Diecisiete y Dieciocho

 I can’t keep anything straight apparently. I’ll try to get the right dates this time or maybe I’ll write that’s its April already. Also, you’ll notice that it’s week diecisiete again. This is the right diecisiete. The last one was supposed to be dieciséis. I think.   

 

Sunday, February 28, 2021 

Church feels very different with Karlins in place of Erics. The Toews girls made up a big part of children’s Sunday school and now as there aren’t so many who are qualified, the little boys colored while the adults (14+) had Sunday school.  After lunch and naps and making sure everything was in place for the coming empty week (for the house) and maybe some monster cookies and iced coffees we left for Camp 9. There was a soccer game between 2 major teams (Cero and Olimpia) being played tonight. Another table where we stopped for supper was quite quiet, intently watching until a goal was scored and the usual shout of ‘Goal!’ was heard from their direction. We drove around Camp 9 looking for the parade that follows the game in Honor of who won but we only heard it after we got home. Found out later on friends’ statuses that their had been volley at church.   

 

Monday, March 1 

My plans for this month in Camp 9 are sewing and studying Spanish, basically my summer vacation between two school ‘terms.’ So that’s what I started on today. I’m hoping to get a book to study from yet.   

 

Tuesday, March 2

 This afternoon we went and drank terere with Leidi and Arlin’s family. They’re 2 youth kids who have some funny younger siblings and some older brothers who I don’t see around very often. The dad is expelled and seems to feel like the missionaries should do everything for him and him do nothing in return. It was a very quiet time with a few Spanish conversations but mostly we had our own conversations-them in Guarani and us in English.   

 

Wednesday, March 3 

I made a big batch of cinnamon rolls, mostly for the freezer and I’m not sure what all I did today. Maybe took a walk.  Youth singing this evening. We were set to go sing at the grandparents of some of the youth (also members) but it was raining so we weren’t sure if it was still happening cuz we’d be outside. After much discussion, we realized we were still expected so we went and sat in a big circle around the front door as Grandpa would have a hard time coming out and sang. The numbers were chosen few and far between, Grandpa had a list in his head that we sang. Afterwards, Shayla was asked if the youth girls would be able to come for a sleepover on Friday night (more on that later.)   

 

Thursday, March 4

 I’ve been sewing a bunch in my downtime and have got a few dresses done. Unfortunately they didn’t really live up to my expectations but they’ll work. I’ve been using the Duolingo app on my phone a lot more lately too. Plus (gasp) I’ve read a few pages of my 501 Spanish Verbs dictionary.  The teachers have been wanting to buy some flowers for the flower bed they made with bricks in front of their house. Today was Shayla’s turn to take lunch to the teachers so we brought them to our place for lunch and after dishes were done we headed off for the greenhouses. Well,  the problem was that it started raining during lunch. It stopped long enough for us to leave the house but by the time we reached the greenhouse, it was pouring. Greenhouses here are mostly open air (technically not a greenhouse??) with a few small shelters and some spots covered with mesh. Not conducive to shopping in the rain. So after making a few purchases, we headed up Calle Dos to take the teachers home and wait for another day. Driving up Calle Dos was a feat in itself, pretty much pushing water that was rushing down at us. Water was using objects as ramps, crashing down 3 foot waterfalls on the other side, and where vehicles or motos were parked, it was using the spokes as tunnels to flow thru.  Went to drink Terere this evening with another member lady with 3 young girls.

