You Can Do This

'You can do this' I whisper to myself as a bag is put into my hands by two wrinkled, old lady hands. 'For you to remember me by' she says. Words form in my mind. I want to say 'Muchisimo gracias, Señora. Nunca te voy a olvidar. Siempre vas a quedar en mi memoria.' But I can't. I can't even mutter a simple 'Gracias.' Tears well up in my eyes and I give her a hug and we walk into church together. 

 

'You can do this' I whisper to myself as my friend patiently and excitedly shows me how to drive moto and cheers me on til I get it. As she preaches, exasperated, a sermon at me to take care of my poor phone or my poor self. As she teaches me more Spanish words and how to use them. As she gives a hug and says she'll miss me but she understands that I have to leave. 'Voy a volver,' I want to tell her. 'En un año voy a volver y podemos estar juntos otra vez y no voy a salir otra vez.' Instead, I try to live in the moment and pull out a laugh from somewhere within me.

 

'No quiero irme,' I want to tell this same friend when she comes over and boasts about the cocido I made and how good I was at driving moto. 'Puedo quedarme contigo? Puedo vivir con ustedes?' I want to ask her. Instead I smile sadly at her as she waves me out of the sad trance I was in and say 'Hasta el jueves.'

 

 You can do this.

 

 

Veintisiete y veintiocho

 Saturday, May 8, 2021

 I left you on a cold morning, anticipating a full day of visiting and friends.  We left the house around 1000, stopped to quickly rake the church yard and headed off to meet Abe and Anna at Anna’s parents place about 1.5 hours from here.  I don’t know what to write about other than the fact that I was again impressed how Abe’s kids could easily converse with their Grandparents in Low German, with us in English, with Juan later in Spanish and most of them could understand any Guarani conversation that went on within earshot of them. We ate delicious empanadas for lunch and had fruit salad for dessert. Eventually we exchanged a few riders and headed back to have Bible Study with Juan. Katrina and Peter rode with us and as our vehicle was a bit early, we stopped for ice cream on the way. Once at Juan’s, Peter translated for the first little bit and I felt a bit better because he was a bit cowed by Juan like I feel sometimes or maybe he just had a hard time understanding him.  We ordered pizza for supper and Katrina and Peter and I sang for awhile and then Katrina and I spent part of the evening giggling over random stuff. I hadn’t done that for awhile.  

 

 Sunday 

Church. Terere. Lunch. Katrina and I went to talk to our neighbor Blanca Nieve as she and Katrina had met before and wanted to meet again. So we sat there a bit and she gave us fruit salad and we chatted.  Felicita wasn’t feeling well enough to come to church this morning so after church the parents and maybe even some of the children (I forget) went to see her. The rest of us chilled at home. Peter tried to teach some fútbol (soccer) tricks to Katrina and I and we failed miserably at them. In the end Peter and I played keep away against the younger boys and I don’t think we won.   

 

Monday, May 10 

The cats sure had fun last night.  We had school til lunch and got most of our work done before heading out to meet Karlins in Asuncion. They were having some sort of vehicle trouble so they were going to Asuncion to pick up a rental vehicle, and also some documents. We were going to pick them up at the bus station. Well, we did eventually get there but we were early so we decided to check out a few different places to see if there was something to do. So we turned left. Which was our undoing. Because apparently the light was red (it wasn’t), and there was a policeman (on a moto) who saw us turn and stopped us. From there things went downhill. He wouldn’t slow his speech down so I could hardly understand a word he said, but eventually after sitting half off the road for probably half an hour and after getting Karlin to talk to him we figured out that he wanted to take us to the police station. He wasn’t getting his bribe that he wanted so he was going to follow thru with the ticket he threatened. So off we went to the dingy dump of a police station with pigs wandering thru the back yard which actually was a sort of ditch or swamp or something. Anyways, we sat there for another half hour or so, trying to keep the children’s fears abated and eventually David came out and we were free to leave. The receipt was slightly fishy looking, no amount. Could be they pocketed the money anyways. Eventually we got to the bus station where Karlins were waiting for us, drove across the city to the hotel and did our separate things (swimming, napping, picking up the rental vehicle) and went to one of the grand malls for supper. The best part of the food court was being renovated tho so we went down a few levels and ate outside at Pizza Hut, overlooking a small stream trickling over rocks with pathways and bridges winding around it.   

 

Tuesday

 It was a beautiful, rainy morning. My favorite kind of morning to get up early and read with a blanket wrapped around me. We did a bunch of typical tourist shopping and I spent some more money. We hoped in vain that the leather market would be up and running. (I think it’s down due to Covid?) There were a few stalls set up and the kids and the men played tag while us ladies pretended we might find something yet. Eventually we went to McDonald’s for lunch, where we were each given a piece of paper to dry our hands after washing them at the little sink outside. They were quite rapidly turned into paper airplanes by the only youth aged person in the group. (What can I say. I was at a table with 3 young boys and had to entertain them somehow.) And then we picked up our bags from the hotel and went home.   

 

Wednesday, May 12

 My boast of the day was 3” centipede that didn’t get away on me in the bike shed. Try as he did, he couldn’t find his hole even when I stepped out for a bit. But when I stepped back in after convincing myself that I could be the Victor in this fight he was still crawling around the same few inches of wall so I grabbed the shovel and squished the guts out of him and, while I was at it, squished the cockroach that was in the corner, too. These centipedes are quite the creatures. The next afternoon, over 12 hours later, he was still moving slightly around. Poor guy. 

Leah felt ill all day yesterday, so we had school in the afternoon today so we could all rest up from our week beginning.   

 

Saturday

 Karlins and the teachers (Melanie and Katharine) arrived just as we were finishing up lunch. The parents and the 2 little boys went to Juan’s for Bible Study while the rest of us chilled at home. We went on a longish walk and the Bible Study party surprised us by getting home before us. Perla (an attendee) had been with them and in typical Perla fashion had announced that she had another appointment she had to be at by 1700 so they had to leave. And then they were locked out of the house cuz we had locked up when we left.    

