Siete

   

Well It’s Christmas time so you could probably call this a Christmas letter. But this letter is only about this week. Not the whole year. 
 
Sunday, December 21, 2020
‘Born a babe in a Manger. Never a lowlier birth. ’ I thought of this song this weekend when I went to church. I’m not comparing our church house to a stable, rather I’m comparing the stable to a church. I don’t know how that stable looked, but it became a castle thru the birth of Jesus the King. 
Our church here is lowly. The bluish grey wooden building stands close to the front of the long, narrow lot. A fence keeps large, unwanted visitors (cows mainly) out but neighboring chickens and any small animal can easily come visit. Half of the front yard is red dirt but the rest, including the back, is grass. Numerous flowering or not flowering bushes line the front yard while the way back boasts a few banana plants. Just behind the church, a. mango tree and a grape vine over an arbor provide us richly with shade for Sunday School and sustenance for after church, and an outhouse stands at attention. Inside church is some sort of a smooth, hard floor, stained from the dirt of the shoes of the people walking on it every Sunday. Six or 9 plastic lawn chairs are in their places, waiting to be useful, and a few wooden benches indicate where the children sit. A large fan in the corner tries valiantly to keep us all cool with the help of the 3 open windows. (no glass. Just shutters) and the 2 open doors. The cicadas sing along with us and occasional voices are heard from the house just 10 or so feet away from the church building. Some cows mumble while grazing in the long grass across the road and a moto or 2 noisily makes its way up the bumpy, dirt road. 
To me, this is lowly. I spent quite a few of my years going to a church with rug on the floor, soft (ish) benches and a high, arching ceiling. A church that can seat a few hundred people. Compared to that, our church here in Paraguay looks like something that could be used as a stable. But it’s not. It doesn’t matter how it looks, it’s a castle to all who come thru its doors and open their hearts to what the King is telling them.
I could go on and on about today. 
We sit outside on the porch visiting. It rained hard when we got here but cleared up soon after. The puddle that consequently formed (and has Tiago’s rapt attention) quickly dries up when the sun comes out. Numerous buildings line the yard. The house itself doesn’t big enough to house these people and the other ones who are apparently at youth. The wraparound porch is apparently what Menno Simon’s had on his house and is very popular amongst these people. The conversation is light, occasionally someone goes into a spiel in Plauteich or explains something in English, but mostly it is conducted in Spanish, the only common language between these two (them and us) Mennonite families. The girls have playmates their age and run around getting dirty and on each other’s nerves. After some discussion and terere, the woman of the house says its time to prepare faspa. We ladies go inside to set the table and set out cookies and breads and instant coffee. We adults sit around the table, duck our heads in separate, silent prayer and dig in. And dig in is what everybody does. There’s no polite ‘Pass the cookies please’ or worrying about where the crumbs go. Stretch your arm out as long as it can go to grab the water or use your knife as an arm extension to stab a piece of cheese. Or even loudly proclaim that you don’t eat sweets and make your mom warm up some meat for you and then shovel it in with no regard to the size of your bites. Due to the shoveling, after about 12.75 minutes everybody is done and the men stand up to go back outside and the children come in to take their places. No need to clear the table, the children’s can use the same plates as the adults did. And soon they’re done too. We left soon after we ate so I didn’t get to see how dishes were done. 
 
Monday, December 21, 2020
Today was our last day of school before Christmas. 
In an effort to decorate a bit for our Christmas, we tied stripes of red and green fabric to a string to make a bit of a garland. Due to the fact that we did not have sufficient fabric, we added some pink and the result is quite beautiful. I am not being sarcastic. We spent another few minutes wrapping our fingers in yarn in an attempt to produce pompoms. The results came with various success. We are planning to hang these pompoms and garland in the quincho with some tinsel and the ‘Silent night’ paper stars I have in my classroom and eat our Christmas dinner in style. 
Later this evening we opened (or quick downloaded) our respective apps and pointed our phones at the sky to make sure the double ‘Christmas star’ we were indeed Jupiter and Saturn. And once we got started looking at stars we kept on for awhile. Stars amaze and wonder me and I wish I had applied myself better in school and would know more about them. Or maybe start studying them now. 
And while we’re on the topic of celestial beings, last week there was a partial solar eclipse here. Apparently some of Argentina had a full solar eclipse but here we never saw any change in the sunlight. We were driving at the appointed time but we stopped the vehicle in order to see this wonder. Due to the sun being bright, we could not see it properly with unprotected eyes so we tried first one, then 2 and finally 3 pairs of sunglasses stacked up and we were able to view it nicely without hurting our eyes. The sun looked like someone had taken a bite out of one side of it. 
 
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
We sit in a circle on our chairs (something like the chairs you see below. These are very popular here.) 

And start reading our Bible Study Text for today. Today it is Doña Felicita, one of her daughters and Eric and Rachelle and me. The girls find stuff to do with Felicita’s granddaughters and Tiago comes and goes out of our circle and the whims of his sisters. Often we read a Sunday School lesson but today we are reading an article on Justification By Faith. Some of us say this topic is hard for us to understand and I made the comment that today it would be especially hard for me to understand due to the language difference. 
Behind us sits Felicita’s 2-room brick house with a garden to the side and a kitchen and more plants and trees behind it. Her chakra (a bigger garden almost like a field where they would grow corn and mandioca) is behind that yet and her children live in house mere steps or stone throws from her house. A tree in front provides shade for us in the afternoon and the passion fruit vine that she has growing over the (short) arbor that forms the entrance to her front yard provides shade when we go in the morning. Chickens roam the yard and a few dogs act like they want to join us. Cicadas provide background music for us. A car drives by just on our side of the ditch and then decides to just use the ditch as a road to access the highway. A few motos drive by on the highway, numerous people with different bags and tools and whatnot sticking out in any direction. (It’s not uncommon to see a moto driving down the street dragging a 10ft piece of rebar behind it.) A bright red car seems to have a bit of trouble and stops just off the highway where he stays for most of our Bible Study. A rusty old truck drives by pulling a trailer just big enough to house one cow and sounding as though he has a flat tire somewhere. The afternoon was hot when we arrived, but by the end of our visit it had cooled down and there was a bit of a fresh breeze cooling us down. 
 

Cody Santiago is the youngest and only boy of my family here. He’s a fair haired child with hazel-ish eyes and a charming grin. He’s a little bit shy like babies should be but he loves to smile at people and sometimes even perform his little tricks. He can get a bit offended at me when I pick him up but I can usually distract him and eventually he almost forgets that he’s not supposed to like being with me. Or if I’m working in the kitchen he doesn’t mind me holding him and him ‘helping’ me. A week or so after I got here he started taking a step or 2 without holding onto anything, but just in the last 2 weeks he’s really started taking off and walking everywhere. When he crawled, he had a funny way of crawling on all fours due to the rough, hot ground he crawled on. 
The reason I’m describing Tiago to you is that today was his first birthday. His high chair was decorated with balloons and later on he got to eat a cupcake all by himself with everybody standing around him, egging him on. He loved the attention. He got his face full of whipped cream and started grinning and making funny faces at us all and making us laugh. 
 
Thursday, Christmas Eve
A lot of Paraguayans are Catholic. The Paraguayan Catholics celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. They all get together in the evening and do their asados (barbeques) and then at 12 they start eating. I guess that would be Christmas day already then. Anyways. Rachelle met one of her friends in town the other day and found out they weren’t doing anything tonight so she made plans for us to go see her and her dad and her sons this afternoon. Well we arrive late afternoon and find her dad hoeing weeds in his big dirt front yard. Rachelle’s friend just left but she’ll be back soon. At this news Rachelle murmurs to me that she’s not surprised but we seat ourselves on the offered chairs and start visiting and waiting. Nobody seems surprised when the lady never shows up but we had a good time chatting with her Dad and he gave us a bunch of beautiful pineapples from their garden when we left. 
A few hours later came the long awaited hour. The blanket was spread out under the stars and after spending some time playing games and figuring out strategies midnight came and with it the fireworks. This is another Catholic tradition. Only apparently there weren’t nearly as many as other years but the amount was still impressive. There were a few big ones like you see in big North American firework displays but most of them were small and a lot of them just consisted of a big boom and some smoke. And maybe we’d see the flash of light. But my ears are still ringing from the noise. 
 
 
Friday, December 25, 2020
What can I tell you about our Christmas Day. Maybe I’ll just write a few pointers because writing everything about the day would be too boring. 
•    Karlins showed up around lunchtime today. We were expecting them but not so soon. 
•    I didn’t check the temperature at all today but it didn’t feel very hot. Maybe about 30° C. 
•    Even tho it wasn’t 40°C today we made sure to do our program in a room that was slightly cooled from AC. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to a Christmas program in short sleeves and sandals. 
•    We listened to Steinbach youth program in the afternoon and then surfed the Listen To Church app to see who else we could listen to yet. 
•    Mom brought us 2 escape room games when they came. We played one when they were out and we played the other one this afternoon. This afternoon we had a lot more luck then the other time. It only took 5 of us 1.5 hours to finish and we didn’t use any hints or clues. These would be really good games to play during quarantine because they take so long but not very good games to play if you don’t have much time. 
•    We decided to do our asado for supper tonight instead of last night when we could smell everyone else’s. Our feast consisted of fish, shrimp, Paraguayan cheese, pineapple and individual garlic bread all done on the grill and then sides of green bean casserole and curry potatoes and Pepsi to round out the meal. I don’t think anyone was hungry for Christmas goodies afterwards, but they definitely were available. 
•    Speaking of Christmas goodies. In Asuncion, we went into a fancy grocery store with items that you rarely find in Paraguay and while strolling the aisles I came upon some After Eights that I couldn’t live without and so we bought them and have already finished out one whole box. 
 
That’s about the size of it. 
 
