Other weird things in Paraguay

• My host dad boxed up 4-5 dead, frozen armadillos to put on a bus to Ciudad del Este for his brother…and everyone thought it was normal. (Im just glad I didn’t have to eat them!)
• Don Ito (which means Mr. Little One) This host dad that is Mick Hutchinson’s Paraguayan twin! He wears khaki shorts and polos, he is the king bbq-er, he is quiet but likes to tease, can seem ruff on the edges but is a big softy on the inside.
• Instead of saying, “Speaking of the Devil,” they say, “Hablando de Roma” or Speaking of Rome (maybe that’s where the devil lives??)
• When you rub pigs’ bellies with your foot they fall over asleep.
• To Paraguayans – all the white people look the same (Funny story – the other day Lety (the ultra bossy leader of the youth group) was trying to describe someone to me and said, “sabes el Moreno, oh [eye roll] todo son morenos para vos!”)
• When my host brother came home for the weekend my host mom sent him back to college with some “groceries”, much like our mothers did when we headed back to school. However, “groceries” mean a Styrofoam cooler (the big kind) full of raw meat…cause why would you send a frozen yogurt container of chili back with him??? But I do think it says something of the universality of mothers everywhere! Food=love. Whether it comes in a yogurt container, a suitcase full of kashi cereal or a Styrofoam container full of pig legs and cow heads it all equals love!
• A man stopped at our house the other day with skinned cow legs hanging from the handle bars of his bicycle for sale. I did not buy anything.
• I really like having fried egg and corn on pizza now! (not really sure how that happened…but it did!)
• You can buy cow fat by the kilo…and we did yesterday to make soap.
• Soap is made out of water, soda and cow fat!
• Apparently ice cream makes soar throats worse (not cause milk makes flem..no because its cold!)…I have never heard this in the us.
• I see ox and carts on a daily basis and its now normal.
• I getting better at understanding Paraguayan directions, “por alli”
• Its too hot to wear underwear – and I kinda don’t mind! (This might be TMI-sorry!)
  But if it makes you feel better I am getting better at washing my underwear by hand!
  However, my jeans probably don’t get as clean as they do in the beautiful Neptune washer at home. But oh well!
• I have gotten really used to talking about peoples current state of fatness and it disgusts me!
• I get text messages from the post office when I get mail! (Id love to get a few more a little more often…send mail!)
• I bought a violin. Now I just need to start practicing!
• The germ-theory of disease has not become generally excepted knowledge.

Less fun realities:

• The Secretary of Children from my training host community was arrested for Human Trafficing – ps. Selling babies is a bad idea!
• NO ONE should be forced to have sex for money – especially if they are 12. There are amazingly harsh realities.
• Learning new things is not always easy.