 

Sunday, May 16 

Church. Terere. Lunch. The parents went to Perla’s parents house to pray with her dad who is quite sick. They were not gone very long and after they got back we got out the song books and sang a bunch (Spanish of course.) Jeff and Sharon stopped in later. They’re an older couple from Carrot River who’ve been here for a few months being missionaries to the Mennonites. Karlins and the teachers packed up and left for home but Jeff’s stayed for supper yet before heading out.   

 

Monday 

 On May 17, 2021, the gym behind the Barrio San Pedro Mission house erupted for the first time in a week or so. It started quietly humming around 1320, but after about 2 minutes burst into loud music. The scholars in the school house located right behind the site looked up from their books, commented that they hadn’t heard that for awhile and got back to work. The music pounded on and eventually stopped but no one could recall the exact moment it stopped as it seems to have become normal background noise already. 

We spent the afternoon shopping (fabric store, market and grocery store) in Santani, a city about a 40 minute drive from us. We also did some driving around looking for swimming places.   

 

Tuesday

 Perla messaged me in the afternoon asking if we’d like to come and get some of her fruit that was ripe. So we dropped what we were doing and drove over to her place where she wielded a long stick and jabbed around in the tree, raining grapefruit on the ground. We sat on chairs and she laughingly told us that we were peeling ours wrong before showing us effortlessly exactly how to peel and where to cut so we could efficiently suck the juice out. We took a little walk before going back home so we could be there when Julian arrived.  

Julian arrived around 1730 to start the charcoal and get the meat ready. The rest of the family (except the twins who are at school in Santani) arrived by ones and twos over the next 2 hours. After supper we sang a bunch and all too soon they had to leave cuz some of them had to get up super early for work the next morning.  

Today was also our last day of school for the year! We’ll do our program sometime on the weekend when Karlins are here to listen to it.  

 

 The rest of the week has been rather uneventful if I recall correctly. We got a bit of rain on Friday for the first time in a few weeks. Otherwise the weather had been quite nice with highs of 28°C or 30°C during the day.      

 

Derek and Leah have been doing a sort of scavenger hunt while driving and I thought I’d make up one to add to my letter to give you a bit more of a glimpse at this place.

 

While driving: 

 Red dirt everywhere. If there’s been lots of rain it will wash onto the main road and pile up 

 Hammock strung between two points-trees, posts, trucks 

 Palm trees, banana plants, pineapple plants, lime trees, mandarin trees.. Everything is green

  Colorful wood houses/stores. Lined up along the road with hardly a space between them. 

 Laundry drying on fences 

 Cows, sheep, horses, a few goats dotting the ditches and fields. 

 Trees with the bottoms painted white 

 Stands selling asaditos or haburguesas set up along the ruta (main road) in town

  Overgrown starting stalls of horse race tracks

  Motos. Many many motos. Parked at a house. Driving on the shoulder or passing between vehicles.

  Someone selling towels and blankets beside the road.

  A trench between two tracks to get your vehicle washed at.

  Groups of people sitting in the best shade they can find, drinking terere 

 Veinte Mil stores ($4.00 stores. Except most of their items cost more.)

  A Pepsi banner wrapped around two sticks stuck into the ground. 

 Numerous Scania trucks. Driving, pulled onto the shoulder by a police stop, parked helter skelter in front of houses or businesses. 

 Tires made into planters, some cut into chicken shapes and painted colorfully 

 The inevitable Guarani named towns that are spelled differently then they are pronounced 

 Fruit stands made out of crates  

 Skinny driveways leading to a dwelling place tucked behind a store  

 

At Home: 

 5 or 10 different roosters competing from near and far 

 Someone, somewhere, clapping at a gate, letting the residents there know that they’ve come to buy or sell or chat 

 A vehicle that was going too fast screeching to slow down for the 2 big speed bumps in front of our place 

 Trucks. Galore. Sometimes lined up on either side of the road leaving only one lane open while they wait for their tires to be fixed or who knows what. Sometimes turning their long bodies expertly around on the road that joins the first at a T between the 2 speedbumps.

  Neighbors saying ‘Adios’ as they go by. 

 The steady sounds of someone working out at the gym behind the school room.

  Cats fighting. Right outside my window. On our yard. (At night usually. If they dare to come during the day we have some fun scaring them with limes and shoes. I usually like cats but when stray ones come on our yard while we’re eating supper right there I feel like the deserve being chased. I just had to justify myself.) We do have 1 cat. 

 Well I sorta petered out at the last there and didn’t give many details for at home. But now I better get on with life and make breadsticks for lunch and maybe send this. Or maybe I’ll wait to see of anything interesting happens yet this afternoon other than Karlins coming.  

Turns out that I was smart to wait except for the fact that now it’s after 2100 and I want to sleep not write more and send this. I guess I better get started. Sara and her brother Jedi both had statuses today that they had a service at their church tonight. So we decided to go. I think Jedi had arraigned it and he was leading the meeting. We got there a little early but it turned out that we were the only people who showed up. So we sat down and sang a few songs and drank some coffee, Jedi had a talk and then we sang another song. He accompanied us with his guitar on the last song and then after a prayer, when most of the grownups were outside he started playing and singing some English hymns with Sara. And then Sara showed me how to hold it and how to move your hands but she said she didn’t know how to play. And then we went home and ate pizza for supper. 

I think I could have made that last paragraph more interesting if I would have waited til another day to write it but I had the deadline of 2359 Saturday, May 22, 2021 so I couldn’t wait. 

Veinticinco y veintiséis

 I can’t remember much of what happened the week of April 25 to April 30. It was super cold a few days (the low this week was 11. Quit laughing.) so most days started and ended with sweaters and socks and blankets. We didn’t leave the yard much due to English and Spanish school. I/we/some of us took a few walks for food and to get rid of energy and to see different scenery.  