Saturday, Boxing Day
Its amazing how lazy a person can be when there is nothing specific to do. I did play a few games with the kids this morning. I have wonderful childhood memories of playing King’s Base and Bear Around The Corner and those sort of games with how many other missionary kids ranging in age from CSI boys and teachers down to the 5 or 6 year olds who just got in the way all the time. But with only 4 kids aged 4 to 9 and 2 little one year olds to try to play around the game selection and quality just doesn’t match up to the memories. 
Shayla had brought the leftover meat from their asado on Christmas Eve so we had a feast for lunch. Around 2, I hopped into the truck with Karlins, stopped halfway to our destination for (McDonald’s) ice cream, passed a lot of slow vehicles including one who’s model name was Rush (ironic, IMHO, as it clearly was not Rushing) and soon arrived at the Camp 9 mission house. Tonight is practice for the youth Christmas program and tomorrow I’ll help them deliver it at church. 
I was going to send this letter without this paragraph. But then I decided to write this paragraph so I will sent it with this paragraph. Practise at 1900. Those of us who show up tonight do so a bit before 1900. The setting is church. Turn off the highway, up the short, steep driveway and pull in under the trees. Some arrive by bicycle, some on foot, some by car. The church is situated right front and center, a teacher age toward the back of the property and a small school room off toward the edge. Grass and red dirt make a patchwork quilt on the ground and the volleyball net in the backyard is sagging. Maybe it hasn’t been used in awhile. Everybody greets each other and soon we walk thru the doors and creak across the floor to the front. Everybody knows their place to stand and after a hasty consultation I’m given a spot too. And without further ado we start to sing. I know all the tunes of the 9 songs and just have to concentrate on the words which is becoming easier and easier to me. The Guarani song does throw me for a few loops tho. Most of us sing soprano, guys and girls alike, with one or 2 of us taking each of the other voices. There’s no chatting between songs, no fooling around or cracking jokes. Everybody songs like they mean it and the results could move anyone to tears. My favorite song is the second last one. Not a Christmas song and I’ve heard them sing it once before. The song in English in ‘Lift Him Up, Higher Higher.’ My favorite parts in Spanish, the ones that flow and swell together are as follows. ‘Álzale, muy muy alto…Es la única esperanza.’ (‘Lift him up higher higher.. He’s the only hope of promise’ in the English version.) And then we sing the traditional ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ and we’re done practicing in half an hour. We sit down on the benches for a few minutes but by 1945 we’re all out the door and gone to our respective places. 
 
There’s been a Ford F250 roaming our neighborhood recently. Rachelle and I had to dash out of the house one day to make sure we were actually seeing what we thought we were. There are some full size pickups in Asuncion but around Barrio San Pedro we rarely see one, hence the dashing out of the house.
I think I skipped a Tuesday in my last letter too. I don’t have anything against Tuesdays. I guess nothing much worthy of writing home about happens on Tuesdays. 
 
Hasta luego, 
Addie
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Barrio San Pedro missionaries 
Eric and Rachelle Toews
Christina – 9 (Grade 4)
Ellie – 7 (Grade 2)
Aubrey – 5
Cody Santiago who is called Tiago – 1
Me - teacher
 
Campo Nueve/Camp 9 missionaries
Karlin and Shayla Hiebert 
Judd – 4
Gabe – 1
 

Cinco y Seis

 Sadly, my brain is still obviously English. As you will all have seen, I called my last letter ‘quatro.’ Only a few hours after I sent it did it register in my brain that I actually should have written ‘cuatro.’ I hope you can forgive this mistake and overlook any more honest ones that I make.  

 

 Sunday, December 6, 2020

 The preacher, song leader, Sunday school superintendent and teacher were all under the weather this morning so church was cancelled. Rachelle offered to preach and I thought I’d make a good Spanish song leader but apparently that didn’t go over well. Christina made us pancakes for breakfast and a few hours later Rachelle and I walked to the store for a few things for our asado (barbeque) for lunch. I napped and read all afternoon and later we went to Guajayvi (about 20 or 30 minutes from home) for a drive and some ice cream. We are quite spoiled here I must say.   

 

Monday, December 7, 2020 

Normal school day today. I’ll walk you through a bit of our normal school day. We start at 0800. Some mornings we’re still sitting around the breakfast table at 0749 and then we all scurry to be ready on time. We have devotions at the breakfast table so we start school with a few songs and go right into math. By 1000 we hopefully have math and language done and we go outside to play ten steps or bear around the corner or dodge ball before running in for a few minutes of story. On the hottest days the girls will sometimes run to the little shop next door for ice cream. After story, we have reading, spelling, science, sometimes penmanship and if work has been going fast then some map workbooks. We’ve only had 2 art periods (much to the girls’ dismay) due to super short weeks or else mixed up days. It’s not uncommon to be doing our work to the beat of the music coming from the gym behind us, or to be constantly opening the door or adjusting the fan speed or trying to get the cool air from the AC in my room right next door in order to be able to study better.  

It was suggested that I should maybe go see Sara (see the evening we went to Julian’s in one of my first three diaries. Probably on Sunday in Tres) while the rest of the family went to Felicita’s this afternoon. I was not fond of the idea as I’m not a very outgoing person especially in another language that I don’t actually know very well. But I decided it would be good for me to go. So I went. Now Sara is quite a bubbly (for lack of better wording) girl who never lacks for words or, it seems, energy. I imagine you’ve all got it figured out already that my expectations were sadly lacking. I had an absolutely wonderful time with her. We found some shade and terere and both used our phones sometimes to translate and figure out what the other one said. She knows some English from school and puts it to good use, and is excited to learn more. Her dad and brother came in from the garden after awhile and sat with us. They both know English and use it to varying extents.  

Too soon, Eric came to pick me up. Today was exactly one month since Rodolfo (Felicita’s son) died and they wanted to sing for awhile so I went to join them. After singing awhile, we stopped at a place in town here for supper. We walked thru the restaurant, or maybe it was the bar part, and out across to the patio to another patio and set up a table and chairs for us to eat at. We ate out there all alone under the stars. The play structures were blown up for the girls to play on and Tiago and I eventually decided we weren’t going to miss out on the fun so we joined them.   

 

Wednesday, December 9, 2020 

We were done school by 1130 today. Or rather I let the girls out at 1130 so I could go stuff some overnight necessities into my backpack. We picked up lunch along the way and 3 hours or so later we arrived at our grand hotel, Los Alpes, in Asuncion. We didn’t waste any time in making our way down to the (outdoor) pool once we were checked in. The pool itself was smallish but clean (it also had a water falls in it) and the area around it was full of chairs and trees and fake grass and a little bit it sunshine. You didn’t need the sunshine to dry off tho, it was warm in the shade, too. I did the same thing as I usually do to my family. After awhile in the pool (never long enough for the ones I’m with) I opened my book and spent the rest of the time reading.  When an hour or two had passed, we jumped into the van again and headed off to go shopping. First Rachelle and I ran into a bit of a Superstore type of place called Superseis saying we wouldn’t take long and then we wound thru 1 layer of underground parking to park on the second underground floor. Oh and we all got our temperature taken before being allowed into parking, which would be normal here for big stores except that they’d often temp just the adults or just the front 2 people in the van. And another thing before we move on, the driving here is not like driving in Winnipeg. There are some stoplights and street signs but mostly it’s fend for yourself. Stick your nose in and make yourself known if you need to turn onto another street. Any amount of space between you and the on coming vehicle is enough to pass the vehicles in front of you, the oncoming person just has to move onto the shoulder. A honk doesn’t mean ‘hi’ or ‘you are doing something wrong,’ a honk is to let someone know you are coming up behind them or just letting them know that you are there. Oh. And watch for motos. Those little guys can be quite sneaky, weaving in and out of traffic, off and on the shoulder. I still can’t figure out when they act like vehicles and when they act like pedestrians but I think usually that is left to the driver of the moto in question to decide.  Anyways. With the help of some escalators, we were transported from the cool, dimly lit parking garage and spit out into a grand shopping mall. I’m not sure of the full layout of the place but I think it had about 3 stories of stores on either side of a street with a walkway above the street. The stories didn’t contain a terribly high number of square feet (individually) if I remember correctly but it looked like there was a nice variation of stores. We didn’t go into very many of them, I’m looking for souvenirs not expensive things from Puma or Timberland, and soon made our way up to our ultimate destination, the food court. Which included a McDonald’s. That nobody went to. It also included another restaurant that seems to make the same food as McDonald’s but apparently is better then aforementioned Golden Arches. I didn’t try that either. I’m not going to say what I had cuz it was very boring and I could have gone to a good pasta place but I didn’t but we all stuffed ourselves and then some of us had frozen yogurt yet before we left. We left the empty parking garage behind us and drove around for a few minutes looking at Christmas lights. The over-the-street walkway in the mall is covered in lights to form Ñanduti* shapes. We all went to bed around 2130, in anticipation of the arrival of 0200 the next morning. Or night.    

 

Thursday, November 10, 2020 

0200 came and with it our reason of coming to Asuncion and we sleepily and excitedly climbed out of bed and into the van. The streets very pretty much deserted, maybe due to the fact that Covid restrictions here mean installing a curfew between 1000 and 0500 or something like that. One or 2 vendors still had their wares out but these ones sleep on the street beside their outdoor stores. We saw a few vehicles at first and then a few more on the main road. The parking lot at the airport was crowded with vehicles tho, and the street in front of the door with the inhabitants of those vehicles, waiting for the arrivals. This waiting outside is also due to Covid. Oh and also we all had to wear masks. Because of visas and other things it took a long time but eventually the doors opened to reveal Dad and Mom! Hugs all around and exclamations over how big people had grown and then we were back into the van, driving back down the deserted streets we had passed thru just an hour ago, stumbling back up the hotel steps and finally collapsing back into our beds. Only Dad and Mom were wide awake as their bodies didn’t think it was quite night time and their minds were working hard taking in this new country, this new continent. 

Eventually they must have slept tho, and then eventually we all woke up and had breakfast down by the pool. The girls swam again and the rest of us started on all the news and happenings of home.  And then we started ambling our way home. First we stopped at a roadside fruit stand and ended up buying more than just fruit. We stopped for lunch at a gas station slash restaurant slash tourist store called Ka’Avo. It’s the same place we stopped on the way home. From the airport when I came. Then we went in search of an Atm I think and ended up finding a fabric store. And later on, a little shop that sold beautiful wood cutting boards and spoons for a price you would never find in Canada. Oh and we bought at least 2 hammocks thru out the day. We actually did make it home without spending all our money.  We sat outside and unwound and had asaditos and Paraguayan tortillas for supper. And then chatted some more and eventually went to bed.   

