Difficult, amazing, and new experiences

To start off on a good note, I MET THE PRESIDENT OF PARAGUAY! This past month has had a lot of celebrations in Encarnacion because it’s the 400^th year anniversary of this city.  There’s been festivals and parades, and the president came down to Encarnacion to say hi and celebrate the 400^th years.  My work is a new center and benefits all of Paraguay.  People from all over the country come to the facility for the help they need.  So when the president was in town, he came to visit my work and check it out.  We all made a human pathway for him to walk through when he entered and all said hi. It was truly amazing! I have never seen that many different types of police, security, and army guards. As he passed me in the line, the president of Cenade (my work), stopped him and in front of everyone said to him, “Here’s a special girl that I want you to meet.” So I walked over and he gave me a hug with kisses on the cheeks, and then asked me some questions.  It was on TV and the radio, I was actually quite embarrassed haha. But he was very nice and we had a good conversation.  It was an experience of a lifetime.

A new experience I’ve had this past month is art class. My Mom loves painting and studied it a while back but stopped due to work and other things. The last time was four years ago but she wanted to start again, so I said I’ll do it with her. We go every Tuesday night and it’s mainly a painting class.  It’s really fun for me and I want to keep up with it when I come home.  I’m so glad my Mom is so nice and really feels like a real Mom to me. I got very lucky.

Now, a bad experience.  About two weeks ago, I was walking home from work for lunch at 11 o’clock in the morning.  I was walking on a busy road in front of the costanera. People walk here all day and night and is known to be a generally safe place to walk.  I was walking against traffic on the sidewalk and a motorcycle that was coming towards me, with two men, started to slow down and pull over. In that moment I quickly thought to myself, Oh my god, I’m going to get robbed. In a split second one of the men got off the moto and pulled a gun out of his waist band and was waving it at me.  I froze and didn’t do anything.  He came closer and pushed me against a fence and put the gun to my head.  I had a small bag that was across my chest and he was telling me to give it to him but I couldn’t since he was over me.  When he got off I gave it to him and he left.  I froze and then fell to the ground and couldn’t move and started to cry.  A few minutes later another motorcycle came up to me with a mom and two kids in their school uniforms. She offered me a ride to my house and I would never take a ride from a stranger, but from the shock I did and to be honest don’t even remember the ride home or anything. Unfortunately for me, that morning before work I went to the ATM, so I had my wallet with me with all my money and cards in it. I normally leave this wallet at home, unless I am going to the bank.  However, the money and items I could care less about, it’s the value of all the photos that were on my IPhone in the bag, and all my photos I had in my wallet that I care about.  Anyways, the first week was difficult and it still is and that has definitely changed me.  I can finally sleep again which is good and recovering slowly. People now ask me, “Don’t you want to go home? Isn’t Paraguay a terrible place?” And you know what, it’s not! It is still a beautiful country with many amazing people, and this can happen anywhere. It was just bad timing and luck. I actually feel bad for the guy that he feels the need to do that to someone just because he has nothing or can’t get a job or that’s the only amount of money for him to have food.  So that was my bad experience but I’m sure there’s many other good ones to come in the next 3 months! See you all soon :)