This one's for you, grandma June.

Though this first week and a half has been amazing, part of my heart is back where my family is. On Friday, I received an email from my sister notifying me that my grandma (my mother’s mom who lives in Chicago) took her last breath in her hospital bed with her children at her side. For a few minutes, I am going to get a little personal and talk about the fragility of life. I often use these 3 words together: the fragility of life; because that’s exactly what life is, it’s fragile. It’s also beautiful, terrible, unpredictable, fun, scary, sad, hilarious….but most of all, I believe it’s fragile. My grandma June is the closest person to me who has died. For this, I am very fortunate (I have too many friends who have lost parents, siblings, etc). However, her death has really made me consider some things that I have never thought about, or maybe I have thought about them, but they really haven’t hit me as they have these past few days. It is dawning on me that life does not wait for anyone. As a little girl, I always had my 2 grandmas, 2 grandpas, mommy, daddy and sisters. Everything was perfect and just how it should have been. And for a while, I thought that was the way it always would be; just so easy. But here I am, 2 grandparents gone, 2 surviving, and I‘m seeing that I’m moving into the second generation rather than being in the comfort of the third generation. I find it ironic that here in Paraguay, on this crazy, confusing, unknown adventure, I am realizing how joyfully and vulnerably I need to live my life. I’m happy that I am here in this place, at this time, doing just that. Please do the same; for the sake of your great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents, or whoever you have left. I’m sure all of them would tell you to please just live your life as best you can while you have it. I know that’s what my grandma June and grandpa Robert did as they literally traveled the world together in their younger years. As I am here in South America, I think about the fact that they were once vulnerable and adventurous, just as I am right now. I hope that one day my grandkids can look back and want to do the same. So grandma June, my heart is mourning as I think about the fact that I will never see you again on this earth, yet my heart is also full, knowing that you’re laughing, dancing and eating all the damn cookies you could ever want with your Savior and with your Roberto. Love you grandma, thanks for always keeping the party going, even at 2 a.m.   

Grandma and grandpa young and in love.

Oh Paraguay, you’re so weird. Let me tell you all, I love it here, but it’s strange here! The way people live their lives, the things I see, hear, smell, eat. It’s all so different, and a lot of it isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but that’s what makes it all so wonderful. While forcing myself to speak their language, ride in their cars on their streets, smell their smells, eat their food and drink their drinks, I am happy because it’s all about the adventure and the learning experience. I’m so happy I can say that my life and my habits are not confined to those of the United States. I am growing and learning outside of the U.S. I am proving to these people that I don’t need the U.S. to make me happy or to help me “function.”

It was Tuesday night and Kristin and I decided to go out and get some exercise. So we asked Enzo to come with us down the street to the park to play some soccer. We showed up and played around for a bit. And naturally Enzo and I were kind of on a team, leaving Kristin without a teammate. Feeling a bit left out, Kristin spotted a dog laying out in the field, so as she was dribbling the ball down the field, she pointed at the dog and said, “Hey you!” and passed the ball to the dog, hoping he would want to be on her team. Too bad the dog wasn’t interested. He ran away, fast. Enzo just shook his head and laughed while I continued to laugh so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes. Throughout the evening, Kristin continued to pass the ball to the dog, and he would just run away. Poor Kristin being without a teammate? No, poor dog.

On Wednesday, it rained all day. And I’m not talking weak, Seattle rain where you can walk around in the drizzle without barely getting wet. I’m talking a rainforest downpour. All day. Accompanied with the rain was of course, a thunderstorm, which lasted the entire day. The worst part of this storm was at 5:15 in the morning when Kristin and I were both sound asleep, until we were both awaken by a BOOOOOOOOOOOOM. Ok, I’m not joking when I say this, I thought Christ had returned. I was thinking, “Ok this is it!” But no, rather than it being Christ, it was a thunderbolt. Not only did this thunderbolt awaken me from my slumber, but it shook my bed, the window and set off a car alarm across the street. I lay in my bed for about 15 seconds, terrified. I whispered, “Kristin?????” She responds in a quivering voice, “Yeah????” I say, “What was that?!?!!?” She says, “Dude. I’ve never heard anything like that. It set off that car alarm!!!” At 5:15 in the morning, all we could do was laugh at the fact that we both had no idea what we were doing in this country with this ridiculous, earth shattering thunder. ;)

