Feliz Navidad

I can easily say that my first Christmas away from home was nothing I expected. For starters, Paraguay doesn’t seem to place quite as much importance in the holiday as the United States. And in my family at least, Christmas Eve resembled the holiday more than the day itself.

Due to my mom’s job as the top public defender in her office, she had to work the morning of the 24^th. That left me free to sleep in, fully enjoying the air conditioner strategically located above my bead. For lunch I completed the 2 minute walk to our “maid”, but more like family, Shirley’s house. We drank tereré while we waited for my mom to get back from work and join us. Her 5 year old son Gabriel ran about the house, exhibiting his normal behavior…slightly annoying, but also entertaining. After eating and a few hours spent chatting, my mom and I went back home and I took a cozy little nap while she ran to her office to sign some last minute paperwork.

When she got back we loaded up the car with sparkling cider and set off for my grandparents’ farm (about a 15 minute drive). Meat was thrown on the grill beside some traditional “chipa guazú” (the closest American food I can relate it to is cornbread) while my aunt stirred a pot of seasoned chicken hearts. They had decided that although the same amount of regular chicken cost the same, the hearts were so “rico” they couldn’t pass them up. I had already tried “corazon de pollo” on another occasion and they were a bit chewy for my taste, so I passed when the bowl made its rounds at the table. We ended up eating around 11:30 or so, finishing up in time for the big turn of the clock to officially begin Navidad. We all gathered around the tinseled X-mas tree and surrounding nativity scene while my mom led the family through some traditional Catholic prayers. When she finished we all exchanged hugs and my mom and I went home.

I woke up early the next morning (6 o’clock to be exact) in order to give Camp Ramp a proper Merry Christmas at the strike of 12 back home. The call was actually my Paraguayan mom’s idea and she was fairly persistent that I had to call exactly at midnight, which was adorable. Hearing all their voices (minus Hunter who was supposedly asleep downstairs anxiously awaiting Santy Claus) was great, but it also made me miss home. However, in all honesty, I think it’s fairly impossible to not miss your family on a day like Christmas. After I finished the call I crawled back in bed for an hour or so until my mom told me it was time to go. Our Christmas day was to be spent on the beach.

We picked up one of my mom’s coworkers, crossed the Brazilian border, and made our way towards a lake in the town of Santa Helena. It took about 2 hours to arrive, what with one wrong turn and all. By noon we had our sun block (or in their cases, tanning oil) on, towels laid out, and were soaking up some strong Brazilian rays. When the sun got too hot for us, we took a quick dip in the lake, reapplied our UV protection and laid back down. With the exception of a quick break to eat some Christmas fruitcake (VERY popular in Paraguay), we continued this routine until about 5 o’clock, packed up and started the return trip. Once back in Paraguay we made a quick stop for dinner…at Burger King of all places. The coworker had been wanting a Whopper all day, so my mom and I went along with her craving.

Needless to say, my Christmas celebration included many things it most certainly would not have back home: spending it in a bikini, working on my tan and grabbing a bite to eat at the BK lounge. In some ways it feels as though I skipped Christmas for a year. I did have a great day with my mom; it just wasn’t anything I expected. Yet another great addition to my experience…

Camboriu

I realize that it’s been a little while since I’ve posted, but it’s been with good reason. My last 10 days have been spent on the Brazilian beaches surrounding a town called Camboriu. I made the trip accompanying the graduating class of my high school. They, along with just about every other group of graduates across Paraguay spend a little over a week in mid-December enjoying themselves after all of their hard work. We headed out on Friday the 12^th at midnight on a double-decker bus, full of excitement for the 16 hour trip and more importantly, the sunny shores awaiting us. Some of us managed to get a few solid hours of “bus-sleep” (definitely not to be confused with a good night’s sleep) before we pulled up in front of Hotel Sibara.

That night was the first of seven that would be spent at a discotheque. The schedule called for us all to be outside the hotel awaiting the bus by midnight and we’d get back from the club between 4 or 5 in the morning. At that point some of us decided to go to bed, while others spent a few hours chatting it up on the nearby beach. I only felt up to the early morning beach visits a few of the “nights”, but I must admit that the sunrises were beautiful.

The days were spent at various surrounding beaches, where I was able to fully appreciate the much missed “mar y montañas”. I also managed to soak up some sun and work on further converting that Alaskan colored skin. Miraculously I didn’t burn in the slightest, although I may have been the sole one of the group constantly applying “el protector del sol”. The two days that the beautiful weather cut out and the streets were filled with rain we spent our time shopping at close by malls. It could be due to the tropical surroundings and lacking frosty weather, but I seem to keep forgetting that Christmas is rapidly approaching. However, the grand Christmas displays housed by each mall were blunt reminders. My friends and I had to take advantage of a photo op with Papa Noel.

