bit of a rant

Ok so I do not wish to make anyone get extremely worried or ruin anyone’s day but this is going to be about the yet again issues I am facing in Paraguay and I have no one to actually vent to so we are going internet venting style.

So I am living with this new family rite? I expected it would be great and a fantastic change to be in the city and in a big house. When I arrived the first day things seemed a little off when my parents picked me up because they did not speak to me. They asked me my name and that was about it, they did not ask why I came here where I was from and all the normal questions I get, which I found odd considering I am supposed to be living with them for a year. But I wrote off the situation.

                Now that I have been living with them for a few weeks my positive attitude is rapidly sinking. Coming home everyday to people who almost refuse to speak to me and exit a room when I enter is very hard to deal with. They will barely let me leave the house and refuse to allow me to have friends over. So all I tend to do is sit in my room and read. Today is different because I have planned today out with the AFS Volunteer so that I can get away. But my normal time is spent simply reading then going down stairs to grab some food for dinner then going to bed at eight pm which I only did when I was like 7 years old. The mother is angry with me all the time even before I open my mouth. I will ask permission to go anywhere she will say yes not an issue then be mad and call AFS.

                AFS tells all students that we must make %50 effort to fit and adjust into our new families in order to blend and not corrupt the culture. But the family needs to make the other %50 to accept the effort that the student is making. I am making %100 effort and my family is making none. I feel like am I cursed by the bad AFS gods that get me into bad families. I am sick of trying so hard to be happy. I could be in the USA to be miserable too.  I cannot even express how frustrating it is to see other AFS kids perfectly happy with their families and not even like mine. I feel like this person who invaded their home and they have no understanding of how hard it is for me to be living here and missing my home so much as well.

average day

that is my house above is a basically considered a mansion in paraguayan standereds and in usa standards its still really big! here it is almost unheard of to have a two story home which makes sense beacuse i live on the second level and when it is hot you just want to die!

Average day in Paraguay:

Ok so i have been requested to give an average day in Paraguay along with what we do with our spare time and the type of work people do. So I will describe my day today I am extremely sorry if I bore any of my readers to tears.

                Today I woke up at about six o´clock in the morning to the, what feels like, bitter cold. Of about 10C degrees which is 50F. it is quite a different type of cold when it is humid and you have been roasting in the sun. Once I dragged myself from bed I got dressed in my outrageous catholic school uniform and walked to Route 2. Once I arrive at route two I take basically any bus that is not 52 for about ten minutes then arrive at school. Once the four hours of complete slacking off and talking end I head to the cyber café some days or to the gym which I just join across the street. Today is thursday which has become my favorite day of the week because at 2pm I head to the park to meet up with the other AFS students and get a pill of sanity.

                The type of work that my family does is nothing too exciting. My father is a person that climbs on telephone poles and fixes the boxes and wires up there. And my sister works in a calling center but she aspires to work in marketing. My mother and other sister are both in private college. My mother is studying nutrition which I find really ironic considering the amount of salt and bread my family eats. My sister studies history and wants to become a teacher which is also ironic because she seems to hate kids, one of the qualities  we have in common.

                For fun here teens go to clubs and parties it is the normal social outing yet my family disapproves. Also kids just go to the malls or parks to drink Terere or even to the movies it is a lot like the USA when fun is involved in the sense that it all involves money.

once again...

Starting over again! When i first decided that i wanted to move to Paraguay the most terrifying part was knowing that i was going to have to stare a new family in the face and call them my own and a new school and make friends when my communication skills are..lets just say not fantastic. Then i had to make that decision all over again when i contacted AFS about my family issues. Starting your whole life over twice within two monthes completly knocks you off your feet. Currently i am RE-Experiencing the phases of not knowing anyone, not knowing where to go and not having anyone to talk to yet this time in more of an extreme.
     This time i live in a big city. Which makes going anywhere about two hundred times more intimidating than it was traveling in Quiindy considering i know the entire population in about two days. However i did greatly miss the city. I live about two seconds of the mall and super market and Ruta 2. Ruta two is a very important piece of Paraguay considering there are only two routes that go anywhere elsa Ruta 1 and 2 you have to use is you wish to go anywhere from school or Argentina.
     Though this adjustment has been hard i learned a lot from the first time having to adapt to a new school and family which made it easier and more educated when i speak and make decisions. Though without having my sister Vale it is harder to feel belonging. My new family is okay i still feel like i was just a ugly lost puppy that they had to take in because the didnt want me to get hit by a car yet i am still a ugly dog so they dont show me off or give me too much attention. But i am trying my best to make myself useful and interesting but it very hard. Considering my family has a maid that does EVERYTHING and hard to be interesting when you have no one to talk to a your language is still quite limited but who cares!
     i made some new friends at school and i am going to Quiindy this weekend to see Vale and Ann (afs friend) and then i am going to the big party there which should be fun and i will get to speak english with Ann. I MISS ENGLISH! well my hour is up at this computer spot until next time ! chau!

quick post

okay so i have about three minutes to post so here is what is up sorry for all misspellings and erors in advance. i have currntly little to no access to a computer and no access to wifi in my new house so bloggins from now on will be much less than before. my new family is good but very big i have four sisters ages 3, 8, 21 and 25 with a new baby coming along in two  monthes also i have a nephew that is 2 all live in this house. the family is nice but i feel like an intruder they call me [la chica[ which means the girl which is kind of dehumanizing like im a doll or something. i start school monday which should be nice considering i have been cooped up in this house because i do not know anyone else that lives here. the house is big which i like i have my own room and a door!! as for the computer issue it is going to progress into a larger issue considering that i also do this blog for my schooling and i need to also work on my online classes i will be on the look out to see if i can find any good priced lap tops and if birthday money could even make a dent into that which i have little hope it will haha until next time!

