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 :)

Semana Santa y Pascua (Holy Week and Easter)

This was one of the best weeks I’ve had so far in Paraguay. With my mom and brother, we went to visit her family in Pedro Juan Caballero. Pedro Juan is way up north of Paraguay and literally borders Brazil.  Early Monday morning my dad drove us to Asuncion, 6 hours, and then we got  on a bus to Pedro Juan, 8 hours. We finally arrived late Monday night and were exhausted.

The next morning I looked out the window and saw a hotel that was in Brazil. I didn’t believe that we were truly on the border until I went and walked across the street and I was in Brazil. I had never seen anything like it. It was truly an experience. One side of the street with traffic going one way was Paraguay, and the other side of the street with the traffic going the opposite direction was Brazil. It was funny because you can actually tell the difference between the two countries even when they’re that close to each other. Paraguay only accepts Guaranies for the money and Brazil real. The driving is also different; in Paraguay it’s crazy with no seatbelts and as soon as you cross the street it’s less calm and everyone’s wearing a seatbelt. There was no control or anything to cross.

Semana Santa here is a very typical and religious holiday. It’s different because the main Easter celebration is on Friday, not Sunday. No one has work or school from Wednesday through Sunday. The shops are open Wednesday and Saturday but Thurs., Fri., and Sun. they are all closed.  Here they also believe in not cooking this week or only eating traditional food. One of the most traditional foods here is called Chipa. It’s basically a little cheese bread roll made with Paraguayan cheese. It’s sold everywhere on the streets and a lot of people make it themselves too although it is very time consuming and hard.  It’s my favorite food here in Paraguay and I got to make it myself during Semana Santa.

My mom and I stayed at the house that she grew up in with her mom, in Pedro Juan, and my brother stayed down the street at my cousins house. On Tuesday morning, my mom, grandma, and uncle got up early to make Chipa for the week.  It’s all done with your hands and takes a long time.  We made a lot of it and had it for the week. Personally, I only like it the first and second day, but they ate it the whole week. 

One of my cousins there is around the same age as my brother and I so we had a lot of fun going out and such.  It was also a good week because it was a week of 5 different languages. My cousin speaks English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. My aunt and uncle to her sons only speak in Portuguese. My brother is going to Germany in January with AFS so he was learning German from my cousin. My other aunt is from Germany and her daughter too, so they only speak in German to each other. My grandma speaks Guarani to my mom and my brother, so it was a week of different languages and crazy conversations haha.

Pedro Juan is a commercial city with pretty much just shopping and restaurants. It wasn’t like that before when my Mom was little, but it’s changed drastically over the years.  Luckily my aunt likes to shop and I’m the only teenage girl in the family, because we went shopping like crazy. Wednesday and Saturday were girl shopping days, it was very fun! Thursday and Friday are family days.  Friday is the main day, Holy Friday and that day you don’t eat meat which is a big deal for Paraguayan’s considering they eat meat at least two times a day.  My uncle made a delicious fish that we ate for the couple of days.  Saturday night we left for home and by lunch time the next day we got there!

Salto Cristal

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while, a lot has been going on here; good and bad. But I wanted to share an amazing experience I had about three weekends ago. I visited this place called Salto Cristal about 8 hours away from my city with a group of kids from AFS. It was absolutely incredible. It’s a natural waterfall and camping place that you can swim in, take nice walks, and relax. I left my city with my friend and we took a bus to Asuncion, the capital city, stayed over at my friends’ house there, and the next day headed to another house to prepare to leave.  We got to the volunteer’s house in the afternoon and by night time the whole group of exchange students was there and all the volunteers. We ordered pizza and had a great night. The next morning at 6 am, we left in a bus for Salto Cristal. On the way, we stopped at a view point in Paraguay which was absolutely stunning. It was one of the few mountains I’ve seen and was considered a “hill” in California haha. It was nice though because you can see for so far at the top since most of Paraguay is flat land. 

As driving to the waterfall itself, we were on a dirt road and it started to sprinkle a little bit. It wasn’t that bad and the bus could still get through until we were about 4 km away and all the sudden the road stopped  and there was a cliff in front of us with a river blocking the way to the other side of it. It was scary, but we all got out and started walking. We finally made it in the heat, to the waterfall. It was gorgeous and such a nice day. When it started to get dark, we got back on the bus and headed to the campground. We all set up our tents, those who didn’t have one used hammocs, and had a fire.  We ate dinner and the next day headed home. It was such a wonderful experience and I recommend to any future AFS’ers to go on the AFS organized trips, they are always amazing!