Ocho

 Thanks to you all who send replies to my emails. Even if I don’t reply back, I enjoy reading them immensely!
 
Sunday
Small conversation. In Spanish. With Arlin. 
 
Thursday
Someone complemented me today. She told me I have pretty eyes. She made my day
 
On Sunday I thought ‘Hey I have some time now and today held so much to write about I should just write it all right now.’ But I picked up a book. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, same thing. I always found something different to do. Like fabric shopping. Or sleeping. Or watching new scenery go by while driving. And now it’s Friday and all I have written is what you see above. I wrote those few sentences when inspiration hit me at the wrong time and I was busy or tired and wanted to remember those things. But those are personal experiences, not the kind that make these emails worth reading. Sure they maybe make it a big more interesting, but it’s not about Paraguay life. Or else maybe it is. Anyways I better start writing about my week before I talk myself into a hole here. Or maybe I already have.
Actually, I need to go work with school stuff before I write more.
 
Sunday, December 27, 2020
Its still Friday as I write this. But later then before.
I’m not sure how to describe Sunday. I had fun. I enjoyed it. I had been with these people about 2 times before. I could only converse with them half the time. The setting is something I’m still not used to, everything is done outside, under the best shade there is, you can move around as many times as you need to find that shade. Stiff grass underfoot with patches of reddish dirt to make sure your feet get stained. 

I’ll start with church this morning. Church in Florida (where Campo Nueve missionaries go) is a lot different than back in Barrio. For one, the church is a lot bigger, there’s benches (with songbook holders!) instead of chairs, and lots of people. Maybe about 15 members and that many attendees, too. There’s actually a youth girls’ bench in front! We had youth Sunday school which I have not been to for a long time. We all filed out of church to the backyard where the boys got the chairs and benches out of the teacherage (I’m not actually sure what the building is for) and we sat in a big circle of 10 or 13 people. Read the whole lesson and then answered some questions. The teacher tried to get some discussion going but only 1 or 2 people had thoughts to share. After Sunday school was over, we all waited til everyone else was seated to walk in and we filed straight to the front and said the verse from our lesson all together and then found out seats. There was a bit more of an opening before the youth (members and regular attendees) were called upon to deliver the program. I joined the other 10 or so up at the front and sang along to the words I knew how to pronounce but didn’t always understand. Well usually didn’t understand. The poem was about how Christmas in our hearts doesn’t just have to be at Christmas time and how parties don’t mean you have Christmas in your heart. The program was over in about half an hour and after a congregational song and closing we all sat down again and candy bags were handed out to the children. The youth were also deemed children today. 

Terere at Katarina’s place after church. Just like last time I was there. I’m not sure if that’s normal or just on special days. Soon everybody left for their respective places and I stayed for dinner. Abe and Anna, Katarina’s parents, joined from the Mennonites a long time ago. They moved to Whitemouth, Manitoba for a while and eventually moved back to Paraguay after, I think, they were missionaries here for awhile. Maybe I explained that once already, I don’t remember. I don’t think I had had mashed potatoes since coming here before today.
Later afternoon the youth and Karlins and Abe’s met back at church to play ball. Most of us got there about 1530 or so and we drank terere and sat around for an hour or so until the volleyball court was at least halfway shaded. No one is in a hurry here. When stuff happens, it happens. The guys played the first few rounds of ball and us girls eventually joined too. After every game we all stand around for a bit before someone gets inspired and everybody tries to decide who’s playing. Usually it’s 4 on 4 players, sometimes 5 on 5, but you never rotate on, you just drink terere until the game is done and you can play the next round. Once we numbered off (to 4. We were not more then 20 playing.) but very quickly those numbers were thrown to the wind and forgotten. At one point we played 5 girls against 4 guys and smoked them. When someone has made a good move, they are congratulated by at least one team member with a high five and games are ended with the winning team all high fiving. Brothers or friends or people from other churches came and went. I left with Karlins around 1930 but the rest may or may not have played longer. 

A few people remarked on how well I read in Sunday school today (I credit that to having been ‘forced’ to read in Bible Study twice a week) and I even had a few bits of conversation and could say the score in Spanish and understand what was going on while playing. My favorite conversation was while I was kinda lost on my own world and suddenly I heard someone saying something and I realized he was talking to me and I understood what he was saying. He doesn’t know much English but was talking in Spanish and I didn’t have to think but knew exactly what he was saying. We each had about 2.5 sentences to say together (he must have understood me) but I was proud of that little conversation I had, without anyone or anything translating for me. I know. I’ve been here almost 2 months already. That should have happened long ago.
Well I gotta go check up on the donuts now. I might have to finish this tomorrow.  

