, and that's good. I had to leave for two hours on Thursday to go to the immigration office and you would have thought I was gone for a week based on the hugs they gave me when I got back. Happiness.  Also, they seem to have gotten the hang of taking themselves to the bathroom in all circumstances, which is definitely a plus. :) I'm also getting enough into the swing of things to write a theme unit, rather than going straight from the book.  That's a lot of work, but I think it's going well. (If anyone has some National Geographic I could cut pictures of houses out of for next year, I would love to take them off your hands). We just finished the Goldilocks and the Three Bears where we actually made porridge, and now we are about to start the Three Little Pigs (shout out to a certain Brewer and Eva who I wish could come tell the story with me).

I think I've about got myself settled in a church, which pretty much means I've been four times to the same church and I like it.  It's all in Spanish, but the more I listen to it, the more I understand.  It helps that the songs are often Spanish translations of songs I grew up singing in church. Of course, since I'm not so great at remembering the words to songs I end up having to go look up the words when I get home, but I am able to sing along pretty well.  I think I'm actually learning the Spanish versions better.  I catch myself singing the Spanish worship songs every now and then (usually the ones that I can translate as I sing).

I also have a new roommate,  Jacqui, who is lots of fun!  She's from England and is very funny.  I've spent several evenings over the last week learning about British customs/history as well as some specific things not to say/do to if I don't want to accidentally swear at her.  It's been a lot of fun.  She spent almost a year in Georgia, so she has some background to understand where I'm coming from, plus when she tries to use an "American" accent it always ends up sounding Southern.  I'm very proud of her. That and she knew pretty much every location in the pictures of my passport pages. England has some cool history, especially when you get it from normal person's perspective, rather than a history book. All in all, I think I'll keep her.  ;)

We made the best welcome poster...it sparkles.

 

I did go on another adventure the Saturday after the last one...Jacqui, my neighbor Kristy, and I got on a bus intending to go downtown and buy some shirts at some cheaper stores than we have around our area, and sort of, well, overshot the stores.  We were looking for one in particular, and never saw it, and we ended up taking the bus to the end of the line in a nearby town called Lambare. Not where we meant to be... We ended up getting lunch and walking around a bit, so we had fun, and it only cost us one bus fare to get there, so it wasn't too bad.
The school is starting it's month of camps this week. High school first, then Jr. High, Upper Elementary, and finally Pre-K through 2nd.  Our camp is only two days, unlike the upper grades.  We get Friday off, which will be great, because a group of us are going to see the Iguazu Falls. I can't remember if we are going to see them from the Paraguayan side, or the Argentinian side. Either way, it should be amazing!  I can't wait to put up pictures of it!

Other than that, life is pretty normal. I hope to write again soon.  I love to hear your comments, so feel free to write them.  You should be able to do it under "anonymous" if you don't have a Google account (for those who've asked).

Prayer Requests:
Camps are a huge thing this month and are pretty stressful for those in charge.
The school is getting a new 5th grade teacher (Praises to the Lord!!!!) and a student teacher soon.

The school still needs another HS Science teacher as soon as they can, and a 2nd grade teacher for next semester. If you know anyone who might be interested, tell them to check the position out.  God has the person for the positions, we just don't know who they are yet.

They always think I'm exaggerating...

You know how in books when one event sets up an event later in the book, it's called foreshadowing?  Well, in real life it's called "God is in the future and He knows what He is doing".

Things I've told my friends:
1. I always have spare keys because I lose my keys alot. (I lost my keys for the weekend a few days later)
2. I rarely buy glass jars because I fall alot. (That day I wiped out in the street on the way home from the grocery store)
3. The primary reason I bought a phone is because I get lost alot.
Usually, they just smile and laugh and assume I'm exaggerating...

