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)