A week and a half in...

...but it feels like I´ve been here a lot longer.  Especially with how well I feel like I know my host family and the other trainees.  I guess there´s nothing like being shipped to another continent to bring a group of people together :)

We trainees are split up between living in two training communities, each about 30-45 minutes out of Guarambaré by public bus.  My host family has been awesome so far.  When I arrived, I actually wasn´t able to meet my host parents for about a week (they´re both very nice) because they were with my little 6 year-old brother Erwin who was in the hospital (but is fine now!).  I lived with my 16 year-old host brother Edu and 9 year-old host sister Nayeli (who has been very patient with me), and our aunt Lourdes was with us all the time to look after us.  Her house is right behind ours, and my grandparents' house is across the street.  We spend a ton of time hanging out there in front of their house, which is also a despensa/small store, and a kind of gathering place for a lot of family and friends.  My grandparents are also the host parents of another trainee, Becca, so we've been spending a lot of time together with our families.  It's been great to have a little buffer so neither of us is ever really on the spot, and we can both feel awkward together when our families are chattering away in Guarani.

Speaking of Guarani...no pun intended...I´m learning a new language!  Mba'éichapa is the most commonly-used greeting among friends, and basically means "how are you?"  It´s been a very useful phrase in our arsenal, because speaking a little Guarani makes new acquaintances smile and opens up doors to let us continue in Spanish, for the most part, until our Guarani improves.  Every day we have classes in Guarambaré or in our training communities (centro'i), often including 4 hours of Guarani classes, some tech training in the afternoon, and other general things like safety/security and PC expectations, etc.

Weekends and evenings with the family are filled with awkward and hilarious experiences.  I have now successfully washed my clothes by hand!  And we've spent a lot of time drinking the national drink -- terere --which is a cold drink passed around in a special cup (guampa) with a special straw (bombilla). Each person drinks the water that is poured into all the chopped up yerba leaves/stems in the cup. Then the cup is refilled and passed to another person, who drains it and passes it back to the server.  (In the mornings, hot water (or sometimes hot milk) is used, and the drink is called máte). It's a very important custom for making friends, getting to know people, and even discussing important issues.

We've also played a lot of fútbol, and we're trying to get ultimate frisbee to catch on so we Estadounidenses have a chance at something.  One day last week we also went into Asunción (the capital) to visit the Peace Corps Office and to hear a speaker from the embassy.  Our directors were very clear, however, that we are in no way associated with the US embassy or foreign policy directives here in Paraguay because the PC is an independent organization.

In the next few weeks our tech training is going to get more intense, and we´ll also be given little "missions" to do on our own out in the community or in Asunción.  We´ll also have a few visits out to current volunteers' sites, which will each last a couple days to a week.  Además, we´ll have a series of interviews with our program managers to try to match each trainee with the best possible site, come swear-in this December.

Leave comments! Let me know if you have any questions! And you can always text me, and I´ll try to answer by facebook message (I´ve been able to get some super spotty/slow 3G on my kindle--score!)

Miss you all!  I´ll try to post pictures next time!