 

Friday, November 11, 2020 

We took Dad and Mom to visit Felicita this morning. After drinking terere under her Maracuya (passion fruit) vine, we walked around her yard and she showed us all her plants. She can grow anything and everything it seems like. The most amazing plant to me is her cinnamon tree. The leaves smell exactly like cinnamon and you can use them to make your food taste like cinnamon but the actual stuff comes from the bark.  

In the afternoon we went to visit some Mennonites about an hour and a half north of us. Unlike most other Mennonite girls here, their girl Lisa who is 21 is in no hurry to find a boyfriend. This is quite rare but she seems to enjoy being single and having fun with her niece and family. In the guest house where we sat and chatted, they had an industrial sewing machine (called Jack. From China.) set up that they use sewing everyday items. The speed on the thing is quite insane.  We stopped for supper at a small restaurant on the way home. Delicious assorted sandwiches and wrap sort of food. But with slices of beef and fried eggs and pink ketchup.   

 

 Saturday, November 13, 2020 

We cleaned church this morning. Meaning we raked the fallen leaves and mangos and grapes and dumped the into their respective holes to be burned or composted. The church floor was swept and the chairs were wiped off and it was ready for church the next day!  

Saturday afternoons are Bible Study with Juan afternoons. He lives with his daughter I’d say 15 minutes from us and he’s over 90 and consequently it’s a bit hard for him to make it to church. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know his Bible or anything. He was a preacher in another church for 40 years and he regrets the false preaching he did during that time. 

Rachelle and the girls stayed home from Bible Study to get ready to have company tonight. Julian’s and 3 of their children came to sing with us and have supper with us. We sang a bunch of Christmas songs including Silent Night in three different languages, Spanish, Guarani and English.   

 

Sunday, November 13, 2020 

I taught the children’s Sunday School by myself this morning. It’s not very hard as there’s 3 eager helpers to translate for the 2 others who regularly come. The adults can get quite long winded with their Sunday School so we usually have a lot of time to color the picture in our book and too sing. Church starts at 0830 so we’re usually home before 1100.  

After dinner we took a drive thru the Durango colony to stare and comment on the different lifestyle. It might look simple and quiet but I don’t think it is actually that way. Due to it being Sunday afternoon, some of them had found some beer and we came upon one guy dancing in the middle of the road while his friends all crowded around someone else in a buggy most likely gazing in awe at a (forbidden) phone. A little while later a buggy was parked sideways across the road and the driver who seemed to have been fighting with his friend in the front seat made sure the horse knew it was its fault that this guy was drunk and mad and they weren’t going where they thought they were going. I don’t think that life is very peaceful.  

 

 Monday, December 14, 2020

It’s already Friday and I haven’t written any details since Sunday. Looks like you’ll be getting the bare minimum,  not many of the small details that make things interesting.  Today was a transit day. Rachelle had made muffins to take along so we all piled into the van before breakfast and started out on our journey. We stopped in Coronel Oviedo to spend some time in a fabric store where you pay by the pound and also for lunch at McDonald’s. Our final destination was Karlins in Camp 9 and once we reached, the men went visiting with some of the kids and us ladies had some delish iced coffees and set out to do more fabric shopping. (Yes the fabric and everything else that needed to did fit into the suitcases.) For supper we ate at a churrasqueria (Brazilian barbeque) where they 

 I’m beginning to think I wasn’t very smart when I first started sending letters/diaries/whatever you call them by the week. Except that I didn’t even send one last week so I must just be lazy. But I did write about last week so that does still count. It must just be me kicking against the pricks. This is something I’m making myself do so I don’t want to do it so I leave it til the last minute. It’s Friday night already and I’m hoping to listen to my cousins’ Christmas program in a few minutes if I don’t fall asleep but I still have about 4.5 days to write about. Sigh. Maybe I’ll wait til tomorrow.  

Anyways. Back to out supper on Monday. Those of you from my area back home, Carnaval in Winnipeg is a fancy Brazilian BBQ. I’m sure there are more restaurants like that around home, those just aren’t my North American style. I think I’ll definitely make it my South American style tho. They waiters bring around long sticks of different cuts of meats and cut it off and serve you right at your table. Some places also serve you grilled pineapple. This time we were also served sweetened condensed milk to pour over our pineapple (oh and here you also eat the core) which is, I think, a Paraguayan or South American special. I maybe made the last comment up. 

I can’t think of many more boring details about the evening other then the fact that we went home (to Karlin’s) and went to bed.  Actually, idk if I’ve mentioned it before so you may be tired of hearing this already but these people eat their supper late. As in we went for supper at 1930 ish and were the first or maybe the second group there. 2030 is probably an average time.   

 

Tuesday, December one day more than yesterday because I’m too lazy to look back at what ‘yesterday’ was, 2020 

We decided to do things a little different today. Instead of spending lots of money on things, we decided to spend a bit on memories. So we drove the 2ish hours into Brazil to check out the Iguazu Falls. (Fun fact: the Spanish word for waterfalls is ‘Cataratas.’ Kind of a fun word to say.) Ciudad del Este (in Paraguay) and Foz do Iguaçu (in Brazil) are twin cities in separate countries but have an agreement between them so you don’t have to stamp in and out of either country to cross the border into the other city. So that’s what we did as those of us who aren’t citizens of Paraguay (Dad, Mom and me) would have had to have Covid tests to return to Paraguay. Whew.  

 The falls themselves were an absolutely awesome crashing wonder. I’m not a writer who explains things in great deal and I won’t be able do justice by explaining so maybe you should look them up and see what you can come up with. These falls that are bigger and grander than Niagara are made up of one main set called The Devil’s Throat and 250 or so more smaller falls. The Devil’s Throat itself is over 250 feet high and has hollowed out a hole at the bottom another 150 or more feet. They say the falls are more magnificent to view from the Argentina side (which unfortunately we couldn’t get to due to Covid) and you can get closer to The Devil’s Throat. We were able to walk out over the water close enough to the falls that we definitely got wet. And later some of us rid ourselves of any possessions that were not want to be wet and climbed into a boat for some sort of exciting ride under some of the smaller falls! The captain of our boat maneuvered us right under the falls, dousing us all and our tapabocas a few times. Most of us actually had our tapabocas off by then and were screaming and hollering and trying to keep from getting too much water in our faces. We all lived thru it tho and my contacts even stayed in amazingly enough.  We ate food and talked to some Holdemans we met there and walked around and rode the double decker buses and eventually made our way back to Karlins’ for supper and singing and sleep.  

 

Wednesday, December 16, 2020 

Another transit day. This time we slept in and when we eventually got going we drove by the church and the members’’ places and stopped for ice cream at Lactolanda where they have delicious Dulce de Leche soft ice cream. And then we went on to Asuncion which was about 3 hours drive. Did a bit of shopping and ate supper and then went to find our sleeping arrangements for the night which were in Los Alpes hotel. 

 Supper deserves a paragraph to itself tonight. It always does actually but usually I’m too lazy. We went to a bit of a food court for supper except that it’s outdoors and the restaurants are in shipping containers. There are maybe 15-20 different places but the one we were going for was a small one up the stairs, around the corner and tucked neatly in the back. It’s a waffle and crepe place owned and run by an American friend of Eric’s named Brett. The food was very delicious, I must say, but my favourite part of the evening was when I got to go behind the counter and was instructed by the Crepe Master on How To Successfully Make A Crepe. In the midst of the crepe making process a customer came to the window and so I was hurried to the back for a tapaboca* so I could keep on working. In the end the crepe I made was used for a customer so it must not have been too bad.   

 

Thursday, December 17, 2020 

Eric took Dad and Mom across the city for their Covid tests this morning while the rest of us got to sleep. After breakfast we went to finish up a bit of shopping in the tourist stores and drove down by the Rio Paraguay. Later in the afternoon we adults tried to turn on our brains and play one of the escape room games my mom brought with. Most of you know that I absolutely adore escape rooms so it wasn’t hard for me to spend a couple of hours on this. Some people got bored after awhile or had other stuff to do so Rachelle and I ended up finishing it by ourselves. Unfortunately we forgot to use one of our codes and consequently had to use hints but eventually we ‘got out’ of the ‘room’ and went back and figured out what we did wrong and got ourselves excited for the next game. 

 

  Friday, December 18, 2020 

After a whirlwind week, Dad and Mom again boarded a plane and left us in the wee hours of this morning. Their first layover was in Panama City and they got to leave the city and take a tour and see the Panama Canal. We had to pack up our bags and leave for home. Actually we did a little shopping and ate lunch before we left. I made it to 3 of the malls in Asuncion in the last week and they all are more high end then anything you’ve seen in Winnipeg. Think more West Ed style except newer, with lofty, spacious walkways and brand name stores.  We got home mid afternoon and found out it was quite very hot and humid but soon after we sat down under the mango tree to drink terere the wind picked up and it started to rain.    

 

Today, Saturday, December 19, 2020 

Cleaning day. It may or may not rain again this afternoon. We may or may not go to Juan’s for another interesting lively Bible Study.  Like I said earlier, I’m not much of an explainer. I have yet to figure out how to paint a picture with words but maybe I’ll have to try that next week.   

 

*Ñanduti is the amazing, colorful crocheting or something they do here. The image below is pretty much like we find here in small to quite large sizes.  And *tapabocas are masks.  

 

Cuatro

 ¿Que tal?   

 Sunday, November 29, 2020 

What a day! Yesterday we brought Stuart’s back to Campo Nueve and had convert meeting in the evening. Stuart and Cindy and I spent the night in the guest house at Karlins and they took us with them to church in the morning. I was impressed that at least one of the missionary vehicles here was manual.  Church started at 9.The youth sang 2 songs and then we proceeded with the service. It was being translated for me until Tiago decided that his mom didn’t need to hear any more for awhile so I tried to follow along with the Bible verses and pick out the few words I knew. When it came time for the baptism there wasn’t enough room up front so Jacob, Walter, Arlin and Dennis went up 2 by 2. We closed with a rambunctious ‘When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder’ if I remember correctly. By the end of the service, a lot of people were sniffling, most likely remembering their own baptisms or simply out of happiness for these boys, some of whom have overcome more difficult trials than the others.  