 

Saturday, May 1, 2021 

Karlins arrived just before we left for Bible Study with Juan. Jonathan (one of the neighbor boys) was here playing just before we left and wanted to go along. The vehicle was too full tho. Afterwards we went to a new place in town for supper. It’s called La Meka. They serve what is said to be a middle eastern type of sandwich and Perla told us later that it’s named after the city Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Slightly interesting fact for me. This place moved here from a different town and the kids got to play on the same bouncy castle they played on not long ago at the old place. Although it must have been patched or something because it wasn’t flopping over quite as much as last time. Probably by far the most interesting thing that happened while we were there was the crunching and ripping sound the truck that was there made as it started leaving. That noise must not be in my brain range (mines more the hum of a sewing machine) but obviously was in some because suddenly a few people jumped up from our table with the cry of ‘That’s our van!’ Indeed it was. Eventually the driver of the truck must have realized something wasn’t sounding right and stopped, but not before one taillight of the van had been ripped out. The men went to talk to him and some of us calmly kept eating while they talked to the driver and tried to figure out what to do. They came back saying alcohol was detected on the drivers breath and that explained some of the factors, such as why he didn’t stop as soon as he heard the thwap thwap thwap. I felt slightly sorry for him tho. Maybe his brain range was also sewing machines, not lights ripping out of vehicles.  

 

Sunday, May 2 

We went to visit a Mennonite couple this afternoon. They’ve been friends with the missionaries for quite a few years, maybe because they speak English. I had been there with Eric’s a few times so I knew them and their place. Their youngest child showed up with his family of 3 little boys (including a super tiny one!) The grownups sat and talked and the children played on their cool bicycle/huge tricycle sort of thing. And of course she fed us cookies and kringel. We drove around to see a bit more of the colony and then stopped for pizza on the way home.        

 

Monday, May 3 

The school board (Karlins) and the children’s’ parents came for devotions this morning. And brought all their kids so we had a grand time singing. I had some songs picked that I sung in school back in the good old days and our small classroom fairly rang with our rendition of My Grandpa Had a Pickup, Kookaburra, This Land Is Your Land and many others. We sang a good half hour before we picked up our math books and the school board and parents and under aged kids climbed into the van and went to do some tract work and shopping and sightseeing. Our day was slightly messed up due to starting late and singing longer than usual and we had a bit of lunch at the end of our recess before finishing up work into the afternoon. The family came home around 1500 and soon after that Karlins left for home and a swarm of neighbor kids came to play. 

 

 Wednesday, May 5 

I’m skipping lots of days because we’ve been kind of laying low and not doing much other then recuperating from classes and making sure everybody is well fed and rested up for the next day’s classes. But today, just after those of us who are the younger set of this household started classes again after lunch, my friend Sara messaged and asked if she could come spend the afternoon with me while her brother was teaching Spanish. Well of course! So we quit school when they arrived and we had a grand time making popcorn and cocido and brownies and talking to Rachelle and, of course, playing Sara’s favorite variation of Uno. I asked her if she’d like to come to church with us sometime and she was very excited about that until she realized we have church at the same time they do and her dad is the leader (I think) of that church and she’d need to get permission from him. So hopefully she can come sometime.  

 

 Thursday, May 6 

Its turned cold again. It rained during the night and we woke up to no power. We ate by flashlight and started our school work by what little light shone thru the everlasting dark clouds. Eventually the power did go on and we set up a heater in the classroom to keep warm. The temperature was about 14 °C all day. I wore my runners for the first time since I got here.  

 

 Friday and Saturday

 Cold but sunny. My app claims it’s 9°C but its not yet 0800 so it should warm up yet. We’ve got church to clean and beds to make and Abe and Anna and co. are going to arrive later as translators for the weekend. So I’ll just send this and update you more in a few weeks.   

 

Hablamos,  

Miss Addie

Veintitres y veinticuatro

 Sunday, April 11, 2021 

Jonathon the 10 year old neighbor boy came with us to church this morning. It’s nice to have him in class to tell me what certain words mean and to answer the questions in the lesson. After church he claimed his Grandma had left and told him to stay at our place til she came home so he was here for a lot of the day. It started raining during lunch so afterwards I took an umbrella that didn’t help and a Gabriel who wasn’t feeling tops out the gate to watch the children who were having an absolute party in the red water rushing down the street. Karlins came for Bible Study yesterday and left after lunch today.  

 

Monday, April 12

 I encountered a 10” (at least) millipede in my bathroom today. I wanted him out of there very fast and obviously wasn’t thinking the brightest as I grabbed the most available thing which was a flimsy broom and dustpan. Which did the job of getting him out of there just find but when it came time to kill him it didn’t work. Broom bristles might work for things like ants but not for long snake like creatures with a super hard outer layer. I even tried stepping on him but by the time I had run to get something that would actually kill him and came back he had disappeared into the bushes. Not a happy feeling but that’s the first time I’ve seen something like that here and so far also the last time. 

 A few minutes before Julian arrived to administer some haircuts this afternoon, Perla showed up at the gate. She’s been quite a faithful church attender but I haven’t seen her much since Eric’s left. Typical Perla fashion, she walked confidently onto the yard and Davids were a bit confused as to who she was or what she wanted til I came out. She had just stopped in to meet the new missionaries and to see how everything was going here.   

 

Tuesday, April 13 

We had a quiet morning of school while the rest were gone shopping and got enough work done so we could pass up school in the afternoon in favor of a birthday party and supper with friends.  

