Trigo del Sur Asuncion

... s almost too much to absorb, and so Asuncion, Paraguay kristinart

... in front of the door it was a private house... We knocked on the door, and a lady who was obviously having supper opened the door and we tried some guitars in the house's former garage. :) In the end, a pretty guitar over the shoulder, we went back to Asunción in the little bus with square wheels, laughing. :D

After that Daniela took her flight back to Santiago, so for money reasons I went back to the crummy hotel for my last night in Asunción, and then I hit the road back to Argentina.

... tait supposée rester seulement 5 jours, nous devions tout faire rapidement. Malgré la réputation du Paraguay, nous n'avons pas eu de problème de sécurité, mais nous avons eu de la chance. Lorsque nous nous promenions entre le palais présidentiel (la grosse meringue blanche carrée) et le fleuve, nous pensions faire le tour du palais et revenir sur la rue de l'autre côté. Un gars qui faisait son jogging nous a arrêté, et nous a dit de ne pas aller plus loin: littéralement ...

So I am now officially a Peace Corps volunteer!! Our swearing in was this Friday at the Embassy in Asuncion, and we're all staying the weekend here until we have to go out to our sites on Tuesday. That also means I now have phone. My number (for calling from the United States) is +595 971 306760, and I can receive and make international calls. This weekend is just a ...

... currently living on $3 a day, but that does not include our rent or food, which our host family takes care of. I believe in total that would be $6 a day. Everything is pretty inexpensive here. To give some comparison, it is $1.20 for a liter of beer, $0.20 for a kilo of manioc (compare to potatoes), $0.40 for the bus, and less than $1 for an empenada (but can vary). Speaking of food, I am getting fairly tired of heavy starches, greasy meat, and fried ...

... to pure mud. Training will last 3 months, and all Health volunteers (which I am) will primarily be taking classes out in the village rather than here in town. This means that I will only have access to phones and Internet once or twice a week when I come into town. I will likely begin intensive Guarani training Monday as a already speak Spanish. Some volunteers will begin with Spanish, so this gives me a leg up. My family intermixes Spanish with Guarani ...

... when you can't control it? We're having fun anyway!" I've been hearing that from Paraguayans for 2 years, but in that instance it was like a switch flipped in me, and I actually felt better. And obviously we did eventually get home, nobody starved, and the kids had one of the most unique experiences of their lives. There really was nothing to worry about. Adam meanwhile handed the reins of the computer lab over completely to the three ...

... never have before because I always take the night bus, and then we stopped and waited for the husband of this lady to arrive at this gas station we were stopped at, we ended up waiting about an hour and a half almost two. Then all now 8 of us cramed in this little van with all of this stuff, and the day is getting hotter by the miniute, no air conditioning of course. And then, the van overheats and we have to stop and put water in it, and ...

... Zimmerwahl. Als ich dann alles in mein neues, ruhigeres und grösseres Zimmer gebracht hatte, musste ich feststellen, dass ich dort keinen Internetempfang hatte. Also musste ich wieder umziehen - diesmal in ein drittes, ebenfalls recht grosses, aber eher lautes Zimmer (Danke, Ohropax!). Abgesehen davon habe ich zu meiner grossen Freude festgestellt, dass wir hier einen Fernsehsender empfangen, der alle Spiele aus der Premier League überträgt. Das mag ...

... I had started (opposite the Bus Terminal), I steeled myself for using a public bus without an interpreter. The operation went remarkably smoothly and twenty minutes later I was alighting exactly where I had intended (just an hour and a half later than planned). As it turned out, the delay was not a huge problem. I completed the suggested walking tour but think I can safely assert that downtown Asuncion is not a postcard friendly place. That said, it is pretty fascinating ...