Now that I’m finally settling in to my new house with my host family, let me tell you about some cosas paraguayas (Paraguayan things) and everything about my first complete week here.
MI FAMILIA: I’m lucky to be placed with such a nice family. My host family consists of my mom, my sister (Pati) and my cousin (Cari). My aunt lives very close by and she visits frequently. She has a son who also drops by on occasion, like today when it started completely pouring out of no where, he just appeared at our house. The cancha (soccer field) is right next to our house and he must have just been leaving practice when the downpour started and ran for safety. Overall, I already love my family. My mom has this contagious laugh and pretty much all she does is laugh at me (in the nicest way possible). Anything I say (whether I’m trying to be funny or not) sparks her full belly chuckle. My sister is currently in her last year studying business in Asunción (the capital). I spend most of my time with my cousin, she helped me unpack all my things and decorate my room, she took me to church, she helped me wash my clothes (she witnessed the underwear chandelier incident), and we spend most of the evening chatting about life, family, faith, religion, and working on Guaraní.
MI CASA: I’m also lucky to be in such a beautiful house. My room has a full size bed, a large ceiling fan, and a lock on the door. We have electricity and running water. I can even get a hot shower (but why would I want one in this heat) by turning on the wires that stick out of the shower head (but why would I want to electrocute myself?). I’m told that once the wires are on and plugged in, the amount of heat depends on the water pressure…there’s no control to change the amount of heat that passes through the water. I’m not sure if I’ll be testing it out anytime soon. My house also has a BEAUTIFUL garden full of plants and flowers and fruit trees (mango, avocado, guava, grapefruit…) complete with about 30 chickens and a talking parrot (who is yet to realize that I am actually a human and won’t speak to me or repeat anything I say, he does, however, join in when everyone is laughing at me though!).
LA COMIDA: So far, Paraguayan food is high in fats and mainly all carbs and meat. Luckily, I have fresh fruit and fruit juice every day. My favorites so far are empanadas (I had one full of corn and cheese last night) and tortillas (not at all like a mexican tortilla! they’re fried (of course) and consist of eggs, milk, cheese and whatever else they decide to throw in). Both of my favorite foods so far happen to be fried and filled….great. The tortilla my mom cooked the other day was full of green onion, potato and cheese, but there’s different variations of tortillas. Yucca is common and a part of almost every meal. I’ve also been lucky because I’ve been getting lots of salads (iceberg lettuce and tomatoes), which most of the other volunteers aren’t getting. In general, there seems to be a lack of vegetables here, and when fruits/veggies are not in season (which lots of it isn’t in the summer) it can be expensive and people won’t spend their money on them.
LAS CLASES: I’ll get more into what training looks like once we’ve done more, but after a complete week of training I’ve already learned so much. So far in our technical classes, we’ve touched on how to compost, how to make soap, how to stay healthy (gardening classes coming soon), how to correctly create eco-bricks, and we’ve learned how to properly dispose of trash and what Paraguayans do with their trash (burn it all). We’ve also started our language classes. Quick fact: Guaraní has 33 letters in its alphabet and 12 of them are vowels. Quick fact: lots of the sounds are not possible for me to make. We’re also all in the process of getting our rabies vaccines (we’ve had 2/3 of them so far) and we have sessions on security and health.
OTRAS COSITAS & Things that I’ve learned about Paraguay:
1. Life here is very “tranquilopa” (chill). It’s only been a week, but I’m already starting to notice exactly how chill things can be. For example, on Sunday after church, my family and I all just sat out in the shade, and literally just sat there from about 9am-2pm. That’s it. We just chilled. It was nice to just sit there and not worry about doing anything. No one got up, no one really did anything, we just sat and passed around the tereré…..