Jennifer, the little girl across the road from us turned 4 and her party was today. She can’t walk by herself, I think it’s due to cerebral palsy. Her mom is my age and is very friendly and loves to talk. Anyways, we were invited to her birthday party today. We arrived just after 1630 to a big circle of chairs, half filled up already, around a big pink backdrop in front of the house, which bore the words ‘Feliz cumpleaños’ on a banner. In front of the backdrop was a table almost overflowing with the cake and cupcakes, and in front of that sat the birthday girl with something spread out at her feet for the gifts. As people were arriving, they’d hand her their gift take a picture of her and their child and then go sit down. Soon the chairs were filled (about 20 adults and 20+ children) and 2 of the moms friends started coming around with hotdogs (with a little mayo squirted on them) and little bottles of coke. The speakers were busy playing an abundance of different little birthday songs, the row of boys kept running of for various reasons and numerous neighbor dogs kept having to be shooed out of the circle. Eventually the children all gathered in front of the backdrop and sang happy birthday and had their picture taken. Next a big balloon was brought out and David was enlisted to hold it up high while Jennifer’s dad held her up with a knife so she could pop the piñata. A scramble of kids followed and eventually everybody emerged with some sort of goody or 5. A few children got some sort of little toy horns so that kept it noisy for awhile. Soon the cupcakes with a fancy small package of chocolate was handed out to each of the adults, followed by a piece of cake for each child and whoever else wanted one. A little before 6, people started getting up and leaving and we left too as we had more plans yet. 

 We made a quick stop at home before hopping into the van and heading for Julian’s (see last page) for the evening. We talked and sang and Sara and I played a bit of volley and they fed us supper of cheese and ham sandwiches and fresh grapefruit and manzanita (small apple) juice.  

After the millipede episode last night, the cockroach lying dead on my shower floor this morning didn’t seem like such a big deal. Although I did refuse to clean it up. Derek was happy to take care of it for me this evening.  

 

Wednesday, April 14 

I walked down to the libreria with some of the children but my friend didn’t have what I needed so she told me to come back next week. Stopped at the store for a few groceries before taking the long route home. 

Sometimes I can be a bit amazed at myself that I can talk about the affects of and powder on skin in Spanish. But still not be confident in speaking in the past tense.  

Due to a touch of illness, we cancelled our supper plans and went for a walk to get some fresh air.   

 

Thursday, April 15

 The children and I made another trip down to the cruce (where the 2 main thoroughfares meet and where most necessary items can be purchased) to find some flips for Leah. It’s quite something trying to get 4 kids safely across a busy highway. We dropped Derek and Caleb off at home and Leah and Evan came with me around the corner to where the neighbors were just starting to play volley. A few of the young people from around here play almost every day and I had wanted to join them for awhile. The mom of the girl who’s birthday party we just went to seems to be the most involved in that and she messaged me that they were going to play so today I decided to join them.  Which turned out to be a rather interesting thing to do. We played with them when the Florido youth came here for the weekend but today I was by myself. With Leah and Evan along in case in needed excuses. My friend, Blanca Nieve, assured me that they didn’t mind me being there and made sure I was on her team but I was still rather intimidated by the constant talking in Guarani and the fact that I still cannot figure out their point system. They never trade spots, but they do trade servers so after you serve you’ve got to run back to your spot if you’re in front. I don’t know if they only count the points you actually get or if you get a point when you move up (or in the case, don’t move up) but it seemed like Blanca Nieve was the one keeping score so I didn’t have to. When the first team reaches 5 points, we switch sides and finish the game. Which ends at a score of 21. Thankfully my excuses started giving me an excuse after an hour or so of feeling very out of my comfort zone so I got to take them home.    

 

Friday, April  16

 I woke up around 0300 to cats and dogs. On the tin roof it sounded like I was overlooking a dam or standing at the base at a waterfall or something. I could hear every little pulse as the rain grew louder and quieter. Eventually either the cats or the dogs must have left because eventually the roar became a lot quieter. But the other must have stuck around because when I got up about 3 hours later it was still raining. I couldn’t tell if it was the cats or the dogs tho.  

David and Lynora picked up sister Felicita and Gama (the Spanish teacher) and went to have Bible Study with brother Juan. Us kids stayed home for various reasons. We entertained ourselves by doing laundry and antagonizing the cat and drawing each others faces and making chipaguasu and spinning each other on the hammock swing and the laughing at our attempts to walk 6 straight feet.  

 

 Saturday, April 17 

We made our way down to Campo 9 today, stopping at McDonalds for lunch much to the disgust of some and delight of others.  Abe and Anna were our supper destination. So after chilling at Karlin’s for an hour or so we went to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening at Abe’s. It’s been about 3 years since Abe’s moved back here from Whitemouth so there was some catching up to do between the families. Katrina and I went on a bike ride and she caught me up on what had been happening around there since I had been there a few weeks ago.  

 

Sunday, April 18 

A potluck had been arranged for after church because of the visitors from Barrio San Pedro. Which was me too I guess. Church was over by 1030 or so so we sat and drank terere in a few different groups before we ate an early lunch. I think almost everybody had brought tallarin. After lunch we played volley and then renumbered and played again and that went on for awhile. Due to having had time change and it being fall, there’s more shade earlier in the day and it’s not so warm so there weren’t so many terere breaks as other times. Eventually some white flappers showed up (often some neighbors would come play volley with us and due to the different churches it’s very interesting to see what sort of head covering or dress or suspenders show up) and I was happy to be off the court when they started playing because they were super good. And then my ride was there to pick me up so I didn’t get a chance to show off my amazing volley skills against theirs.  

Supper destinations was a place nicknamed ‘Folks’ by Karlins so they could tell people they were going to folks for supper sometimes. The slide was a favorite for the two little boys and they kept this teacher busy making sure they didn’t hurt themselves on the drop-off at the bottom or fall thru the ladder rungs. The little merry go round thing was also enjoyed by both kids and adults. The more mature adults sat at the table and ordered food. Which came from across the street. This place is one of quite a few in a strip where the tables are set up on the median between the busy highway and the busy road that runs right beside it (A service roadish sort of thing.) so the food and drink has to dash between vehicles to make it safely to the table. On nights when there’s a soccer game, some of these place set up a big screen to watch the game and then everybody seems to flock there to watch.  