 

  Friday, March 5

 We were expecting 5 girls for night so we started planning fun food and stuff to do. At lunchtime Leidi messaged to say the plans were cancelled. They didn’t have a ride to get to our place. We had been wondering about that but since it was their party, they had asked, it was thought that they should provide the ride. There are various vehicles that could have been procured but due to various reasons (work, brothers/offendedness/thinking the missionary should do everything, car doesn’t work) they didn’t have a ride. And we weren’t going to offer one. Well. Ok. That’s that. There was volley at church in the evening, not sure if it was another attempt at getting us to give them a ride or not but that didn’t happen. Due to the fact that it was dark and there aren’t lights at church, we only played two games of volley before it was too dark. Afterwards we sat and drank terere and talked. Katharine (the teacher from Dominican) knows English quite well I think but only talks it if I really really need help. It’s kinda interesting talking Spanish to someone who when you  ask in English how to say something in Spanish she tells you and you continue stumbling through your thought.  

 

Saturday, March 6, 2021 {Happy birthday, Ciara} 

 The trek was once again made to Barrio San Pedro today. We arrived at the house and I messaged Sara that we were in town and she said ‘Can I come over’ and before I could reply she sent me a picture of the house, obviously take from the street so I went outside and there she was waiting for me. So we sat and drank terere and talked and played Uno and finished mixing tortillas cuz that’s what I had been doing when she came and eventually she left to go study or watch the pig being butchered or something and we left for Bible Study at Juan’s.  And then afterwards I pressed the tortillas and ate a delicious supper of homemade fries and wings.   

 

Sunday, March 7, 2021

 Normal, abnormal service this morning. Tereré afterwards until Gloria thought it time to leave. Packed up our stuff, made sure everything was in its place for the next empty week and left to find some food and visit more friends. These friends of Karlins were at the lady’s parents place so we went to see them there. They parents have 8 girls between the ages of 18 and 30 (that’s actually a wild stab in the dark), 5 of whom are still at home and 3 of whom came home with their families for the day. They also have an older brother who was not around. Maybe there was a reason for that. His sisters are quite rambunctious. Doesn’t look like there’s a dull moment at that house. They sang for us and we sang for them and we all sang together. Like most people here, they all sang one voice, and none of them sang very quietly. It was very interesting to listen to, and very beautiful to my 4-voice accustomed ears. I’m not sure what they thought of our 3 part harmony songs. Karlin wanted to play volley with the men at the court across the road but they wouldn’t think of not playing for money so eventually when we left, we saw them heading out to play volley with their other friends.  Our destination for night was a set of cabins that looked quite cool online. We watched the sunset in the palm trees as we drove. The road took us took us thru a town and suddenly turned into dirt. Following the signs, we turned from the dirt road onto a trail with grass growing between 2 trails for the tires. Ever hopeful, we kept going, trusting that this place would look like the pictures we saw online. We weren’t disappointed. Quite soon we turned into the driveway, and as the gate was opened we could see pools and lights and everything looked amazing. We checked in and explored. We had 2 separate cabins with a small kitchenette which had a few things to make breakfast with (Maracaya juice!). There was a big square pool on one end of the compound that had an island in the middle, a kiddie pool and some sort of pool with 2 hot tub jets or whatever they’re called at the other end of the compound. There were also lots of quinchos and a playground for the kids and a fireplace and a big cage by the fence that we eventually went to look at and found out that it held 2 peacocks!   We sang for awhile before bed. Hadn’t done that for a few weeks.   

 

