Meeting a Caveman, and getting itchy feet...

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Can´t believe it´s over a week since I last posted, time just seems to be flying past! Also wrote almost a whole blog yesterday then the computer decided to do its good deed for the day and switch itself OFF, so apologies if i sound a bitty moody!! Also, all of a sudden i woke up this morning with a friggin cold, suppose it´s my fault tho for running around in the rain on friday night - honestly never thought I´d be so happy at the sight of rain!!!!

Keep meaning to write about this but always forget - a few weeks ago we came across a real life CAVEMAN honestly!! The 3 of us were sitting perfectly innocently outside Casa Cuna, at the end of lunchtime as we always do, when this black man stormed past, grunting at the same time.... except he wasn´t just a black man - he had these crazy wild eyes, his frizzy, jet black, pulled-through-a-hedge-backwards hair was down to his waist, he had this looooooong skinny black beard, was barefoot, and the only material on him was this miniscule loincloth that we assume was supposed to be tied round his waist, execpt it was almost tied round his knees...well u can imagine exactly what was on show to the world and his wife!!! Me and helen didn´t know where to look and couldn´t help ourselves bursting out laughing - he looked 100% like he´d just been picked up from the Stone Age and plonked in 2007!!! Ever since we´ve been keeping an eye out for him so we can get a photo or ten, but so far no luck, maybe he found his time machine :P makes me laugh just thinking about him though!!

Okay where to start about this week.... well my work week has been as good as always, really feel like I´m getting closer to the kids even though I usually can´t say much to them, I guess I´ve learned there´s so many other ways to express yourself when working with kids. In Alegria, I´ve changed so now I´m working with the same class on Mon, Wed & Fri (preschool) and on Tues & Thurs I´m with the first grade, where there´s a lot less playing and a lot more learning... most of the time i spend working with kids that need one-to-one, or I do the teacher´s class prep, like drawing pictures & worksheets, so she can get on with teaching the class. Whoever knows me well will know that I can´t draw to save my life, well, not any more apparently!! I drew this ham sandwich for them (girls - they somehow cudnt understand why i found a ham sandwich so funny - oh i do miss them ahaha!!!!) and it was the most awful sandwich ever in my opinion...well did the teacher not stop admiring it for the rest of the day and show every other teacher in the school?!?! oh me now she´s got me drawing kitchens, ice creams, toilets, you name it!!! You see they don´t have a photocopier in Alegria, well now they do...me!!! So I´ve drawn a total of 19 ham sandwiches this week 😊

And the kids at Casa Cuna are just as adorable as ever! Now staying on there till 6, so this was my first 50 hour week, doesn´t feel too bad though! Staying on later means I get to muck around with the kids now 😊 right at the end, before their mums come. Can´t believe some of them stay there for TWELVE hours a day, from 6-6, compared to UK nurseries that´s nuts!

So what happened this weekend... oh yeah, on Friday night when I got home Chrissy (the daughter) and her boyfriend invited me out for ´pizza´ with her (apparently english speaking) friends... the catch being we weren´t going out til eleven, just the norm here I guess! It was a really nice place, pizza and all was good (although they found it sooooo weird that i like pineapple on a pizza, even tho it was on the menu!!) ...just didn´t exactly feel right being in a restaurant at 1 oclock in the morning thats all!! So anyways, the friends spoke about two words in english to me then proceeded to speak gobbledeegook spanish for the next hour.. well i started to try to follow but let me tell you when you´ve been up since 6, have been running around after kids all day and can´t seem to stop your eyes closing, well spanish doesn´t quite sound the same!! After that, they told me they were going to show me some of the good places to go out, which ended up on a sort of mini pub crawl (with me in my minky primark top, minky hair, jeans & flip flops - footballers wife heather?!? :P) round the pubs in Carmelitos Paseo (i think), which is a shopping centre by day, hotspot by night it seems. Also was shown two late night ice cream shops (!) more about them later.. oh and it rained!!!!!!!!! oh me I´ve never been so happy to see water!!!! it was like nothing, spitting really, but it put a smile on my face anyways :D

Then Saturday, which, shock horror, me and Helen spent *ahem* shopping, eventually got more than one going out top (twas killing me, those of u that know what im like!!) the shops there seemed to be more normal prices that I would pay in the UK, upmarket for here of course, but I certainly impressed Christina (the mother in my family) rather than the usual cheap rubbish i buy!! Went to the cinema cos we had nothing else to do, oh me twas AWFUL, something about chillies and spices?!? My highlight of Saturday was when I finally realised that I now know my way around (cos I managed to find Emily´s hotel, and the centre today), something that I´m really proud of cos everyone now seems to ask me where we are etc, and I feel a lot safer now that I don´t have to consult my trusty map every 5 minutes and know if the dodgy taxi drivers are taking us in the right direction...