 

 Monday, April 19 

We did stuff like shopping and eventually headed for home and tried unsuccessfully to find what we wanted a various markets and ate empanadas.   

 

Tuesday  

Normal life of school and stuff. I kept thinking it was Wednesday for some odd reason 

 

 Wednesday, April 21

 School and language class. In the late afternoon we visited at Felicita’s for an hour or so.

 

  Thursday, April 22 

My friend at the libreria had said she would have erasable pens in stock for me this week so my 4 charges and I walked down there this afternoon but apparently Asunción didn’t have them or they couldn’t get them cuz they come from Brazil or something. She let me use her hole punch for free though, and threw a very good sales pitch for a backpack I glanced at.  

 

Saturday, April 23 

Today. Its been raining since 0500 this morning so who knows what the weekend will hold.  I wrote that sentence at about 0800 this morning. It’s 1718 as I write this and it’s still raining. The thermometer shows 17.8°C and we’ve been in sweaters and leggings and blankets all day and we’re still shivering.    

 

Here’s a bit of info on the family I reference to a lot. 

Julian and Pamfila Benitez. Good friends from here in Barrio. They run a fruit stand a 4 minute walk from here.  

Gamaliel (26?) Called Gama. He’s the Spanish teacher for Davids

 Jedidiah (24)

 brother to these people who I’ve never met

 Sara (18) One of my good friends here. 

 Simon (16) Cezia (16) 

 

My life seems so boring compared to my sister's

My sister posted on her blog last night and that set me thinking today. I got a bit discouraged because I wish I was a writer like she is. Somehow she made a can of mushrooms into a life problem that she had to solve, a lesson she had to learn. She always seems to think of something interesting to write about, or somehow makes a non interesting thing become interesting. 

My life seems so boring compared to my sister's. 

That's when I realized that I'm the one in Paraguay while my sister is living normal life in Saskatchewan. 

So maybe my life isn't boring. Especially right now. But my sister's talent is to make everyday, mundane topics into a blog post while my writing talent is more in stating the basic facts. And that's what I need to accept. And not try so hard to be something different.

I had the perfect post idea a few months ago. I tried writing it up a few times and never seemed to get much passed the first few sentences. Now I look back and it doesn't seem like such a good idea any more. Now I see that it was a very cliché new missionary teacher idea. My topic was somewhere along the 'North Americans are so privileged and don't even realize it' line and I wanted to preach everyone a sermon they would not forget with examples that brought tears to their eyes and never let them forget for a moment for the rest of their lives how good they have life. Well, now I'm facing leaving this place, and while I do still think North Americans are over privileged, I'm realizing how good these people have it here. And maybe they don't even realize it.

And I've found out again what I've been told and known for most of my life. People are people the whole world over and have wants and wishes and dislikes and personalities the same be they from North, East, South or West. I've found out that friends are friends, and it's always going to be hard to say goodbye, and to leave.

Veintiuno y veintidós

 Saturday, March 27 again

 The teachers invited me over for night. It was a good evening involving chips and salsa, a run around because the place that was selling food didn’t actually have food for us, making our own supper and eventually playing rounds and rounds of Uno. With no mercy shown. When we went to bed, my alarm showed that I could sleep for 9.5 hours despite the hour being 2300 and church starting at 0900 the next morning. We have time change here this weekend and the long night was due to this fact. 

 

 Sunday, March  

These girls like to sleep as late as possible, unlike me. I’d been awake for awhile when, at 0730 they started bustling about. One insisted that it was 0830 and we had to be at church soon and the other one eventually got it thru to her that it was actually 0730 and apologized for making me get up early. I invited the girls over for dinner to return the favor of me spending night with them so I took them there in my fancy little white Changan Alsvin right after church since the water wasn’t on and we couldn’t wash breakfast dishes first. When we got back to church around 1430 people were already setting up the volley ball court and waiting for the keys so they could get the chairs out of the teacher house. A few of the guys started with a few games of piki before some of the girls convinced them to play volley with us. These people are quite good at volley and the games are always a lot of fun. I do find myself on the ground after diving to try to save the play more often then I would have on the gym or barn floor back home which is also quite an unusual sight here. A more normal sight here would be a slide with an amazing kick at the end due to lots of piki playing and instincts. Piki is volleyball using anything but your hands. With only 2 or 3 players on each side. No double touch. And each play has to be 3 hits before it goes over. And if you have 3 players then each person has to hit it once in the play. Slightly intense.  

 

 Monday, March 

 First day in a long time that I can remember that I didn’t turn on my AC. 

 

  Wednesday, March 31

 Bible study at Juan’s. In the midst of our discussion, 3 or 4 dogs ran barking thru the yard next door, chasing a yelping dog. The tiny dog on the yard watched them go and interrupted [some of] us with a howl. People milled around talking and sharing chipa. And don Juan and ña Felicita sit and carry on with our lesson like they don’t notice a thing.   

 

Thursday, April 1

 Shayla and I had great plans to finally visit some veinte mil GS stores that we’ve been talking about for awhile but our plans were thwarted due to Easter. So we went home and ate chipa and drank terere with the family instead. Just kidding about the chipa part.  

 

Friday, April 2

 I’m not sure if I going to make a very good impression with my green sweater on a green dress. I think that’s a worse fashion mistake then an ensemble of blue and green. (Referring to the old adage ‘blue and green should never be seen) Anyways, at least the kids won’t care. Or maybe they will but the glow sticks will out weigh the fashion when it comes to first impressions. Or maybe no one will even notice and I’m making a big deal about it cuz I need something to write about and I’m trying to be slightly sarcastic and funny. 

Actually, they were just kind of appalled that I was wearing a sweater in the first place. They thought that 23°C or so was still rather warm.  After an hour or so of waiting and watching every body unite with their friends who were aboard the same plane and pretending to understand the low German conversation going on beside us, we finally around midnight we glimpsed them and they glimpsed us and soon we were loaded into the vehicles and driving thry deserted dark streets. And then we went to bed. 

