Papillon Asuncion

Hello everyone! I know it has been many months since I last sent out a blog update. I never even wrote about my trip to Brazil with my mom back in April! I will do that in a separate blog. I've become fully adjusted to living in the city and extremely "delicada". The overly crowded, loud bus rides to and from work no longer bother me. I enjoy having the freedom to have a pizza delivered to my apartment or to go out dancing on the weekends or out to dinner if I ...

... found myself waiting sat down on my bag in the sun on one side, and in the mess of Ciudad del Este on the other side, fighting off taxi drivers trying to force me to come with them. And no, I don't need plastic sunglasses, nor a Roleks watch, thank you all the same.

Coming from Brazil or Argentina, Paraguay is quite a fall in terms of country development. Life there is more expensive than in Bolivia, but in terms of development index it's in the same ballpark ...

... de taxirit vanaf het busstation naar het hotel presenteert de stad zich aan ons. Er staan prachtige koloniale gebouwen, keurig onderhouden en mooi verlicht en we zien hele wijken met armoedig uitziende bouwvallen. Er rijden dikke Mercedessen en BMW´s rond, terwijl de rammelende bussen minstens 40 jaar oud zijn en evenals onze taxi die - dat durf ik te wedden - van ellende in elkaar gaat storten voordat we het hotel bereiken (die weddenschap zou ik overigens verloren hebben). We zijn ...

... to know the city a little better would bring us out of the lull we were all experiencing. So we took the cable car up to the top of the mountians and admired Salta which is still an impressive place, regardless of it's small town feel and less than welcoming inhabitants. The next week would be easter and we needed to make plans quickly as time was getting away from us and if we weren't careful we'd find ourselves stuck in Salta over the Semana santa kicking ...

... there was just no way we would make it to class so had to wait a while before it stopped. When its raining most people (like my host brother) don't go to work, and most children won't go to school, but not the Peace Corps, training must go on. It is miserable if we have to walk any amount of time outside since the road will turn into deep red mud. A lot more has gone on, but I will have to save that for later.

... by 4x4 to the salt flats, which is one heck of a lot of salt and not much else around! we all had lots of fun taking silly pictures and visited a train cemetry. Our 4x4 got a flat tyre and we were left as the others drove out of sight, we didnt mind as we had Jim´s Ipod playing out providing excellent karoke. We had lunch at a cactus island which was very hot so we hid in the bar drinking sprites. We stayed out on the flats to watch the sunset which took ...

... when I say my mouth watered for each course. The barbeque that night was among the best I've ever had in Paraguay (which is saying a lot, since they do barbeque pretty well here). Speeches were made and tears fell (mostly mine) but the night ended raucously with dancing to Kachaka music. Our last day in site we cleaned our house from top to bottom, preparing it for our awesome and competent follow-up volunteer, Nikita. The water pump broke ...

... bun made with mandocia flour.) I bought some and thought to my self only in Paraguay can you have warm chipa on a bus at 4:30 in the morning. after that about 5 the bus dropped us off on the side of the road and some guys from the mission picked us up. I got to ride in Rodrigos old VW bug. Then I got to sleep and today I spent cleaning the house Brazilian style, it is my week to clean, you would be so proud, I scrubed my little heart out.

... nicht wegen der Kälte aufzuwachen (hatte ich schon erwähnt, dass hier weder Fenster noch Türen wirklich schliessen und auch gar nicht dafür ausgelegt sind?), ist es mittlerweile sehr heiss geworden. Ich weiss nicht, wieviel Grad es hat, aber es müssen weit über 30 sein. Ausserdem fühlt sich hier Hitze wirklich heiss an, weil wenig Wind geht und wir noch dazu mitten in der Stadt sind. Ich weiss nicht, was das für die Mosquitopopulation bedeutet, aber ich ...

... s a decent start, but doesn´t account for the stray dogs and chickens and other ridiculous sights which are common place here. In a couple of hours I catch a bus to Bolivia. It does not look that far on the map but the journey is estimated to take between 30 to 40 hours, depending on conditions (which look bad today), and the thick line of road becomes a faint dotted line when it gets within 100 kilometres or so of the Bolivian border and is apparently a "bumpy dust way". Wish me luck...