"Mama, I'm comin' home"...Ozzy Osborne

Maya:  Wow, it went by so fast.  I can't believe we're actually finally going home.  We're actually coming home 2 1/2 weeks earlier.   We were fine with staying later, but once we decided to come home earlier, both Jacey and I were happy.  We now get to go to camp Nana without rushing or missing parts. 
Things I like about Paraguay:  I like how Paraguay is so about community and it's made to be able to walk everywhere.  They save gas by using buses instead of a bunch of cars.  I like a lot of the foods here, like sopa, chipa, chipa guasu, mbeju, cocido, terere.  Being able to speak another language.
Things I don't like about Paraguay:  "Latino" time.  It's so dirty; we have to sweep 2x/day, and mop 1x/day.  Akwardness of learning a new language.
Things I miss from the States:  Being able to understand people that talk to me.  Having my own bed.  I miss my friends and my dad and my family.

Jacey:  Opposite from Maya, I feel like I've been here for 3 years instead of 3 months.  But, now at times it feels like home here, not like a foreign country as I felt before coming.   Now I'm use to sitting in the back of trucks, driving along a dirt ride, looking at the jutting out hills.  I'm trying to love on my puppy, Luna, as much as I can, knowing that these are the last few days with him.  We said our last goodbyes to all our friends, and took in our last sights of the countryside, Ybyraty and small town of Paraguari.  I am grateful that I have learned part of a new language, experienced the optimistic people, and become one with the country.

Teresa:  I feel both, like the time flew by, and we've been here awhile.   I will try and add more photo pages before we leave, but it's really getting down to the wire now.  I am trying to feel all the multitude of feelings popping up:  sad to say goodbye, again; overwhelmed with gratitude for connections with so many interesting, loving people; sick and tired of being dirty, bored with food/limited cooking options; anxious about leaving my vacation and going back to "drive" mode; excited to get back to my home, my bed, see friends/family, intensity of wrapping up. 

Tiempo Volando (time flying)

T:  Time is totally flying.  There's always stages to an adventure:  excitement on arrival, all the newness; "drive" to find house, get set up; living, visiting, classes; "vacations"; "accepting" new life mode.  But now, I'm looking at the calendar, and I'm like, woah, how can we get it all in before we leave?!?   I went through a process of acclimating to spending so much unstructured time with the girls (and the girls did so as well; especially so much time with each other).  Plus, especially at the beginning, they were so dependent on me to translate, explain everything, and just uncomfortable going out on own, that we were all attached at the hip.  We worked it out, and seem to be enjoying each other and discovered ways to find our personal space and communicate clearly and lovingly.  (It sure sounds good, right, and it really does work most of the time.)  So upcoming events:  7/4th cookout this weekend at US Embassy in Asuncion (hopefully, see maya's entry), Foz de Iguazu (one of 7 wonders of world; waterfalls), one more time out to campo, visit Pacheco (campo where my PC friend Norma/husband's family lives), and then I guess sell/give away the stuff we collected, pack and head out.  I have so embraced the no working mode; sleep in everyday (8 am rising is an early day), siestas.  I will have to readjust to work mode, getting up early.  Hopefully I will bring back some of my tranquilo mindset...

M:  Lately things have been stirred up a bit.  The campesinos (country folk) decided they wanted some land, so they went on private land and started living.  Then the cops came; the campesinos fired their guns, and the cops fired back.  About 15 people were killed.  Next, people were mad at the President for not doing anything about it, as well as for other things.  It's election year (2013), and he didn't want to do anything wrong, so he didn't do anything at all.  So, they asked him to step down, but he said no.  The next day, congress voted to impeach President Lugo.  The vote was 52 to 4 (I think); so he was obviously impeached.  The Vice President was sworn in.  It's still a little rowdy in Asuncion, but where we live, it's just fine.  Hopefully the American Embassy won't cancel the July 4th party in Asuncion for this weekend.  I hope to dominate in the 3-legged race.

