So I love all of the Mate and terere every one drinks here. The mate is hot and terere is basically just cold mate. There are so many ´rules´and customs that go behind drinking it we had half of a day learning about it. Mate is yerba a type of tea I guess. And its put into a cup which is usually part of a set ´equipo´which includes the thermos. there are also lots of different yuyos. sounds like jujos. which are herbs-plants that have ´medicinal´purposes or just make everything taste better. you smash up whatever yuyos you want and add it to the water. you either heat up the water or use the natural cold water. you fill you cup up with the yerba which looks like loose tea leaves. and add the water. you fill up the cup and pass it to one person. they use the ´bambilla´straw to drink all the water and pass the cup back to the person serving. then they fill it up again and pass it to the next person. and so on. if you dont want any you say gracias. so if you´re sick you will usually say gracias so you don´t get everyone sick. also you typically don´t touch the straw for its not custom. i prefer the terere. but since its FREEZING some mate isn´t bad. my host mom drinks mate which gross yuyos so I tend to say gracias when she offers it to me. The yuyos also come in packets you can buy at the store so you don´t have to smash them up and add them to you water you just put them on top of the yerba and add the water. Everyone here drinks some sort of mate or terere. Mate dulce is coconut mate. Oh my god!!! it is soo freaking good. Another volunteer and myself went to another volunteers house and had it for like 3 hours. its a very social drink and very much necessary in making friends.
so its winter. and its very cold. i feel like i am on one long camping trip. i can never escape the cold. my shower is luke warm so thats the one point where my feet are warm. it was very rainy at first, now it is sunny but cold.
i´ve been eating a lot of paraguayan pizza, my family has a convectional oven and apparently pizza is the rich mans food...i think they are just showing off. but i keep telling my mom i want traditional food. so i have been eating more lately. stews, rice, meet, vegis, empanadas, and hard rolls. they sell so many of these in their store and everyone loves them. but they are the most stale rolls ever! i ate them the first day and now just tell my parents no thanks. they ate just stale rolls one night for dinner.
so the training is very intense. from 8 am till 5 pm every day. except sunday. so my internet access is going to be limited because i can not get to internet after class due to the dark. things arn´t too dangerous but not too safe to take the bus alone at night or walk in the campo alone at night. the campo is the country, and also where i live. one red dirt road with houses on both sides. very beautiful.
sunday i go to the futbol games in the community where i live. passeo de orro. there are typically 15 or more games a day. loud reggae tone music is played the whole time. there is a paragua vs. chile game on saturday in the capital we might go to depending on if we can get tickets.
there is much more to talk about but its time to go. love you and miss you all.
adios
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