On Thursday night, Silent Chief’s brother and family came over for dinner. To our interest, Silent Chief’s brother’s name was Domingo; which means Sunday. Hm. As we were sitting outside on the patio, we were all getting a little cold, and Kristin and I were both only wearing socks. So then comes in Maria with two pairs of these slip on shoes. She gives one pair to me, and one pair to Kristin. We both thank her, as our feet felt warmer. After some time of wearing the shoes, Maria asked Kristin and I how our feet were, and I said I was good and I told Kristin what Maria asked, and Kristin’s response was, “Grandes pies” while pointing to her feet. This meaning, “big feet.” After further examination, I realized that the shoes Kristin was wearing were way too small for her feet and her heels were sticking out the end, explaining why she said what she said. Again, I couldn’t stop laughing and taking pictures of her feet with these shoes. Everyone else joined in on the laughter as well. Oh Kristin and her big feet. 

 

Kristin on the right, me on the left.

Yes. Perhaps a little too small? ;)

Silent Chief wanted Kristin to take this picture by the meat. I told Kristin to lift her foot ;)

  

 As mentioned in my last blog, there is a man who attends the church here, and his name is Nestor. He is quite the character. Each time we have been at the church for a function (they have a church function of some sort nearly every day, so we go to the church a lot) and have seen Nestor, he has made it a POINT to approach Kristin and I, shake our hands for an awkwardly long amount of time and talk to us about whatever topic he could possibly think of in order to further preoccupy us. Lilian and I have decided that Nestor has taken a bit of an interest in Kristin, so we have a good joke going that since Nestor obviously likes Kristin, then the only way which they will be able to communicate on their first romantic date, is by having me accompany them and sit in the middle in order to translate their romantic exchanging of words. There have been PLENTY of nights when Lilian, Kristin and I have sat in our room laughing SO HARD about anything relating to Nestor. Kristin and I joke with Lilian saying that she should date him (since she is single) and then Lilian throws it back at Kristin saying that she can’t date him because he is obviously into Kristin and then Kristin throws it on me by saying that he ultimately would probably only be interested in me because I am the only one who can talk to him. After all this Nestor joking, Kristin and I were sitting in church yesterday waiting for the service to start, and what do ya know, in walks Nestor, who sits RIGHT BY KRISTIN. Kristin turns to me with these huge eyes basically saying, “OH MY GOSH KATIE!!” and I look at her and say, “Dude, this is why I sat at the end.” Oh Nestor. More stories to come of him, I’m sure. 

As mentioned before, the church down here has some type of activity nearly every night. Kristin and I are not sure what we think of all of it yet. Part of us loves the fact that these people and this community are so invested in each other, their work and their love for the Lord. Yet sometimes, all these events exhaust Kristin and I. It exhausts me because it means I’m kissing more and more people on their cheeks, carrying more conversations (for myself and Kristin) and it’s exhausting for Kristin because she never knows what’s going on and is constantly trying to figure out what people are saying. Haha! Last week we went to one of the church functions where the night was dedicated solely to prayer. We started the evening by sharing concerns, prayer requests, etc. and then we prayed together in smaller groups. It was so amazing to see because all ages could attend this event, and there were little 7 year olds raising their hands to share their prayer requests with the church. Some requests were quite personal, some were general. What really touched my heart was when Enzo raised his hands and prayed for “the American girls and for their health.” He is so sweet. God moves differently down here. Right now, I cannot explain to you how or why I see this. Perhaps I feel this because this church is one of very FEW Christian churches in Paraguay. So, rather than the Paraguayans seeing church as a task or something to do on Sunday mornings, they treasure it. They are proud of it, they embrace it, they tell everyone about it. They are unashamed. What a privilege it is to see people who are seen as “different” on fire for their Lord. They literally have to fight for their religion here, yet why is it so easy for them to do so? In the U.S., church and church functions are much less popular than here. We have so many more rights and church is so much more “normal” in the U.S., so why is it harder for us to go? Why are we not as involved? Something I’ve learned over the years is that if things are harder in life, then it makes you cling to God for His direction and guidance. Perhaps that’s exactly what they do down here; and a big part of me wants that in my life. 