Monday, March 8

 One of the reasons for coming to this place was that we wanted to see Salto Cristal which are a set of falls. Well, when Karlin called to book, he was told that they were 40 minutes away from there but there was another set of falls just 20 minutes away. Maybe the earth shifted or something between then and this morning, but we found out that Salto Cristal was actually a lot further and these other falls we 40 minutes away. So we decided to go to the littler falls this morning. We packed our lunch and drive off and talked to more people and finally found the right place. It was a big park kind of thing but there were no signs. We walked down to see the falls. We were at the top but there were a few paths down to the bottom. There was also a sign that said Such and such falls path this way’ so we decided to hike to see them. So we started walking down the river. When we crossed to the other side and started going back up the river the way we came from, we got suspicious. Soon enough we came to the ‘end’ of the hike and realized we had circled back to exactly where we had started from. We hiked 20 minutes to see what we could have walked down a few steps to see. We had a good little laugh over that and sat down to read and eat lunch and watch butterflies before climbing the steps back to the top. We weren’t going to go back the way we came! On our way back to the cabins, we stopped at a museum on the site where they used to use the water from the river to turn a huge wheel to fan the fire in an oven that somehow extracts whatever  was used to make things like war weapons and shovels. I’m terrible at remembering history like this so I’m not exactly sure what went on. I think there was a battle of some sort there most likely due to the fact that they were making a lot of war weapons. The ruins of the whole wheel/oven building are still partly standing and we could walk thru them. The place was built in 1800 something. There was a small canal running from a small dam to the big wooden wheel. There was a big open space in one wall that narrowed into a small pipe sized space that led to the next room where the oven was. A long ramp ended above the fire where the rock was pushed up and dumped in, and another pipe-ish thing let the melted stuff drip out. I doubt that makes to much sense unless you’d see it.  We stopped in town for ice cream (the power went off while the guy was sitting at the back of the shop, using an immersion blender to make my milkshake) and the print shop on the way back. Swam in the decadent pools (or in my case, gave my phone and my book a bath as I was making my way to go read on the island) and eventually made supper (chorizos and some other piece of meat which I forget what it was, garlic bread, a vegetable mix, pineapple, coke from glass bottles) over the fire. Absolutely delish.   

 

Tuesday, March 9  

We made good use of the place as we had it to ourselves, other then the worker and the 2 men who were building some sort of restaurant on the yard. Just before lunch we set off for Salto Cristal. The road we took was mostly dirt. The small stretch of pavement lasted only until we were up the hill (or mountain from this Prairie girl’ standpoint) were we stopped to take in the view. We must have spent our last few days in a valley without realizing it and now we could see for miles. The view was quite breathtaking especially since the parts of Paraguay that I’ve seen aren’t like that. The guy in the hammock under the lean-to  probably didn’t know what to think of those Mennonites who got out of their vehicle to exclaim over the view but didn’t take pictures.  Salto Cristal was just as breathtaking as the view. After finding out we had to pay to use the bathrooms, we hiked a few minutes, down some steps, and along the river. Mostly on rocks. The falls didn’t have masses of water pouring over, but it’s beauty was in its height. It drops down from sort of an end of a canyon into a deep hole. Along the edges are ledges where the water is knee deep or so. To go swimming, you have to wear a lifejacket, rented out by the lifeguard on duty, who when we got there was a skinny looking guy who was taking pictures of the butterfly that landed on his hand.  We ate supper at McDonalds on our way home.  

 

Thursday, March 11

 Took lunch to the teachers. Once Gabe was sleeping, Shayla and I went shopping to a bunch of the little stores here in town. I didn’t find what I was looking for. Most of these little stores don’t stock their items in more then one size and that is usually size small. A lot of stuff (more so around Barrio San Pedro) is homemade and you could go to the fabric store and make it yourself.  Went to Walters place in the evening. He himself wasn’t home due to harvest but his family was. One of his sisters is my age and knows English. We were invited to stay for supper so we ate fresh chipa and tallarin with them and afterwards sang some English songs.   

 

Friday, March 12

 The youth girls found a ride to being them here for night tonight. Shayla had the grand idea of a utensil supper so we set the table with random things and made sure supper wasn’t food you could eat with your fingers. I think the girls enjoyed it but it was hard to tell because they were all quite silent. After supper we played some volley, and a card game and eventually sat around for awhile in silence. I guess I could have contributed more but I’m kinda the type to sit in silence when there are to many people or it’s too strange so I sat in silence too.   

