(photos coming soon!!))
I’M IN PARAGUAY!! For those of you interested, I have a million updates, as well as a MILLION things I’ve learned so far. I’ll start with the most important thing that I’ve learned: in Paraguay, you can get sunburnt while you’re sitting in the shade. As for the updates, please bear with me because I have a LOT to get through.
STAGING: Staging for G49 (our group, the 49th group to be trained in Guarambaré) took place in the beautiful city of Miami. It was a hectic 24 hours más o menos where all 45 future PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) met and officially signed in as PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees). It was comforting to be surrounded by 44 other people who were committed to the same goal as I was, but who also were feeling the same anxieties. Needless to say, I am ecstatic about the amazing group of people that I no doubt will call my family over the next 27 months.
Funny Story from Staging: One of the people working at our staging event was a previous PCV in Paraguay and he attempted to teach us his two most used words in our new language, Guaraní (the prominent language in Paraguay which also happens to be indigenous), before we arrived, “little” and “diarrhea” which translate to “mishimi” and “shivivi”. Unfortunately, when he asked us if we spoke Guarani, my friend Carolyn replied with “shivivi," the word for diarrhea, instead of the word for little, which was hilarious and conveyed the message that no, we do not speak Guarani.
OMG WE’RE IN PARAGUAY: We arrived to the Asunción airport at the lovely hour of 5am on Thursday morning and were greeted by a nice humid air at about 80 or so degrees. Yay. After loading 90 years of luggage (45 PCTs with about 2 years of luggage a piece) we headed outside the city of Asunción to a location that nobody could pronounce where our first official in country training would begin. We had one last full day together before we would head out to our host families where we will spend the next three months living and integrating into their community. For the health group, there are 26 total volunteers, and we are split up into three different communities. I am with 7 other PCTs in the beautiful pueblo of Lazarito, which is right on the border of the larger town Guarambaré, where the PCTC (Peace Corps Training Center) is located. We are lucky because we get to walk to the PCTC every day for classes, and although its 1km away, we get to take our classes in the air-conditioned rooms and with wifi (hence my hopefully more frequent ability to post on social media). The first two nights with my host family I was very nervous, and I started to realized the extent of what I had signed up for. Luckily, I had a turning point with my host family (who is AMAZING btw) and I am starting to feel like part of the family, I’ve even been making jokes (which is extremely hard to do in another language!) I went to catholic mass with my prima (cousin) today, sat out and drank tereré (more about that on another post), washed my first load of laundry BY HAND outside my house, practiced yoga in my garden with my friend Colleen, went to a fútbol game that my primo was playing in, and got my nails painted by my prima! I’ll get into more details about my host family in another post, this is already getting pretty long, but I’ll leave you with some pretty embarrassing stories.
Embarrassing Story #1- So I was feeling pretty guapa (hardworking, not beautiful, but maybe a little beautiful too!) after I hand washed all my clothes (okay it was pretty much only my underwear) outside with my cousin, Cari. I scrubbed them against the rock and kneaded out all the soap in a basin, rinsed them a couple times and then rung them out to dry before hanging them up on a little circular contraption. After an afternoon drying in the sun, my cousin and I went over to see if they were dry, and most of them were while some of them were still damp. My cousin told me that I could go put them in my room to finish and “se pone el ventilador.” So I grabbed my little hanging contraption full of underwear and went off to my room, when I got to my room, there was nothing really there to hang the wheel of clothes on, and then I got really confused. I translated “se pone el ventilador” as “put them on the fan” so I did. I hung the big wheel of underwear on the fan above my bed. It looked weird, but I went with it, it was like a chandelier of underwear in the middle of my room. But then I couldn’t use my fan, so that seemed like a problem since its a million degrees. My cousin walked by and immediately started laughing hysterically at me because that wasn’t what she meant at all. She just wanted me put them in my room and “turn on the fan.” Ugh, so confusing. She jumped on my bed and took the underwear chandelier over to my dresser and then turned on the fan to dry them. Oops.
