Dear World,

My mom is magic and she can do anything and I love her!!!!! And she is the best mom ever. 

Lists.

List of good things that happened today:
1. I mailed a package to the US. It took an hour but I did it. I think that our post office is slow. But I was the only customer. For an hour.
2. I ate vegetable soup for lunch and a lomito for dinner. Vegetable soup is one of admittedly few Paraguyanan foods that I like. Lomito = I think there is a God, because something just blessed my stomach.
3. I took a short nap.
4. I helped small children study English vocabulary words. I now volunteer at an elementary school. I am helping them practice for their English spelling bee. And I'm learning really random and difficult Spanish vocabulary words as well, because we're in the process of translating all of them right now.
5. I did a worksheet in school all by myself and understood it. It was on the differences between first and third world countries. I felt a little awkward. But I persevered.
6. Skipped harp class! Never going back.
7. This picture I found on the Internet.














Ok things that happened today:
1. Dance practice. Is like walking through mud.
2. My classmate asked me why I didn't by new clothes for the Day of the Youth and then said that I wasn't acclimating properly and that I wasn't fun because I all I wanted to do was work out and play violin and do homework. Different people have different tasters.
3. Might not be able to go to Brazil because we have an AFS orientation. Which I could give less than a rat's tooshie about.

And to end things on a positive note, here is a list of my favorite candy:
1. Red, blue and purple Jolly Ranchers.
2. Licorice from Europe
3. Good chocolate
4. Sourpatch Kids
5. Sour Spaghetti
6. Gummy Frogs

I want to do this.

I owe it to everyone, my dear old Mum and Pop, EK, Andrew and friends. Without their love and support I wouldn't be where I am today.

homesick

The cricket

There is a cricket outside and he/she has been making the sound of its cricket people for the last two hours. I can't sleep. He/she is so loud. He/she has been cricket-ing outside for the last couple of nights. He/she needs to find a new spot to call for his/her cricket mate.

What did you learn today?

I learned today in chemistry about how we in America castrate cows and eat their castrated bits. And then, as opposed to the European cows who get killed post-castrating, we fatten up our cows for market. And because of this fattening American cows produce more leather.

I also learned that chinchillas are bred in captivity in very clean cages so that they don't get pee stains on their fur, as pee stains wreck their skin and devalues the market price. I didn't realize there was a big market for chinchilla fur.

There also was a section on horse leather (this entire lecture was dedicated to leather from different animals) and I had no idea that people actually used horse skin. Good thing I am taking this all with a grain of salt, because the single textbook we have looks like it was written in 1980. Not that I am judging it, I actually quite like it because it makes for some interesting conversation. Like for example, today, when I learned the word for castrate in Spanish.

Also the dead cat is back. Some one moved it to the other side of the road and flies are swarming it and I almost ran over it with my bike today. Anyone want pictures?? I took some today! :)


I had harp class today and I think I might quit because the teacher basically ignores me and Sofia didn't sit with me today (so I'm totally not thinking about rethinking my whole children spiel) and it took an like half an hour for Peet and I to get his attention and then when Peet asked if he was going to tune my harp as well as hers, he responded, "Ella no sabe hablar." She doesn't know how to speak. And I was sitting right there with smoke coming out of my ears. Ugh. It's so frustrating.

As of today I have over 1,600 hundred blog views and I'm pretty sure only 300 are from me (before I figured out how to make it so it didn't count when I looked at my own blog) and I'm not sure how many are from my mother, probably at least 500 I'm guessing but that leaves 800 of other people reading what I write!! Thank you!!

Five day weekend

Also today is the last day of my five day weekend. The teachers were on strike. And apparently they strike every year. A few years back school was cancelled for two weeks. This seems quite counter productive in moving forward as a country. In my humble opinion.

Note to America

I'd just like to announce that everyone in America missed out last night on a fantastic cultural display of Paraguayan dancing. And since I failed, yet again, to bring my camera, you all will just have to believe me when I say that cultural dancing here involves the men knife dueling (maybe it was just the lighting but I could have sworn I saw sparks) and doing elaborate swirly patterns with Paraguayan replicas of Jewish tallits in between hoisting bundles of women dancers up in the air, and the women balancing clay pots on their heads while doing bendy things with their bodies, taking off the pots only to dance with what looks like needlepoint of fruit and other tasty things that corresponds to the specific color of their dresses... my eyes were basically having an elliptic seizure trying to size up everything that was going on. And as if the dueling and pot balancing acts aren't enough, there are little props in the background. For example, one performance had like an entire farm yard, complete with an old couple that was fake-mashng invisible herbs in a mortal and pestle. Another performance had these two guys under this cow skin and were running around, obviously pretending to be a cow and all of the other men chased after it with their leather whips. So much was going on all at one time, for like two hours straight (because after folk/cultural dancing, there was rhythmic dancing, which involved lots of girls flying in the air and big muscular men making man-pyramids to do backflips off of) that my brain was just a mush of colorful wardrobe and flying people and fake cows and it was hypnotizing. I was sitting there the entire time like, Whoooaaaaaaaa...