My new family. From Whitemouth, MB David and Lynora Giesbrecht  Derek (9)  Leah (7) Caleb (4) Evan (1.5)  

 

Saturday, April 3, 2021 

I got up on time and spent some quality alone time in several of the quiet, shady places that most people don’t frequent so early when staying at a hotel. We made our way to Barrio San Pedro and started to get settled in.   

 

Sunday, April 4, 2021 

Normal Sunday morning church. I taught children’s Sunday school again for the first time in a long time. The ages and quantity of the children that come haven’t been conducive to a children’s class since Eric’s left. Thais (Felicita’s granddaughter, age 14) has switched over to adult class but her brother Cristian (2) sat and colored with us for awhile but soon got a little lonesome for his sister. My nap was interrupted when Sara and her brother Gamaliel stopped in. Gama is going to teach Spanish to David’s and wanted to meet them. Their family has been friends with the missionaries for quite a while and some of them can speak English quite well. I was super enthused after they left because I found that I must have learned a lot of Spanish in the last few weeks while I was in Campo 9 and I could understand and talk with Sara a lot better. We played our standard few rounds of Nervioso (a fast paced game with Uno cards) and tried to get Derek to play with us. Jonatan (10 year old from down the street) came over to play and later he went on a walk with us around the neighborhood and showed us his school and told us which dogs had bit him before and tried to teach us how to count in Guarani.   

 

Monday, April 5, 2021 

A bit of a blur of school books and visiting don Juan and Karlins leaving.   

 

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

 A lot of things happen that I don’t remember the exact time or day of. I biked with Derek and Leah to Julian’s fruit stand down at the cruce one day. (Julian and Pamfila are Sara and Gama’s parents). We did a bit of sight seeing shopping one day.  We started school in the afternoon. I didn’t have everything figured out but I’ll just go with the flow.  

 

 Wednesday, April 7 

Gama arrived to start language study at 0800. I took the school aged children and the underage school children into the school room and proceeded to have a semblance of a normal school day. Caleb has a makeshift desk to color at and seems to enjoy being in school with his siblings. Evan runs in and out as long as he’s happy and doesn’t disturb the classes going on just outside in the quincho too much. I’m feeling sort of like a teacher in Gallup again, not a school teacher. Sippy cups on my desk, toys all over the classroom floor. A child in one arm as I’m explaining some math problems to the scholars. Who have been doing amazing with everything that goes on while they’re trying to study.  Both schools starts at 0800 and go til 1100. The children and I start again at 1300 and have another hour to finish things up. This way, the little boys can be with their parents a bit and Leah and Derek can have a bit of a quiet part in their school day yet. Spanish classes start up again at 1400 and run til 1700 on the days that they go into the afternoon. Some days it’s just morning.  

Our first venture without someone quite fluent in both English and Spanish happened this afternoon. We went to visit ña Felicita and her family. Now, I did a bunch of Spanish studying while I was in Campo 9 and I’m finding out I learned a lot from that. I could understand and translate almost everything that they wanted me to understand. I had a hard time forming replies to carry on a conversation but I think ña Felicita was still quite happy that we came to see her.   

 

Thursday, April 8 

I mentioned to the Spanish students that Evan and I were going to walk to Julian’s stand for some things we needed for supper and seeing as they were in the midst of a lesson focused exactly on grocery shopping, and were actually going thru a conversation of buying fruit the teacher thought to make it real and suggested that we all go. So we made a jolly trip down to the cruce (a cruce is an intersection where 2 main roads meet. There are only 2 main roads in Barrio San Pedro.) where Pamfila passed out bananas to all of us to eat while we chatted.  Evan and I continued on to the libreria while the rest walked back home. Again I was pleasantly surprised at how well I got along while trying to buy stuff like ‘notebooks’ and ‘pencil sharpeners.’ It helped that the lady new Eric’s and was super friendly and nice and repeated herself in different words to make sure I understood and she understood. Two people came in for quick printing jobs while we were there but Evan and I were enjoying ourselves enough that we didn’t mind letting them go ahead. We stopped in at the pharmacy where Sara just started working to say hi on our way back home, and waved as we passed the fruit stand again.  (Lynora described me as being ‘radiant’ when I came back from my walk. I feel a bit embarrassed as this whole finally catching on to and being able to converse well enough in Spanish should have come a bit earlier but I don’t actually think I’ve been to slow at learning considering I haven’t had any classes of any kind so I’ll try not to be embarrassed. I could understand a lot before Eric’s left but now I don’t have Rachelle to do all the talking so I have to start. I am truly happy you like talking though Rachelle, because I don’t. )   

 

Friday, April 9

 Started an art project coloring names tags for the desks because I didn’t have any better ideas. Or maybe I was to lazy to try something fancy with sticks and paint and all that sort of cool stuff. I took the kids on a walk this afternoon and we stopped and bought a coke on the way home. (The next day, Caleb told his mom that  he would like to go on another walk with me but not her. I kinda think he realized he could get me to buy another coke sooner than she would lol.) The neighbor lady, Blanca Nieve, was playing volley with her friends and invited me to join her but I told her I’d like to come another day when I didn’t have quite so many kids to keep track of. I’m not sure if they play during the week but maybe my aim for the next few weeks will be to play with them as much as possible.   

 

Saturday, April 10 

Did weekend stuff like figuring out how soon we’ll be done school and trying to write this interestingly. We picked up ña Felicita and met Karlins at Don Juan’s for Bible Study. Because of time change, he requested that Bible Study be at 1500 instead of the normal 1630. I’m not sure if he’s planning to talk the extra half hour or if he wants us to leave half an hour earlier. He does seem to like to talk and due to his age (90 some. I don’t know if he actually knows how old he is) he has a lot of time to sit and study the Bible so he has a lot of thoughts and questions.  I’m just thankful that cockroaches don’t fly.

