changing the way i think

             Well today I went to Asuncion with Alicia, my American friend from Las Vegas which is also my best friend here in Paraguay, to meet up with Jack, a fellow Coloradian!! We were going to go see Sky fall the new 007 movie and i was dying to see it but we arrived and sadly it was not at the theater we choose; we could not have looked in advance because there is no Fandango of Paraguay, so very sad. ANY WHO! It ended up being for the better because we all got to have a good conversation on what different perspectives we have gained in our short three month time here; this was also nice to do with people´s whose first language is English. I shared with them how I think I have changed sense this has started, not a ton but in some ways. Things like in the past I talked ALL the time and now that I am here, though I do have my talking moments with my fellow English speakers, I am comfortable with silence. When you do not have the knowledge to reply very thoroughly you learn to listen very well and I think I have gained that skill. I also feel like my appreciation for the United States has grown tremendously. Sense I have been here just seeing the opportunity of education that I have in the U.S.A. is astounding. In the past I would return from a day of school with the usual question ¨what did you learn today? ¨and my normal response is ¨nothing¨ but living here and looking back I can say I learned a ton! When someone asks me that after a day of school here if can say with all confidence that I have learned NOTHING! Because most of the time the teachers do not even care to show up. Also, while I am here I have decided at some point in my life I want to reach my education to the point of a masters and bachelors degree just because I have the chance to do so. And I would also love to join the Peace Corps one day in hopes of giving back to the people in the same situation of the Paraguayans. Along with education seeing the family aspect here gives me a new sense of the meaning family. Though I have always been close to certain parts of my family it is not something I would do to just hang out with my family (as a first option) and being here it really is. Family here is the most important thing and they show it by the pure friendship they all have with each other which I love. By now seeing myself I fear of what it will be like to go home. Though I am not a totally different person just the matter of the people I used to be friends with, though a few exceptions, my group of people will be very different. It will even be so different arriving back to the U.S. and being a minor. Because here when you are 18 you are considered an adult and here I am. I am my own person and though I do have a host family support system I am pretty much on my own. Making my own choices and choosing my own path.  Going back I feel like I will be with these people that are so new to the idea of being free and they simply want to party and go hard and I feel like after living here I do not want to waste that time because there is so much more to life than getting wasted. But I will say with honesty that down here I will occasionally have a drink with my family when there is a party or when I go to a bar I will get  a cocktail but it is not a I am getting drunk it is the social aspect of it. I see people starting at age 6-85 that spend their days selling gum and bread on the streets. They always wear flip-flops and they feet are cut up and covered in mud; they do that all day every day just to make ends meat. And the thought of wasting my time of getting messed up is just disrespecting all the chances that I have in U.S.  I also really wonder what the adjustment will be into the social aspect of society for me with people my own age. Because, even here I have my fellow AFS people who are on the same mental age as me and all of our Paraguayan friends at least 23 years old and older. It is only month 3 and ½ and I feel this way but it is a great thing to see. I am becoming more at peace here every day. This last Thursday I was meeting with my AFSers from the cities around me as we usually do and we went to get ice cream before dance classes, OH YA! F.Y.I. I take dance classes now twice a week with AFS students from this local lady who did not get much business before us now she is booming! Any who the Belgians taught us a new card game called President. It was just a good fun time and that’s when I really realized, though I miss home and that will never go away, I am okay with everything I like it here. 

Here is the picture from my birthday with some of my friends! Left to right Fernando (AFS volenteer), Jolene (germany), me!, guy up front David (just a friend of PY), girl next to me Rebecka (Sweden), Ruben (Belgium), Charleen (belgium), Lieselot (Belgium), And nick (germany).

Eating a little differently...

Ok so I feel like I have been holding out on you guys about the food here because it is such a HUGE part of Paraguay. So this will be your enlightenment on new food and how to eat normal food but a little differently. the best way to do this is pictures so here we go! To sum up the normal food i eat i only need a few words and please take them in total reality, MEAT, BREAD, CORN, SALT. This is also why people (exchange students) get fat while coming down here because all the food is so dense and the amount of vegetables is lacking.