     Today, I took the wrong bus. If I knew more spanish, I would have known I was getting on the wrong bus, because a nice lady tried to explain it to me before I got on the bus, but...I don't speak that much spanish.
     Apparently, there is a #18-1 bus (the one I was looking for), and a #18-2 bus.  The #18-2 bus is supposed to go to a hospital right down the road, but it never comes up my street, or at least it doesn't during the afternoon, so I didn't know it even existed.  So tonight I hop on the #18 bus thinking I'm heading to the AgroMarket at the mall, but it never actually gets there.  In fact, it turns the other way.    
     The busses are kind of round-about anway, and I just figured that maybe it just went around and came in the other direction.  So there I am, standing on the bus and it just keeps not getting there, and not getting there...and eventually, I'm starting to realize that it's not going to the mall. Then I figure, well, busses go in a set route, I can just stay on it till we get home.  A few minutes later, the bus goes over a overpass.     
     Fortunately, there is only one overpass in Asuncion, and I happen to know that it's downtown.  I also start realize that all those people that got on the bus aren't getting off, and they are starting to glance at me with "why are you still here?" looks.  I also happen to know that some busses go out of town. Like, waaay out of town, and they don't always return till the next day, that or they go to the bus terminal and you have to get off. I don't know enough spanish to get stuck in either place. That would be bad.
     Finally, once we are way past anything I recognize, I decide to hop off near a taxi stand and call my friend. Thankfully, she answered and told me I could just catch another #18 and take it bad to the hospital that I can walk home from.
     Here comes the "boy, I'm glad God knows me so well" part.
     Flash back to two months ago, right after I get here: One of the teachers who lives here and is married to a Paraguayan man drove a few of us to get cheap cell phones in a place called "Mercado Quatro".  It's basically a big street market with lots of little stands outside and inside buildings. Think massive flea market. When we got back, Elizabeth remarked a few times that Mercado Quatro is kind of far away, especially by bus.
     Flash foward to 7:15 at night, now time.  I hop on an #18 heading the opposite direction I was going earlier and we are shaking along (it was a very old bus). Suddenly, I realize that we've turned and are heading away from school again!  Then I look out the window and realize that I'm either in a shack town or the closed up Mercado Quatro.  I immediately text Elizabeth, who immediately calls back and tells me to find somewhere to get off and she's sending her parents to get me. That's what you want to hear when you are in a shifty looking part of town...
Thankfully, her parents were able to come get me. Ironically, if they  had known exactly where I was, they could have told me a bus to hop on right there that would have taken me right to the school! Oh, well...

What sad, lost people eat for supper in a gas station

(and hope they don't get food poisoning from)

Plus, I get some brownie for lunch tomorrow! :)

     While I was sitting in the gas station, all I could think about was how God worked tonight to keep me safe.  First, if I had never been to Mercado Quatro then I would not have been able to recognize it in the dark.  Second, if Elizabeth's parents had not been able to come get me, the bus would have dropped me off eventually near the school, but in the dark, I would not have been able to recognize the familiar landmarks because it would have dropped me off behind the grocery store, not in front. Third, my initial money on my phone expired, and I was just able to get more last week without the phone I would have been stuck.
  Finally, I tend to get lost a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. Always have. As a result, I am used to figuring out how to solve the problem, and here I always carry money with me so I can either call someone or take a taxi to get home. I also was able to stay calm in the assurances that I knew I could contact someone, I knew the address of the school, and no matter what happened, I had a Father with me at all times.

Psalm 139:7, 11-12
⁷ Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall^[a] on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;
¹² Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.


So that's my big story of the day, it was kind of fun, kind of exciting, and in the future, I think I'll stick with the #55 bus!

Prayer Requests:
Jacqui, our new roommate will be arriving here on Thursday!!!  Pray for her safe travel tomorrow and her acclimation to the new country.
The school will be getting a 5th grade teacher and a student teacher very soon, so please pray that their paperwork will go through quickly.
The school still needs a High School science teacher, please pray that God will bring the right person into the position in His time.

Lo Hicimos!

