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.