Okay so this was one of the first differences i noticed about how they eat food differently. For cake  the cut a big circle in the middle and cut around that so the pieces are not as large unlike the thin pie like pieces we cut in America. I do not like the way the cut it here because then you miss out on the frosting

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Okay so this was one of the first differences i noticed about how they eat food differently. For cake  the cut a big circle in the middle and cut around that so the pieces are not as large unlike the thin pie like pieces we cut in America. I do not like the way the cut it here because then you miss out on the frosting

Okay so this was one of the first differences i noticed about how they eat food differently. For cake  the cut a big circle in the middle and cut around that so the pieces are not as large unlike the thin pie like pieces we cut in America. I do not like the way the cut it here because then you miss out on the frosting

MELON! Ok so this is the most common especially rite now is watermelon. We eat at least 2 a day in my house and it is more of a, how much melon can you shovel into your body, literately. Instead of cutting the melon here they just use spoons and hallow it out. So when dinner ends they bring the two halves to the table and everybody starts spooning it out. However, this is slightly ineffective because when there are large groups they have to pass around the giant melon and it takes more time but if they simply did slices it would be melon for all. But, the way the eat the melon even more reflects the culture because everything is a whole.

ORANGE! they eat oranges in a way here that get under my skin! It takes ten minutes to eat an orange it is quite frustrating. First you have to peel it like above..Then...(below)

You cut off the top and squeeze the sides and suck out ALL the juice. Once all the juice is gone then you open the orange and eat the insides... So much time.

This is my new favorite fruit it is called mburucuya in Guarani, or passion fruit as we all know it. I defiantly did not know passion fruit was a fruit i just thought it was a flavor that you could get in smoothies.

it is filled with these little seeds and you eat the insides with a spoon. It is very tart but delish the juice it makes is to die for!

once eaten you can see the insides where the seeds were made.

this is a mburucuya flower (i did not take this picture) but this is how the plants look really pretty.

Now we are at classic Paraguay comida. This is Chipa. EVERYBODY EATS CHIPA. It is a type of bread with a different flavor but i love it! The photo above (i did not take it) it what i see all the time. They are these baskets with Chipa that the venders have a walk around with them on their heads to sell Chipa it is 3mil Guarani´s for a chipa (less than a dolar) and you can buy them everywhere on the busses, streets and parks.

This is Sopa Paraguaya. It is the oldest most traditional food of the country. They think of it as the only solid form of soup but its like corn bread SORRY not soup... 

This is where you cook the sopa. It is called a tatakua. Almost every person in Paraguay has one of these in their back yard, including my family. Because this is how you CAN cook sopa and Chipa. Though you can also cook it in the over the flavor is much richer when you cook it in the tatakua. To see more on it go to: http://brittanygoesglobal.com/2011/06/12/recipe-and-video-for-chipaguazu-a-paraguayan-delicacy/.

religion and a womens place in paraguay

This blogging process i am trying to make it so it is a getaway for me but currently i am simply dragging myself to write every so often. I just feel like I am not doing anything with myself here therefore is nothing to update the world on but I guess why not talk about the very large part of Paraguayan culture which is religion. The major religion here, as it is in most of the world, is catholic. Also, like the other parts of the world the Paraguayans pick and choose the parts that they want to follow and the parts that are ¨less¨ important. I have always found it humorous how people that follow Catholicism and Christianity are so selective. It is like making a sub sandwich and selecting which rules, or toppings, you like and fit with your life style and the other ones that would make it more difficult to eat like jalapenos. Though my whole life I have seen the controversy of what is ¨correct¨ in the bible, but then seeing the reality of the situation and opinions of Christians makes me laugh how selective religion truly is. For example I have met people in my own family, people with Westboro Baptist church (for more information visit www.godhatesfags.com not that I think you need more information about their options than their URL), and politics on topics of abortion, gay rights, and many other controversial topics that are ¨wrong and against the bible¨ when I laugh and say ok you people want to stick to your guns on this you have to stick to your guns on it all with the rules like so below:

Leviticus 19:27 Do not cut or shave your hair.

Deuteronomy 17:2-7 kill anyone with a different religion.

Leviticus 20:27 Wizards, Psychics ect must be stoned to death.

Leviticus 11:9-12 Don't eat shrimp.

Leviticus 19:19 Don't let cattle graze with other kinds of cattle.

Deuteronomy 13:6-10  If anyone, even your own family suggests worshipping another God, kill them.

Deuteronomy 13:12-15 if you find out a city worships a different god, destroy the city and kill all of its inhabitants... even the animals.

Leviticus 21:17-18 People who have flat noses, or are blind or lame, cannot come to an altar of God.

Leviticus 20:9 If you curseth your mom or dad, You. Must. Die.

Leviticus 19:19 Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric.

Leviticus 19:19 Don't have a variety of crops in a field.

Other things many people follow and do not follow is that being gay is wrong and should not be supported, abortion is murder, and pre marital sex is immortal sin. Many times these things are broken or are not supported.