While the women prepared food and while we were waiting for an hour close to lunch time, we gathered in a few circles to drink terere. There was a bunch of youth there today. Youth being interpreted as age 12ish and up. There are 3 girls who are members, Leidi, Evelyn, and Katrina, and Peter, Dennis, Walter, and Arlin are the guys. (Listed for reference sake. I’m hoping I’ll get to talk about them again sometime.) Peter and Dennis and Katrina’s family lived in Whitemouth for awhile so they all know English very well and are happy to translate for me. Leidi and Arlin are siblings and 2 of their older brothers were also there with us, as well as their younger brother who’s name I forget but I think is he’s often called Chiquito which would mean small or tiny. We moved our chairs around a lot, trying to find the best shade and they all had a grand old time teasing each other while I tried to catch on to everything. Same as with every youth group, this one has at least one clown, at least one singer, at least one avid ball player. Speaking of ball. Eventually we ate lunch and after sitting around for awhile longer, we played ball. We may have tried very hard to find shade while drinking terere, but while playing volleyball we were in full sun. And it was hot. Apparently the lovely manual truck said it was around 40°C but nothing can hinder playing ball. These kids just started playing ball in the last few months, but you wouldn’t know it by watching them. And the ball looks and feels more like a basketball then the ones we soft Americans are used to.  Well all good things come to an end. I had a lot of fun even if I was very far out of my comfort zone, and probably the laughingstock of a lot of them. The ones who spoke English were really good with talking to me and explaining what was happening, and Leidi was really good with talking slowly to me, in words I understood. But when Eric’s left around 2, my mind was too full to take in another 2 or 3 hours of it so I went back to Karlins with them, where we just chilled the rest of the day. I listened to some of Jaden and Joelle’s wedding in Lonetree.  

 

Monday, November 30, 2020 

The plan for this morning was to meet at a cool bakery for breakfast. It did happen. The reason I said was is because I’m writing this many days later that ‘today.’ The reason I say cool is that this bakery IIS part of a flour mill and is big and has lots of windows so you can see the workers doing their baking and also it has the most delicious Dulce de Leche donuts and Maracuyá (passion fruit) juice. We chilled at Karlin’s the rest of the morning, helping Cindy make Mexican food for our lunch. After eating the deliciousness, we took departed, leaving Stuarts with Karlins. We made a few stops before leaving Campo Nueve including a fabric store and the ice cream department of Lactolanda. Lactolanda is the dairy (processing?) place where most of our dairy products are from and I must say they have the most delicious Dulce de Leche soft ice cream I’ve ever had. As you can tell I am quite much of a Dulce de Leche fan. We took the scenic, back route home and after that I don’t remember what we did. We were most likely tired from a lively weekend, and probably stopped for asaditos for supper and went to bed.    

 

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

 Nothing very much of general interest happened today. Rachelle and I decided it was time to sew since she had a few dresses that needed sewing and I just bought a bunch of fabric. So she did some in the morning and I joined her in the afternoon.   

 

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 

More school, more sewing. Bible study with Felicita in the afternoon. I can understand a lot more than I could at last week’s Bible study. I’m in the midst of catching on to the conjugations of verbs right now, if I’d apply myself a wee bit harder I think it would be no problem.  Dad and Mom officially booked tickets to come see me! They’ve always wanted to come see Eric’s in Paraguay and were kinda counting on it when Covid hit. Now that I’m here, it warrants quarantining back home for 2 weeks afterwards. It helps that Nik is quite enthused about running skid steer if it would snow. Anyways, they arrive here early next Thursday!   

 

Thursday, December 3, 2020   

I woke to the sound of a vicious fight taking place above me. Rain thundered down on my tin roof in attempt to wake all who slumbered and to out do its rivalries, Thunder and Lightening. Thunder did its best to drown out all other thoughts and make sure Lightening didn't steal the spotlight like so often it does. I must say, Lightening didn't try very hard in this fight, or maybe that's because I was hard pressed to open my eyes and even more so to go outside. The three failed miserably, if the main motive of their fight was to keep me awake. I am rather fond of rain and I just pulled my blanket tighter against the cold and went back to sleep.  The storm raged on. It barraged us on and off all morning. It turned the power off, let it come back on again and then, just in time for school, decided to withdraw it from us again. We started our school day using headlamps and a few candles. 

Santiago and Priscilla were on our list for the afternoon. They’re friends (early 30’s ish I’d say) who live about an hour from us in a nice new house. The house is very modern with white paint on the walls and a few round windows. They make their living selling produce from their market garden. Santiago seems to be someone who is very capable of making things work. He has found a way to grow lettuce during summer when everyone else says you can’t grow lettuce in summer here.  

I believe this is a bit of a typical Paraguay story, but I’ll still make a big deal out of it so you can get the feeling. We arrived mid afternoon and were greeted warmly. We sat and chatted for awhile and then they asked if we’d like to stay for supper, they’d toast us some rabbit. Well of course! So the men go start the grill and the rabbits get pulled out of the freezer to thaw and we keep on talking. Another lady and her kids stop in for awhile and talks about a sort of orphanage her and her husband run. Tiago seems to think this is a good time to show off how he can walk. He can take a few steps at home but usually it’s too much work when you have enough big people to carry you around. My attention wanes from the convesations after awhile and I chastise myself because I didn’t think we had been there long. Eventually I check the time and it’s after 6. The other lady leaves, the grill is started but the rabbits need to fully before they can be cooked. The grill is an amazing thing. It’s a big brick thing in the corner of the porch with a tray for the fire that can be moved up or down with a sort of a pulley situation. Later on, the rabbits will be skewered and the skewers will rotate them over the fire while they cook. It is now at least 7 and the rabbits still aren’t ready to be cooked. We move outside from our seats inside and I try to ease my bit of boredom by doing Highlights picture finds with Ellie and Aubrey. Santiago’s don’t have children yet so the girls are also a bit bored. Around 8 the rabbits are finally ready to be skewered so Santiago and Eric rub them in a sort of seasoning salt and get them started. Although I’ve dreamed of it, I’ve never done rotisserie meat and I was a bit surprised at how fast these were rotating. At the rate those things were speeding around and with the height of the fire, I thought those things would never get done. It did take awhile. Meanwhile Priscilla made mandioca for supper. She made rice, and then started on chipawasu, a sort of cornbread. We sat outside and watched bugs or helped and generally tried to keep ourselves happy while we waited for supper. We were all hungry but no one was in any hurry. Around 10, the meat was finally ready, so we gathered around the table some on the floor, some a few feet away from the table as the table is a round table, about 3ft in diameter. Sin problema. After prayer, Santiago cuts up the meat and piles it onto our plates. We grownups each get a bit of each part. The main part or backbone or I’m not even sure what it is, a rack of tiny ribs, and ease try the part that stretches from the legs to the stomach and enabled the poor creature to jump properly. That part was very thin and crispy and tasty. The skin also was quite delicious. Well, by the time we’re done eating its around 11. Rachelle helps with dishes and I play ‘Captain May I’ with the girls to try to keep them occupied and slightly quieted than they had been. By now we are all overtired and some of us are going a bit crazy from trying but not being able to understand the conversation, or from having been there for 6 or 8 hours without other playmates. And I was doing what I never thought I’d do. My thoughts were on the next days school work and I was hoping we could have some school but I knew that we had an hour drive to home and this was not going to be conducive to a good morning of school.  Once we were in the vehicle, it was decided that we’d spend night in a nearby motel. The decision was met by some groans and some cheers of excitement. I was one who was rather fond of the idea as it took care of my school dilemma for tomorrow. The hotel had 2 rooms available for us but they weren’t very close together. Christina and I had the room on the second floor together so we got to make our own rules and we did a little bit of exploring before going to bed. The place was amazing. The pool had a fountain in it and was sparkling clean. There were trees and plants everywhere, creating a very peaceful atmosphere. 

 

 Friday, December 4, 2020 

Christina and I were up a bit earlier than the other room so we picked up our meager belongings (we hadn’t realized we were going to spend the night so we didn’t have much along with us) and went outside to explore in the daylight. They had a bit of a garden to walk in in the back yard so we strolled down there. We were standing by one of the fishponds when a man came up and started feeding the fish. Soon he gave the food to us and let us finish feeding them. The pond was full of little minnows (I think,) some tilapia, and we even saw a bunch of catfish trying to get all the food. After breakfast (lots of options and apparently other hotels have even bigger selections) we got some bread crusts from the kitchen staff and went to see the bigger fishponds. The water was quite muddy in these ones so it was a bit hard to see but apparently the fish were quite a bit larger than the ones in the first pond. They said they fish and eat from these ponds.  We eventually made our way towards home and after lunch, those of us who needed to trekked out to the school room to try to get something done. We started by practicing most of our  Christmas program, and got most of our scheduled Friday work done in under 2 hours.  

 

And that brings me to today.  

Saturday, December 5, 2020 

We all slept in and eventually had breakfast lazily started our day. Due to rain and a bit of sickness, we didn’t clean church yard this morning and Bible Study with Juan is cancelled for this afternoon. I’m feeling kind of ashamed to say that I sewed 2 dresses for myself this week but it has been raining quite much so we haven’t been going away very much. 

 I’m going to quick do spell check and maybe ask Rachelle about some things that I tried writing about that I don’t know enough about. And then I’ll send this off and you can get on with your day and don’t have to keep anxiously waiting for this diary.  Ciao ciao,  Adorae  

Tres

It’s me again
I am not fond of reading over my work and finding my mistakes and words that are too sarcastic and stuff like that. I am even less fond of other people reading and catching my mistakes and, horror of horrors, maybe even catch on to how I was feeling when I wrote what I did. You’d think that, given what I just said, I’d be very careful what and how I wrote. I’m not.  
I fear I have been too sarcastic and even disrespectful of people in my other letters, so I tried to do better in this one.  
 