2. There’s this thing called tereré, which is literally life here. Think of what Starbucks is to a Seattleite…now multiply that by a million, and that’s what tereré is to a Paraguayan. Tereré is yerba mate that is drank cold. They have a cup full of yerba and a long metal straw with a strainer at the bottom (it kind of looks like those slurpee straws from 711). They have a thermos with a large block of ice in it and water (and sometimes other medicinal herbs, such as mint or other types of leaves/roots all mashed up for various reasons). The server fills up the cup with water, and then passes the cup around to every person in the circle, refilling the cup before each person’s turn. (I’ll for sure make a video or something about this at some point in my service.) It’s refreshing and delicious. If you walk down the street, nearly every single person is out on their porch (or across the street, wherever there is shade!) passing around a cup of terere. They all share the same cup and straw and will invite anyone passing by to stop by and join them. (so not at all like Seattle with Starbucks because no one shares.)
3. Appearance is VERY important here. People shower at least 1-3 times a day. Even before going to a soccer game outside in the heat, my whole family showers. My family rakes their yard and sweeps the floor every single day to make sure the outside of their house is always on point too.
4. They add soda to their red wine. My family mixed orange fanta with some vino tinto…it was surprisingly delicious. We also mixed coca cola with red wine….also surprisingly delicious.
5. They share everything here. Not only does everything use the same cup and straw for tereré, but they use the same napkins, silverware and plates for dinner. The other evening my cousin and I shared a plate of salad, and it seemed completely normal. Its also common to share a beer or a glass of wine, and seen as taboo to drink an entire beer by yourself without passing it around to everyone.
6. Also noted, use the table cloth as a napkin.
WELL that’s about all I got for now…I’ve managed to keep the embarrassing stories down to a minimum after my previous week of shame. Now that I’m starting to learn Guaraní, I’m sure that I’m just embarrassing myself in some way that I don’t even know about it. Here’s some noteworthy stories from this week:
Giggle worthy story- I was trying to sound super cool and use my Guaraní to tell my family I was going to the bathroom. I obviously used the wrong conjugation of “to go” and ended up announcing to everyone that “we are going to the bathroom.” Luckily they understood what I meant, but they all laughed at the fact that I pretty much asked them all to accompany me to the bathroom.
Cringe worthy story- The word for “food" in Guaraní and the word for (excuse my language) "penis" differ by one small sound at the end of the word…….enough said.
¡Op!
MI FAMILIA: I’m lucky to be placed with such a nice family. My host family consists of my mom, my sister (Pati) and my cousin (Cari). My aunt lives very close by and she visits frequently. She has a son who also drops by on occasion, like today when it started completely pouring out of no where, he just appeared at our house. The cancha (soccer field) is right next to our house and he must have just been leaving practice when the downpour started and ran for safety. Overall, I already love my family. My mom has this contagious laugh and pretty much all she does is laugh at me (in the nicest way possible). Anything I say (whether I’m trying to be funny or not) sparks her full belly chuckle. My sister is currently in her last year studying business in Asunción (the capital). I spend most of my time with my cousin, she helped me unpack all my things and decorate my room, she took me to church, she helped me wash my clothes (she witnessed the underwear chandelier incident), and we spend most of the evening chatting about life, family, faith, religion, and working on Guaraní.
MI CASA: I’m also lucky to be in such a beautiful house. My room has a full size bed, a large ceiling fan, and a lock on the door. We have electricity and running water. I can even get a hot shower (but why would I want one in this heat) by turning on the wires that stick out of the shower head (but why would I want to electrocute myself?). I’m told that once the wires are on and plugged in, the amount of heat depends on the water pressure…there’s no control to change the amount of heat that passes through the water. I’m not sure if I’ll be testing it out anytime soon. My house also has a BEAUTIFUL garden full of plants and flowers and fruit trees (mango, avocado, guava, grapefruit…) complete with about 30 chickens and a talking parrot (who is yet to realize that I am actually a human and won’t speak to me or repeat anything I say, he does, however, join in when everyone is laughing at me though!).