 

Saturday, March 13 

Breakfast was cooked over the fire this morning, but due to the fact that that fire was in the sun (and also the sun was shining quite much by then) we sat and ate breakfast in the shade a few feet from the fire – in silence. Eventually dishes were washed and we took them home. In silence. These girls can talk when they want to so I guess they were just out of their comfort zone here. Kinda like I was. They seemed to enjoy it tho, and even talked about doing a utensil supper for the rest of the youth. The girls who came were Leidi, Katrina, Katherine (she’s the teacher from Dominican Republic) and Melany (the teacher from Guatemala). Evelyn had to stay home for some reason. She definitely would have been more lively.  

Not my most inspirational day for writing diary. Now I’ll be off to play Go Fish with Judd. 

Dieciséis

 This week seemed to go by so fast I didn’t have time to write. 

 

Sunday, January 21, 2021 Nobody was in a hurry to leave after church today because this was Erics last time in church. Last time seeing most of these people. I served the big circle terere until most people had had enough and then everybody started goodbyes. Oh and one bunch of bananas was ready to be picked and sent home with someone so there was a bit of a discussion who should get it..  We stopped for a delicious rotisserie chicken on the way home. At the place where we get them, there are probably a dozen automatically rotating over the fire in 2 rows. The one on the end gets taken off the stick and unceremoniously packed up, some mandioca gets put into a bag and there’s your lunch. It’s absolutely delicious, especially after church when your hungry and want to eat right aways instead of making lunch first. I think we’re spoiled.  Early afternoon we were booked to go see some friends who have twin girls Christina’s age and a little boy just older than Tiago. Everybody had a grand time playing together after the initial quiet what-are-we-going-to-do time and the rest of us drank terere and helped make hotdogs, which were served in a bun with a line of mayo drizzled beside. And coke/Guaraná. Which was our afternoon snack or early supper. You choose.  Perla came over in the evening to officially say goodbye.  

 

 Monday, January 22, 2021 A bunch of neighbor ladies who rarely came over before stopped in to chat with Rachelle this morning. And bring gifts. I worked on the escape room that we were setting up for Karlins and packed up for the month or so that I’ll be living with Karlin and Shayla in Campo Nueve. The ice had barely frozen over the room keys that were needed to open the escape room when Karlins arrived to first of all, escape and then to help with packing and cleaning and support and whatever needed to be done yet. Christina and I biked to the store at the cruce and stopped in at Julian’s fruit stand where we were given individual containers of fruit salad before biking back home. Which took us all of 2 minutes. Supper was going to be around 2000 but due to the many visitors who started arriving at 1930, it was around 2300 by the time we devoured our poutine and chorizos.    

 

Tuesday, January 23, 2021 Last minute preparations, cleaning up the yard, washing a huge stack of dishes to be put away at a later date. That’s what our morning consisted of and the heavily laden vehicles left the yard before noon. Stopped for Subway ish style sandwiches (which were even better than Subway) on the outskirts of Asuncion, drove thru a Covid testing station (the 5 tests all came back negative) and checked into Los Alpes hotel where we napped and swam and later headed to the shipping container out door food court where Eric’s friend Brett has a crepe restaurant. Several hours later, after trying tatakua pizza, hummus and of course crepes and waffles and milkshakes, we waffles back to our vehicles and into the hotel and went to bed to sleep off the supper.   

 

Wednesday, January 24, 2021 Walked around a park and tried to go over a bridge that wasn’t open and it started raining and we went to a mall and spent money and had lunch. Spent the afternoon at the hotel. Ate cheesecake that had been brought from home. Around 2230 we donned our tapabocas and set off for the airport. Once there we found out that we actually could go inside to see Eric’s off so we did that and eventually watched them walk thru the doors to security and as it didn’t really pay to say bye to the rest of the people there who we didn’t even know we walked out and drove back to Los Alpes on semi deserted streets, the time being after midnight.  

 

Thursday, January 25, 2021 We made the journey from Asuncion to Campo Nueve today. The van had to be ferried home with us so Shayla got to drive.. Stopped at a cool chicken barn turned restaurant for lunch before those of us who weren’t driving succumbed to sleepiness. 