Sunday, November 22, 2020, 1705 hours, 33°C
I sent my last letter off not 24 hours ago and here I am starting another one.
And now we’re 2 days into the week and I’ve written almost nothing. This is not off to a good start.  
Well, on with my day.  
There have been some tom cats roaming our yard lately so Rachelle and I decided tonight that it was time they started learning a bit of a lesson. We have a cat. We don’t need more. So we loaded our water guns and lay in wait for these 2 cats, who both got a bit scared and wet.  
After our crazy evening of chasing cats we still had to get up on time as church starts at 0830. Some of us were dropped off at church to make room in the van for a load from just down the road. We opened windows, took the Sunday School benches out to the shade and then waited under the mango tree for awhile. Eventually church was going to start so we all find seats on the numerous plastic lawn chairs and start singing. Soon Rachelle and the children go out to the shade for Sunday School and I follow to watch the proceedings and figure things out a bit as maybe soon I’ll be the one doing the teaching out there. Not sure just how much I’ll be able to teach..  
Well it’s 2130 and I just typed ‘sleep’ instead of ‘teach.’ I think I should take that as a sign, don’t you?  
Back to church. Well, I dunno if teaching Sunday school will be super hard after all. There aren’t many other kids who come and I live with 3 girls who would be eager to translate.  
I just can’t do this. The hour is verging on Wednesday and I have just a few lines typed. And I’m not going to be any less busy later on in the week
OK, so church. After Sunday School, the rest of the service isn’t very long. Eric (who is the only male representative besides Tiago and 3 year old Christian) has a short sermon that Rachelle translates for me. Thru out the whole service, everything is laid back, people talking, running around, threatening to take the kids to their moms if they don’t behave. And if someone wants to sing in Guarani, they make themselves known and that’s not a big deal. We also sit on plastic lawn chairs, and most of us are wearing some sort of sandals. And short sleeves. Just to give you a little bit of a picture.  
After the service, we adjoin to the back yard and talk about when the grapes will be ready and who wants mangos to take home. A few people open some fallen mangos and start eating them, leaning forwards to let the juice drop to the ground so their clothes don’t get dirty. Then we all pile into the van as all except one of the 13 of us were only from 2 different places. And she needed a ride too. The drive is short tho, and the van is big (I think it could seat 11 or 12 if the back seats were in, which they weren’t but who needs seats?)  
If it were still Sunday, I could describe everything a lot better for you. But seeing as it’s Almost Wednesday already, I should probably go to sleep and put this off longer or else tell about the rest of the day.  
It was a full day. So very worth it. We went out for dinner to the same place we stopped for lunch on the day I came. It’s a cool place were you can get empanadas or you can go thru a bit of a buffet except they dish it up for you and you would have to pay for seconds. You pay by the pound, and they scan it all onto a little piece of wood which you take to the front to pay when you are ready. It’s also a bit of a grocery/toy/tourist shop so we had a bit of fun spending money.  
Then we were off on a drive. Our turning around destination was the Paraguay River. We drove for awhile with everybody pointing out places for me. ‘This is where we do this. This is where that comes from.’ Unfortunately, I can’t keep it all straight, and so much water has passed under the bridge that I don’t remember what I should remember. We reached the river eventually,  the weather was hot but this was not a place for swimming. No beaches, the water was very low, trash littered the edges, the water was very dirty, and I think there are piranhas in it.  
Listened to a little bit of Steinbach church service but got cut off. I still find it a little funny that it’s well after lunch here when church starts in Manitoba..  
After our drive, we stopped at home for an hour or 2 and then left to go sing at Julian’s. They’re a fun loving family that Eric’s have got to know. They have a bunch of youth age kids so I’m looking forward to getting to know them too! We walked around their fields a bit and then sat in plastic lawn chairs (the standard here) and sang the evening away. I wish I could describe the evening to you. The air was warm but not to warm, and filled with laughter and teasing. The sky was dark, but clear. The singing was hauntingly beautiful.  
 
Monday, November 23, 2020, 1233 hours, 35.5°C.
Something amazing happened today. We actually sung one song in which we did not go up in pitch!  
After school and lunch today, we set off for an afternoon of shopping and visiting. We stopped at numerous places for food and clothes and gifts. I didn’t keep track of the time, but there was often quite a drive between each place. Our final destination was a little fabric/everything shop on the Manitoba Mennonite Colony. Rachelle’s friend who owns this shop, recently got married, and a wedding gift was the excuse for our visit. The shop itself didn’t hold much interest for us, but we spent a long time chatting. Or, shall I say, they spent a long time talking. I tried to listen to their conversation but I got lost quite a bit. I think most Paraguayan Mennonite women don’t know Spanish but she knew enough to converse with Rachelle and tell us all about her wedding dress. I’m so excited because it has sunray pleats on the back skirt (apparently all wedding dresses have to) and for the last year or so I have been trying to figure out how to make sunray pleats! The trick is to use hot sand to press your pleats. Who knew!  
I don’t know what to tell you about these Mennonites as a whole. They’re as cheap as any other Mennonite. They made their own rode beside a toll road so they don’t have to pay the toll. Any wonder why the Paraguayans don’t like them?  
We stopped for some very delish ice cream on the way home, and tried to sing thru the songs in the folder that’s in the van.  
 
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
I do forget what happened today. We had school. And then I think we had most of the afternoon off, maybe I sewed some, and then we went to Perla’s to sing, only it turned out that she was at her parents’ place, we just hadn’t got the message. So we went there instead. Her parents live right along the highway and she lives just down a side street a few hundred feet but her hair salon is beside her parents house. So we went into her little, bright pink hair salon and pulled up chairs and started singing. She served us some fresh orange juice, which was meant for our supper. Now, I haven’t learned to live like Paraguayans who call a glass of juice supper, and Eric’s aren’t like that either. So we stopped for asaditos on the way home, and sat outside on the lawn and ate our late night supper. We didn’t sit on the lawn itself, but in the ever present plastic lawn chairs. Also, it was maybe 2030, so not really ‘late night.’  
 
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Once again, I should be sleeping. But I find that I write my best at night. I tried writing some earlier today when I had a bit of time but it just did not sound right. But, again, I will most likely be too lazy to go and rewrite it all.  
Today was a bit more relaxing then the last few days. For me anyways. Except that it was quite warm. The highest I saw it at today was 39.6. The thermometer said 41.something was the high but that might have been from another day. The girls went to the little store next door for ice cream during recess which was very welcome after our rather rapid paced game of 10 Steps.  
After lunch, I made some of my stuff for supper as today I was going to make supper. I had been enthused about crepes one day and I think Rachelle may have rolled her eyes a bit but probably was glad for at least one evening that she wouldn’t have to make supper so she said I could make them for tonight. (I have no clue if she actually did those things, I just had to make this paragraph interesting somehow.) So anyhow. I made Boston cream crepes for supper and added peaches to trick myself into thinking it was a healthy supper. It took me almost an hour to fry up about 15 crepes on the little burner/electric element (idk what to call it) outside, hence the potential eye rolling.  
In between lunch and supper, I washed the floor of my ‘house’ as I hadn’t done it on the weekend and the field secretary is coming here tomorrow. Rachelle and Ellie and I went to pick up Felicita for the weekly Bible Study with her, and Rachelle got Felicita’s daughter, Gloria, to look at Ellie’s toe as she thought there was a pique* in it. Turns out there wasn’t, but Ellie’s toe was given some remedio and sent on its way. We had Bible Study in the shade of the mango tree and I tried my hand at reading Spanish out loud. We sung some songs, asked Felicita questions that seem to come up when a person is with her and then we took her home again. I didn’t get much out of Bible Study, even though it was translated. I guess I’ll have to try harder next time.  
And that’s about the size of it.  
 
Thursday, November 26, 2020
I think I cracked my phone screen a bit more today. Or maybe that was yesterday I threw it on the floor, I can’t remember. But anyways, I tried doing something on my phone today and I had to tap at exactly the right spot and it didn’t work so I chalked it up to some major cracking. Luckily it wasn’t a life threatening thing I needed to do.  
Maybe I’m making the girls work too hard, but I have it figured out that we will probably be done school around December 11. That made taking today and tomorrow and a day or 2 next week off of school even easier to the people who make decisions here. I’m kind of excited about a short week of school and also excited that it means we can do some more traveling and even being with new people.  
By 0900 we were on the road to meet Karlins and Stuart and Cindy (field secretary from Roblin) in a city of which I cannot seem to remember the name. We did some shopping first in an everything store that reminded me of Shoprite in Malawi, and then we walked thru the market. The market was only half up and running, due maybe in part to Covid and probably mostly to the fact that it was raining and had been for a lot of the morning. We made sure to drive past The Fabric Store but sadly didn’t go in, due t to the fact that we didn’t have enough time (think a few hours) and they were closing for their lunch. We met the rest at a bit of a food court for lunch. I’m not sure if there were more stores or if the building just consisted of few food counters and a bank and bathrooms. Whatever it was, they had some delicious pasta. It’s sort of like Subway, where you tell the people what you want in your pasta and they make it for you while you stand there. I had gnocchi with pesto and a cream sauce mixed. It was quite very divine! If you ever want some good pasta and you happen to be in Paraguay, go there. Just don’t ask me for directions.  
We were home for a few minutes in the late afternoon and then headed off to visit Felicita before supper. She told about her church life over the years and what happened in what church. I wish I could understand her instead of having to listen thru a translator. Not that my translators are bad. They do absent-mindedly stick some of the Spanish back into the English they are speaking but either I understand those particular words already or can grasp the meaning based off the rest of the sentence.  
We picked up asaditos* from Pedro down by the Cruze* for supper. Pedro would be Julian’s see Sunday👆) kids’ cousin and he sells the most delicious ones. They always come with mandioca, I think it would be better known in English speaking countries as cassava, which sadly I am not too fond of. I’m just recalling now that I may have written about that earlier. We have a lime tree on our yard tho, and I squeeze that over the mandioca to make it better for me, and also over asaditos as that takes them up higher a couple of notches. I also made a batch of cosido so I would have something to drink while everyone else was drinking coffee. Cosido made by burning sugar and yerba and adding water and milk and is absolutely a wonderful drink.  
Stuart’s brought Nerds with them. I am quite fond of them.  
Friday, November 27, 2020
Its quite the feeling to swing from one side of the living room to the other side in a hammock, eating McDonald’s fries and drinking cosido. To have the McDonald’s just 2 steps from the hammock and the young girls who serves you gets you to hold her baby and makes anything that you ask for. Except chicken nuggets.  
Turns out McDonald’s coincidentally will not have McNuggets when I go there tomorrow.  
Can’t believe I was so lazy today. Having the field secretary at your place is a very good excuse to not have school and to sleep in and in general not make the teacher do very much. Actually I made my favorite Monster Cookie Bars in the morning. After lunch we went on a drive thru the Durango Colony and saw all the women in their sun ray pleated dresses. (I know I’m stuck on those, but this colony actually has a machine to make them. I might have to move there yet.) And all the women wore a hat over their head coverings yet. With a long black ribbon dangling by their cheek. The men weren’t so outstanding to me, I think overalls are cute. But only on little people. As in children. These Mennos are steel tractor wheels and horse and buggy people, so that was interesting to see.  
We had church in the evening. It’s actually quite intimidating when everybody around you, even those who have only been in Paraguay a few days, can speak Spanish circles around you.  
Saturday, November 28, 2020
By 1130 we were all packed up in the van and on our way to Campo Nueve (Camp 9.) Stopped at McDonald’s for lunch (even the back pocket of their jeans has the famous ‘M’ embroidered on it) and a lot of us were disappointed when we found out the fabric store was closed today.  
Arrived at Karlins here in Campo Nueve and I gave myself a small tour and we ate a delicious supper of grilled chicken and mango rice and watermelon and soon we were off to church. Tonight was convert meeting. The church was packed. This congregation is a bit different than ours at Barrio San Pedro. They have a few families in the church here and 2 young boys from 2 of these families told their experiences. There was another older youth boy who told his, and then there was Jakey. Now I don’t know the whole story. I didn’t even understand his conversion experience as it was told in Plautdeitch and translated to Spanish so every single other person in the room could understand. No I’m not feeling left out, I’m just wishing I could be able to speak Spanish without any study and without having to learn it and be able to speak it now! But this Jake or Jacob I think, has left his church and been coming to our church for awhile. He’d had struggles and victories and now tomorrow he’ll be baptised into our church. He has a wife and children who don’t come to church but say they’re home is a better home since Christ became his saviour. But for the last few days, people from the plain churches have been at his house, asking him difficult questions and in general trying to make it difficult to join our church. Tonight, his brothers-in-law from other plain groups were there, trying to give him a hard time about things that don’t even matter. I wish I could have understood that, but just being in that crowded room, trying to understand the proceedings going on, watching the youngest brother-in-law feel so proud in his place and very smart yet not getting anywhere, I almost did understand.  
There are 3 youth girls here and a bunch of guys, and after church we all walked to the house next door and sat and drank terere. One family lived in Whitemouth for quite a few years and consequently those kids know English very well and thankfully they aren’t very scared to talk. A few of the others would know English in various stages, but would tell you they don’t. But when they found out how little Spanish I could speak, they gladly talked English to me. Which is probably not good for me. Sounds like there’s a good chance of a volley ball game after church and the potluck lunch tomorrow, and maybe even more in the next few days which I am very interested in.  
I laughed at one of my friends for not wanting to share a bathroom with a lizard the other day. I got to shower with a frog tonight and was decidedly unimpressed and duly repented of laughing about the lizard. Except I having told my friend yet. But that frog climbed right up the wall, and when I disappeared for about 2 minutes, it decided to disappear as well, so I really have no clue as to where he is now. Very comforting. I imagine he’ll come find me in bed next.  
 