That night we started off at the Britannia pub, of course, fast becoming our regular! Probs cos it´s a nice atmosphere and both food and drink´s really cheap, SO wish i was a beer drinker though!! For all you beer drinkers, a litre and a half jug of beer costs 3 pounds... there´s also this thing which can only be described as The Big Tank Thing which is just a huuuuuuuuge cannister with a tap that could quite easily keep you going all night...we haven´t managed to push Hugh quite that far yet but when we do I´ll make sure photos are taken!! After that we went to the place I had been to the previous night, and met two of the english teachers from the Anglo, Emily (yes another one, it´s confusing) and Ellie, and two of their paraguayan friends. Mmmmmmm...cocktails...

Not much to say about Sunday, went to the cinema AGAIN just cos we had nothing else to do!! Although this film was definitely better, sooooooo confusing for a sunday though, Perfect Stranger i think it was called?

Next weekend we had planned to go to Villa Hayes (pronounced Vee-ya A-jes) where Hugh and Emily are staying, cos it sounds so different from the city. Everything sounds a lot more basic, and I suppose what you would imagine Paraguay to be like, generally poorer than what we´ve been used to so far, but to be fair, in the city you can simply walk round the corner to go from one extreme to the other, from families who own their own pool to families who don´t own any shoes. BUT we´ve just found out that we can´t go next weekend, meh! Hopefully soon anyways.

In two weeks time, we´re taking a long weekend to go to the Iguazu Falls, WOW can´t wait!!! For anyone that doesn´t know (cos I didn´t before I came :P) they´re the widest falls in the world and one of the wonders of the world... they consist of 275 waterfalls (!) and apparently it´s just the most amazing sight... it´s on the border between Paraguay, Argentinia and Brazil, but we´re going from the Brazilian side cos apparently it´s much safer and much more touristy (probs cos paraguay gets a total of ZERO tourists every year..) so we´re also getting 2 days off work to go on a long weekend yey! Think we´re gonna go on an organised tour which means we can go and see the dam at the same time... ¡ know, i know, spending the day at a hydroelectric dam doesn´t seem like the most exciting thing in the world but it is Paraguay´s one and only ´tourist attraction´ so we had to do it some justice!! And it is the biggest in the world ... woohoo ... :S

Iguazu Falls (or Cataratas as they´re called here) is all anyone´s gone on about since we arrived so TOTALLY can´t wait... :D :D :D

Talking about amazing sights, have began to think about the time we´re gonna spend travelling.. 😊. To be honest I hadn´t really thought about it before, and i was quite scared that by the time it came to the end of my placement it would be hard enough to leave anyways (growing kinda attached to the kids already...eek!) and I´d be missing home soooo much by then that all I´d want to do was jump on a plane home (soz GET HAME :P) ... BUT we started looking at books and talking about stuff the other day and WOW all of a sudden it all seems sooo exciting!! We´ve already made a pact to spend Christmas Day on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro...eeeeeek cant wait! For anyone that doesn´t know, Copacabana is one of the most famous beaches in the world, and is 4km long... just google it!! And hopefully Buenos Aires for New Year ... argh how exciting!!!!!!!! High on my list is also Machu Piccu in Peru (one of the 7 new wonders of the world), the salt lakes in Bolivia and skiing in the Andes in Chile... :D (seems soooo crazy to think that we´re actually gonna BE in these places...they always seem like such far off places that only other people go to, you know what I mean?) It´s gonna be quite a struggle to turn our dream places into reality though, mainly fitting them all in - South America is so much bigger than you´d ever think it is!! Almost everywhere is accessible by long distance bus, though to give you an idea of size, if you look for Asuncion (where I am) and Rio de Janeiro on the map - that´s 30 hours on a bus, and they´re not that far apart! Good job im nae travel sick then..

Okay think I´ve babbled on quite enough now...well this is my third attempt at this lol. Soz for being pretty quiet the last few days, have been mega busy organising stuff and am kinda run down with the cold, but back on track now, will take a few days to catch up but I´ll get there!!

Hope everyone is enjoying (or enjoyed) freshers week... I know almost everyone I know´s in liquid right this minute as I´m writing this...jealousy!! Missin u heaps and bundles and squillions!

All my lurve as always,

Lisa xXxXx

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