We did it!
We didn't do much, but we did do it!  We, the teachers of Asuncions Christian School put out multiple fires, with nothing but fire extinguishers, in the space of about 20 minutes. 
Granted the fires were in a metal fireplace, and there were two firefighters present, but we still did it. It was a lot of fun to do and watch, and I learned a handy phrase from one of the Spanish teachers (hence the title).
This handy little fire training followed a round of information and training sessions in procedures, accredidation and the like. During these meetings I was struck by just how different these teacher meetings were from the ones I attended as a student teacher.  For one, there weren't that many of us, and two, there were two sections of teachers.  One group was spread out across the room, and one was clustered in the back.  The back group was clustered together so that the meeting could be quietly translated for the spanish teachers as we went.  Occasionally, speakers would say things in both languages.  At one point I was thinking, "This is kind of neat! I mean, how many people do I know that have been to teachers meetings given in two languages?"
I also learned the word for key in spanish (clavos), which I intend to put to use shortly when I go get copies of my house key made tomorrow (those who know me well know how vitally important this task is). 
I'm having fun learning spanish, and the spanish teachers are a great source, as they are more than willing to trade some of their knowledge of spanish for my knowledge of english.  Many of the teachers cheerfully include those of use who don't speak spanish in their conversations and will try to help us understand what is being said. I'm really enjoying trying to get to know them. Plus, their spanish help is a little more useful than my students (though, I do know quite a few fruits and veggies in spanish now.  Try giving a less on plants we use for food when even your english speakers know the fruits and veggies primarily in spanish!)



Fruits you should know if you want to buy the yummy juice at the grocery store:



       frutilla

      ciruela
     durazno
    pera

Boogers

    Boogers...Kinder kids have a lot of boogers.  I mean a LOT of boogers.  And because they aren't so efficient at the whole "blow your own nose" thing (I even caught one putting the tissues back into the box after he wiped his nose)...those boogers tend to bug them a lot.  At any given time I can look at my kids and see at least one of them with a finger in their nose. My general circle refocusing goes like this "bottoms on floor, hands in laps, fingers out of noses." The boys kind of like having me help them blow their noses because they think it's funny when I tell them to "blow hard, harder, like you are trying to blow your brains out!"
     In less gooey news, this week is assessment week.  Which means I've spent my week writing tests to give my kids, and then cramming them in whenever I have a spare moment. Sometimes these assessments are nice to give, like when some kids blow through them and get all the answers right. Sometimes, not so much...One of my students is a little younger than the others and is still having to work at her English.  Mistake number one: giving the literacy test at the end of the day. Mistake number two: giving the test near an alphabet poster.  Basically for every question I asked about the letters and words she would stare at the poster like it was her life-line then pick a random letter.  It was both very sad, and very amusing to watch. A sample of her answers: "I'm going to say a word and I want you to tell me what the first sound you hear in the word is, okay?"..."Rabbit" "uhhhh, mmmm, (makes hard thinking face) Buh!" "Hat" "aaaahhhh...SSSS"...That's about how the whole test went. Fun day.
     Frustrations aside, I love teaching Kinder, even if they drive me nuts on a daily basis. I'm working on the tattling my kids love to do (uunnnhhh...TEEECHHEEERRR!), and I think it may actually be getting better! So that's good. Otherwise I was going to have to order "Franklin the Tattling Turtle" to read to my kids.  Unfortunatly, we did the main lesson on tattling the day my major "bearer of hourly updates" was out sick.  Not so great planning on my part. Buuuut...I think a daily refresher course on tattling versus reporting won't hurt, will it?
     I did get fingerprinted today.  That was fun! We had to go to the local INTERPOL to do it, so the whole car ride over I had spy music playing in my head. In Paraguay, INTERPOL has a fish tank.  It was full of piranahs genetically modified to look like goldfish. Or at least that's what my brain has decided.
   Very soon all the paperwork will be done so they can turn it in for my permanent recidency card called a cedula, and ninty days later I will officially be a resident of Paraguay!  This year they started making the cards permanent.  That means that when the US eventually throws me out for being too awesome to handle, I can trot on down to Paraguay to live. Aren't you jealous? ;)

   On a personally exciting, and particularly nerdy note, I am having fun growing a garden out of the produce I buy at the grocery store.  Potato eyes grow roots pretty much over night!  It's insane to watch! My class did discover that if you leave carrots in a cup of water long enough to try and "grow" them, they will rot.  And if you keep leaving them there because they smell too bad to put in the trash can in the morning and you keep forgetting to put them in the trash at the end of the day, they start to smell really, really bad...then they disolve. It's nasty. :)

Day 3: Medium white roots

Day 4: Long white roots

Day 5: Hairy white roots

I know you find that as riveting as I do. 