LA COMIDA: So far, Paraguayan food is high in fats and mainly all carbs and meat. Luckily, I have fresh fruit and fruit juice every day. My favorites so far are empanadas (I had one full of corn and cheese last night) and tortillas (not at all like a mexican tortilla! they’re fried (of course) and consist of eggs, milk, cheese and whatever else they decide to throw in). Both of my favorite foods so far happen to be fried and filled….great. The tortilla my mom cooked the other day was full of green onion, potato and cheese, but there’s different variations of tortillas. Yucca is common and a part of almost every meal. I’ve also been lucky because I’ve been getting lots of salads (iceberg lettuce and tomatoes), which most of the other volunteers aren’t getting. In general, there seems to be a lack of vegetables here, and when fruits/veggies are not in season (which lots of it isn’t in the summer) it can be expensive and people won’t spend their money on them.
LAS CLASES: I’ll get more into what training looks like once we’ve done more, but after a complete week of training I’ve already learned so much. So far in our technical classes, we’ve touched on how to compost, how to make soap, how to stay healthy (gardening classes coming soon), how to correctly create eco-bricks, and we’ve learned how to properly dispose of trash and what Paraguayans do with their trash (burn it all). We’ve also started our language classes. Quick fact: Guaraní has 33 letters in its alphabet and 12 of them are vowels. Quick fact: lots of the sounds are not possible for me to make. We’re also all in the process of getting our rabies vaccines (we’ve had 2/3 of them so far) and we have sessions on security and health.
OTRAS COSITAS & Things that I’ve learned about Paraguay:
1. Life here is very “tranquilopa” (chill). It’s only been a week, but I’m already starting to notice exactly how chill things can be. For example, on Sunday after church, my family and I all just sat out in the shade, and literally just sat there from about 9am-2pm. That’s it. We just chilled. It was nice to just sit there and not worry about doing anything. No one got up, no one really did anything, we just sat and passed around the tereré…..
2. There’s this thing called tereré, which is literally life here. Think of what Starbucks is to a Seattleite…now multiply that by a million, and that’s what tereré is to a Paraguayan. Tereré is yerba mate that is drank cold. They have a cup full of yerba and a long metal straw with a strainer at the bottom (it kind of looks like those slurpee straws from 711). They have a thermos with a large block of ice in it and water (and sometimes other medicinal herbs, such as mint or other types of leaves/roots all mashed up for various reasons). The server fills up the cup with water, and then passes the cup around to every person in the circle, refilling the cup before each person’s turn. (I’ll for sure make a video or something about this at some point in my service.) It’s refreshing and delicious. If you walk down the street, nearly every single person is out on their porch (or across the street, wherever there is shade!) passing around a cup of terere. They all share the same cup and straw and will invite anyone passing by to stop by and join them. (so not at all like Seattle with Starbucks because no one shares.)
3. Appearance is VERY important here. People shower at least 1-3 times a day. Even before going to a soccer game outside in the heat, my whole family showers. My family rakes their yard and sweeps the floor every single day to make sure the outside of their house is always on point too.
4. They add soda to their red wine. My family mixed orange fanta with some vino tinto…it was surprisingly delicious. We also mixed coca cola with red wine….also surprisingly delicious.
5. They share everything here. Not only does everything use the same cup and straw for tereré, but they use the same napkins, silverware and plates for dinner. The other evening my cousin and I shared a plate of salad, and it seemed completely normal. Its also common to share a beer or a glass of wine, and seen as taboo to drink an entire beer by yourself without passing it around to everyone.
6. Also noted, use the table cloth as a napkin.
WELL that’s about all I got for now…I’ve managed to keep the embarrassing stories down to a minimum after my previous week of shame. Now that I’m starting to learn Guaraní, I’m sure that I’m just embarrassing myself in some way that I don’t even know about it. Here’s some noteworthy stories from this week:
Giggle worthy story- I was trying to sound super cool and use my Guaraní to tell my family I was going to the bathroom. I obviously used the wrong conjugation of “to go” and ended up announcing to everyone that “we are going to the bathroom.” Luckily they understood what I meant, but they all laughed at the fact that I pretty much asked them all to accompany me to the bathroom.
Cringe worthy story- The word for “food" in Guaraní and the word for (excuse my language) "penis" differ by one small sound at the end of the word…….enough said.
¡Op!