Last week Kristin and I started helping out at the school. The ages of the school are young children (about age 2 or 3) to second grade (about age 8 or so). This school was started about 5 or 6 years ago and since then, has done nothing but grow, through the grace of God. Kristin and my duties are to go into the school and read the children English books, teach English songs and practical English words, while focusing primarily on the pronunciation aspects of the language. Though there is an amazing English teacher at the school, her pronunciation is not quite there, so Kristin and I are able to provide proper pronunciation in order to help them learn more. It is a joy to go to the school because every time we walk in, the kids come running up to us and kiss us on our cheeks or hug us until they are told to let go. The teachers there have told me that they really look up to us. Why? That’s something we can’t really figure out. I guess part of it is because they have never had people our age (or anyone, that is) who has come into the school to help or just be a part of the children’s lives. I guess to them, we are a breath of fresh air. Fresh air that can teach some English. It looks like on Tuesday and Thursdays, we will be going into the school to teach while on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, we prepare for the days to come. So if any of you are interested in helping us, Kristin and I are scrambling to find fun children’s songs or stories online that we can share with the kids. We don’t want to let them down!  

The entry way to the school :)

Reading to the shy preschoolers :)

Reading to the 1st graders.

She had their attention :). These are the 2nd graders.

On our way to school one day last week (we walk there. It’s about 15 minutes. A nice morning walk) we stopped on the side of the road to get Paraguay’s famous “chipa’s.” They are basically cheese/ham/chicken/meet (whatever you want) wrapped in fried bread. As Kristin and I approached the stand, we looked at our options, and I told Kristin to order first. She decided on the 4 cheese chipa. Still learning her Spanish, yet making some good progress, she was confident in making her order in Spanish. “Dos four quesos, por favor.” (Two four cheeses, please). The woman looked at Kristin with the strangest look, not knowing what the word “four” meant, since it was an English word. I just laughed and said her order again, all in Spanish. Kristin looked at me confused, not understanding what she had done wrong. “You just said ‘dos four quesos,’ you got the two right, but then you said four in English!” We just laughed. You were close Kristin! You’ll get it!!

I don’t know what it is about Paraguay, but they LOVE fireworks here. They set off so many fireworks, that I am CERTAIN that they could fix all their roads here if they put their money towards the roads instead of the fireworks. Every morning, we wake up to fireworks and we go to bed to them. Yesterday there were so many going off, that I just couldn’t stop laughing. “WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FIREWORKS GOING OFF AT 3 P.M.!?!?!?” It has just become so comical! Perhaps they are excited to celebrate Mondays? Tuesdays? Fridays? Perhaps they are just really excited about life here? Whatever it is, something is exciting enough to make these people set off fireworks EVERY DAY at EVERY HOUR! 

I brought some cards with me down here to pass the time traveling or at night when we’re all just hanging out. Kristin and I thought it would be a good idea to teach Enzo and Ara some card games and even a card trick. After all, they had never heard of card games down here and they didn’t know about the meanings or significance of any of the cards (ie: Ace, King, Queen, etc). So after teaching them all about that, Kristin taught Enzo a card trick (and I explained it to him). He was so excited about learning it, that he went and showed everyone he could. Right when Lilian got home from work, he called out to her to have her come into the kitchen to show her. We also taught them the game “War” (we thought it would be a good one since it’s so easy). Again, Ara, Lilian and Enzo ended up loving it. Enzo won his first 3 games he played, beating me, Kristin and his mom Lilian. He was feeling pretty confident in his skills, so I decided to tell him to challenge his cousin, Ara. They played for a while and things were going pretty well for Enzo, until Ara slowly began taking his cards. The more cards she would take, the harder Enzo would slap his next card onto the table. Kristin and I smiled at each other knowing he was getting frustrated and in no way was he ok with his girl cousin beating him at this game. He got down to 5 cards, and at this point, he wasn’t saying a word, just grunting and getting mad at Ara each time she took his cards. It took everything in me to not start laughing because of how mad he was getting at the prospect of losing. Even though Enzo is very dissimilar to a lot of American boys, I also saw a very competitive side of him which is common in any little boy around the world, no matter where they’re from. ;)