My roommate isn't as impressed, but she let's me keep growing plants on the kitchen counter, so I can't complain...

Pinapple, and a cutting of whatever that other thing is.

My grandmother would be proud.

So, that's my exciting news for the day. Feel free to leave comments, it makes me feel special and has the added bonus of convincing me to remember to write on my blog. (Come on people, I've got roomates to compete with here)  ;) Have a great week!


Prayer requests:  A student of mine recently missed a week of school to go on a mission trip with her parents.  Apparently while she was there she picked up some kind of rash and is now missing even more school.  She doesn't hurt and isnt' really itchy, and she probably isn't contagious, but apparently she has so many little red rash spots on her body and face that she's pretty swollen.  It could take a few to 10 days to go down, so she'll be missing more school.  Please pray for her quick recovery and that it isn't anything serious!

A little night music...

As I'm sitting here listening to the "evening concert" I'm once again surprised by the wide variety of music my neighbors seem to enjoy.
You see, someone in the neighborhood behind the school apparently is unaware that their radio has settings other than "very loud" and "very, very loud". Either that or they consider it a public service to supply the entire neighborhood with music. You only think I'm kidding.
On any given week night the music will be up so loud that sitting in my bedroom with my noisy fan on, the music is loud enough that it would almost seem as if someone in the next room is playing their music a little loudly. Typically the music turns off somewhere in the 11pm range.  On weekends, particularly, Saturday night, the music is loud enough to almost sing along to, and typically is still playing when I get up in the morning.
I could point out that the school is surrounded by almost three story concrete walls...
So far, I've heard everything from Adel to traditional Paraguayan music. Tonight they've thrown some new agey stuff in, followed by techno.
Of course, as I sit here typing this, I've suddenly realized that I can't hear music anymore, instead I can hear normal evening sounds.  Practically a first!

Paraguay is an interesting country to live in.  The culture is both surprisingly easy to get used to, and yet, there are somethings that are so different.
For example, and I know this seems small, but people really love their fireworks.  I mean, really love them.  They let them off when they win a soccer game, or when they lose, or whenever they just have some lying around.  They also make their own fireworks sometimes. As I live next to a neighborhood park with a soccer field, this means that at any given time I may be treated to the sound of miniture bombs going off.  The first night I heard them it really scared me.  It was late in the evening and all I could hear was what sounded like guns, shouting, and a (random) police siren.  I pretty much though there was a riot going on in the streets. Usually I ignore it, but yesterday they let off an usually loud round of them all at one time and it startled me so much I fell of the edge of the bed! Unfortunately, my new bed is a lot higher off the floor than my bed upstairs... :(  Needless to say, anybody with PTSD, probably should not visit me. 

Also, getting used to having to go to many different stores for what I need is hard to get used to.  There are some stores that have multiple items, and I found one yesterday, but typically, if you want clothes you go to one store, home things at another, and so on.  There is a mall, but it is expensive.  Hopefully a friend will be taking me and another girl to an area downtown with several cheaper clothing stores and other stores where things are actually affordable. I really need some shorts, it's getting hot faster than I expected (92 degrees in winter!)

It's also strange not to know my way around. I mean, I'm not that great a navigator at the best of times, but to have to plan out small trips a day in advance so I can ask someone what bus to take and where to get off is a little frustrating sometimes.  I'm learning pretty fast though, and I really like taking the busses.  I've run a few errands this week just so I could stretch my knowledge of the bus system and use them by myself.  Thankfully, I live just a few blocks down on the same street as the big social security hospital, so no matter how lost I get there are about ten busses that will get me within a ten minute walk of home! All I have to do is look for a bus with I.P.S. painted on the door and flag it down.  I like flaggin down busses, it makes me feel like someone in a movie flagging down a big taxi. Sometimes, the bus even ignores you (only very rarely though).
I also like using the key pad to get through the gate into the school, especially at night when I look over my shoulder. I feel very spy-like (cue spy music).

I'm really enjoying getting to eat lots of fresh foods, and I'm exploring a few new easy recipes (google is my friend). I made chicken and twice baked potatoes to rave reviews from my roommate and neighbor.