J:  My mom has been trying to get us in Spanish classes, but our original, formal teacher never worked out.  So we went to an event with a Peace Corps Volunteer and her community development youth group and met Vivi, who agreed to hang out with Maya and I twice a week and speak Spanish.  She's in her first year of college to be a teacher.  We do stuff like hiking, exploring, playing in parks.  She also plays the guitar and sings.  She's really good (she showed us once).  We also found an art teacher, the son of one of my mom's friends.  Raul has a degree in art.  We go to his house 2 days a week and he teaches us art techniques on anything that we want to learn.  He especially likes comic/graphical characters.  It's all in Spanish, of course, but we have found it easy to communicate.

Best $400 spent EVER!

Teresa:  Oh yeah, baby.  We decided to splurge and have a treat half way through our journey.  Best $400 I ever spent.  We went to Asuncion and stayed in a 5 star hotel/resort for 2 nights.  Google the resort...sweet:  Resort Yacht and Golf Club.  Breakfast included, which was a serious buffet, no cheesy continental stuff.  We couldn't partake of all that was there, but we sure enjoyed lots of stuff:  clay tennis courts, racquetball, basketball, soccer courts, playground, 1 of 2 golf courses in Paraguay, on the Paraguayan river with a beach with real sand, kayaking, salon, spa, mini movie theater, several restaurants from fancy to casual, 2 pools.  But the best part of all, was a huge bath, with real shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and wait for it...towels that actually dry you off and absorb water and not just smear the water!  Gotta say, feeling jealous of those Europeans; liking the bidet action.  I splurged and shaved, and took extra showers, because I could.  Oh the luxury.  My friend/"sister", Norma, watched Luna for us.  It was nice to have a break from the puppy duties, but we missed him.  It's gonna be hard to leave him.

Maya:  There were 2 pools.  One of the pools had a bridge that you could swim under.  And even though the water was very cold, Jacey and I survived.  On the weather, it said it was going to rain on Friday.  But it didn't rain a bit; it was sunny and 85 degrees both days.  I got a manicure and pedicure.  My nails and toenails matched; they were both turquoise.  Both my big toes have a white and orange flower.  Me and my mom also got our bangs cut.  Nothing like a girls morning in a salon.  Our last morning in the hotel, we had many delicious foods.  All kinds of fruits, and many different spreads for the bread (including my favorite, dulce de leche).  As we were finishing up, we saw soccer players.  We wondered if they were professionals, so my mom asked the waitress.  She explained they were 2 of the 12 professional Paraguayan teams, which is like meeting Michael Jordan.  She explained that they came to the hotel the mornings of their games "a concentrar", or to focus.  And when we walked out, my mom told them, "Good luck," then changed her words to, "well, just play good." 

Jacey:  We got checked in and were shown to our room.  As he opened the door, I was simply amazed.  There were 2 beds and a open up couch, flat screen t.v., plus chairs and table to watch, closets to hang up our clothes, a big bathroom with a sink, mirror, tub, toilet, and bidet.  We got quickly changed so that we had time for the pool.  As we headed down into the pool area, my eyes struck something amazing.  There was a water slide!  But it wasn't working.  My mom got her lounge chair, we strapped on our goggles, and slipped into the pretty cold pool.  But after swimming around the pool with a swim up bar, we got use to the water.  After awhile, it got chilly, so we pulled out our lounge chairs and sat in the delightful sun.  Maya was feeling thoughtful, and gave us both a back massage.  We were able to chill and chat.  Then we went around exploring the hotel.  After that, we showered up and got pretty nice looking and headed up to the Tata kua, fancy restaurant.  I had fish [surubi], with a shrimp cream sauce and a vanilla milkshake.  The harp player began to play his entrancing music.  I was in heaven.  We got back to the room, watched t.v. (in English, no doubt) and went to sleep.  And that was just the first day!  Sorry for the details, just wanted to give you an image of what it was like.  We woke up, went to the salon, and got manicures and pedicures.  I got dark and light purple.  We went to a different pool and played.  We had a waiter bring us hamburgers with eggs on it and ate by the poolside.  Maya was once again feeling generous and gave us massages with lotion.  We then had a lazy afternoon.  We went on a walk and explored the neighborhood, came back and had a simple meal, and slid into bed.  The last morning, we had a delightful breakfast and even met professional soccer players, which here is a humongous deal.  And a taxi took us back to the bus terminal, to catch our bus back to Paraguari, our home.