For supper (I’m still on Sunday here) we went to a place where we sat at tables on a strip of grass between a highway and the side road that the businesses are off of and someone came to take our orders and then went across and down the street a bit to have it made for us. I had a sandwich filled with asado meet that was very delicious. 
 
 
 
Monday, December 28, 2020
I’ve been on the Mennonite colonies around our place, but I’d never gone here by Campo Nueve. So that’s what we did today. Our excuse was the big store which stocked almost everything seemed like. Including fabric. The roads to get there are almost all cobblestone which can make a lot of noise when being driven on. If I’m thinking of the right stuff, then these stones (3 or 4 inches across maybe??) have all been laid by hand. Many, many miles of it.  

Due to changes in plan with visitors and building plans, Eric’s decided to drive to Campo Nueve today. They arrived late afternoon, in time to eat supper and for Eric to go to the men’s’ meeting at church. After supper, the ladies and children and I piled into the van to go see the family of on of the youth boys from here. They’re from some sort of Amish church and now the oldest, Walter, has joined our church. The dad left his wife and children (I think 6. Or maybe 5) awhile ago. The mom looks and sounds like a jolly, good natured woman and sews and crochets and macrames in exchange for a bit of money. The family all know English, to what extent I didn’t figure out but I chance to believe at least some of them know it quite well. The boys (early 20s ish) took the missionary children on endless moto rides while the girls (15 and 20) joined our conversation inside. The style of their house was one of the most North American style houses I’ve been in here in Paraguay I think, maybe due in part to their conservative upbringing/church. 
 
Tuesday, December 29. 2020
0600 found the Toews family and teacher sneaking off the yard so as not to disturb the Heiberts’ peaceful slumber. 1030 or so found us at a big office building in Asuncion to pick up Tiago’s passport. Half an hour later or so found us driving thru Asuncion, out into landscape that slightly reminded me of New Mexico, the part of Paraguay that must be where those pictures with mountains or hills must be taken, thru the soccer ball and hammock towns of Paraguay, to a town called Quiindy (prn Keen due’ or actually probably kee een due’) to some friends that used to live in Barrio here. That was before my time but I have heard a lot about them. Mario and Maria and their 3 girls, Beatrice (prn Vay a trees), Victoria ( called Viki), and Belen (Ve’ len. It’s the Spanish way of saying Bethlehem.) The girls are exactly the same age as my students and have a lot of fun together. We arrived sometime after 1300 and sat down to drink Terere with Maria and her sister, Mario was working. Eventually we went in to help get lunch on and we sat down to eat. They have a bit of a store at the front of their house where they sell fruit and the cakes Maria makes. It’s a big open room with a TV and that’s where we ate. Thru the door at the back of the room is the girls’ room, then the kitchen. Her kitchen consists of small counters on either side of the sink, a small stove with a tank attached sitting in front of it, a tall cupboard and that’s where she does her cooking and baking. She makes and decorate amazing cakes. One of the outside doors leading out of her kitchen opens to the backyard which is sloping and consequently there’s a drop of 2 or so feet to the ground. Just off the kitchen is a small hallway with a bathroom and another bedroom on it. The other bedroom completes a circuit with a door into the first bedroom and that is the entirety of the house. Not terribly much privacy. After lunch we sit outside a bit and eventually Mario came home and later on we went to visit her Mom. Eric said we needed to leave around 1700, we had 2 hours to drive to Asuncion to the hotel and these peoples are never in a hurry to do anything and we knew if we were going to stay for supper that would only be at 1000 or so. Well we got back from Maria’s mom’s place around 1700 and Maria wanted us to have some cake that she had baked but first she needed to decorate it. That was cool to watch. I haven’t ever watched someone decorate a cake like that in real life. She squirted strawberry juice onto the 3 layers of the cake and stacked them together with Chantalli (a sort of whipped cream made from Chantalli powder and cold milk) between. Next she covered the whole cake in Chantalli and made 3 flowers on a little stick and gently transferred them to the cake with a pair of scissors. She dripped chocolate sauce on the edges to drop down the side of the cake and covered that with more Chantalli squirts and the cake was ready. But we needed pop to go with the cake so we walk down the street to the little store and exchange greeting and pleasantries and where are you froms before telling the lady what we want. The actual buying process takes up only around 23.6% of the time we were at the store. Image what North American shopping trips would be like if you spent 15 minutes shopping and another 45 minutes chatting with the cashier.  

