Sum all this up? Where to begin...

Hey Everyone! Trying to get out a quick blog post during my lunch break in Gbe. Bah! Sitting down and trying to sum up everything that I´ve seen and done in the past month seems so dauting and trying to pick out words to properly convey the experiences in 25 minutes almost seems hopeless.

I´ve officially been here a month today. Two more months of training. Training is really fun, yet grueling. 8 hour days, with 4 hours of Guarani 6 times a week (even Saturdays) in the mornings, then technical training every afternoon, with Wednesdays having all 4 different training communities coming into the shared Gbe center for common areas on cultural, safety, etc. It´s a lot like a summer camp\study abroad\Paraguyan culture bootcamp. We´ve all gotten really close (the 12 of us who are RHS, or Rural Health and Sanitation,who live in Guasu Cora.) I feel pretty lucky to have such a great group, as well as an awesome host family. I really want to post pictures, but with the slow internet in cafes, it´ll have to be on a weekend, not to mention I´m afraid of getting a virus on my memory cards. Forgive me if I´m repeating myself or if this is all jumbled, I don´t know what I´ve posted from emails before. I acutally think that when I swear in I´ll have internet through a Tigo plug in modem, like the ATT 3G cards we have in the states, I´ll just have to buy a computer or bring one back at Xmas (thanks to the misinformed Packing list.) Right now with the jam packed days, after class on Wednesdays there are about 50 Americans and Paraguayan High Schoolers vying to use the 25 computers spread out across Gbe´s 4 internet cafes, so I´d rather walk around and eat an ice cream and go on a scouting mission of the city rather than sit in line to use a computer, sorry. Weekends I try to integrate into the community by going to the Saturday soccer match, and sometimes we even play a US vs PY girls game (and I have to do a week´s worth of laundry when it´s sunny!) rather than walk 45 minutes to a main road, catch a bus when or if if feels like coming, hope an internet cafe (or anything really) will even be open on a weekend. I promise though that I´ve been writing almost daily in my spiral notebook and taking notes on the days that I haven´t to share more indepth what I´ve learned and what crazy adventures I´ve been on when training ends and life takes on the more tranquilo pace of an actual volunteer (I hear training and volunteer lifestyles are like night and day.)

Mad Props to A. Glenn!! I´ve received mail from you and then my PBC county elections absentee ballot, woot!

I´ve only been to Asuncion once for a day, aside from when we flew in. I hear that after the swearing in ceremonry all the trainees take a 4 day vacation with the hotel discounts we receive through PC and lay by the pool, go see movies, shopping, etc, so that and Blas and Melo´s wedding are the two things keeping me going when it´s 93 degrees and no buildings have AC, I have no idea what my teacher just said to me in Guarani, I have to kill a giant spider in my room, I have to hold on for dear life in a crowded city bus, etc..


Anyways, I have to go back to school in 10 minutes. I miss everyone and hope everything is falling into place for everyone as is my tranquilopa life.

-Steph