Embarrassing Story #2: So I’ve been introduced to A LOT of people. The other day an unfamiliar face walked into our kitchen and started saying hello to every one and me, being me, introduced myself and asked what their name was. Everyone immediately starting laughing at me because that was my cousin who I had already met before, TWICE! But in my defense, he was headed out to a quincinera and was all decked out in a tie and dress clothes and full of cologne. That kind of saved me, but now they always ask me if I know their names and know who they are….oops
Another story that actually isn’t embarrassing, just funny: My primo was playing in a soccer match today against a neighboring community (with another group of PCTs from the economics group) so I went with my family to watch. Since the entire town goes to these games, all of the other PCTs were there as well with their family. We all sat near each other and quickly realized that we could scream anything we wanted at the players in English and nobody around us could understand. Obviously we didn’t yell anything bad, but we had fun screaming things like “BE BETTER NEXT TIME!” when they would miss a goal. And everyone was just excited that we were getting into it. Also, (sorry Daniel if you’re reading this) but there is a CED (community economic development) PCT with us who is practicing his Spanish and is very passionate and ambitious about learning the language, but unfortunately still has a VERY gringo accent when he speaks. Whenever he would be chatting with someone, my entire family would laugh and snicker and ask me to translate what he was saying, even though he was speaking in Spanish. I was feeling a little mischievous so I decided to spice up his stories and throw some false factoids into my translations to keep my family laughing even more (sorry again, Daniel!).
That’s all I have for now, expect more frequent (and shorter) updates in the future! Our schedule for the next three months is pretty much as follows:
Sundays- off (I probably will continue to go to the Catholic church in the mornings and the fútbol games are every evening)
Monday-Friday: class from 7:45-5:30 where we have language, cultural, safety & security, medical, and health tech training
Saturdays- half day of class from 7:45-lunch
I’ll be VERY busy learning Guaraní, and I’m sure to have PLENTY more embarrassing stories to tell you once I start trying to use the language more!
Jajotopata! (Adios (Goodbye!)!)
I’M IN PARAGUAY!! For those of you interested, I have a million updates, as well as a MILLION things I’ve learned so far. I’ll start with the most important thing that I’ve learned: in Paraguay, you can get sunburnt while you’re sitting in the shade. As for the updates, please bear with me because I have a LOT to get through.
STAGING: Staging for G49 (our group, the 49th group to be trained in Guarambaré) took place in the beautiful city of Miami. It was a hectic 24 hours más o menos where all 45 future PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) met and officially signed in as PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees). It was comforting to be surrounded by 44 other people who were committed to the same goal as I was, but who also were feeling the same anxieties. Needless to say, I am ecstatic about the amazing group of people that I no doubt will call my family over the next 27 months.
Funny Story from Staging: One of the people working at our staging event was a previous PCV in Paraguay and he attempted to teach us his two most used words in our new language, Guaraní (the prominent language in Paraguay which also happens to be indigenous), before we arrived, “little” and “diarrhea” which translate to “mishimi” and “shivivi”. Unfortunately, when he asked us if we spoke Guarani, my friend Carolyn replied with “shivivi," the word for diarrhea, instead of the word for little, which was hilarious and conveyed the message that no, we do not speak Guarani.
OMG WE’RE IN PARAGUAY: We arrived to the Asunción airport at the lovely hour of 5am on Thursday morning and were greeted by a nice humid air at about 80 or so degrees. Yay. After loading 90 years of luggage (45 PCTs with about 2 years of luggage a piece) we headed outside the city of Asunción to a location that nobody could pronounce where our first official in country training would begin. We had one last full day together before we would head out to our host families where we will spend the next three months living and integrating into their community. For the health group, there are 26 total volunteers, and we are split up into three different communities. I am with 7 other PCTs in the beautiful pueblo of Lazarito, which is right on the border of the larger town Guarambaré, where the PCTC (Peace Corps Training Center) is located. We are lucky because we get to walk to the PCTC every day for classes, and although its 1km away, we get to take our classes in the air-conditioned rooms and with wifi (hence my hopefully more frequent ability to post on social media). The first two nights with my host family I was very nervous, and I started to realized the extent of what I had signed up for. Luckily, I had a turning point with my host family (who is AMAZING btw) and I am starting to feel like part of the family, I’ve even been making jokes (which is extremely hard to do in another language!) I went to catholic mass with my prima (cousin) today, sat out and drank tereré (more about that on another post), washed my first load of laundry BY HAND outside my house, practiced yoga in my garden with my friend Colleen, went to a fútbol game that my primo was playing in, and got my nails painted by my prima! I’ll get into more details about my host family in another post, this is already getting pretty long, but I’ll leave you with some pretty embarrassing stories.