 

 Friday, January 26, 2021 Well, I can discuss other people being sick in my letters so I guess I have to when it’s me, too. It’s a hard thing for me to do, tho, because I’ve prided myself in not being sick to the stomach for the last 5 years. Actually I don’t remember the last time I was sick. Anyways, I was in bed with some sort of virus til early afternoon today. Not a good feeling. Coke and homemade chocolate chip iced capps do a lot for a sick person and I got most of a dress cut out yet. 

 

 Saturday, January 27, 2021 Got ourselves chipa and cocido for breakfast and headed out. We stopped at some friends for terere in the morning and they served us delicious lunch of grilled chicken. There’s a conservative church close to ours in Florido that Karlins would have a bit to do with and these people were of the same church. Continued on to the forlorn Barrio San Pedro mission house where we were greeted with a stack of clean dishes (that may or may not have been full of little ants) and no power. Now I’ll switch tenses because I don’t know the future yet. But the plan is to pick up Perla and Sister Felicita (like usual) and go have Bible Study with Brother Juan (like usual.) Church tomorrow and then who knows what will happen after that. 

Catorse y quince

 Now I don’t even know where to start or how to write this letter. I guess it always helps to start at the beginning so I’ll try to remember that far back.

 

  Sunday, February 7, 2021  

The whole congregation (Felicita, her 2 daughters, 2 granddaughters and 1 grandson, and Perla plus all of us) piled into the van after church and came to our place for an asado for dinner. Felicita had sent some meat for this a few days ago and we supplied a few sides (including chorizos. Insert heart eyes here.) They also brought boiled sweet potatoes and some absolutely delicious chicken milanesa (meat pounded flat and fried with a coating.) We girls played variants of Uno while the adults talked and drank terere and waited for the meat to cook. Later on we played a bit of volley and ate cake and drank more terere. I forget what we did in the evening.

 

  Monday, February 8, 2021 We’ve been wanting to go down to the river with Perla for a while and today was the day it worked out for that. Or whatever you want to say. We got to Perla’s just after 1000 and she said ‘Oh you’re here already? I thought we were going this afternoon!’ But she was ready anyways and hopped and in directed us where to drive. We parked in some shade on someone’s yard and started the walk down to the river. The ‘path’ took us thru tall grass, under fences, thru pastures; most of the way was quite sunny and having learned the Paraguayan way, most of us sot any shade we could find which was rare. We were almost down to our spot when a farmer came briskly down the path to get his cows out of our way so we could be there in peace. The part of the river -or should I say stream- where we stopped had a small waterfall with a bit of a deep spot where the girls could pretend to swim. The rest was quite shallow and not flowing very rapidly. Although the sun was shining, the water was kinda chilly and I didn’t stay in very long. I read my book on the bank and Perla and Rachelle found clay to mold into pitchers and bowls. We had ourselves a bit of a picnic lunch and soon headed for home. The way back to the van seemed hotter and longer then the way down and we stopped for a few water breaks. We went a bit of a different way back and this time one of the pastures was occupied. The cows didn’t seem to mind us tho.  Again, I’m not sure what else we did today. Maybe we went to San Pedro (the restaurant with the globo locos here in town. Directly translated, globo loco means crazy balloon, which is what bouncy castles or whatever you want to call them truly seem to be.)  