Rosemary Honey-mustard chicken

 

Speaking of neighbors, have I mentioned that I think mine are awesome? ;)   Now that I've moved downstairs, I'm across the hall from the teacher that I'm across the hall from in school too.  We pretty much have given up on properly knocking we go into each others space so much. It's fun.

I finally have roomate number one, and she's pretty great.  I think we are going to get along well.  Roommate number two and the reason we needed to move downstairs comes in two weeks.  I'm excited to get to know her, she seems like she's had some interesting teaching experiences, and she's from England!
Speaking of which, did I mention I moved downstairs? Because I did.  It's a change but I'm getting used to it.  The hardest parts are that 1. being on the bottom floor I don't feel like  I can keep my window curtains open all the time 2. It's tall, like really really tall.  I think that Paraguayans built the upstairs and giant Americans built the downstairs.  The bottom shelf of my kitchen cabinets is about where the top shelf of the ones upstairs were. I can barely touch the top shelf.  Lydia, my current roommate is my height, so that's a problem. We are trying to figure out how to shorten the kitchen a bit.  The other roommate is a little taller, so we can give her the upper shelves when she gets here. I can't wait!

So very high!

 

So thats's about it this time.  My big excitement this week is a birthday party during lunch and after on Friday, followed by family field night that evening.  Apparently parents here often do more than just cupcakes for birthdays, especially for my age kids. That will be a new experience, as well as family night, where each grade team has booths and games set up to raise money for the class PTA fund. Luckily we have great room parents who are pretty much taking care of it all! :)

 

Feel free to comment or send me messages on facebook, I love to hear from friends back home!

Also, I have a album of pictures of random daily life on facebook (it loads pictures faster than the blog.  Check it out!

 



 

Prayer Requests:

Pray for safe travels for Jacqui, our new roommate.

Pray that God would raise up a generation of leaders in the junior high and high school students.

Pray for me as I continue the adventure of teaching and managing a class of kinders for the first time!



 

Teaching, planting, and cooking empanadas...

Olá! Buenos Dias! Como está?

(and you reply "Bien, y vos?")

How is your corner of the world, wherever that may be? Here in Paraguay, it's good.  The weather is a little bipolar (literally), but I'm enjoying almost every minute of it, except the getting out of my warm bed bits...We went from 90's one week to low 50's and rainy the next.  Supposedly it's going back to the 90's in a day or so.  This is good news because my Kinder class is joining with the ESL teacher's ninth grade special needs class to grow a garden. I am so excited!!! My kids are a little miffed that they can't play "The Witch of Colors" through the garden area (a confusing game I have yet to figure out, despite the fact that they play it everyday), but they are definitely intrigued about helping Senor Rosalino (the campus gardener) put some seeds in all that tempting dirt!

Observing and drawing plants on the playground (there are lots)

 

 

 

This is the way we plant a seed...

 

Gentle, gentle!

 

Life isn't terribly exciting at the moment. I get to work for devotions at 6:40 and from 7:00 to 3:15pm I have kids in my classroom.  I've started tutoring after school for two siblings who have parents that speak very little English.  Basically I am helping with homework and reviewing the day's lessons with them.  It isn't terribly hard, but it is providing an additional income that will make it easier to pay for Master's classes and hopefully allow me to do some real traveling during school breaks!

Lesson planning for my class is an interesting challenge.  One of my students goes to tutoring school after school every day, so he's already mastered some of the basics that we are covering.  Another student is somewhat younger than the others and her English is still emerging.  Trying to balance group work to address the needs of all my students is hard sometimes.  Also, since I am still needing to work from teacher's books most of the time, I have to adapt the lessons to meet the resources I have available in Paraguay.  Honestly, I am thankful that there are several teacher's manuals for each subject avaliable and I can pick and choose from each one as I please! Some of the older ones have less "fancy lessons" that I can update to meet the needs of my students.

Silly faces! We know the parts of our faces (and the five senses)!

Why does he have ears on his neck?

"Because he need to listen well"

What a work wall looks like when you only have eight students.

It's only about five feet long, but I still had to spread them out!

(And those are legal sized pieces of paper!)

It is a little strange sometimes, because a few of the teaching materials are what I remember learning from as a kindergartener.  My phonics and writing books are exactly the same, even the workbooks! I imagine it's a bit like becoming a teacher in a school that you used to attend.

