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
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