Just a few random tidbits about this life yet before I close off for the week. Last week I think I greeted you from the land of tall speed bumps. These Speed Bumps are a dime a dozen around here, and a lot of vehicles go over them at an angle so they don’t scrape as they go over. Well, by our place they do, not so much on the highway. We have 2 just outside our gate, and apparently a car once landed up on the grass just beside the gate due to much speed over those mountains. The noisy trucks that come by our place bearing cows or carbone (charcoal) or loads of numerous different things often don’t seem to slow down much for the Speed Bumps either, and clang and rattle and make awful noises as they race over them.  
I was going to put this in one of my earlier letters but apparently it slipped my mind. Must not have been such a cray sight after all. There’s a Covid testing station set up right on the airport yard. I saw it the day I arrived and had to look twice. It was a normal building, but sticking out of the building, at head height (maybe 2 meters/6 feet apart) were long gloves. No one was there right then so I couldn’t see just how exactly it worked, but I’m just curious how the get the testing stick into those gloves when they are inside the building and the patient and what they are working with is inside. I’m sure there’s an easy explanation and I could just ask Eric or someone but I’d rather just be in the dark about it.  
Another interesting thing here and that I wish would become popular in Steinbach is the fact that you can WhatsApp anyone. Want to order pizza? Use WhatsApp. Want to find out something about the company you bought your vehicle from (or why would a person ever call the number that you can usually find on the Fairway Ford or North End Motors or whatever sticker?) Use the WhatsApp number provided on that sticker. A lot of businesses here would have a number with the WhatsApp sign beside it, meaning you can just WhatsApp them and not call them or email them or use some sort of impressive communication like that. I’d definitely prefer WhatsApp.  
That’s a lot of WhatsApps in one sentence. Thanks goodness for autocorrect.
*Oh right I have some explaining to do yet. I’m not gunna get much sleep tonight. I have to clue how to spell these words and I told Rachelle I would blame my ignorance on her if she didn’t answer my questions and so far it looks like she’s choosing to make our relationship even more difficult and making me look stupid. Piques are tiny as in almost microscopic little bugs that like to come live in your feet. They lay eggs and apparently are very itchy and can hurt a lot to take out unless you have a Paraguayan do it for you. To the best of my knowledge, a cruse is like an intersection of bigger highways slash streets. And asaditos are delish kabobs that might also be a dime a dozen around here.
And now finally you have reached the end.
Til next time,
Addie
BTW I can’t remember if Perla’s hair salon is bright pink or orange or it’s the building beside it that I’m thinking of.  

Dos

Hola from the land of tall speed bumps,  
 
Sunday, November 15, 2020
I went to bed last night just after a major wind picked up and started crashing things around and I woke up this morning to rain pounding on my tin roof. So instead of getting up, I turned off my alarm and slept in as I knew church would be cancelled.
Since there wasn’t church this morning, we all gathered in the living room and sang a bunch of Spanish songs and then English songs. Rachelle and I duetted a few songs and were quite happy with the results. Well we were happy with the songs and decided we’d have to sing them again when we have more people. After dinner, we all huddled in the living room with blankets and sweaters as it was cold (28° C!) and rainy and we listened to Halstead’s church service. Later the girls got out a bracelet beading set and we set to work trying to painstakingly thread beads in patterns.
I was on the porch with Tiago and Aubrey before supper and the neighbor lady came to the fence and started talking to us. Thankfully Aubrey is fluent enough in Spanish that she could tell me what the lady was saying and soon Rachelle came out and I tried to pick words out of the flow that ensued between them. I followed some of the conversation and Rachelle helped me with the rest. It’s almost scary to think that soon I’ll he out there and will have to say more than just ‘si’ and not necessarily have everything translated for me. I brought in one of my Spanish dictionaries this evening and Eric was roped into giving me a bit of a lesson on conjugating verbs and educating me on the differences between what I’ve learned with Duolingo/other Spanish learning devices and how the Paraguayans actually speak. Apparently it’s old Spanish, it hasn’t evolved like in Spain or Mexico. Paraguayans would also throw some Guarani in with their Spanish. Guarani is the unwritten language of Paraguay. The little I’ve heard sounds like it is a bit of a guttural language, along the same line as Navajo.
Which brings me to an entirely new topic. In World War 2, a special code was developed using the unwritten Navajo language as it is an extremely hard language to learn and speak as a lot of the sounds are made in your throat. Twenty-nine Navajo men, called Navajo Code Talkers, developed a code using the direct Navajo translations of English words that began with the letters of the English alphabet. They also used words from the Navajo language to describe key war words. By the end of the war, 400 men had been educated in the 411 word code. The program was kept a secret from everybody, even these men’s families, to ensure that it would never be broken. It was never broken. A lot of credence of winning the war is due to this code, but these men were not bestowed with this credence till 2000, when only 4 of the original 29 were yet alive.  
The cat fight that was going on outside my window seems to have ended. So now I will have only the sounds of the drums being played on someone’s radio to lull me to sleep.  
 
Monday, November 16, 2020
Today was a total Monday. Our studies took us longer than expected and it was hard to remember stuff we had learned in our lessons earlier this week. I guess I’ll have to step up my teaching game. Aubrey joined us for a game of lemonade at recess time and for a few minutes of story afterwards. Lunch was pushed up to 1230 as we al prefer our chicken cooked instead of raw so we pulled out our spelling and did our lesson instead of working after lunch like I thought we might have to.
The day couldn’t decide what it wanted to be today. It was warm and sunshine in the morning, but at lunch time it was grey and felt like rain. Most of us felt like it had been a bit of a long morning and were tired so everybody got a chance to have a nap. I’m almost ashamed to say that I slept for 1.5 hours. On a Monday afternoon. Oh well. Hopefully I caught up on my sleep. My problem is that I don’t think I have anything to do and then suddenly I think of everything or have inspiration right when I should be going to bed. Like right now.
Ellie stayed home with me while the rest of the family went to Felicita’s after naps. I worked on cutting out a dress for her and then we played a few games of memory. Ellie is a very good sport. My memory is not super amazing but she would often tell me where a matching card to the one I turned over was and consequently I found a lot of sets.
At suppertime, we ate some delicious Paraguayan tortillas out on the front porch. These tortillas are deep fried dough with onions and other stuff inside them and we dipped them in Mayo mixed with Frank’s Red Hot. Definitely something I will try my hand at sometime.
The drums, the music is quieter tonight. Or maybe I’m just used to it by now.
 
