Summer Vacation Comes to a Close

The last few weeks of my summer vacation have been much enjoyed. Another American exchange student, Kate, spent a little over 2 weeks living with my mom and me. She was in between changing families and needed a place to stay while her new family was travelling. It was a lot of fun to have a friend/sister around the house and I was sad to see her go. However I’m also really glad that things with her new host family seem to be working out and she has finally found some stability.

While Kate was with us we celebrated my host mom’s birthday by decorating the house with balloons and candelling a cake while she was lured out of the house mid-morning. For a gift I managed to track down some Paraguayan yarn (surprisingly hard to find) and knitting her a hat. I also printed out one of J.W.’s Obama pictures and had it framed in the hopes of feeding my mom’s Obama obsession. She seemed to like them both and quickly placed the photo on her nightstand. For lunch her co-workers came over and we had a traditional Paraguayan asado (BBQ).

One night my mom decided to take us to the Itaipu hydro-electric dam to watch the light show done every weekend. My mom happens to know someone who works for the dam and we got to ride in our own van as opposed to the crowded buses. The show itself wasn’t much of a show, but it was cool to see the dam all lit up and is something I can now cross off of my “To-Do List”.

I recently started taking a cooking class with a girlfriend of mine. The course itself is pretty short (only 4 classes), but is a nice way to fill time until school starts on the 18^th. I really had no idea what to expect as I arrived at the class the first time and was surprised to walk into a large room equipped with what seems to be a professional kitchen (straight out of a cooking show). The teacher is really nice and accommodating, allowing us to pick what we’ll learn to make. So far we’ve done pizza from scratch, a fruit-filled cake, ice cream, and the traditional “Sopa Paraguaya”.

Villa Florida

Last weekend I had the pleasure of taking advantage of my summer vacation and travelling a little with my mom and Aunt Vicki to a small town called Villa Florida, located in the south of Paraguay. The Tepicuary River runs right through the town and hosts several sandy beaches. A friend of my mom’s has a house that they let us stay in for the weekend. It reminded me a lot of the condo my family rented out in Hawaii last New Year’s Eve. My mom, Aunt Vicki and I drove down Friday afternoon (as soon as my Aunt Lida’s collegiate graduation finished) and arrived just as the sun was setting.

Early Saturday morning we applied our sun-block and staked out a spot on the beach. By lunch time, my Aunt Mauchi, Cousin Marcos, and various other extended family members arrived. We prepared a typical Paraguayan “asado” for lunch and tossed around a volleyball until the sun fell a little lower in the sky and it was bearable to lay out in. Then it was back to the beach to darken our tans and lounge about in the bank of the river. That night we walked to the nearby supermarket/bar/ice cream shop and treated ourselves to ice cream.

The next day, to my great surprise, it was raining! Unlike back home in Sitka, rain here is quite sparse indeed. Due to the precipitation we hung around the house all morning, but by afternoon with clouds still looming overhead, my mom decided we were going to enjoy our vacation on the beach anyways. So Vicki, her and I secretly packed up our stuff and headed to the beach (sneaking away from all the other relatives we left at home to watch the little ones). We took a quick dip in the water before they finally decided it was waaaay too cold to be wading through rivers. We substituted our plans with a fairly substantial drive through the countryside exploring a different beach which my mom quickly deemed to be much too far away and host to too few people. By the time the sun was setting there were no longer clouds in front of it and the other cousins and I decided to take advantage of the break in the weather and headed to the grand opening of the new beach, where there happened to be a show of sorts. It was complete with loud music and models strutting their stuff down the runway (scantily clad I might add). I am not quite sure I will ever fully get used to this Paraguayan tradition, simply standing next to countless men staring onwards as women prance about on stage (and almost tripping several times I might add).

Our last day we headed to the beach one last time to soak up those last rays before heading home early the next morning. On the way home we took the scenic route and stopped a few times to check out the famous Jesuit ruins. The ruins were very cool! It is truly amazing how much work was put into building such works of art and then were never finished. But the parts that still stand strong certainly are a must-see if you happen to visit Paraguay. I was surprised how little security there was controlling the preservation of the ruins. For the most part we could explore whatever part we wanted…and we did just that! Standing on top of one of the giant roofless structures was a little scary seeing how there was not a guardrail in sight.

In between ruins we stopped for lunch in Encarnacion, a Southern city on the Argentinean border. Being that I had not brought my passport along we were not able to pass into Argentina (I have been told they are very strict when it comes to documents). However we did drive across the bridge so that I could take pictures and say for the very least I had entered onto Argentinean soil. The rest of the trip home was fairly uneventful, but it certainly was good to sleep in my own bed. I think it is proof I have truly adjusted here when I start missing my house after a few days away.