One of our daily excursions was spent at an aquatic park, while another was aboard a pirate ship. Both were quite fun, although the pirate ship was admittedly my favorite. And I didn’t get sea sick or anything! Dad you should be proud…:) The trip left me thoroughly exhausted and I spent my first day back home sleeping and coming to the realization that summer and the accompanying heat is just beginning here in Paraguay...Good luck to the Alaskan girl, eh?

Pumpkin Pie and So Much More...

November 27^th came and went for me without much importance. Granted I was filled with jealousy as my mom and two brothers were able to spend it in Vermont, taking part in the Thanksmas celebration. Luckily I still was able to take part in some Thanksgiving festivities, I only had to wait until December 1^st. Our “Halloween” trip was so much fun that among the American AFS students, we decided we were going to have to work together and create our own Thanksgiving feast, with Ciudad del Este playing host. The 6 Asuncioners got in around 1 PM on Monday the 1^st, but the arrival wasn’t without a few small hitches. We knew that the bus they took from Asuncion was capable of letting them off right outside of Linny’s (Missouri) house, which was serving as base camp for the visit. The only thing they had to do was ask the bus driver to let them out at “Colegio San Jose” (Linny’s school). Simple enough, right? As the hour of their arrival neared, Linny and I set out to meet them…however as time passed and the bus didn’t passed by, we began to get a little nervous. Finally we got a phone call from Hannah, informing us they had gotten off the bus and were fairly certain they were mere blocks from “San Jose”. At this point, Linny and I were fairly sure where they were, but the fact that they thought they knew where they were going in a city they’d never been in was slightly concerning. This, in addition to the fact that Linny’s entire street was named “San Jose”, along with the high school and a few dozen businesses, left us unsure which “San Jose” they were heading to. Miraculously, ten minutes later we spotted a very American looking group of kids and set off to Linny’s house where Nate (Arizona) realized he had accidently left his phone on the bus. In a country as filled with corruption as Paraguay, the chances of someone finding it and actually giving it back were one in a million. The problem was that Nate didn’t have any records of his host family’s phone number and couldn’t let them know about the missing cell phone. Luck seemed to be on our side, as astonishingly a worker from the bus company answered Nate’s phone and informed us he would hold it until the next day.

That afternoon was spent at the grocery store, gathering ingredients for our approaching feast. Knowing that trying to make dessert the day of might prove too difficult, I had slaved at the stove the day before to crank out 3 fresh pumpkin pies. I was admittedly quite proud of them considering I had had to use actual pumpkin and make a crust from scratch (Libby’s canned pumpkin and pre-made crusts just don’t exist in Paraguay). The rest of the dinner included 4 chickens (turkey is quite expensive here), mashed potatoes, salad, rolls, cooked sweet potatoes and carrots, and sopa paraguaya (Linny’s mom’s addition). With Linny’s family, we were 16 people. The dinner itself was quite touching and tears were definitely shed. First of all, I think I can easily say that the food reminded us all of home and made us miss our families. On the other hand, Linny’s family is so incredibly inviting and wonderful we were all incredibly happy to be spending Thanksgiving with them. We spent time saying a blessing and having each person present mention something they were thankful for, as tradition mandates. The night was one of the most memorable we’ve had here in Paraguay and will not be easily forgotten.

With stomachs overly full and circles under our eyes after staying up all night catching up, we boarded buses to show off “el centro” (Ciudad del Este’s downtown streets filled with illegal goods…i.e. copied movies and video games costing a dollar a pop). We spent the morning strolling the streets, eyes peeled as to not get mugged. After a quick lunch we broke into two groups, one heading to check out the Itaipu hydro-electric dam and another, myself included, to Linny’s house for a quick nap. The agenda for the evening was to take them to see “The Parana Country Club”. The “PCC” was home to 6 of our 10 Ciudad del Este AFSers and was a world apart from Paraguay. The gated community was filled with mansions, clothing stores, and groceries, taking away the necessity to ever actually leave. The high measures of security made it safe to walk the streets at whatever hour, something not all of us were able to do in our hosting neighborhoods. It was the closest thing to the U.S. there was in CDE and they all picked up on it pretty quickly as we passed through two different manned security gates. We didn’t spend long there as homesickness was already starting to set in for a few.

The plan Wednesday was to take a small group to see the Falls of Iguazu, the amazing waterfalls the Brazilian border is host to. Unfortunately, our group consisted of Linny’s 15 year-old host sister and Brazilian law prohibits people under 18 from entering into Brazil without their parents. Normally the border is not as tightly patrolled and for this we hadn’t thought it would be a problem, but apparently we had used our luck up earlier. We crossed back across the “Friendship Bridge” on foot to cross back into Paraguay and spent another morning walking in and out of various shops. Wednesday evening coincided with Teresa (an Austrian volunteer)’s birthday, so we prepared an “asado” (typical Paraguayan barbeque) for her at Linny’s house. That night around midnight the Asuncioners taxied to the bus terminal for the 5 hour bus ride home. It was great to see them all, but it was also sad having to say goodbye to the 6-monthers who I most likely won’t see again. However, Paraguayan Thanksgiving = 1 Grand Success!