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
I will confess this right now as there is no need to go on pretending. I shouldn’t be this way since I was a missionary kid way back in the day. But it still is a bit unnerving to feel a small itch on your leg, a drop of water dripping down your arm, the flapper of your head covering brushing against your neck, only to reach out to scratch it and come back with some sort of bug in your hand. It’s also not a super good idea to decide a few minutes before bed time that tomorrow morning you are Not going to have any more spider bites or whatever they are on your legs and go vigorously spray your room with Off or Raid or whatever brand it is. I imagine I’ll smell like bug spray in the morning. Or at least the fumes will have messed with my head and I’ll be a bit light headed in the morning.  
This morning Eric and Rachelle went with Felicita’s grieving family (refer to Saturday evening/Sunday in my first letter) to the grave of her son Rodolfo. It had been 9 days since he died and in the Catholic faith it is the custom to place a metal cross by the grave on the 9th day. I don’t know much about Catholics but I’m told that they believe a person’s soul is in jeopardy once they have died and for the first 9 days they pray every night for them and then the intervals between when they pray get longer and longer and eventually they have prayed enough and the soul is safe somewhere because they prayed enough for it. I don’t see much comfort in that.  
Anyways, Aubrey got to spend part of the morning in school with us due to the fact that her parents were gone. She was quite enthused about that and had even brought some of her school books along so I gave her a bit of work to do. Being a thoughtful big sister, Christina reminded me to give her stickers for her work and me being an unthoughtful teacher would have forgotten if not for her. So Aubrey received a few stickers for her work and before school was even done for the day she had given one away to a small child at the gate.  
I had actually got a dress cut out last night and was going to sew it this afternoon. But by the time I was getting around to sewing it, the chiropractor Werner had almost arrived. So Rachelle and I sat and drank terere with him and I tried valiantly to follow along in their conversations. Eventually Eric came home and I found him easier to understand than Rachelle. I could usually pick out the main topic of conversation. Of course, when people are standing and looking at and gesturing at a vehicle, it is not hard to figure out what they are talking about. Whatever it is, is over my head as vehicles are not at all my strong point.  
I eventually got most of the dress sewed and after the smaller people were in bed we sat in the living room and tried to figure out why my phone wasn’t able to send sms and other things pertaining to my new Paraguayan sim card. And when that was done, Rachelle and I had a grand old time looking on my favorite dress website that I’ve never actually bought from and alternating between schputting the super wide/hardly there/weird dresses and exclaiming about how cute certain dresses would look on each other.  
And then it was time for bed and instead of going to bed I wrote part of a letter. The part which you just read.  
 
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
I woke up to rain dropping on the tin roof above my sleepy head. My phone said it was 18°C outside and I didn’t want to believe it but then I stepped outside and walked right back inside for some warmer clothes. It rained all morning but then got sunny enough for the family to go to Felicita’s for Bible Study. I stayed home by myself this time and was kinda lazy.  
Mate dulce was the drink of the evening. The girls had been talking about it for awhile and it was perfect for a cool evening like tonight. It’s served like Terere, but instead of yerba and water it’s a drink made from burned sugar with milk and a few other ingredients added, and then poured over coconut and passed around the room by turns.  
I talked to my family for awhile. They updated me on life there and I updated them on life here and Keenan obediently recited the phrases he’s started using since I left and refused to sing Jingle Bell’s for me.  
Tomorrow is my last full day of isolation! As of Friday around 0930 I am officially free except not quite because I am a teacher. But there are already plans being made for Friday afternoon, and Saturday, and Sunday. So I believe this weekend will not be boring!  
We’ll the bug spray didn’t choke me to death last night. . But just a few minutes ago I found a nice shiny blue-ish and red-ish bug on my pillows. Granted they had been on the floor all day….  
 
Thursday, November 19, 2020
16°C this morning! But it didn’t stay that way long. Later I think I saw it at 28°C. But I could be wrong. It’s hard for me to keep track of temperature.  
Today is most likely the last day that you’ll get a log detailed report. Tomorrow I make my big debut into Paraguay! And I’m not planning to have lots of time to write after that. Not like I do now either. I always plan to move mountains after school is done for the day and then maybe sew yet but those mountains don’t seem to move. Maybe I’m not pushing hard enough. But somehow, I land up writing when I should be sleeping. So I’m not sure how that all works.  
After lunch today, I tackled the 4 classroom shelves that hold everything that school at home would need a whole office plus a few bookshelves and small offices for yet. Well okay. The printer is on a different shelf. I gleaned a stack of trash from that and it’s still sitting in a heap on my classroom floor. I guess I’ll be cleaning that up before school in the morning or maybe I should just have the girls make art out of it. Just kidding. We’re gunna paint for art.  
We took our songbooks outside and sang a bunch of new songs while our supper was cooking over the charcoal. Our tenor was doing double duty as waffle cook too, but we gladly sacrificed a few notes of one voice for the sake of those delicious waffles!  
 
Friday, November 20, 2020
The moment we all have been waiting for came around 0945 this morning. The moment came and went without me even taking note of the time, but from that point on I was free. No more do these walls keep me a prisoner, I can walk out of the gate and start exploring Paraguay!  
But I didn’t. Like I said, I didn’t take note of the time, I didn’t feel a change come over me at 0946. We just kept on with school. We played 10 steps for recess and we even convinced Rachelle to come join us! She didn’t take much convincing tho, as she’s a bit of a child at heart like me and likes to have fun and, dare I say, be stupid. Christina and Ellie ran next door for ice cream for all of us, and we sat outside and had about 10 minutes of story yet. It’s not easy to put Charlie and the Chocolate factory down and just leave him alone for a few days. For art, we walked around the yard picking leaves and flowers and fruits and vines and then spent half an hour seeing what sort of shapes and squiggles they’d made when we dipped them in paint and dragged or draped or jabbed them on, over or at canvases.  
Then, this afternoon came The Big Moment. I got into the van (which I hadn’t been in since I stepped out about 14 days ago) and rode off the yard! And found out how much more there is to this world than just the 2 streets and the few houses and the meat shop that fill the view from our yard. Tall, red ant hills just down the street, vehicles parked here and there, buildings and even driveways painted bright, beautiful colors, motos of every size and in various stages of disrepair driving in the ditches and dodging in and out of traffic.  
Felicita is a story all by herself. She’s a faithful old Grandma, wrinkled and grey-haired, who has the most fabulously wonderful stories about listening to her dreams and consequently being able to heal people with different plants. Her family was one of the first people in this town about 50 years ago I do believe and now the cow trail that used to run thru the town has turned into a bustling highway. She lives in a 2 room brick hut, one room of which was built for having Bible Study or church if said services cannot be held at their normal places due to weather or covid or whatever else would come up. Her yard is full of plants and flowers that she uses for ‘remidio.’* Some of her children live in different houses just stones throws away from her. Her son is the one that died while riding his moto the day I got here.  
 
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Slept in this morning! I did a bit of cleaning and put off washing my floor for a few more days as it will have to be done then due to visitors. Later on we all piled into the van for the 3 minute ride to church and then raked the yard and swept the church and Eric dug a hole for all the fallen mangos that no one wants to be dumped into. The church is a smallish wood structure. Ask me more about it tomorrow. The front yard is a mix of grass and dirt (red like all the other dirt here) with different flowers and trees and bushes growing around the edges. The backyard boasts an outhouse, a mango tree, a grape vine covering a structure about 6’ by 6’, and at the back at bunch of banana plants. Sadly we didn’t have the guampa and bombia* to drink terere while the hole was being dug, but we made due with a few cups of water and a songbook.  
We picked up some delicious rotisserie chickens for lunch on the way home. Stuffed with garlic and probably a few other spices or herbs, they were roasted over flames to perfection.  
We left the house again around 4 and picked up Felicita and another lady, Perla, and drove about 20 minutes to brother Juan’s house for Bible study. Don Juan is an older man who would be in the manor at home, yet he was waited for us outside with some chairs set up and his bibles beside him. He loves bibles. Not only does he study them and know where each verse is but he buys different versions and studies each one. Except when the print is too small for him to read. He also is full of stories about his past that he regrets and about the different things he reads in his bibles.   
I was a missionary kid for 5 years. A different lifestyle like that was just normal to me. Then I was in Canada for over 10 years before I came here. And I didn’t realize how much I forgot. Or maybe how much I just didn’t think of due to age. This place just amazes me, it is so vastly different from our privileged lives. Yes they have houses, but it seems like often with just a few rooms. The great outdoors is the best place to spend your life. The roads are just glorified cow trails, yet you know exactly which one leads home. People sit on the side of the road selling their wares and you just make due with what you got. I can’t explain my thoughts without you actually experiencing this for yourself, and also I’m trying to hurry to send this off before a new day starts and I have more to write about.

So, ciao ciao,  
Addie
 
Due to various cat chasing episodes, I didn’t get to write about everything I wanted to write about. And now that I’m out of quarantine, don’t expect such long, detailed epistles from me. You’re welcome.  
 
*Remidio is exactly what it sounds like. They grind up leaves from different plants and drink it in their Terere to cure them of their various diseases. Guampa is the cup and bombia the straw you use to drink Terere.  

Uno

 Hola,
 
 I wish I could tell you everything. I wish you could see this. I’ll try to relay thru this writing what my eyes have seen, but I’ll warn you now, I can’t tell the half.  
Friday, November 6, 2020
I left you on this day in my hotel room in GRU airport, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Well I’m not there anymore. I watched some airplane, bought some food (which was interesting as the people I found weren’t much for English speakers and I was even worse of a Portuguese speaker and much too self conscious to try much of my broken, mispronounced Spanish on them although that is what I am learning it for so I don’t know why) and eventually went to bed. One thing I forgot to mention in my first letter was that I found out that to keep the lights and AC on in my room I had to insert my card in a little slot that was just inside the door. It took me awhile to catch on. Kinda felt like a good old escape room!
 