Embarrassing Story #1- So I was feeling pretty guapa (hardworking, not beautiful, but maybe a little beautiful too!) after I hand washed all my clothes (okay it was pretty much only my underwear) outside with my cousin, Cari. I scrubbed them against the rock and kneaded out all the soap in a basin, rinsed them a couple times and then rung them out to dry before hanging them up on a little circular contraption. After an afternoon drying in the sun, my cousin and I went over to see if they were dry, and most of them were while some of them were still damp. My cousin told me that I could go put them in my room to finish and “se pone el ventilador.” So I grabbed my little hanging contraption full of underwear and went off to my room, when I got to my room, there was nothing really there to hang the wheel of clothes on, and then I got really confused. I translated “se pone el ventilador” as “put them on the fan” so I did. I hung the big wheel of underwear on the fan above my bed. It looked weird, but I went with it, it was like a chandelier of underwear in the middle of my room. But then I couldn’t use my fan, so that seemed like a problem since its a million degrees. My cousin walked by and immediately started laughing hysterically at me because that wasn’t what she meant at all. She just wanted me put them in my room and “turn on the fan.” Ugh, so confusing. She jumped on my bed and took the underwear chandelier over to my dresser and then turned on the fan to dry them. Oops.
Embarrassing Story #2: So I’ve been introduced to A LOT of people. The other day an unfamiliar face walked into our kitchen and started saying hello to every one and me, being me, introduced myself and asked what their name was. Everyone immediately starting laughing at me because that was my cousin who I had already met before, TWICE! But in my defense, he was headed out to a quincinera and was all decked out in a tie and dress clothes and full of cologne. That kind of saved me, but now they always ask me if I know their names and know who they are….oops
Another story that actually isn’t embarrassing, just funny: My primo was playing in a soccer match today against a neighboring community (with another group of PCTs from the economics group) so I went with my family to watch. Since the entire town goes to these games, all of the other PCTs were there as well with their family. We all sat near each other and quickly realized that we could scream anything we wanted at the players in English and nobody around us could understand. Obviously we didn’t yell anything bad, but we had fun screaming things like “BE BETTER NEXT TIME!” when they would miss a goal. And everyone was just excited that we were getting into it. Also, (sorry Daniel if you’re reading this) but there is a CED (community economic development) PCT with us who is practicing his Spanish and is very passionate and ambitious about learning the language, but unfortunately still has a VERY gringo accent when he speaks. Whenever he would be chatting with someone, my entire family would laugh and snicker and ask me to translate what he was saying, even though he was speaking in Spanish. I was feeling a little mischievous so I decided to spice up his stories and throw some false factoids into my translations to keep my family laughing even more (sorry again, Daniel!).
That’s all I have for now, expect more frequent (and shorter) updates in the future! Our schedule for the next three months is pretty much as follows:
Sundays- off (I probably will continue to go to the Catholic church in the mornings and the fútbol games are every evening)
Monday-Friday: class from 7:45-5:30 where we have language, cultural, safety & security, medical, and health tech training
Saturdays- half day of class from 7:45-lunch
I’ll be VERY busy learning Guaraní, and I’m sure to have PLENTY more embarrassing stories to tell you once I start trying to use the language more!
Jajotopata! (Adios (Goodbye!)!)