Treinta y uno, y treinta y dos

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I could send you just that first page and you’d know how my last few days went. We didn’t have Bible Study on Saturday or church on Sunday due to Covid and also it was raining on Sunday. I did a bunch of sewing. And we were mostly home and alone.  
 
Well, on  
Monday, June 7
I messaged Sara yesterday that I was bored. ‘I’m coming over tomorrow she said.’ And she did. She showed up on her moto and brought excitement to the whole house I think. First off she and I went off to Manchester and I had another lesson in moto driving. Neither of us were very enthused about me driving home tho. Maybe next time. Back at home we spiced up our Nervioso game (a type of super fast Uno) by alternating Spanish and English numbers, and even playing one time in Guarani. She obviously won that round. She didn’t stay very long but she sure was a breath of fresh air.  
 
Wednesday, June 9 and Thursday, June 10
On Wednesday after language study we drove into Asuncion to do work on some paper work needed for residence papers for the Giesbrecht family. The children and I spent 3 or 4 hours in the van in a parking garage Thursday morning. We tried to use the empty parking spots beside us as space for exercise but the spots were never empty for very long. I later found out that there might have been a playground down the street we could have gone to but we didn’t actually get to terribly bored in the van. We spent more of the rest of the day in the van and got home in the evening.
 
Friday, June 11
I started painting my room! I covered up the wonderful pink, purple and lime green chevron with some beautiful greens. The children helped me with some of it and none of us got any where it shouldn’t be. Well actually I did drip some on the living room table that I was using as a stool..
 
Saturday, June 12 and Sunday, June 13
We had a mostly normal weekend. Cleaned up church Saturday morning, had church Sunday morning but it’s too cold so we did not drink terere after. The only difference was that we did not have an interpreter come from Campo 9 this weekend. We did it by ourselves.
 
Monday, June 14
Juan has been having issues with his family wanting his land but not wanting him. Karlins came in the afternoon to help figure stuff out. I finished painting my room!  
 
Tuesday
The neighbor lady, Emilia, came over with her 1 year old and 7 year old. After they left I walked over to visit with Blanca Nieve for awhile. And of course we got talking about who all could join our church and stuff like that. She was surprised that if her daughter would move to Canada and join our church she could marry anyone, not just a Paraguayo.
And then we went to Julian’s for supper and sang a bunch and talked and ate good food and had a good time and some of them were concerned because I was quiet because I was thinking about the fact that this would be my last time being with them.
 
Wednesday  
Felicity and Thais and Christian and Perla came for Bible Study.
 
Thursday, June 17
Sara showed up this morning to spend the morning with me! That was a lot of fun.
We drove into Guayayvi over lunch so I could get a covid test. The office was closed for lunch but the neighbor called them and soon the lady arrived and came to the vehicle to talk to me and said she could only do it with me in the vehicle so I pulled up to the door (the rest were out shopping except for Evan who was asleep in his carseat) and she went and got her covid testing suit on and I almost didn’t recognize her because she was covered from head to toe in her white suit. She proceeded to take my information and almost didn’t like the fact that I was travelling and only wanted an antigen test.  
We weren’t even home before she had sent me my negative test results. Apparently I had a gender change somewhere along the line but she got that corrected. And due to the fact that she sent my results via WhatsApp, I now get her status updates.
Blanca Nieve came over this evening to show us how to make mbeju. Don’t ask me how to describe mbeju. It’s a very crumbly dry dough (mostly corn flour and mandioca flour) that you press into a pan and fry. It’s very delicious. Especially when eaten with cocido, a hot drink made by burning sugar and yerba and adding water and milk. Blanca Nieve made it with hot charcoal, making the sugar coated charcoal pieces burst into flames in her dish.  
Two of the Florido youth girls and one of their little brothers were in a moto and bike vs car crash tonight on the way to youth. The car drove away as everybody was helping the other 3. They all went to the hospital but I think only one of them stayed the night. She’s got scratches and stitches and needs surgery on her foot. But at least it wasn’t worse.  
 
 
 
And that brings us to Friday.  
The second last day. Not the second-last but the second last as in the second time I’ve had a last day here. It was a grey day again,  but this time it really did drizzle. Sara came over again but she stayed longer this time as we only left in the afternoon. She helped me do a bit of packing and watching the kids and I braided her hair into the French braids she claims she’s always wanted but eventually she had to leave. Which of course was hard.
And then we had to leave too. And I silently said goodbye to everything and everyone again. I kept swiveling my head as we drove thru town, trying to catch one last glimpse of everything and imprint it firmly on my mind: Nardy, Julian’s fruit stand, the road to church, Ña Felicita’s compound. And then we were out of town and eventually arrived in Asuncion and met Karlins for supper and then all piled into the van to make the fateful drive to the airport.  
 
That was yesterday. Today is Saturday, June 19. Our first flight left just after midnight last night, and now we are on our 3rd and last flight. I won’t bore you with details like remembering things like automatically flushing toilets and a glimpse of a parking lot full of vehicles that seem twice the size of those in Paraguay, or things like Starbucks drinks in fridges and self checkout and everybody talking English. We made all our flights, the first landing was rather rough but the others were fine. We watched a movie called ‘Sunrise from an Airplane Window’ except it wasn’t a movie. It was more fascinating. It was quite a cloudy day so the seatbelts signs were on quite a bit and we were jounced around some.  
And then we landed in Kansas City and started to try to remember how to live in North America.
 
And that’s the end of the tale of Adorae's life in Paraguay