 

Tuesday, February 9, 2021 Left for Camp 9 this morning. Bought chipa and cocido for breakfast along the way. Every town seems to have at least one chipa stand. The girls running these stands will hop into busses with baskets of food and get off at the next town or somewhere to catch a ride back on another bus. I think maybe they don’t have to pay to do that. We stopped in Colonel Oviedo at the fabric store where they have big wire baskets filled with cut pieces of fabric which you buy by weight. We also stopped at the market where I spent more money. McDonalds for lunch and we were on our way again.  For supper, we went to some of Erics’ Mennonite friends who live in Sommerfeld colony close to Camp 9. They have children close to the girls’ ages and they have a lot of fun together riding bike and quad and playing all sorts of games. Supper consisted of pizza and ice cream out in the garage and then we women went inside to the women’s sitting room to chat. The house is amazingly grand. A small kitchen off the garage with some sort of pizza oven or bbq, a bigger kitchen inside with a breakfast nook, 2 living rooms for separate seating when company comes over, a playroom with a built in playhouse, a big sewing room with a industrial sewing machine and at least 1 more normal sewing machine and a serger, a few more closed doors that were never opened to me, and apparently I only saw half of the house. Anyways, enough about the house. We sat and chatted in a mix of Spanish and German with some English thrown in about healthy eating and I forget what all else.   

 

Wednesday, February 10, 2021 Our destination today was Itaipu Dam just out of Ciudad Del Este along the Paraná River which forms part of the border between Paraguay and Brazil. We arrived in time to watch the IMAX or movie or whatever it was to get the details of the dam. My memory being my memory doesn’t take in the facts it should remember such as the measurements of the dam, but instead remembers random details. If I remember correctly, one of the 20 generating units supplies 90% of Paraguay’s power. Most of the power is used by Brazil. It is the largest producing dam in the world and could supply the whole world with power for 32 days. At it’s tallest, the dam is 60 some stories high. The steel used in building it could build (my brain remembers 30+, online it says 300+) Eiffel Towers and the amount of truckloads of rock hauled in could stretch around the world 3 times. My facts seem to be kinda jumbled so you might want to look it up or visit it yourself if you want to know more. After the movie, we boarded a bus which took us to view the dam. We stopped at one lookout where we could see  a lot of the dam. There are 3 spillways, but none of them were open. Back in the bus, we took a tunnel underneath the spillways and beside the 20 turbines used to generate the power before turning around and coming back across the top of the dam, which concluded our tour. We had eaten lunch and done our fabric shopping (I don’t think I can ever have enough fabric. Not enough room in the suitcase, yes, or not enough money, but never too much fabric.) before going to the dam so we headed back to Camp 9 from there.  The regular Wednesday evening youth singing was changed to an everybody evening due to us being here. We sang as a congregation for awhile and then we youth sang for awhile. A lot of the songs in their folders I knew in English so that was nice for me. The school year has just started here, due to the fact that we’re nearing fall, so I got to meet the 2 new teachers have come to teach at the school in the Florido congregation. One girl is from Guatemala and the other from Dominican Republic. After church we stood around and talked for awhile and eventually everybody left and we went to a churrasqueria for supper and stuffed ourselves with delicious grilled meat. And ate grilled pineapple with sweetened condensed milk.  

 

Thursday, February 11, 2021 Eric’s had some documents to work out and sign so some people ran around trying to get that done this morning. The rest of us ran around to green houses and succulent green houses and eventually we all went to town for lunch and then some of us set up the volley ball net while the papers were finally read to be signed and eventually Erics left for home, leaving me at Karlins. That’s how I remember the morning anyways. Shayla was going to take supper to the teachers so she messaged them and they said we could drop it off at church as they weren’t’ home right then and didn’t know when they would be home and Shayla said we wanted to eat with them cuz I was around and they never read the message and eventually we find out that they were at Walter’s eating popcorn with his mom and sisters so we go over there and sit and drink terere with them all (this is probably after 1800 already) and eventually we play a few games of volley and it gets dark and Karlins and I took the teachers home and ate supper with them and went home to bed ourselves. 

 

 Friday, February 12, 2021 Ran a few errands today and sat and drank terere at Walter’s again. There was ball in the evening. 

