Posts Tagged With: tranquilo

Two totally cool observations from the bus today: I noticed for the first time a beautiful mountain range in the distance. I believe it is Argentina as we are impressively close to the border and people from this area go there like people from Maine go to NH to buy groceries and cigarrettes. Stay tuned for more details on that topic another time. As for the other: puppies and piglets hanging loose and tranquilo on the roadside. No one watching over them, they weren’t phased by the bus whizzing by, and the cutest sight ever. I’ve gotten accustomed to seeing horses, cows, goats, and even grown hogs tethered (or not) on roadsides, in ditches, pretty much anywhere the grass grows… or walking down the middle of the road. Piglets, that’s a new one.I realized I haven’t talked much about my family or the environment in Paraguay so here goes. My family is large (Mama had 7 kids who all visit on Sundays) but only 2 of the kids (brother and sister) live at home. Mama rules the home and ensures everyone is taken care of and all is in order. Papa works long hours and takes care of the ‘manly’ things around the house like killing chickens. My sister is 32 and a baker at the family’s roadside bakery in front of the house as well as an accountant in Ascuncion. My brother (don’t worry, Bub, he’ll never replace you) is 25, a college student and event planner for a hotel in Ascuncion. They are a very close, proud, hard-working family and treat me better than I could have imagined. After being a ‘grown up’ for a number of years now, it is a bit strange to be waited on, have someone make my lunch, serve me breakfast and keep me company at the table while I eat, ensure I never go hungry, and show me how to wash me clothes (the traditional way on a washboard sink, by hand)….very sweet actually. More detail on laundry another time when I have less to talk about.As for the environment, the scenery here looks like a combination of Maine and Florida. Very interesting. There are red pines growing beside coconut-bearing palm trees. Spear plants and tropicals next to bushes closely resembling New England species. Semolina and mango trees next to what looks like sumac. All growing in the red soil. Fascinating. PS – the semolina trees bear this totally cool pod that is nothing short of an overgrown, flattened vanilla bean and when they fall to the earth, they are dry and make great noise-makers when shaken. Yeah, the guys in my group discovered this the first day. Go figure. 🙂

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 I 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