Let’s be honest people, after seeing that we are all going to hell. But, anyway I got off on a rant of the hypocrisy of religion. BUT! I just wanted to give a sum of what I have seen in the USA and now what I am seeing here. One of things that most Paraguayans ignore from the bible is the pre marital sex part. Sex here is a walk in the park for many of the men and women here. People here have sex at age twelve here and that is completely normal. Once a women turns fifteen (the mark of women hood in Latin cultures) if she stays a virgin for much longer the people mark her as one and it is made fun of. 

            That for me that is so crazy, that it is considered so normal. My class mate just turned eighteen and she is seven months pregnant. I went to her baby shower the other day with my class mates. It was such a weird thing because in the United States when an eighteen year old is pregnant we do not celebrate it; it is normally a huge tragedy. As I had to endure this shower of these girls being so excited for my class mate I was semi repulsed by how people could be so happy that this girl’s potential had ended. She has no chance to study more or become her own person she is stuck with a child. Yes this opinion is very biased considering I do not like children a huge amount either, but especially because I know for a fact she will just become a house wife serving her husband and taking care of this child and people were just totally fine with the situation.

            My classmate was so happy about this all and it truly made me realize the way the culture has affected her to make her somewhat look forward to a life where the women do not have education and belong in the kitchen. It makes me so sad to see all of my friends here believe that the men are superior and that the women’s job is to pop out kids and worship the men. It makes me truly depressed to think that most of these girls will never get to see a society that completely respects women and their potential. Also, a place where you can walk and not be yelled at on every corner by disgusting men, on how you look. It makes me almost psychically ill now when guys hoot at me and my friends, because it happens like every second of my existence here. 

my class mates at the baby shower

my pregnant class mate that is 18.

vacationssss

           Last few days have been pretty fun here in PY! I have been really busy going out amost everyday with friends and with my family. I truely had a cultural experience on Sunday night when my family took me to a tradishional Guarani music concert. It was very interesting however i bearly understood any of the music i understod one song because it only consisted of the word rohayhu (said like row-hi!.who?) which means i love you in Guarani. The music was very different there was one man that was playing at least ten different instruments through out the night. The music was very strong and even though i did not understand what the meaning was exactly it was not to hard to infer. that it was about the struggles that the native people faced here in the past. I got together some more with my AFS friends to eat some Swedish cake and hang out which was also a good time.

I am more or less on my summer vacation now here in Paraguay. Though it is a month earlyer than most it is because i am not going to attend school when there are exams because all that would involve would be me sitting there readinga book everyday and i can do much better things with a month than be sweaty in a classroom reading. So i decided that everyday in the morning i will wake up earlyISH and study then go work out. For all of you who do not know i need to study because i have not yet graduated high school so i need to finish a math, writing and elective credit. Today i worked on math. Which is normally a subject i dread but i am not sure if it is the pure amount i missed learning or that this certain course of math is interesting to me; but i did not hate it i found it quite interesting. 

For the rest of vacations i hope to travel to Brazil three times now! And also other Paraguay cities to see the other culture along with visit my other fellow AFSers. My first trip will be the first of November to the famous Igwasu falls which boarder Argentinia, Brazil and Paraguay. But, my group is going to the Argentia and Brazil sides. This also requires getting a visa which i believe to cost $100 but it is only for people from the United States. Because everyone hates Americans.... I also learned of a trip that my friend is going on with her uncle and me and my other firends of AFS were invited to go aswell that we go to the beaches of Brazil for eight day and see the sites and learn to surf! Also, my family takes a trip in Febuary for fifteen days to stay with their family in Brazil. I really hope all these trips work out because it would be such a great time and experience!

this is what we do best is eat ice cream! these are (left to right) AFS volenteer, Rebecka whos house we were headed to to east delishious Swedish cake!, Malaurie who is from the french side of Belgium and the two others are germans.

Rebeakas beautiful bird

concert

tribal cheif that would not leave the stage at the concert

new friend from denmark! her name is Ann (far left), the others are all belgiums left to  right are Lieselot, Charleene, and Elieen. Some of my best friends!

sweet 18!

