Chipa

So things have been good here in 25 de Abril. In Guarani when you say a word that’s an event you add “hape” to the end of the word and in English it sounds like “happy”. So I went partidohape or I went fiestahape just some examples of things I’ve been doing, that are really fun to say.

Things that are normal now…Well kind of…

- Anywhere is a bathroom
- OOooh…and anything in the ground is a yuyo to put into terere or mate, and is sometimes washed.
- Picking of the nose…anywhere…in front of anyone.
- Wiping hands and face on the table cloth, or sharing a community napkin.

This past week I made chipa twice with my host mom, once 10 kilos of chipa and the other time only 2 kilos. Chip is basically… fat, eggs, cheese, anis, salt, almodon (which is flour made out of mandioca), and some liquid that is made out of lemon and the innards of an animal. Then the chipa is put into the tatakua for about 5-10 minutes. The tatakua is prepped by having a fire within for awhile then pushing all of the wood out and then it’s a big hot oven for awhile. Delicious!!!

My host sister is really into painting nails…and all of the women have their nails nicely painted all the time…so right now my toes nicely done. Each toenail is half pink half red with yellow dots down the middle and on the red side is a flower. And since I’ve been wearing flip flops every day my feet get really dirty but my toe nails still look really nice!!

Finally bought myself a hammock!! Best investment yet, in Paraguay. Recently it has been hot. Really hot. And the people here when its hot, about mid day, they just sit. It feels weird to just sit for about 5 hrs. So I’ll sit in my hammock for about an hour then feel like I need to do something. They think I am absolutely nuts if I want to ride my bike somewhere when its hot, or wash my clothes in the shade, when its hot. So the last two day’s I have literally done nothing from 11am till 7pm. If I want to go out to Calle 11 which is about 3 km I need to go before the sun comes up and leave when dark, to not freak out my family.

So Serafin, host dad, went on a business trip for one night and I get a text from him… “el numero de eisaved” and I said “quien” and heard nothing. The next day the family was mad because I didn’t give him my phone number. I was super confused because he sent me a text so he obviously has my number, but he does not know how to work his cell phone. The text was asking me for my phone number to give to his son so his son could call my phone to talk to my host mom. Eisaved is how Serafin thought you said and spelt my name. learned a little lesson about cultural misunderstanding!

The coop is going to build me a little casita and I can not wait. If I eat another tortilla or mandioshururu I might die of grease overload. Mandioshururu is deep friend mandioca with deep fried veggies. Looks like deep fried scrambled eggs. Oh and I also ate something that looked like corn bread the batter, then it was deep fried. LOVE IT! A neighbor died at 28 from a heart attack, shows what their diet its doing for them!

So I can get mail sent to Horqueta which is 20 min away instead of going to Asuncion which is 6 hours away.

Elizabeth Tippy
Calle 11 or Cooperative Integral del Norte 25 de Abril ( i need to ask post office which is better, but both will work i think)
Horqueta 8820
Paraguay
South America

The volunteer who lives pretty close by told me she got a post card that said her name, and Horqueta Paraguay. i would love a post card from anywhere!!!

love you all