Saturday, November 6
I managed to wake up on time to be at my gate about 20 minutes before boarding time (0550.) Well let’s put it this way. I got up around 0445, messaged a few key people that yes I was up so they would not have to call me to make sure and then packed up and off I went to see if I could find out which gate I was supposed to leave from. There was one of those cool screens that tell you all the flight informations for the next few hours In the hotel lobby so I checked that but nope, no gate number. So off I went to the gates, planning to walk around til I found it. I started walking past the first gate and noticed a bunch of people sitting there and most people who were walking by turned around when they noticed what the screen above the counter said.. So, being the smart woman I am, I too glanced up and read the word Asunción above the counter. Well, we did not board on time, the pilots and attendants were even late. There was a mad rush to make sure everybody had the QR codes from filling out a form about whether or not you were sick with covid like symptoms (I showed the code twice but it was never scanned) and then everybody was packed tightly into the plane. Maybe first class didn’t feel tight, but those of us sitting in the furthest back row you can get on a 180 passenger plane felt like it was full. We couldn’t even see out any window, so I tried to keep myself entertained by the gentle men on either side of me. The one kept laughing out loud (somewhere between snorting and actual giggling) over the movie or something on his device and the other one couldn’t decide if he should be wearing a face shield over his mask or not and he obviously thought I should be using more hand sanitizer as he offered it to me at least twice during our 2 hour flight.  Eventually after hearing many different announcements all three times (no, I didn’t understand them all as they were given in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English) and sleeping for most of the flight we landed in Paraguay! And then began the process of buying a visa (no, no, we need this exact amount, we don’t make change here, try the atm, oh that doesn’t work, look this lady speaks English, she’ll take you out thru immigration, out into arrivals, almost up to where your family is waiting for you and you can exchange this 20 for 2 10s and then go all the way back to the beginning and this time do it all properly.) At that point I felt like running outside and starting my life over in Paraguay without a visa, without my luggage, who cares. Then on thru customs (which thankfully didn’t take very long) and soon I was outside being greeted by a blazing sun and a group of familiar faces wearing (you guessed it) facemasks! Perdón. I mean tapabocas as I was soon was to find out. And then without further ado we were off toward home. Stopped for snacks and then lunch closer to home as Asunción is about a 3 hour drive from my new home. I tried to take in everything but it seems like everything that I saw on the ride somehow disappeared from my head. The ride did go by quite quickly tho, between staring in wonder out the window and trying to relay all the random information of my flights and everything back home. We stopped at a fruit stand and bought some chipa there too. Chipa is a short of cheese bread made from cassava flour, a bit dry but if it’s hot it’s quite delicious. We in the backseat had just finished up our game of Uno when we pulled into town and onto the driveway.  
Now don’t think a paved driveway that easily fits 4 vehicles, no. First of all the van that we are in is sort of a squished version of North American vans. A bit shorter, maybe a bit skinnier and, it seems to me, a fair bit taller, sort of like handy vans. (I haven’t seen a full sized vehicle here yet.) The van barely fits on the driveway and someone hops out to unlock and open the gate. But inside the gate is just grass! Not a problem, pull on and park somewhere in the shade. All the way across the yard if needed. The yard itself is about the size of a nice town lot back home, (think big side yard of the old Smidt place those of you who are Green Thumbers.) On one side of the yard is the grass and the other side are the buildings. The main house is a 5 room brick house with a peaked, burnt-orange tiled roof. Just outside the kitchen door, on a tiled pad is the quincho where most of our meals are eaten. The quincho (keen’ cho) is a round, open aired hut with a grass roof and a ceiling fan. Take a few steps on the other side of the it and you come to the long building in which my room and the school room and a few other rooms are. The bike shed and the laundry room each have doors to the outside, but the school room and my room and the spare room are all connected with a bathroom yet too. I am going to try to remember to attach a drawing of the yard to my email along with this letter. The rest of the yard is covered in grass that is kind of wide and flat. It doesn’t seem to grow very tall but I’ve only been here a week yet. There are 2 mango trees to give us shade, a peach tree that is out of season, banana plants, a passion fruit vine that should be giving fruit in not too long, and some pineapple plants!
The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. I did some unpacking and setting up in my room. It was a warm sunny day and later on Eric and Rachelle and I sat under the mango tree and drank terere together. The first drink or two was a bit bitter to me but eventually I got used to it and found it quite refreshing. The water fight that went on between Christina and Ellie and Aubrey and I that afternoon was also quite refreshing. We ate supper outside and eventually ended up in the living room talking while the girls were going to sleep. I was just thinking about heading to bed myself when Rachelle got a message that one of Felicita’s sons had an accident on his moto and was killed. (Felicita is one of the members here and a moto is a smallish type of motorbike that a lot of people own.) I got my first real dose of Spanish when Rachelle called one of the family to see if they should go there yet that night. So plans of going to bed were changed and Eric and Rachelle left for a few hours and I stayed inside the main house so someone would be around if any of the kids woke up. Finally around 1 they arrived back and we all headed for bed.  
 
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Church was cancelled this morning due to the burial and ensuing activities. The other missionaries here in Paraguay, Karlin and Shayla Hiebert, dropped Judd (4) off for a few hours in the afternoon while they were at the burial with Erics. I let the kids go get ice cream and play in water and probably anything else their parents wouldn’t have allowed if they had been here. (Insert emoji with big eyes and bright red cheeks here.) Later on when the parents and babies were back home we sat under the mango tree and drank terere and the kids bought us all more ice cream as it seemed to be quite a hot day. We had asado, barbequed steaks and chorizo sausages, for supper with mandioca (cassava) on the side.  
 
Monday, November 9, 2020
Slept in this morning. Sung a few Spanish songs with Karlins to the grieving family and then we all continued on with our day. Karlins left on their 3 hour drive back to Campo Nueve (Camp 9) and Eric showed me around the classroom as he has been the one teaching his girls these last few weeks. I changed the classroom around a bit, put up a makeshift paper tree in one corner as a job chart and hung an evergreen tapestry in another. I had a bit of a hard time with the tapestry as the only thing that works to keep anything on these walls is fun tack and it didn’t seem to keep a large piece of fabric stuck to the wall very well. I wasn’t having any of that so I decided I’d use hot glue and if I have to repaint in a few months when I take it off I’ll do it gladly! Sadly tho, It hasn’t hung for a week and its half down, maybe due to the fact that the fan is often on and blowing air underneath it.  
 
Tuesday, November 10, 2020  
We started school this morning! At 0800 I rang the bell and began my first day as a real true school teacher! We sped thru our work and even got some of yesterday’s missed assignments done.  
There hasn’t been much rain here for the last while. Yesterday I woke up to rain and it was rainy all day. It rained a lot of the day today, too. They say the weather here doesn’t stay the same for more than 3 days at a time so we’ll see if it continues to rain like the forecast is saying.  
 
Wednesday, November 11, 2020  
I’m sitting in my desk doing a bit of work before school starts. The girls all peek in to see what I’m up to. The toy chicken inside gets squished and lets out a sound that does not sound quite like a chicken but rather like a toy.   
It was just rainy enough today that we didn’t have recess outside but by the end of the day the rain had ended. The Paraguayans sleep when its raining so there hasn’t been much action lately. The radio has been turned on in the afternoons at the gym directly behind the school room but I hadn’t seen anyone there til today, I think due to the rain.
Tonight was the night of the bugs. Now that the rain has come they like to come out at night. I watched a frog debate for a few seconds on whether or not he should eat the inch long beetle and when he tried it he spit it right back out. I think it stuck to his tongue and he didn’t like the feeling.  Those beetles are quite common to see around here, as are the flying ants that lose their clear wings before the evening is up, cicadas, and who knows what else. Colorful beetles, random flying things that may or may not choose you to crawl around on, some cockroaches.. There’s a very interesting big kind that fly around that have lights in their eyes and on their under sides. Unlike a lightning bug, these lights that look to be about ¼ inch long, only blink out for fraction of a second every few seconds. There were 3 frogs having a feast, one of them was about 5 inches long. (A few nights later, these frogs were christened Ananias, Saul and Beauregard just a few hours before they took their last breaths and met death by shovel.)
 
Thursday, November 12, 2020
The gimnasio (gym) started blaring music this morning, so during our last hour or so of school we had to raise our voices to be heard. The girls are used to this so it didn’t bother them, but I was trying to read a book on grading and that didn’t go to well with loud music. I don’t know what else happened today.
It was today or yesterday that Rachelle and I were talking and decided to try some fun stuff. We taped some pencils to an empty pop bottle as a sort of stand, dumped some vinegar and baking soda in and tried in vain to get some sort of cork into the opening so we could launch our rocket. After too many futile tries, we found a stick that almost fit and enlisted some manpower to manhandle the stick further into the hole as it had been leaking around it. This time the rocket built up enough pressure to launch itself high enough to hit the tin of the roof of ‘my house.’ So in the end our experiment did work, just half the height of what the instructions said it should.  
 Sometimes I feel like I have lots of time but I still don’t get stuff written down so I can remember to tell y’all. And there’s so much to take in that I don’t remember it all much less tell you about it.
 
Friday, November 13, 2020
School has been good but I think we were all happy it was the weekend. Aubrey came to school around 1115 and helped us with our art projects. I had brought wooded letters (C+E) for Christina and Ellie to wrap pretty yarn around and Aubrey and I covered the tin can pen holders on my desk with yarn. Erics went to Felicita’s in the afternoon but Christina stayed home with me. I found out that missionary kids today play the same games they did back when I was a missionary kid. We spent the afternoon playing Old Maid!
 
Saturday, November 14, 2020
It’s officially been a week since I arrived here! Some days I can hardly believe it, it still feels like it must be a dream! I slept in a bit this morning. Eric and the girls went to clean church and church yard to make it ready for church tomorrow. Tiago (11 months) is finally becoming comfortable with me and he played in the school room for a long time while I was figuring out some school stuff. We had a sort of Paraguayan spaghetti for lunch. It had fewer tomato stuff and more other veggies in it than the spaghetti you would be used to. And it had chicken parts in it. As in bones with meat on them, which were a bit tough, as Paraguayan meat is typically. Paraguay is a country known for exporting meat, but they send the good stuff and keep the not so good stuff here for the rest of us.  
Now this brings me to now. It’s Saturday afternoon. The family went to the Juan, another member’s house for Bible Study and Aubrey stayed home with me. We are now baking cookies and dancing around the kitchen in excitement. Well I’m not dancing as I’m having a bit of difficulty figuring our how to turn on ovens and how to use these ingredients. It does seem to be working, but I did burn the bottoms of the first batch.  
 
I’ve been in a sort of isolation since I came here. I haven’t left the yard since I first arrived here via a certain Hyundai van. But we have had visitors and I’ve been teaching school and Erics family has been going away like normal. There’s so much to take in even just on the yard, and even so much to talk about that I so far haven’t been bored. I will be happy tho, when I can step or even ride off the yard and start meeting these people that I hear about everyday. I am slightly wary of using my tiny little bit of Spanish but I’ll learn.  
 
Adios,
Adorae  
 
Barrio San Pedro mission
Eric and Rachelle Toews – Twin Rivers
Christina – 9 (Grade 4)
Ellie – 7 (Grade 2)
Aubrey – 5
Cody Santiago who is called Tiago – 11m  
Me - teacher
 
Camp 9 missionaries
Karlin and Shayla Hiebert – Rosenort
Judd – 4
Gabe – 1