Diecinueve y veinte

 Minutes after I sent the addition to last week’s diary, I encountered another cockroach in the shower. The forth one in the last 2 weeks. I think they do come back to life after all, Anna. (It’s been over a week now and I haven’t spotted any more cockroaches in my house. Perhaps due to some sort of poison that was used on them.) On to better things.  

 

Sunday, March 14, 2021 

Florido for church this morning. Went for a walk and stopped to visit the parents of the guy who is in charge of the school here. (Skip to Thursday for more info.) Went out for pizza for supper and got to watch all the Mennonites who seem to make up the biggest percentage of diners stare at us and try to figure out who we were. Not sure if they figured us out or not.  

 

Monday, March 15 

Did a little fabric shopping on the way to Barrio San Pedro this morning. Later afternoon we went to Felicita’s for Bible Study. Thais (14) joined us for the first time. Maybe because she didn’t have 3 extra girls to play with.  

Things have gone downhill in Barrio San Pedro since Erics left. The guy who sold the best asaditos down at the cruce passed his business on to someone else and went to find himself different work. The place where we used to be able to buy the most delicious rotisserie chickens on the way home from church hasn’t had any the last few times I’ve been by. Our usual waitress at San Pedro (a restaurant in town) only showed up for a few minutes and they didn’t have time to blow up the globo locos like they usually do.   

 

Tuesday, March 16 

Once again we left the dejected Barrio San Pedro house to sit empty for another week. Stopped in at Juan’s place for Bible Study. He complimented me on how much Spanish I’ve learned instead of trying to speak Guarani to me. Maybe he isn’t scary after all. I’m not sure what else we did today besides come back to Campo Nueve.  

 

Wednesday, March 17 

Youth singing in the evening. Which consists of sitting in a circle and singing wholeheartedly or halfheartedly out of our folders for awhile. And as soon as that’s done, out comes the terere and Arlin or Peter sets up 2 chairs in the middle of the circle so they don’t have to hold the water jug on their lap and we sit and talk. Or rather, sit and listen to Arlin and Peter talk.  It was a bit of a colder evening so Shayla made us some sort of delish hot drink she called a ‘lumberjack’ and we sat outside and listened to the reports from Annual Meeting after we got home from singing.  

 

Thursday, March 18 

Shayla took Gabe for shots this morning and I spent that time in the libreria next door. They sell all sorts of books and school and office supplies. My main purchase was a Spanish Bible, and I got some things for school, too. Afterwards, we went and picked up the teachers and brought them into town for lunch and some fabric shopping. Which seems to be the same all over the world. 

I’m not sure if I’ve explained the appearance of ‘the teachers.’ We have a small church school here in Paraguay. I’m not sure of all the facts but its run (managed? School-boarded?) by a Paraguayan member who moved to the States. He finds the teachers and makes the necessary arrangements like a list of who is supposed to take lunch to the teachers each school day and stuff like that. Actually I think this is the first year he is in charge but he seems to be doing it quite well. From my point of view. Anyways, til now, there have usually been guy teachers and this is I think the first year that they have 2 girl teachers. Melany (from Guatemala) uses the church for her classroom of 4 children in grades 5,7 and 8. Katharine (from Dominican Republic) has a very tiny school house beside church for her 3 students in grades 1 and 3. So hopefully this explains the appearance of ‘the teachers.’ You will be hearing more of them in a few days.   

 

Friday, March 19 

The most noteworthy thing I did today was take the truck and go to volley all by myself. Typical volley game. The specified place was church, the specified time was 1800 or a little after and when I showed up at 1820 no one was there. Except the teachers who’s house is right behind church. Eventually a few people showed up and we played 5 on 5 til about 1930 when it got to dark to play and, surprisingly, since the teachers didn’t supply terere and no one had brought any we all soon headed to our respective homes. I didn’t have much trouble finding my way home but on the way I was going to pass a slow moving vehicle but then decided not to as there were vehicles coming eventually and I really wasn’t in a hurry. I found out the real reason I hadn’t passed a few minutes later when a moto with no lights came whizzing past me in the oncoming lane.  

 

 Saturday, March 20 

One other noteworthy thing I did yesterday was messaging the teachers and asking them if I could stay with them for the weekend while Karlins went to Barrio San Pedro again. So this morning I unloaded my backpack and mattress at the teachers’ house and waved to Karlins as they drove off even tho Judd pleaded with me not to stay.  The teacher house is a small, 3 room house. A bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen with a table, some plastic lawn chairs and 2 wire rocking chairs.  The girls were planning a youth supper for that evening so we needed to go shopping in Campo 9. The only problem is that the only way they have to get around are their own 2 feet. So a car was borrowed but wasn’t going to arrive on time so lunch was started and then the car did arrive on time so we drank papaya juice and turned off the stove and got ready and went to town. We went to a fancy restaurant for burgers for lunch and then went to the Super for groceries (or shoes in my case) and afterwards drove thru Lactolanda for ice cream. They must have enjoyed having me along because they wouldn’t even let me pay for my own lunch or ice cream. Later we dropped the car off and got a tour of the Fellowship church and school. They have 3 classrooms. Two for the English speaking children and 1 for the ones who don’t speak English. Which I found a bit strange. Although I did find it kind of refreshing to talk to the one teacher (who is technically a Paraguayan but looks as white as you and me and speaks perfect English but her Spanish didn’t sound much better than mine. Not to judge or anything.) instead of trying to keep up with the conversation in the Spanish class upstairs. I’m feeling very snobby with my distinguishing between classes by the language they’re taught in and saying that I went and found someone to talk English to instead of listening to the conversation and trying to figure out what they were saying. Although everyone in that conversation could understand English and most could talk it very well.  Anyways, its Friday afternoon already and I don’t have time to go on rambling and judging. We returned to the teacherage and eventually people started arriving for supper. It wasn’t a big group but we had fun playing volley and eventually the hot dogs were roasted and some of the guys went around trying to freak out the girls with the huge frogs that came to visit. It worked in a few cases and resulted in screams and silent treatment.  