From what I could gather with my admittedly still limited Spanish was that we were at a competition between different areas of study of the university in Pilar. Of course it took forever to start but that is Paraguay for you and it was definitely worth it. There were probably over a thousand people and there were about 10 performances, the first five were cultural and the second five were rhythmic and each group had about 30 people. It made me wonder how long they've been practicing. Because 30 people at the same place and same time is like impossible in Paraguay.

Since my camera missed deal I'm drawing a picture of what Paraguayan cultural outfits look like and I'm going to take a picture of my picture and post it on here for my mother.


Also on a less exciting note, it is like 198874982739823428379482739 degrees out and I woke up this morning because the power went out and it was like an oven in my room. I went in search of air conditioning (there are a few places in town with generators) and on my way I saw a dead cat. In the middle of the road. With its eyes popped out of its head. And it's stomach super bloated. Ewwww.

Other than the dead cat, and the dog who I think is rotting or molding to death that lives a few blocks down, everything is jolly and I shall post again soon.

Sofia

Unfortunately the relationship I never actually had with my harp teacher has taken a turn for the worse. It's really not my fault, maybe like 5% max; he is definitely quite the character. Or character is one way to put it. Anyways this sort of bummed me out originally because I was really looking forward to learning harp... and he has basically ignored me for the past couple of days... but today I have figured out my key to working the system.

Her name is Sofia and she is 10 years old and she is brave enough to interact with our teacher. And so I kind of hang out in the corner while he teaches (this is a very loose form of the word teach) her the next part of the song, and then after he leaves I scurry on over and Sofia shows me what we have to practice. And just because I'm familiar with music and have an age advantage I usually pick up on whatever we have to learn a bit faster and after I've got it down I help her practice. I think this works out quite nicely. It is a win-win situation.

So that is my heartwarming story of today. I have a new, smaller friend and she's actually pretty cute. I might have to think about rethinking my thinks that all small people are small and sticky and irritating!

LOL ME

A Few Perks

So just to clarify that I am not completely frustrated at times by Paraguay, which I don't think is the vibe I'm giving off but incase it is... here is a little list of my favorite things about Paraguay.

1. Straws. One does not simply drink without a straw. It's like not believing in Jesus here. Taboooooo. This is a favorite about Paraguay because I love straws. Not because I love wasting plastic. But because I love feeling like a little honey bee sucking nectar out of some delicious juicy flower.

2. The fact that I can bike EVERYWHERE. It's fabulous. Since I can't drive here my bike is my ride. Either that or I'm walking. But I don't care because I love my bike and I love biking and we have had quite some adventures the last couple of months. Yes months, as of this Saturday I will have been here eight weeks. TIME FLIES!

3. My host family and my host house and its location. They are very nice and we've yet to have any problems. Probably because I am the epitome of the perfect exchange student, but who knows. And my house is in the center of Pilar so most things are fairly close.

4. Tiny 200ML bottles of soda for 20 cents. Hello diabetes!

5. The people in general are very friendly and curious. Admittedly sometimes I find this curiosity irrupting on occasion as I've yet to go one day without at least three complete strangers either questioning me about my ethnicity, asking me if I speak said Asian language or just start speaking to me in random Asian languages, just words or phrases from God knows where and then expect me to be able to respond. Um. No.

6. The fruit/vegetable stores. I had the best tiny apple of my life yesterday for 20 cents. I want to own the fruit store. I would sit in there all day and become one with my inner rabbit.

Ok that's all for now. I'm trying to learn our school song right now. Because we sing it every Monday and Friday along with the national anthem and the prayer and I want to fit in. I've got the prayer down more or less. Now on to the school song.

Also one thing that I don't like about here because I just have to get it out of my system. It is very small and fairly irrelevant but it still bothers me. There is a severe lackage of college ruled paper. Wide ruled paper is all I've seen here. And it makes my handwriting ugly. The end.

Happy Biker Flora

Look at me go!!

A pleasant surprise

I no longer live under the impression that the entire country of Paraguay is tone deaf, as last night my ears were serenaded by in tune (!!!) traditional Paraguayan music played by part of the Paraguayan National Orchestra. Wahooo. It was quite enjoyable, even though the acoustics were kind of whack because they played in this cement church and the girl next to me was talking on her cellphone during the concert... whaaat??? But really it just made me miss Interlochen SO MUCH and I can not wait to play violin again for real.

What else is new... my arms are disgusting. Mosquitoes love me here. Almost as much as the old street dwelling men. I will be out running, looking completely disgusting and dripping with sweat and basically emulating DEATH and then out of nowhere these street creepers will be like, OOOH mami, honk horn excessive amounts of time. I feel like here would be an appropriate time to make use of some of my newly learned Guarani swear words. Below is a picture of my right arm. I know it looks like my left but Photobooth is backwards. I am ashamed of myself but I swear the mosquitoes here have some sort of extra tribal strength that make their venom twice as itchy. I really hope that these scars will go away. Like if anyone has any tips.. I'm so desperate. I might even start praying.