Mostly I am enjoying having afternoons to myself to work or read and go on outings with my neighbors. We often walk places, like the mall, rather than take the bus, which makes trips a little longer and allows for more conversation.  A ten minute walk to the grocery store is much shorter when you have someone to talk to on the way!

I am really enjoying the community at ACA, the school.  The teachers are very supportive of each other and the administration, being made up of former (and for the moment, current) teachers, is very supportive of the teachers.  I really enjoy spending time with the teachers and it makes being in a new country, living alone in an apartment much less lonely.

It's a little unnerving how fast I've settled in.  Good, but unnerving.  Our welcome packet detailed the stages of culture shock, and I've been through it before, but it's like I either haven't started really going through it yet, or I went through it really fast.  I'm definitely thankful I haven't had problems yet, but it's still a little disconcerting.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see how the coming changes affect me?  Soon, very soon, I'll have a roommate and if I get two I'll be moving downstairs to a new apartment.  I can't wait to meet my roommate, we've all been waiting and praying for her!

Either way, I'm adjusting really well so far.  I'm doing my best to learn spanish, and it's not going to badly.  Those two years of high school spanish that I thought I hadn't learned anything from seem to be coming back in little bits and pieces.  Plus, my neighbor Elizabeth is really nice and willing to translate any word I ask her. She also helps me learn useful phrases for general life, like the numbers (just knowing 1-10 isn't that useful when most things cost at least 2,000 Gs), and how to order food and buy items.
I'm also having fun cooking, with what little skill I have.  I've found that empanadas, Katie-style, are very good. They are easy to make, if a little time consuming, and I can make a bunch on Saturday night and then just grab them in them morning to take for lunch. Plus, I can fill them with whatever veggies and meat I end up buying at the market. I don't know how the general U.S. hasn't discovered them yet!  Forget cupcakes, do empanadas!

Mango curry filling

(weird, but not bad...it would have helped to have all the ingredients in the recipe)

About two weeks of lunch (I am thankful for my freezer!)

Life in Paraguay #4: When you have a shower head heater, lower water pressure means hotter water. When the water coming through is cold, you might as well give up dreams of a hot shower and say thank you for lukewarm. When the water in the tank is warm to begin with, hot can translate into scalding very fast, so watch out!

Prayer requests:
Pray for my roommate, she'll be traveling here this weekend! Pray for safe travel and quick assimilation, so she can jump right into teaching Jr. High math!
Pray that the school will find the teachers God has for it, so administrators and teachers don't have to do double duty to cover the classes.
Pray for my patience with the students and my own inexperience.

Why I'm glad this isn't VeggieTales...

Or: "How to survive in a Spanish speaking country when your Korean student knows more Spanish than you do"

1. Learn the fine art of hand guestures. 
Aren't you glad God gave us hands and arms (unlike the Veggies)? Between my very small (but growing) vocabulary and a lot of gesturing, I've managed to have several conversations with the lady who cleans my classroom (including communicating the need for bleach in my classroom during a pink eye outbreak).  Hands are marvelous things. :)

2. Start practicing Spanish!
You know how when you were little and your teacher told you to "read, read, read"? Like "Read signs, read cereal boxes, read magazines"? Well, apparently that applies to learning another language, too.  I've found that just reading signs or notices on the bus and practicing sounding out the words until I can read them fluently has make it way easier to remember words that I hear too.

3. Make friends with people who speak fluent English and Spanish.
They can translate things for you, help you practice asking for things, or (in my case), help translate notes home to parents (I always get the Pre-K aid to translate one copy then I copy her's onto the other notes, for the practice).

4. Google (translate) is your friend.
Whether it's translating the instructions on the cleaning fluid, or reading an article about a strawberry festival.  Google is a great help.
__________________________________________________________________________

So that little infomercial kind of sums up a lot of what I've been learning the last month: practice, have fun, and ask lots of questions.  It's kind of crazy to think that I've officially been here a month!  In the past, I would be packing up my backpack and steeling myself for a miserable 20 hour plane ride.  Instead, I'm sitting in my apartment contemplating the fact that I managed to go a whole month before I lost my keys (I am sooo glad the previous occupant made a spare key to my apartment!) and the pile of laundry on my bed that I really need to put away in my closet. In other words, I'm loving this place.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, what with the start of school and everything that goes with that. I went back to the strawberry festival with my friends for the "official" opening.  That was lots of fun and we pretty much bought one of all things strawberry and kind of passed them around so everybody got to try some. It was great. The sugar high was nice, but we all were very tired on the bus ride home.