Last week Maria, Silent Chief and Ara took Kristin and I to the outside market. At first when we pulled up, the place looked so sketchy that I was sure they were bringing Kristin and I to a place to sell us. I’m not even joking! There were several tents lined up along the street with creepy looking men sitting outside them (I still don’t know what the tents were for). As we walked further toward this big building, I realized where we were. We walked inside and scents of all kinds invaded me. Walking and looking around, I saw shoes for sale, shirts, socks, purses, vegetables, fruit, raw meet (huge chickens hanging from the ceilings. Disgusting) chipas, drinks, etc. There were places to sit down and eat as well. I don’t know if I have ever smelt so many different things at the same time. I had to stop myself from making “ew” faces as I walked by stands that were without a doubt breaking several health codes. Would I buy food here? Most likely not. But it was a great experience!

FRUIT.

The market.

Things have been going real well here. I am still speaking a lot of Spanish (SLOWLY improving. I have my good days and my bad days) and Kristin is still walking around with a huge smile on her face and a positive attitude at the fact that she still is absolutely oblivious to what people are saying. Yesterday in church, (in the middle of church, mind you) she leans into me and goes, “I just realized that for 3 and a half months, you will be the only person I ever talk face to face with. That’s weird.” Haha! I feel privileged to be the person she can talk to, but there is also a little pressure there for me to entertain her! ;) She is doing awesome though. We have daily tutor sessions where I teach her the basics of Spanish vocab, grammar, verb conjugating, etc. My voice may or may not get a little louder during the times when I have to continually repeat things to her, but other than that, we’re both enjoying the learning experience of it all. ;)

Shopping in the city. I don't think there is enough of a selection.... ;)

Shoes anyone?

Interesting forms of staying cool (not very pretty looking!)

Trying not to get hit by cars coming from behind us!

The city in a nutshell.

Though Kristin is not communicating to anyone but me, she made an interesting comment the other day. I quote, “Katie….I feel like Silent Chief and I have a lot in common. We can look at each other and he knows exactly what I’m thinking…..” My response, “What?! How?! You never talk to each other!” This conversation of course ended in us laughing and both not really knowing how Kristin and Silent Chief have this connection. But apparently, it is totally there. 

I guess it is a downfall that no one else speaks English, but Kristin and I have been having some fun with it. The other day when Lilian’s family was over, they were all going off about something in Spanish, and since Kristin felt a little left out, she decided to express her verbal abilities by saying (and when I say “saying” I mean slightly yelling), “Katie! I just farted!” I looked at her and could not believe she would share such intimate information in front of people she didn’t even know! But after looking around the table at everyone’s reactions to this comment, come to find, they were still talking about whatever they were talking about, not even knowing that Kristin had just proclaimed personal information (because they don’t understand). Now we laugh at the fact that we can be completely open to saying anything we want. I would share another thing Kristin said at the dinner table, yet it is too inappropriate for this family setting. ;) 

Sometimes when people tell me things, they say it way too quickly and I can only catch about half of it. So a lot of the time, rather than asking them again what they said, I will make up the most random sentence and tell Kristin that that is what they said. A lot of times Kristin will laugh thinking it’s super funny or she will look confused wondering why they would say something so random! It’s actually been really fun and I am enjoying the power of twisting conversations. But of course in a healthy way ;)

The other day Ricky Martin was in Paraguay for a show. Since his recent (or somewhat recent? I’m not sure) revelation of being homosexual, a lot of the people down here are not as big of fans of him anymore (sidenote: homosexuality in Paraguay is FROWNED UPON. It exists, yet even if someone is a homosexual, it is culturally proper to still NOT show public affection toward your partner. Homosexuality exists down here, yet it is definitely swept under the rug and ignored). However, one person who has continued their love for Ricky Martin is of course, Silent Chief. The other day at lunch, Silent Chief could not stop talking about Ricky Martin! Whenever the subject would change, he would bring it all back to Ricky Martin! Maria says that rather than Silent Chief needing to be worried about Maria liking Ricky Martin, she is instead worried about Silent Chief having a man crush on Ricky Martin. This whole conversation was just hysterical and I couldn’t believe how long one group of people could retain a conversation about Ricky Martin. Wowsa. 

If you have gotten this far in my blog, thanks for reading it all. ;) I waited longer to write this blog and I’m still unsure on how often I will write. But for the mean time, thanks for hanging with me and for being on my side during my South American adventure. Love you all! Until next time, peace!