Saturday, June 25, 2011

More goings on in Blas Garay (the place I live)

Birthday wishes/ site presentation
Happy Birthday to me. Yes that’s right, this week I turned 23 (well last week since I am a little late posting this blog)! Que vieja! It was my first birthday in Paraguay. And it was amazing!!! My site presentation was the same day and a representative from the Peace Corps came.  My host family mad Milanessa (a dish sort of like fried chicken) and salad. We ate with the representative from Peace Corps and then went to the school for the presentation. I had no idea what to expect. My  The school surprised me by putting on a beautiful show and making me several cards and a show.  Every artistic number in the show had something to do with chipa, one of my favorite foods and everyone told me how glad they were that I was here.  
My family here is more my family than any other host family I have ever had.  My host dad told me that he thinks of me as his daughter.  He gave me a ‘Padrino’ or a godfather, even though I told him I already had godparents.  
The people in my site make me feel soo special.  
However, one thing that I don’t like is when people stare at me which, unfortunately, happens all the time.  I go running and people stare at me, I go to the school, and people stare at me, in fact at the moment there are 4 people with their heads sticking through my window staring at me. Take a picture, it will last longer
Festival de San Juan (aka a pyromaniac’s dream)
Last night I went to the San Juan festival. There was lot of food and loud music. We made empanadas like fondu and chipa on sticks like marshmallows which is not the traditional way of making either dish. They also sold soapa (kind of like corn bread) along with drinks.  The party started kind of like of a middle school dance with guys and girls standing apart from one another and no one dancing. Eventually two couples started dancing it quickly became apparent that it is inappropriate for guys to dance without girls and vice versa. I danced with some guy that I have seen a couple of times at the high school. When standing next to this guy, I come up to the base of his neck. Once we started dancing everyone stared at us which made me wonder if there was some unwritten rule that I was missing about who you are allowed to dance with and how long you are supposed to dance with them.  Once I got over the awkwardness of the situation in which we were dancing, It was kind of fun.
You’re probably wondering at this point I called it a pyromaniac’s dream.  After the dancing started, someone lit a scarecrow on fire. Sometimes, apparently they put frogs or other ‘surprises’ inside.  Then the kids started a soccer game that  was very normal except that the soccer ball was on fire.  
  Other stuff that happened this week:
  1. I taught a model lesson for both first and second grades and I will continue to teach classes in those grades once a week
  2. I started working as a reading interventionist in third grade and fourth grades
  3. I am teaching the preschool/kindergarden teacher to use music in her classes.
  4. I started teaching an English class for kids. I really didn’t want to teach English classes but after one of the kids begged me to do it and set up the English classes herself, I figured I’d do it. It ended up being really fun and I can’t wait to keep doing it. 
  5. I ate cow’s feet for lunch. They are DISGUSTING!!!!! They are full of tendons, ligaments and cartilage.  You are supposed to eat everything except the bone itself
  6. One of the best drinks I’ve ever had is jugo de miel (juice made from the honey of sugar cane). It’s very refreshing.