The little girls here in Paraguay all learn traditional dances in school, so I got to see the girls in the town perform some very traditional pot and fan dances. It was pretty neat.

The 15th was the day celebrating the foundation of Asuncion. It was also our last school holiday until Thanksgiving. My grand plans of sleeping in and then making lesson plans pretty much turned into sleeping in till 7:30, a little bit of planning, and a lot of reading for fun. The sun's schedule is kind of confusing here.  It starts rising about 6:15am and then starts setting about 5:15pm.  Basically you can't really sleep in (especially if your room faces east) and you start getting sleepy at supper time. Oh, well, it means I don't have to walk to work in the dark at 6:30 in the morning, though I'm starting to wonder what time it will rise in the summer!

I've really getting settled into my apartment, and I'm learning the quirks of it. I may end up moving downstairs to a three bedroom apartment in a few weeks, if the school gets another teacher, but it's still nice to be settled in here.

A few "little things" I love about Paraguay, and my apartment:
A. I can walk to the grocery store in ten minutes, and it's not uphill (walking back with heavy bags is less fun, but still). This is good since food here doesn't have a lot of preservatives, so you can't shop too far in advance.

After 5 days in the cabinet...bread stays in the fridge now!

B. The showers have faucet heaters.  No wasting water while you wait for it to heat up.  LOVE THIS! America should totally switch to this system, it saves a ton of electricity because it only heats while you use it!

C. Produce is cheap here.  Like, really cheap.  Like a couple of dollars for a week's worth of fruit.

1 kilo of sweet strawberry festival (very fresh) strawberries. 

It was very hard not to eat them all in two days. Yum!

D. My classroom has lots of windows and between opening the doors and the awesome seven level fans, I haven't needed the air conditioner yet! Plus, the playground is nice and shady.

I love the swings on this playground.  They are very kid friendly.

E. I have a gas stove. Granted I did manage to blow up the cover the first night, but since then we've gotten along great!  I baked cupcakes last night in 15 min.  Seriously, that's it. And they were perfect.

15th time lighting my stove...and I made sparkly playdough. 

I thought that was very "me" and my girls about died with happiness when they saw it.

F. I have awesome neighbors and coworkers.

G. I have a crazy, awesome bunch of students. There are eight different personalities that somehow all manage to get along (most of the time).  It's fun learning how to manage each personality to get the most from that child.  I also enjoy the many hugs I get everyday (though, I'm anxious about the fact that I was holding the child who started the pink eye in my class on the day her eyes started itchig...). 

My girls

H. I also really love that I can pray with my kids. I really, really love this.  Last semester one of my 4th graders was upset about her mother having surgery and the only comfort I could give was a hug and a silent prayer.  This week a child was worried about her grandfather getting surgery and I was so thankful I could pick her up and say "would you like to say a prayer with me for him?". Not gonna lie, by the end I was about as teary eyed as she was.
Well, that's about all the news I have for now.  I've made it a month and I'm looking foward to the next one!

Life in Paraguay #3: Meat and bread/carbs are dietary staples here.  Typically they are eaten together. For example, if you buy a chicken (pollo) empanada with meat in it you will probably get a roll to go with it.

Prayer Requests:
Another teacher has officially been hired and she will arrive a soon as her visa comes through, please pray for her safe travel and quick assimilation, especially since she will be picking up several weeks into the school year.
The school is hoping to hire a few more teachers to fill much needed spots.  Pray that God will bring the right people quickly.
In a small school with lots of cross-grade level interaction, infections travel fast.  Please pray for the health of the students and teachers.
My students are in the process of learning the vowels as the basis for reading. This is a little frustrating for a few the native spanish speakers because in Spanish the vowels have only one sound each, and those sounds are not the same as in English. Please keep their continued understanding and learning in your prayers.