The cake is delicious and the pop hits the spot and just after 6 we are on the road back to Asuncion. We stop to buy a ball in the soccer ball town and drive around a bit in the hammock town trying to find these hammocks with very little success. Maybe everything was shut down already, everything taken in for the night. Back in Asuncion 2 hours later, we take our Dos game (a descendent of Uno) into Pizza Hut to play while we wait for our supper. We check in to Los Alpes probably around 1030 and find our beds soon after.
 
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
I have made it known that I want to take lots of fabric home as it’s definitely cheaper here and also it’s just different from at home so Rachelle and I spent the morning fabric shopping. Well, I did the shopping, she did the driving and navigating and translating and Tiago-ing. I laid claim to 19 pieces of fabric from 4 different stores. We ate lunch at one of the impressive malls impressive food courts and headed for home. We stopped to pick up asaditos from our friend Pedro at the cruze for supper. He’s trying out a different job come the new year and this is his last day of making asaditos. Sadly. He’s figured out how to do it so the meat is tender and not crunchy and they are the best around. 
 
Thursday, December 31. 2020

I spent the day in the school room, getting ready for the next few weeks of school. Made Angel food cake (from a cake mix) in the afternoon. Two of the girls’ friends came to play and Rosita (8 or 9 ish🤷🏽‍♀‍) told me I had beautiful eyes. ‘Que lindo sus ojos!’ That sort of made my day. We went on a drive later afternoon, to get out of the house and to pick up some groceries and fireworks. Later in the evening we chilled in the yard and set of fireworks (5 of the cool big ones that rain down on you plus a bunch of Roman candles and maybe some other little ones cost less than $30.00 Canadian) and ate cake and waited for midnight when everyone else would set off fireworks. 
I have endless fascination with these people. On New Years Eve, you are supposed to wear new, white clothes. 
 
 
Friday, January 1, 2021  

I did more school stuff today. After lunch Rachelle and I made some sort of Baked Salted Caramel Pumpkin donuts with tinfoil in muffin tins instead of donut pans. We took a few to Felicita later. While we were there, Rachelle asked Gloria (Felicita’s daughter) if she’d cut Tiago’s hair sometime and she said sure why not now which means let’s keep talking for 20 more minutes and then go do that. So we went to her little hair salon at the front of her yard where she conducted the hair cut and somehow I got a hair wash out of it. I’ve always thought it would be cool to see what a hair dresser thought of my hair and give me tips and the wash itself felt really good. Gloria believes in cold water for washing hair, but the water she used wasn’t super cold which was nice. And then she dried it with a special attachment on her hair drier because apparently I have curly hair. Compared to most Paraguayans anyways.  

We had supper almost made later, when Eric announced that the neighbors were here. Antonio is a big, jolly man who has a tire shop right next door. Blanca is a short, stout woman who mans the adjoining store where the girls go for ice cream. They both seem to like to talk. They didn’t stay much longer than half an hour and then we finished our supper and ate it.  

Most of us celebrated the New Year last night, but the neighbors behind my house are celebrating tonight sounds like. There’s been loud music and shouts and loud guffaws coming from that direction for the last few hours. It’s after 2300 now so I’m going to try to sleep to this noisemakers. 
 
Saturday, January 2, 2020 

More school stuff this morning. I skipped out on cleaning church so I could clean my house and make lunch. Bible Study with Don Juan this afternoon should prove interesting like usual. A few weeks ago he suggested that I should wear long socks and shoes when sitting out on the grass so I wouldn’t get so many bits on my legs. A very good idea, but no thanks. I’ll rather try to remember to use Off. 
I wrote most of this today when I rather wanted to be sleeping and I’m not taking much time to read over or edit it. 
 
Ciao, 
Addie 
 
The power was out for awhile and I was hoping it would stay out so I wouldn’t have WiFi and wouldn’t be able to fix the mistakes or take random stabs and guess at my statements instead of asking to make sure I understand things right and send it off yet tonight. And then I could conveniently forget tomorrow and the next day and you’d never read these thoughts. But sadly, the power came on so here you go. 
Please don’t take that last paragraph personally. I do like updating you, I just gotta make it sound like I don’t for some reason.