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.