Fiesta San Juan

The girls have made fast friends with several neighbor families.  Paraguayans celebrate San Juan the month of June.  Our neighbors invited us to go to their school and celebrate with them.  Jacey and Maya had a blast.  They had lots of typical food that we took full advantage of:  beiju (kinda tortilla with cheese), sopa so'o (cornbread with meat), and shiskabobs grilled meat with mandioca (yucca root).  The different grades performed the typical Paraguayan dance and dressed in their typical dress.  The pulled candy off the lucky tree and not only got a piece of candy, but inside was a fortune.  Jacey attempted to climb the greased pole with help, Maya was right in the middle of the kids kicking the ball on fire, and both ran and laughed trying to get away from the flaming cow.  They also lit a dummy on fire that had firecrackers inside.

The director of the school invited the girls to come observe/play at school anytime.  He also invited me to come volunteer and teach health classes.  I'll go this week with the girls and see what happens.  See the separate page for more photos.

Meet Luna

Me and Jacey are so excited! My mom finally gave in for us to get a puppy. And mom actually likes the puppy a lot, too. We had to name it a Spanish name, because he will have to stay here with our neighbor when we leave. We decided to name him Luna, which means moon. His dad is a big German Sheppard mix. When we went to get the puppy, there were 2 other puppies. Luna was the only one different, plus our neighbor wanted a boy, and he was the only boy. It will be really hard to part with him when we have to go. Yesterday, we took him to the vet, gave him a nice bath. Luna's fur is very interesting; the outer part is black, but underneath it is tan or carmel (like Nana's highlights). We gave him medicine to get rid of the parasites and shampooed him in flea medicine, so he should be good to go. 
Can't wait to see everybody. Saludos, Maya

Ok, so I spoke way too soon. I was washing dishes and Jacey noticed a big spider on the wall next to me...UGH!!! See picture below; not just any big spider, but yep, a tarantula. Had to get the neighbor to come kill it. Now the girls understand why we have to keep the bathroom door shut. Don't want to have a surprise visit on a late night pee run.

Details of our new life.

Ok, we keep hearing, "details, details" so we'll try.  It feels hard to explain what we are experiencing, partially because it just feels normal now, but also, it's just hard to put into words what we're seeing.

Our neighborhood is a bit rural, dirt (red dirt/clay) roads, with a "park" (~field) not used very much in the middle, which has swings, see-saws, slide.  We found a tree in the park that the roots of one tree, grow up around the other tree.  We have explored our neighborhood, and found many different short cuts to town and to the fruteria.  Our neighborhood is just houses, park, volleyball court, cow pasteur.  One house sells a few things out of their house. 

The town, Paraguari, is about a 15-20 minute walk away from our little purple casita.  I am surprised everyone can st ay in business, because there are many of the same stores in town.  Empanada and soda stands everywhere.  At least there are more parks than home.  They have another park in the town central.  The central is very busy; lots of people, stores, markets, internet/phone stores; we even found a place to buy a new webcam for only $16.  Many buses, cars, motos (people not wearing helmets; 2-3 people on every moto, including babies); but it is very dangerous and Blanca said 2-3 people die everyday on motos.

And here there's no law about jaywalking.  You get about a foot away from a moto and you act like it's nothing.  When we get back to America, I imagine there will be lots of honking, because we will be use to getting too close to the cars.

Hard to describe the terrain; it's not like tropical jungles.  It's mostly flat, then out of nowhere outjuts a hill; steep and flat at the top.  It's pretty lush and green (except the red/orange roads).  They have some fruit trees, but also palm/coco trees.  We haven't seen any exotic animals.  Lots of cows, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, birds.  We saw one iguana.  Not even any weird bugs or spiders.  Some mosquitos, but not too bad.