More Danza

Yesterday I had danza ritmica at 6.30pm but due to the lack of people that showed up it got cancelled. Except since everything takes forever in Paraguay I still ended up staying there an hour and fifteen minutes.

Then today we had dance practice at 8.00am this morning and I showed up at 8.10 because last night they had given us a lecture on how important it was to show up on time because there wasn't much time, etc, etc. And then the teacher showed up at 8.30am, as well as half of the other girls and then the other half didn't even show up. And so for two hours I just sat on the ground because we didn't do anything. I was frustrated. And now we have practice again at 3.00pm but I'm not going because I have harp and the last two practices have been quite a giant waste of time.

Hora Paraguay is something I probably won't ever understand.

On a more happier side, I've learned some more Guarani.

mmmbar a kai ya - cat
yaa wah - dog
hoo seeh kwa ra huu - here comes the sun
poraaaah - pretty or good
poraaaah hundeh - I'm well, and you?
poraaaah ave eee - I'm well too.
ee teh hop eeh - the finish
oo kai teh - everything well / good wave
oo pai teh - finished, termino

Annnnd some bad words that I'm not going to put on here.

And also the water has been out since like 7.00am this morning. I don't know why.

PS.

Might I add that I did that race with bronchitis? Yes. I have bronchitis. I am BOSS.

Desafío Sapucai

So unbeknownst to me at the time (a few weeks ago) I signed on to one of the most difficult bicycle races in Paraguay: Desafiío Sapucai. As in I thought we were going to be taking a little paseo through the campo. Which is definitely not what happened. What did happen I will document below. 

Tio Felix from Asuncion came to visit a few weeks ago, and very kindly offered to let me tag along with him and his friends on a bike race. Of course I took advantage of this opportunity which is how I found myself waking up at 5.30am in Asuncion this past Saturday to drive out to Paraguari (a city about two hours outside of Asuncion) and bike up and across and down a mountain. 

At 10.00am the race started (just when the Paraguayan sun is starting to turn on full blast- later I learned that it was around 105 degrees when we were racing- and it wasn't until 2.00pm that I finally, finally finished. A very anti-climatic finish, might I add. This guy holding a clip board was like, You're done. And I was like, Really? That's it? Because I felt like I'd just finished biking to the moon and back.

Basically the beginning was a cliff. Just barely less than a cliff. I thought Tio Felix was exaggerating about the mountains, because until then I had seen no sign of any hill, let alone a mountain in Paraguay. The closest things we have to mountains here in Pilar are speed bumps. But Tio Felix was definitely not exaggerating because I ended up pushing my bike up this ginormous, incredibly bumpy, and rocky path  which took about 40 minutes, even though I'm fairly sure it was no more than a mile, because when I tried to bike my wheels wouldn't grab the ground and I just kind of bounced and treaded dirt. That's how steep it was.

After that initial bit it got less vertically challenging. I think we were more or less on top of a mountain, except there were all these rolling hills and strategically placed and very aesthetically pleasing sheep and other quaint country animals. It reminded me of Hawaii a bit. Partly because of the scenery, partly because of the SAND that was EVERYWHERE. After practically crashing (I was going down this tiny, tiny hill and then my wheel got stuck in some sand and WHOMP, just barely avoided a major side scraping) I learned that the best way to bike through sand was not not bike through sand at all. I probably ended up walking my bike around eight miles because of the excessive amounts of sand. 

And I have yet again another example of Paraguayan time. About two hours in I asked how much longer. "En seguida, un ratito!" I was told. Ok. Forty-five minutes later I was still pedaling.. 1.00 and there were still no signs of any finish. And then another half an hour. And then another half hour. I kept on asking the few fellow bikers I had how much longer, and their response was always, Un ratito. You'd think by now I'd have learned that un ratito does not mean 15 minutes. In this case it meant two hours. But I was like, come on people, 15 kilometers in (15 more to go) and you're telling me we're going to finish in "un ratito" ??? No. I guess it was to my advantage, in the end, because I went the entire second half of the race with the false hope that the end was near.

Then we finished the race at the same place we began so I rode the breaks four about 12 minutes, all the way down the hill and finished. And drove back to Asuncion and I ended up taking an 11.30pm bus back to Pilar on with the sketchy bus company all by myself but that is a different story.

One last thing before I post the pictures. Among the cute farm animals were cows. Dumb cows. Cows that would just stand in the path while you were pushing your sweat slicked bike through death sand. And they'd just be all like, Moooooooo. wifjsdfaskljflksdn BAD COWS

POST RACE with the fake gold medal that I am never, ever, ever parting with.

Looks easy? THINK AGAIN.

Flora, Tio, one of the Tio's friends who went with us.