 

 Saturday, February 13, 2021 We left the house around 9 this morning and made a few stops to pick up the rest of the youth and their backpacks. The ultimate destination was home (Barrio San Pedro) but first we stopped at some small falls for a bit of a hike and our lunch. We were there with Karlins a few weeks ago and since then a storm had ripped thru there and took down a bunch of trees. Now they’re fixing it up nice and adding some benches in the water and a nice quincho to eat your lunch under. Some of the guys went swimming and hiked up a tall set of falls that feeds into the river/stream and us girls got our feet wet. The hike back up to the van was quite brutal but we all made it eventually. And we stuffed back into the van (10 people on the 9 seats and the 3 guys in the back. Plus backpacks.) and carried on our merry way. We stopped to sing a few songs for Don Juan and soon all piled out of the van at my house. After 3 hours in that van we were all happy to be free. Arlin who is about 14 loves to talk and I don’t think he was quiet for more than 5 minutes the whole 3 hours. He had us all singing at one point but mostly those of us in the back seat were either laughing or rolling our eyes at him. (I was in the back seat with his sister and cousin.) Everybody kept asking me if we were going to play volley ball while they were here. We sipped a few rounds of terere and headed off around the corner to play. We haven’t played volley here in town but the neighbors play a lot so we asked if we could use their court. Well they wanted to play with us. Especially the one lady who wanted to play her way. So we tried to figure out their way and showed them what we could do, too. The Florido youth play a lot of volley and consequently are quite good and play well together. We had quite the group watching us by the end. Eventually we came home for supper and when we should have been getting ready for bed we started playing Dutch Blitz. Which is one of my favorite games, but not every body knew how to play. It got quite loud; everybody was shouting, some were singing to try to distract the others, the people who knew how to play were trying to help the ones who didn’t even if they weren’t on the same team... Eventually we were told to go to bed and we all found our mattresses and settled down for a few hours. Between the two houses, we had 19 people to find beds for.   

 

Which brings us to Sunday, February 14, 2021 We were all up and milling about by 0700 this morning and shortly after 0800 we were all off the yard, heading for church. Instead of Sunday school, we youth sang a bunch of songs. The sermon, given by one of the Florido guys, was about Moses, and due to my having my English Bible along and him reading lots of scriptures I could understand most of it. It was truly very inspiring. Especially from a guy who joined our church just a few months ago from some sort of an Amish church. The church was quite full and the fan was running quite high to try to keep us all from getting too warm. But it almost felt like the church services we used to go to back in Manitoba. A full church, the songs are sung in 4 voices with  multiple people to each voice, the song leader, preacher and Sunday school leader are different people, children sitting up behind the pulpit -wait, what? I guess that’s not a North American sight but neither are the plastic lawn chairs that constitute our benches and the short sleeves and sandals that we wear. The big circle we sat in while drinking terere outside after church was another not so North American sight.  Thais and Marivel came home with us for dinner and soon after dinner dishes were over we hopped into the vehicles again to find another volley ball court to play on. Our destination was a sand court beside a soccer field bearing the name Manchester in big letters along the side of the field. The sun was shining brightly and the sand burned the feet of those of us who were stupid enough to want to play barefoot but we all got a few games played and Sara showed up with her brother Gama and eventually we convinced her to play a game with us. She kept saying she didn’t know how to play volleyball which didn’t turn out to be true.  The van for Florido left around 1600 with most of them hoping that Arlin would sleep all the way home so they wouldn’t have to listen to his constant chatter.     

 

Monday, February 15, 2021 I spent about 2 hours on the phone with various members of my family. Keenan and Sophia wanted to talk to me and later I called my sister for advice on something I was baking. I think other wise we mostly recuperated from the weekend. One of these days we went to a pizza place in town called La Rustica which was decorated in wood and had delicious pizza. Also I think I cleaned the fridge in my house either today or tomorrow.  

 

 Wednesday, February 17, 2021 Went visiting this morning. First of all to some Mennonite friends I hadn’t met yet where only the man knew Spanish and Rachelle tried to understand the lady’s Plautdeich and the girls got to go feed the cows and then to another place where we were fed a delicious lunch. Bible Study at Felicita’s in the afternoon.   