We are treating this time like summer vacation, staying up late, and sleeping in.  We've gotten use to doing different chores here.  We wash dishes, sweep, mop, cook everyday.  We met a couple of Americans today.  Molly & Carly, 2 Peace Corps Volunteers.  They are very friendly and we think we will be hanging out more with them.  We enjoyed being able to speak English instead of Spanish for a bit.

We met a Paraguayan woman, who invited us to go with her and her daughters to a zip line/rope course in a nearby town.  Cool, huh?!?  Everyone says it's safe; mom even checked it out on the web.

The weather has been variable.  The last 2 days have been extremely hot and humid, been that's been leading up to the big rain we had today, and now it's cooling off again.  So, hot being, got up to 88, and the coolest so far is mid 60's.  They say it will get colder, but still crazy that this is their winter.  So glad mom didn't bring us here in the summer!

Our favorite restaurant in town, the Tropicana.

Hope that helps your mental image.  Jacey and Maya signing out.

Hola, Maya here.
It's been quite hard cooking here, but we've had very delicious meals.  The only things we have to cook with is one pot, one pan, 2 burner stove, 3 forks, 4 spoons, 4 knives, 4 plates, 4 bowls, 4 cups, a cooler, and food we buy from the market.  We walk almost everyday to La Fruteria and the market that we buy what we need.  It's about a 15 minute walk there, but we get use to it.   One of our first home cooked meals was pasta, with cooked vegetables and tomato sauce.  It was delicioso.  We have a grapefruit tree in our front yard, and Jacey and I have made juice many times.  My mom's friend gave us a juicer, which is a lot easier.  The first time, we had to hand make it, and strain it. 

We bought a soccer ball in one of Paraguay's team colors (cerro porteno).  Me and that soccer ball made good friends!  My mom drinks mate almost every morning; she loves that stuff.  Me and Jacey like terere and mate, but we can only drink it sometimes because it has something like caffiene in it.

Hasta luego,
Maya

Hello/Goodbye Friends!

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Jacey, Maya and Teresa Edit

Jacey, Maya and Teresa are in final stages before leaving for Paraguay. We head to Charlotte Wednesday, May 2, and start our 18 hour journey, arriving in Asuncion, Paraguay, 5/4. We will stay with friends in Asuncion for a few days; resting, getting acclimated, and site seeing. Then, we’ll head to our future home, small town of Paraguari. We’ll stay with friends at first, then find our own place to rent.
We will work on getting internet and phone, but not sure how soon we will be connected.
Please follow our adventures through our blog. We’ll try to post pics and tales of our journey along the way. We are excited, nervous, and lots of other emotions, but looking forward to an amazing trip.
We’ll miss everyone but will be back before a blink of an eye. Flight back to Asheville 8/1.

I know I'm dramatic and process emotionally, but I feel my soul filling up...I had this dream, and it's happening, just as I'd hoped.  I was prepared to be flexible and ok if it wasn't so great, but it's better than I had hoped.  Doesn't mean there aren't challenging, annoying, pain in the butt times, but all that is a part of it, making the whole experience whole.

It feels so good to be settled in our casita.  We've been in our house almost a week.  Small, but new and cute (purple, Maya's favorite color); has tile floors, electricity, one room that we have our 2 beds and suitcases in, and another room for the kitchen.  We have a table, chairs and a 2 burner electric stove.  You have to go outside to get to bathroom, but it's attached, small (door hits toilet when you try and go in), but has toilet, sink, shower w/hot water.  There's a sink outside to wash dishes, no hot water and no roof, but it's only rained one day so far.  We have a nice porch and yard, that has a wall around it, with a purple gate that we can lock.  Our doors and windows lock too.   Our neighborhood is quiet and safe; we're about a 15' walk from the center of Paraguari, the town central.  We could take a quick bus ride, but so far, we choose to walk.  We are about 2 hour bus ride from Asuncion, and 1 hour bus ride to the campo where I lived 20 years ago.