So as most of you SHOULD know my eighteenth birthday was two days ago! On October 12^th best day of the year! It is crazy how I had become so at one with my birthday customs of my family in the USA. Though it always varied, it normally in tailed a good breakfast, balloons and a prank gift in the mornings. Then followed by a long day of school where my friends brought me cupcakes and gifts and at night I would eat my favorite food and get my presents. My birthday here was slightly different. I woke up to the many ¨felicidades¨ from my family and a few hugs then I was off to school like any other day. When I arrived I was partially attacked by my companerios (class mates) as they hugged me and screamed felicidades. Also, they sung happy birthday to me in Spanish, English and Guarani. After that I went home and ate lunch with my family and then went to get a manicure, pedicure and a haircut with my friend Alicia all for under 50,000 Guarani´s which is under $10, got to love those prices; and proceeded to get ready for my party at the disco. I also ate dinner, which consisted of pizza, with my family. Then I ate a FANTASTIC birthday cake and a cookie bouquet. Once evening arrived I was picked up by my friends and AFS volunteers to go to the club. We arrived at the club and…they would not let us in. They said that only a copy of a passport was not enough to prove that we are eighteen. I also had my AFS ID that says my birthday day 10/12/1994 however, this brainless bouncer was incapable of understanding because here when the date is written like 10/12/1994 it means your birthday is December 10^th not October 12^th. We tried to explain to him that why would I be wearing a tiara, a gift from my awesome friends Lieselot and Charlene, if it was not my birthday. We also googled how the USA does the date system and showed him my Facebook wall that consisted of MANY happy birthday wishes but the guy was a complete bobo, idiot in Guarani, and was all muscles and no brain cells. I told him that to, but all in English so he could not understand because he still had very big muscles. It was very frustrating because the last week I had gotten in with the same papers before I was eighteen and it was the SAME bouncer. After a little waiting around seeing if we could knock some sense into this guy I said ¨screw it¨ and we went to another club called Checho´s. though it was not a good as Glam it was still a fun time with my friends. I arrived home at 6:30AM, showered then passed out until 10AM not quite enough sleep.

Things I missed from my birthday were defiantly presents. I did not get any gifts down here. It makes a person feel quite sad when they don’t get anything for their birthday on the day of their birthday because it is as if it is not worth celebrating. Also, I missed my family and friends even more. Knowing what they would have done for my birthday with me maybe have gone cosmic bowling or something of the sort. It makes me appreciate the little things that people do to make one day better because without those things the day is not quite a good and defiantly not the same on any scale.

part of my cookie flower arrangement!!

This was my delicious birthday cake! It had white chocolate creamy filling along with Dulce de Leche which is kind of like caramel and amazing I am slightly addicted to it! I forgot to take a picture of it but how they cut cakes here is a circle in the middle and then proceeds to cut around the big circle in the middle rather than the pie way we cut our cakes.

This is what I wore to the club I will post group pictures once my friend was assigned to take pictures loads them online. my feet killed me!

               

happy!

So you would have thought i wished upon a star because my wish came true! I am going to stay with this family!! I am so happy! I talked to my ¨mom¨ today at the table after lunch and she said that the AFS person said that I was moving tonight and that if I didn’t like it there I could come back to here. Then I didn’t really mean to look sad but I guess I did and then she said or you could just not leave because we don’t want you to. I am going to get to live with these amazing, nice and interesting people for the next seven months of my life!  I cannot even put into words how excited I am currently. So to accurately illustrate how I look right now how I am looking for all of you that cannot see me…

...not feeling so warm yet out side is smoking hot

Well looks like my week of luck has run out. I received a text today from the AFS volunteer saying that I am moving either tomorrow or Thursday to another home. He said he will ask my family one more time but he thinks the answer is a solid no. when I saw the text of that, I made up that I had a bad headache and came back to the house because I did not want to cry in front of my classmates. I really thought that I was going to get this whole trip into perfect motion and convince this family that they wanted another student but it just didn’t happen which makes me really sad. Also, the realization that I will get to spend my eighteenth birthday with complete strangers is not that warming of a feeling either. Though I will walk into my other new family positive and making things work it’s just really hard; it takes astounding amounts of energy to get settled, understand a household and also the people in it. And the winner I am I get to do it for the fourth time…yay…

On a brighter note though, I have had quite a fun and interesting week with this family.  On Sunday I went to their chicken farm. It is one of those places where they have the huge lots and lined feeders with thousands of chickens in a little space. Truly reminded me how much I miss being vegetarian. But, my family even said, ¨Oh we don’t eat those chickens we eat those (as they pointed to the chickens freely running around the land) because the chickens in the pins are not good to eat at all they just make us money.¨ it was quite amusing to see the people who grow the food will not eat it. 

path at the chicken farm

my new friends at school! left to right is Jessie, Edith (she speaks english!), Maca (like macarena the dance), Myle, and silvia.

my tiny nonaircondistioned class room with over 50 students

me and my temperary sisters and mom went to a really nice cafe for  dinner together  great food and good time

crazy fruit tree!! you eat them by biting them then swallowing the seeds whole instandly and spiting out the skin however if you eat too many you will become ill with a fever and a strike of the #2 according to my family.