Finally a reason to have a fiesta

So as ´aspirantes´we had our first reason to have a fiest. Angelic turned 29. on saturday the 20th we had a birthday party/pot luck at brads familys house. She can´t eat any food with gluton, dairy, or meat. So all of our families were sumped on what to make because EVERYTHING is some sort of carb or meat. My mom and i made a potato, onion, and egg torta thing. And i also made sweet empanadas for the rest of the people at the party. I made a sweet apple filling (thanks dad for teaching me how to cook the sweet apples). All of the other host mothers now think that i am super ´guapa´, hard working, and want the recipi. we drank lots of beer and wine mixed with various flavors of soda and danced the night away. i danced a few times with carlos´s host brother....wow what a mistake.

the next day was sunday (fathers day in paraguay also) and i went to the futbol games as usual to watch my dad play and ref. I sat on a red beer carton next to mary´s grandmother, mary is a volunteer with me. About 30 min later the crazy drunk host brother whom i danced with the night before showed up...on a horse. Comes over to mary´s grandmother and tried to push her off the beer carton. he attempted to hand me a beer, i said no thanks and looked away, wow i got quite the evil drunk stare. then her grandma basically told him to f off in guarini and he walked away. right after that david showed up and we talked and he asked if i´d go to the dance after the games. i said why not, what the hell. He walked me home so he could talk to my mom and insure her that i would be safe, because it would be dark at this point.

The dance was really fun and interesting. They dance in a line of pairs, not like a big mixed ¨dance floor¨or red dirt. Each group of friends has a couple liters of beer or bottles of wine. So while dancing someone from your group will come to you and hand you the cup and then you pass it to your partner. then back to the delivery person. its soo cool how its such a social /sharing environment. i swear everytime i was thirsty there would be a person handing me an ice cold beer. beer with ice cubes. i met some really aweome paraguayan girls my age who were super fun. after being at the dance for like 30 min the crazy host brother comes into the middle of the ´dance floor´on his horse. totally wasted. one of the girls, a cousin of another volunteer who was at the bday party the night before, looked at me and said i never should have danced with this crazy guy. mind you the dance the night before was totally harmless in my mind. there was no touching of any sort!! So i ignored him, and in the mean time the horse shit in the middle of the dance floor. all the other drunk guys thought he was so funny!

So i have learned recently that girls and boys in paraguay typically arn´t just friends so its hard for people to understand american girls having multiple guy friends. this will be a big adjustment for me. Because now i am sure just dancing with david at the dance after the futbol games that people think we are more than friends, which isn´t true. We have become friends, hes very educated, and has not tried to put a move on me, and if he was intersted he would have, its just the way guys are here...very forward.

June 24th is Dia de San Juan. There are festivals all month at schools, and the municipalidades to raise funds for different projects. Lots of games are played... sack races, draw the tail on the pig, a sort of pinata game but with ceramic vases, and lots of fire ball things. so this saturday the 24th i´ll be going with my family to the capilla, church, to participate in these activities.

Its been a month tomorrow and I am really enjoying myself. I enjoy the training and the interacting with my family. My spanish is getting better daily, but i need to speek it more. We are together all day speeking english and only home in the evenings to converse with paraguayns for the most part. but things are starting to change, not such a structured training envirnonment i don´t think for much longer. friday we are going on a group tech excursion to villarica a really chuchi part of paraguay and going to visit a savings and loan coop. lots coming up. miss every one very much.


ciao