One of my neighbors from the campo now lives here and he found us the house; he wanted us near to help protect us and take care of us ("my north american daughter").  He lent us 2 beds, table and chairs, and a cooler.  We're using that instead of a fridge for now.  My other friend, Yeni, is going to lend us a fridge, but who knows when.  She said she'd have some guys deliver it Tuesday at 11 (it's now Thursday, 4pm, and no fridge).  "paraguayan time"

We are getting our routine down.  I drink my mate (tea), fix the girls cocido (sweet, hot milk type thing), then we eat breakfast, sweep, mop, wash dishes; we usually visit, run an errand, go to grocery/market, play in park, then fix lunch, wash dishes; then rest, computer/DS time; then journal, read, draw, shower, then visit, then cook dinner, dishes, computer, read, etc, bed.

The girls will start tomorrow with their Spanish classes.  Profesora Lily teaches English at the technical school for teachers.  She's Paraguayan and has 3 kids.  She wants to practice her English as well.  Once I get them going with a schedule, I will hopefully volunteer at the regional hospital.  My former counterpart, Barbara, a nurses aide works there, and I have the cell number of a Peace Corps nurse volunteer that's  been working there.  In general, the girls are still only speaking the basics, but I can tell how they are understanding a lot of what is being said.  Maya is working at it very hard, and Jacey doesn't seem to want to much, but she's so darn smart, she is getting it too.  They even learned some Guarani, which just thrills the paraguayans.

There's been moments of complete surrealness dream like, then settles in to regular ole daily living.  The girls continue to do well; helping me with the cleaning, patient with the visiting, which is important part of Paraguayan culture, but boring for them.  Not only because they don't speak the language, but just sitting around talking.  They've been playing with some kids.  Every time they meet new kids, it takes them a little bit to get comfortable, then it's no big deal.  They haven't met the neighbor kids and started playing with them yet, but we have been busy getting set up, so hopefully soon. 

We spent a weekend in the campo.  The girls loved it, and I couldn't get over how they weren't even phased by it.  I mean, they could verbalize how it's different, but Maya even said, "What's the big deal; it's just humans, living."  They got to do all the fun country living stuff:  milk cows, make cheese, grind corn and make cornbread, ride in a horse drawn cart, pick mandarines, oranges, grapefruit, mangos, avocados from the trees, make grapefruit juice.  Man, how fresh is fruit and vegies when you eat them right away!  There were 5 week old puppies, that the girls wouldn't put down the whole time, as well as the plethora of cow, chickens, dogs, pigs...

We've been skyping with my mom and dad, and the girls with Scott.  We skyped with his parents last night. We will skype with Maya's class on Wednesday.  This skype thing is so dang cool.  I really haven't been homesick at all yet, and the girls say they aren't either.

I'm learning lots about myself and growing.  So easy to "see" yourself when you're stripped of your routine, culture.  Really working on living in the moment, accepting/appreciating what is, removing the judgment, and taking care of myself.  I have to tell the girls several times a day, "no more questions for 10 minutes", or I am going to sit outside by myself for 15 minutes.  They are so curious, but it is so draining explaining everything, translating everything, and trying to be responsible and deal with everything.

So, that's it for now.  We'll post again soon.  We hope all are well.

Safe arrival.

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Jacey, Maya and Teresa Edit

We have arrived safe and happy to Asuncion, Paraguay. The culture, looks, sounds, and smells are all different. We had 3 flights to arrive; 2 weren’t so bad, but one was long, overnight, but difficult to sleep.
I feel where we’re staying, inside is luxurious and beautiful. It even has a pool. The food is different but delicious. We have to be cautious of different things, like roaming dogs. Another trouble is trying to communicate with the people around us. But, it’s better than I thought, and I think we get through it just fine.
Besos y abrazos (hugs and kisses),

Jacey