 

Thursday, February 18 2021 We went to visit one of Rachelle’s friends from town named Suni. The driveway into her yard is a narrow strip between two buildings that opens up into a big yard full of plants and flowers. She takes care of her dad who is old and forgetful and ‘acts like a child again’ and  who thinks that I should know Guarani already.  For some reason my inspiration is run out and I can’t think of more to write about today.   

 

Friday, February 19, 2021 We went to visit Doña Felicita today and when we arrived the yard was bustling with activity. The children were getting ready to go next door to help their uncle and aunt clean their yard so they can fix up the house and move in. So I joined the throng and when we get there Thais finds 2 chairs and her and I sit down and drink terere and the offers I make to help are turned down because ‘there aren’t’ enough machetes’ so we sat and talked and Monica (one of Thais’s cousins who is 17) stood and chatted with us until her mom called her to work again. I had never chatted with Thais like that as she usually is with Christina or one of her cousins and I take an effort to talk to, and I found her quite amiable. We had a bit of an English/Guarani lesson where I learned (and promptly forgot) Guarani words for the things around us and they reached into their brains and remembered how to spell words like ‘cat.’   

 

Saturday, February 20, 2021 Rachelle was popular this morning. Two sets visitors with promise of more tonight and Monday morning. I sat and listened to the neighborhood gossip and served them terere. Christina and Tiago stayed home with me in the afternoon as there isn’t enough room in the truck for all of us to go to Bible Study.  

There you have the last 2 weeks. My inspiration to make it interesting and not just unemotionally write the bare facts was gone by the time I finished as I waited til the last hour to write and didn’t even get it sent off on schedule. Not sure why I have to have such a rigid schedule. Maybe cuz I don’t count myself a missionary teacher lol.  

Ciaocito Miss Addie 

 P.S. I remembered another name that I had been going to write about last time and forgot. Rodolfo. Which is Rudolf in English. Quite common I think. 

Trece y medio

 Let me give you a few facts to tide you over til next time I write.    

There are normal names here like Nicole and Peter (Pedro) but I find some other names very interesting. We have neighbors named Moses and Snow White (Moises y Blanca Nieve.)  A friend named Bethlehem (Belen) and I thought there was more I was going to add to this but I forget what.   

The waitress or shop keeper babysits for you.   

The high up consulate WhatsApps with his ‘customers.’  You can order pizza by WhatsApp. You can get diapers or cheese or other packages delivered to your gate, by WhatsApp. You can do anything with WhatsApp seems like.   

Due to Covid, at most places there’s at least one barrel with a sink set into the top beside the door and some soap and paper towel. The question is whether or not you have to use it. Same with masks.   

The guard at the door of the store carries a spray bottle with hand sanitizer along with his gun.   

McDonalds has 2 floors. With a balcony on the second.  

At some restaurants you buy your food by the weight. You can buy frozen yogurt by the weight. Fabric by the weight (but not at restaurants.)   

You shake hands and greet everybody. If you are in the middle of a volley ball game when someone arrives, one of the first things you do when the game is done is to shake hands with the newcomer.

 The other thing you do is crowd around the person serving terere so you can be served next.   

If the fruit tree on your yard spreads its branches over the fence, the fruit on those branches is fair game. Even if you are standing right there talking with them.   

Sunday School is interrupted by a pig.   

And of course I have had more brilliant ideas but they slipped my mind somehow.    

 

 

And then a few comments I found interesting   

From a 4-year-old: ‘I have a big heart!’  

 From a 7-year-old when Mom wished something would have happened faster: ‘But Mom! This is Paraguay.’   

 Maybe I should title this ‘You know you’re in Paraguay if…’ bit these are just random tidbits that I’ve hard about or that have happened to me  and don’t necessarily happen thru out Paraguay.