times have changed just a little...

okay so i have not been blogging because i have been having some issues here and word spreads like wild fire down here. But, now everything is out in the open so here we go. I had issues with my family about one month in living with them. They started asking me for money for different things and also not being treated completely like one of the family so this was very hard. i went to the AFS camp and i talked to a volenteer there and they got the ball rolling on finding me a new family. The AFS staff member in my town offered to find me a family in the same town but i know that inorder to be happy for a full year i need to be in a different place. So two weeks later i found out that i am moving! My family found out tonight that i was leaving and i realized even more so that i needed to leave that house. Because my host mother said that i am a dirty, lazy and unhelpful person who does not speak any spanish or follows any of the rules of this town or the house. Also she blammed all of my flaws on that i was American and that if i were German i would not be an issue. Which i got very heated about because it was all complete lies. Also even if it were true it was completely irrlivent to the issue considering she is the one who broke the rules by asking me for money. Anyway i  will not dwell on the past! Looking forward! i wrote my sister a note in my iPhone translater saying how it was really hard for me to leave her and it was not an issue i had with her. She was very understanding and we decided that we are going to visit each other because my new city is only two hours away which in this country is not far at all. we both also cried when we had to say our goodbyes.
    i currently know nothing of my new family. I will travel to Asuncion tomorrow to go to the AFS office then i assume continue to my new city which is called Capiata. It is about thirty minutes away from Asuncion which i am very excited about because that means there will be more to do in the day and night time! Though it is hard to think i have to start this whole building a relationship and trust with a new family again. Also getting to know a city and making new frinds. But i am going in with high hopes and a positive attitude. 

Maroon 5

First day of complete fun! I am counting a day by 8pm-8Am not the other way around.
I went to Asuncion, by bus, and caught the same bus as my friend Lenny who has to travel 9 hours to go to Asuncion! Anyway once we arrived to Asuncion we decided to take the bus because it was 2mil while a taxi was 25mil. The bus system is a little different in Paraguay in the way that there is no system at all. So before going to asuncion I got the number of what bus we had to take, then I asked the driver to tell us when we were passing Mariscal Lopez Mall. He forgot, but we figured it all out! Once at the mall we met up with other AFS kids and volunteers and proceeded to the Maroon 5 concert! The concert was amazing. I have been trying to come up with a better word but that sums it up. The music was fantastic and sounded better live than when streaming. Also being with such a fun group was great and concert vibe was very energetic.
After the concert we all went to an AFS volunteers house, which was huge! Quickly i want to clarify that the AFS volunteers aren't old people they are 19-23 years approximately because they recently studied abroad. Anyway we sat around and talked about our countries, where we want to travel to, and experiences of Paraguay. We did that, ALL night long. Which means we didn't sleep at all. Once it struck 7:00 we decided it would be a good time to go so we parted ways and went to the bus station and I proceeded to Quiindy. I am currently laying in my bed completely wiped out but it is too hot to sleep and with my mother yelling every ten seconds it would be impossible. Not looking forward to school tomorrow. Pictures will be posted soon!

Asuncion

Ok so I have had writers block for the past few days so I will attempt to make this quick, factual and informative! Over the past two days I have gone to Asuncion twice both trips showed me different parts of the city, the culture and the roots. On Thursday I went with my class in what they call an "excursion." this involved my whole class and some other school kids piling in a hundred degree leather bus and driving for three hours. While on the bus I got Guarani lessons from four of my class mates (luis, Freddy, billy and Pedro). I learned how to say a couple "simple" words. I quote simple because it was basically impossible. For example good morning in Guarani is "mba' eichapa nde koe" so as you can see its very easy to get frustrated. Anyway! In Asuncion we watch a movie called "7 Cajas" which means 7 Boxs. It was created in Paraguay and about the local markets and the need for money and the amount of corruption in society. I highly recommend seeing it so I will not ruin the ending! But you would need English subtitles because most of it is in Guarani and some Spanish but impressively I understood the whole thing!
Yesterday I went to Asuncion to buy my Maroon 5 ticket, which I will be seeing tonight! But after I bought my ticket my friend took me around Asuncion to many different museums and famous landmarks. The most interesting part of Paraguayan history I think is the train. About one hundred and fifty years ago Paraguay had the first train in South America. This train allowed them to bring in much money and it boosted the countries economy and productivity levels. However, this train was the envy of the surrounding countries (Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia). The countries allied and attacked Paraguay for the simple act of jealousy. During this time over one million paraguayans were murdered most of them being men. So once the war was over the population was 5:1 women to men. Which explains why the men are dominant in the culture currently because in the past the women served the men because they needed them to restore population and that custom has stayed the same for over 150 years. Also this was a huge tragedy for paraguay because the people currently always wonder what would could we have been without that war?
Tonight I will go to Maroon 5 with my friends from AFS and the people from city's far from Asuncion will sleep at a AFS staff members house so that we don't have to travel at night and alone. It will be so much fun! The pictures below are from yesterday touring asuncion alone with the one picture on the bus, of my friends.