The Travels Begin!

Leaving Paraguay on Friday morning was sad. I cried as the plane took off - knowing that so many of my friends will never get to see Paraguay from the air or have a chance to see what I will see. Being a tourist now, is fun. But there is a part of me that is pained with the harsh reality that many are not as lucky as I am. I wish, as hard as I can wish, that i would be able to take them (my friends and most of all, kids club) with me on a giant field trip, to see the world. But unfortuantely, I dont think that is very managable, at least for now. So in the mean time, post cards will have to do.

I am in Valparaiso, Chile. It is on the Pacific Coast.

We got here this morning around noon. Its beautiful. Its a pretty industrial. It had its big hay-day between 1883-1915. And died down after the Panama Canal, because it didnt need to be the stop off point between Cape Horn and California. It is built on a hill, and all of the houses are brightly painted (i dig it!). And it is sorta like San Fransico, in the sense that all the streets are steep and windy. And houses are precariously placed on the hill and look like they might fall off. (I doubt they will, but the streets are soooo steep they are tricky to drive on).

The ocean is beautiful, looks like Lake Michigan, but smells salty! I feel like I can almost see Australia. We are staying in a very cute neighborhood. There are many little artisan shops! Tons of them have great wool products and felted wool (I havent bought anything yet, but Im not sure how much longer i can restrain myself??).

Send off team

This is who came to see me off last wednesday night.
Post this picture there were lots of hugs and tears. We all cried.

Petunia Plana, Flat Stanley`s cousin!

Maura and Matias with their letter from Carol!

Morelia with her letter from Fran

Karina with her letter from Camp Stanhope

As part of my final push at the end of the miracle mile. I wrapped up the Petunia Plana Project (Flat Stanley). The letters got temporally hidden in my house, but the cleaning process uncovered them! These are kids getting and reading their letters! They loved it!

Thank you! to Laura, Carol and Fran for helping with this project! The kids loved their pictures and said they might write...we will see!

packing and moving

There were lots of things (and people) i wanted to take home with me. This one being the big one!

There would have been NO way we could have moved all the furniture in less than 5 loads without a truck! People think pcvs dont have a lot of stuff...that was not true in my case!

matias helping move!

Wrapping things up

I fly out of paraguay on friday. Thats two days away! WOW!
Its hard to believe that I am now an RPCV (returned peace corps volunteer) even though I have not technically returned. I feel like I have over stayed my welcome in Asuncion and its time to go home to Horqueta. Even though when I start to really think about it, I remember that there is no more home.

The watermelon house has been emptied and locked up. The owner of my house has decided not to rent it out anymore and that her son is to move in and start a bakery. (Se dicen). Last monday and wednesday we moved all of my furniture to barbara's new house and gave away everything that wasnt absolutely necessary for my travels over the next two months. Most things went to PCVs with a few prized items to my close Pyan friends.

I am homeless.
I feel a bit purposeless.
Hopefully neither will last too long!

This past weekend we had our group Despedida and Close of Service Ceremony. We celebrated with the most amazing cake in all of paraguay at the office on friday. The Director and our APCD (boss) said a few kind words. We were given certificates and PC pins, and it was over. It was pretty anti-climatic.

I am spending my final hours with my host-family from trainning. They are who helped usher me into paraguay and are helping usher me out. They will help take me to the airport on friday. There will be many tears, i image.

From here on out i will be traveling through the end of october/beginning of november. I will be maintaining my blog with updates on my latest adventures. Please keep reading if you are interested.

Thank you to everyone who has kept up with me and commented about my adventures! It has made my life richer and my experiences more fufilling knowing you are sharing them with me.

Despedida!!! = Goodbye Party!

My apologizes for not writing sooner. It has been a crazy, crazy, crazy last three weeks!
These pictures are from my good-bye party, Aug 9, 2009.

It started off as a rainy cold morning, which made me nervous that NO ONE would come. But after an early mate session, kids started showing up to help set-up. There were tons of balloon-blower-upers, errand runners, table assemblers and setters, and random helpers! It was awesome!
Here are a few of the specs:
5 tents (emergancy borrow from the farmers market ladies-due to rain)
10 rented tables
50 rented chairs
50 rented plates, knives and forks (actually 100 knives and 30 fork...unfortunate)
13 2liter bottles of gaseosa
70 liters of beer
50 kilos of carne (MEAT!)
10 kilos of chorizo
14 kilos of mandioca
1 enormous cake (including: 2 kilos of flour, 2 kilos of butter, 2 kilos of dulce de leche, 22 eggs, 3.5 kilos of sugar and sprinkles!)
1 moonwalk/globoloco - for 1 hour (pictures to come)
1 HUGE sound system

Fany and me! (with my new library uniform)

This is just one of the MANY skewers of meat! (these are ribs)my palengana full of meat (most of it was already on the grill at this point)
more meat!
the amazing cooking team! The Agro-engineers!
The servers! These guys were amazingly helpful - Liam, Danita, Jonathan and Barbara
Babs, me and Analiz!
The girls table - enjoying their gaseosa. (See the sound system behind them??)
Dishin out food!
Kai and his dog M'bae teko? (means how are you doing in Guarani)

Na Silveria, me and THE CAKE!!!

Last kid club meeting!

It took a lot of tries to get almost all of them to look and smile!

Kid time!

Packing in kid-time before I go!

Last batch o' chipa!

Me and Na Ameila making chipa! This is our finished produced! It rose very nicely! I made a Chipa of her!

Friendship Day!

July 30th
To celebrate friendship Paraguayans have picked one special day a year when they spend extra money text messaging their buddies, get together to share snacks or maybe a bbq.
One of the most popular friendship day activity is Amigos Invisibles (Invisible friends or Secret Santas). My neighbor ladies decided they wanted to celebrate together! We organized a name-drawing and invited all of the Senoras over for shared muchies at my house last Friday. It was a blast! We had 19 Senoras (two girls ages 12-13) come to share gifts, snacks and friendship! It was a lovely get-together!
Here are all of the good-looking ladies!

Training begins

Mark your calendars! End of July 2010...RAGBRAI...get ready! I have already started my not-so-intensive training program!

Brasicue

This was taken while sitting in Danita’s hammock drinking mate as the sun starts to make its long trip across the fiery sky!

A Different Kind of Cultural Intercambio

In addition to two peace corps volunteers, Horqueta is home to one KOCIA volunteer! Kai, as he is locally know is from South Korea and has decided to spend two years hanging out, culturally exchanging and teaching computer classes! In adition to being great for Paraguayans, we think its pretty great too!

Two weeks ago Kai invited Barbara and I for a Korean dinner! Oh man was it phenomenal!

Amazingness!

Eating directions