 

 Sunday, March 21 

It was a rainy morning but there was just enough time for us to have Sunday School outside between downpours. Its handy to have people fluent in 3 different languages especially when there are representatives of each language as a first language in church.  Sat under the tree at Abe’s and drank terere after church. ‘We teachers’ were invited for lunch afterwards. It is my aspiration to one day switch between two languages as easily as they do. I mean 3, or is it 4 by now. The way things are now, I think I’ll have to stick with one. For now. Melany spent the afternoon studying for school tomorrow as the courses she teaches are difficult and Katharine and I did the normal Sunday afternoon nap thing. People started arriving for the normal Sunday afternoon volley around 5 or so and eventually we had enough to play so we did that for awhile. And drank terere. Although that’s hardly noteworthy. We got invited to go to Arnaldo’s for an asado for supper so after everyone left we all showered and ate watermelon and brownies because these girls have obviously found out that at an asado, the meat might only be ready at 2200. Eventually we walked down the road and found Arnaldo’s children (read the list of youth below) and a few other friends drinking terere and waiting for the meat to be done. So we joined them in the growing cold and eventually were offered sweaters since we had neglected to bring ours and eventually around 2100 or a bit before the meat was done and we ate. Soon afterwards, the group grew smaller, some of the more unfamiliar faces left and the conversations switched from mainly Guarani to Spanish and Arlin started to quiz me out on Canada and eventually we left. The walk back home is quite short but eventful enough as there are tales of frogs and snakes and some of us were definitely not fond of frogs and snakes and we ended up running half the way back. Also there was a car coming.  

 

 Monday, March 22

 School started at 0730 but I slept in a little before sitting in on each class for a few minutes. School here is taught a lot more orally, and the teachers are kept quite busy with 3 or 4 students. Shayla picked me up not long after 0900 and that was the extent of my weekend with the teachers. They offered that I could come back next weekend but I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that.   I think this account of the weekend would be a lot more interesting if you knew the hidden aspects such as personalities and relationships and who belongs to what church and who their families are and that sort of thing.  I definitely recommend trying something like this sometime. 

 

  Wednesday, March 24 

I’m not sure what to write about anymore except that I’ve been doing some school shopping and trying to make amazing things for that. I figured out how to make origami stars out of 1/2 “ strips of paper. And also that post it notes make cute paper airplanes. Youth singing was cancelled tonight due to heavy rain and power outages. Which was kind of sad because this one was going to prove interesting as we were all supposed to preach a tiny sermon on a verse that inspired us.   

 

Thursday, March 25 

We threw a bunch of stuff into the pickup and headed down miles of cobblestone road to a lake in Bergthal Colony. The only others there were a few fishermen so we could watch the sunset quite peacefully. It wasn’t very ideal for swimming as they’ve been drying out the lake so they can work on the dam or something and they’d also been working around the edge with some sort of big equipment and made some deep ruts (where we were anyways.) The frogs came out when we were done supper and had a feast on the bugs that came too close to the fire and didn’t live to tell the tale. We were warned by one of the fishermen that the police were going to be out tonight due to the new restrictions coming in place this weekend for the Easter weekend so we took a different route back home and drove a bunch more miles of cobblestone road thru the colony and saw volley games and parties. It looks like it’s the in thing to stick colorful reflectors to gates or posts or whatever is at the end of your driveway and see if you can outdo your neighbor.  

 

Friday, March 26 

Did some more school shopping, Spanish studying, talked to Mom, walked around the corner to exchange the empty glass pop bottles for full ones. There was quartet singing at our place for awhile in the evening and eventually Shayla and I got to join them for a bit before supper. It was a very interesting group including an uncle of some of our youth who lives in the states now (the uncle does), Walter and his brother Josias, and an acquaintance/friend, Esli, from the Fellowship church who camee in cowboy boots and suspenders. Esli is one of those who is fluent in Spanish, Guarani and English. His dad is from the states and judging by his accent and the way he talked, I would have guessed Esli had grown up there but apparently he’s never been.  

 

Saturday, March 27 

I helped Shayla clean church this morning and after drinking terere with Dennis (read the youth section below), I got to mow some of the lawn! Smaller push mower than I’m used to but I’m spoiled I think. It felt good to mow lawn again, its amazing how much a girl can miss that.  And now its afternoon and I should clean my house here and do something useful and worthwhile. Although updating you is counted as worthwhile. As is mixing paints and trying to paint animal faces on tiny little pompoms. I just heard thunder so maybe we’ll get some sort of storm yet today. I’m hoping for volley sometime yet this weekend but who knows what will happen. Rain or the new restrictions for Easter week might hinder that.  

David and Lynora arrive next Friday! So we’ll go to Barrio and get the house ready and then pick them up in Asuncion and soon I’ll be back in my old bedroom in Barrio San Pedro!                 

 

Here is a list of the youth that I’ve been keeping company with and some random details about them. 

 Walter (25) just recently joined the church from some sort of Amish type church called The Fellowship.  

 Peter (18), Katrina (15), Dennis (12) All 3 are members. Dennis is still in school but comes to most volley games and singing. There younger brother Willie likes to come, too. Abe and Anna Jantzen are their parents. They lived in Whitemouth for a few years.  

 Leidi (17), Arlin (14), Alan (12) Alan is still in school and is not a member but comes to volley and singing. They have older and younger siblings, some of whom attend church. Their parents are Arnaldo and Floriana. 

 Evelin (15) is a cousin to the 3 you read about last and the one you will read about next. She is a member but her parents are not. She lives with her grandparents to take care of her sickly Grandpa.   

Andreas (15) attends church and volley regularly, but is not a member. He’s a cousin to the people in the last 2 paragraphs. 

 Melany (20) is the older grades’ teacher from Guatemala

  Katharine (21) is the younger grades’ teacher from Dominican Republic