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Published: September 11th 2007
So here it is folks, the first proper blog from Paraguay. I appologise for how long it's taken me, but that is because my computer is so very British that it decided it couldn't talk to the South American internet system, presumeably because it's in Spanish, and being British, my laptop only speaks English. So I've had to wait for a wireless router to arrive and be installed. I could have used the internet cafes, but they're sooooo slow, and also I've been writing this blog in notepad on my laptop since I arrived and couldn't be bothered to write it all again on another computer. But it's all good now, as the wireless router arrived the other day, and was installed this morning. Hoorah.
Before I say anything else I have to say that it is flippin boiling here! If I don't come back with a fit tan I shall be not only disappointed but very confused. I also need to say that I'm such a complete idiot I managed to forget the most important thing to bring with me, my bank card! So I have 70 dollars and 60 euros to last me nine months! Good. I'll have to get my parents to post it out to me.
The journey over here was epic in a 'Lord of the Rings' sort of way. I left my house at 11am on Monday, went up to Egham and had lunch with my family, then went on to the airport. Dave, Bethan and Laura came to the airport along with my family to see me off, which was lovely but rather amusing as I was stood in the queue for security for a while so I turned and waved goodbye about 5 times. My first flight was delayed, I was supposed to leave at 4.25pm but we ended up leaving around 5. Got to Milan at about 7, which is a very easy airport to navigate, and had no trouble finding and making my transfer to Sao Paolo. That was an epic flight. 12 hours in the air, overnight. No matter how hard I try I can never sleep on planes because after about 2 hours my legs start to hurt. So by the time I got to Brazil (5am their time) I was exhausted and aching like crazy. Then I had to sit around for 3 hours in the deserted airport (which was rather creepy) before getting my flight to Paraguay. Oh and to everyone who heard me moaning about it before, they did feed me in the end, on every flight actually. On the flight to Milan I was offered 'Ham and cheese sandwich or cake?' an offer which I feel is somewhat akin to Eddie Izzard's offer of 'Cake or Death?'. Unsurprisingly I took the cake. Then on the flight to Sao Paolo I had a nice beef and pasta thing, with a side salad and salmon! God bless the Italians, even their plane food is good. I also got breakfast before we landed in Brazil, and then a quiche type thingy for lunch on the plane to Paraguay. I'm sure you all really appreciated hearing exactly what I ate. Just know it could be worse, my parents and I were joking that I should use this blog to keep everyone informed of just how many countries I have taken a dump in! For anyone who wants to know, put it this way, I've been here for a week now... *ahem* So back to the epic journey, I arrived in Asuncion and at passport the man in front of me turned around and said, "Is that a British passport I spy?" and we began talking and it turns out he's just bought some land outside Concepcion and he knows of SAMS so he said he'd come and find me somewhen! Small world huh? Anyway, so thankfully none of my baggage got lost or destroyed or mistaken for bombs/drugs. Although when I finally arrived at my house I discovered that my shampoo had well and truly exploded and so I spent about an hour washing it off everything. But lets face it, out of everything that could go wrong travelling I'm pretty glad that that was the only thing that did! Anyway, I keep digressing, as soon as I got out Claire was there waiting for me, which was a massive relief. So we sat and had a drink and chatted, then went to an internet cafe and I emailed my mum. Then we got the bus to Concepcion, which took like 6 hours or something, actually maybe more. But it was air conditioned, and I slept for most of it, sort of. It was that weird transport sleep where you're both awake and asleep at the same time. So eventually we arrived and I unpacked and went straight to bed. After spending litterly 24 hours travelling. There's air conditioning and a fan in my room so I can sleep comfortably without being too hot. Yay. My room is a bit bigger than my room at uni was this last year, and it has this massively high ceiling that makes it feel massive and also helps keep it cool. Which is excellent. The house is very basic, but then that's all you need really. I'm slowly feeling at home, which is good.
This year is either going to cure my fear of spiders or make me into a nervous wreck, I'm hoping for the former. There's a spider in our kitchen I have named Bob. Every time I go in there he's in a different place, first he was on the side, then on the fridge, then on a chair and then on the wall. I can't decide what is scarier, the thought that there are lots of identical twin spiders in my kitchen, or one lightning fast spider called Bob. Both are pant wettingly scary. But I have been training myself, and haven't screamed or even flinched at being near him. Mind over matter. Or something.
