Dia de mujers Paraguaya!

         Today is the day of Paraguayan women. In celebration of the ¨holiday¨ we did the usual Sunday family lunch with a few twists. 

As usual we all gathered around two in the afternoon to eat and talk. Today it was at the house of my family. Before we ate as custom we gather in a circle, drink Terere and talk. However, to women kicked the men out of the group so we were separated by gender, and in my family there are a lot more women than men so it was quite disproportional. 

group of most of the women (aunts, cousins) 

group of men of the family...

Before eating we all munch on churriso and mandioca (it is similar to potatos but dryer and is stringy). We have to do this because they always start cooking way to late and everyone gets hungry, it is the forever appetizer.

this is the churriso, mandioca and churriso with blood (the dark meat i hate it!) we use one fork and pass it around and everyone eats from the same fork or even just use your hands. Considering today was a holiday we used a fork. haha :)

along with churriso my aunt Norma (left in dark shirt) made TONS of margaritas for the women and the taught my host mom how to make them.

the glass the chose to serve it in... made everyone look like they should be regulars at AAA

my cousin Carlitos got stuck on cooking duty for everyone

LUNCH! This is the normal sunday lunch, no different considering it was a special day... ALL MEAT...

All and all it was a pretty successful Dia de mujers Paraguaya. It is great to see how family here can week after week gather for hours and still have a fantastic time. Sitting at the table for over three hours and there was not a section of five minutes that went by without everyone laughing. I wish that people from United States could realize the importance of family. If they even had a fraction of appreciation of family that the Paraguayans have I think the people of United States would be a lot happier, less insane and genuinely better people.