Sorry this is a lengthy one but there’s so much coolness to talk about everyday!!
Last night I had the best evening yet with my host family. I told my ‘sister’ that I needed exercise so she took me for a walk in the back 40 where I learned my family owns a large sugar cane plantation and significant acreage in cow pasture (I’ve been here a week and just learned this and that we have about a dozen cows and a bull). Two things: 1) the sugar cane is fed to our cows and also harvested for table sugar for extra income; 2) you can always tell a cow pasture from other pastures by the clumps cows leave behind. In this pasture, the clumps are actually a popular herb Paraguayans use in their matte that I learned about in class. This one is called Malva and used as an anti-inflammatory and expectorant. Also tonight, my host Mom showed me the ‘traditional’ way to grind corn before the electric mills were invented. It looks like a tall mortar and pestle and you pound dried corn kernels to fine powder with what looks like an oversized baseball bat then put it through a sieve to make cornmeal. Very hard work. Pics forthcoming of host Mama gettin’ it done.
One of my fellow ‘aspirantes’ (trainees) and his host mother had a tarantula in their kitchen last night. Apparently his host mama, a tall woman of ample mass, jumped on the arachnid with a serious stomp but the spider was nonplussed and collected itself to continue it’s journey toward her kitchen chair. It was finally suppressed by application of boiling water. I have nothing against spiders as long as we each stay in our own space but IÂ really hope I never find one of these in our house. No tranquilo!
Though my brain is totally fried from 6 hours of Spanish class today (that’s right, 6, six, seis) plus 2 interviews with my assistant country director and field supervisor, I found myself in uplifted spirits, feeling like a switch flipped yesterday and things are settling and coming together. My host family commented on how much my Spanish has improved suddenly in the last two days! WOOHOOOO – something is finally clicking! I think I have not given myself enough credit to acknowledge how much change I’m actually going through right now. At home, I thought I had prepared to the nth degree. I thought I had considered a full spectrum of changes I’d undergo and adjustments I’d need to make. I practiced conversations in my head I thought I might have. Little did I know how UNprepared I would be despite those efforts. They told me this would happen but today they also told me I was right where I should be and that I will be just fine. No matter that I want to ask your name in Spanish and am probably inadvertently asking how many keys you have instead. But it’s nice to see progress. Tranquilo.
Jajotopata
xoxo
Somewhere in Paraguay 