On Wednesday morning I went for a walk around some of the town, changed some dollars into Guaranies, a currency I fear I will never get used to, there's like 10000 to one pound. So everything costs in the thousands at least. Which seems a bit pointless, why don't they just knock a couple of zeros off the end to make it easier for everyone? The town is amazing, it looks like something out of a western, it's all dusty and there are motorbikes and horse drawn carts everywhere. It's so weird seeing such a contrast between horse drawn carts walking along roads that have adverts for mobile phone companies. In the Chaco, which is a desert type area, they don't have water but they have cell phones. Crazy. In the evenings the sun is bright red, like blood, because of all the dust in the air. I can't decide if it's going to be good or bad for my skin. It's bad because it's so dusty and dirty, but good because the sun dries it out, and I'm sweating all the dirt out (I hope. I'm certainly sweating at least). The sun sets and it gets dark at around 6pm here, but it rises a lot earlier. Just outside my house there are some parrots who every morning sing, and by sing I mean they sing like I do and sound like small children being strangled. There's also a dog called Sammi who actually knows his name, which I always find amazing when animals do, mostly because my cats are so thick they have no clue. The church is right next to my house and is a really nice green and white building. They paint everything white here, apparantly to celebrate stuff and just because they think it looks nice.
On wednesday evening I went with Claire, Suni and Rebecca to the Chaco where they do a kids club. It was really sweet, they sang some songs, played some games and the gave them something to eat. Half of the club was done in Guarani, which is the indigenous language, so I was totally lost. But it was still cool. I saw the cutest tiniest little puppy, and then even cuter and even tinier was a little baby bird of prey, I guess it was a hawk or something. It was stood on a bench and one leg was tied to the floor (not in a cruel way, just in a captivity way) and then Rebecca, who is I guess about 5 and is just adorable was talking to it and it was just the cutest thing I've ever seen. On the way back Rebecca gave me a letter and a picture she drew, and it said that yesterday she had talked to her teacher about Jesus. It was so adorable.
On thursday morning I went with Claire to invite all the local kids to the club that evening. So we walked all around Concepcion in what was nearly 40 degree heat, I nearly died by the end of it. There's a real difference between some of the houses, some are pretty much just shacks, but others are more like buildings and some are really nice and have electric fences round them! Around all the houses are little streams which I'm guessing are just full of sewage. Everywhere you go there are dogs, pigs, chicken cows and horses and so the town doesn't exactly smell great. The kids are all so cute, as kids tend to be. They all come running up to talk to Claire when they see her coming, it's so adorably, she clearly loves them all so much and they clearly love her too. It's properly amazing all the things she does, I don't know how she keeps going, it must be exhausting, but everyone clearly appreciates it and loves her.
After lunch each day I pretty much just hide inside because between 12 and 3 it's just too hot to go outside. I feel a bit better about not coping so well with this heat because all the people who live here are going on about how hot it is and how they're not coping either. At this time of the year it's the beginning of their spring so it's not normally this hot. Everyone just keeps praying for rain. Which I have to admit will be fun because then the entire town will just be a mud bath when that much dust gets wet.
On thursday afternoon I met some of the girls that Claire does a bible study with each week, and tried to chat to them a bit. One girl told a joke that I think my mum would appreciate, it goes "What does one earthquake in school say to the other earthquake? What grade are you?" And then they came out withe best quote I've ever heard in my life, which I didn't know the context of, which made it even better. One of the girls said, "Harry Potter? No yo soy mas lindo" which means "Harry Potter? No, I'm better looking." Which I found a) hilarious and b) amazing that they know all about Harry Potter, which to me is just so very British. The context of that that I didn't know at the time is that one of the guys from a team that had visited a while ago had looked like Harry Potter. Anyway! Then in the evening was one of the kids clubs, which I went to and essentially just pretended to be one of the kids. It was so sweet, as soon as we arrived they all just ran up and started hugging me, and when we played games they all wanted to hold my hands, they're so cute. The club was just like the one in the Chaco, where they sing some songs, play some games and then learn something about the Bible. After that we came back and had a little welcome party for me with the Bishop and some people from the church and a group of kids who wamnted to come. We had cake and everyone said a little welcome. It was so sweet.
Friday was pretty much like wednesday, I was supposed to go to school with Claire and Norma in the morning but I didn't wake up in time as that night I'd had some bad dreams and hadn't turned my fan on so didn't sleep too well. Well the dreams weren't so much bad just kind of upsetting. I dreamt that mum had sent me the wrong bank card and when I told her so she just said i was ungrateful and wouldn't send the right one, and then I was in a big shopping mall with Amanda explaining that I didn't have the internet yet in my house and she replied saying that because I hadn't emailed that meant I didn't really like her. So yes, upsetting dreams. Anyways, so then later in the morning when I had eventually gotten up I went around the houses to do the invitations for the club that evening. Hid inside during the afternoon. Then went to the club in the evening. After getting back from doing the invitations I thought that my legs had burned despite wearing factor 40 and only being out for 30 mins, but they'd just gone red and blotchy from the heat and went back to normal a bit later. Which was good. I think my arms are tanning already. Woo. At the club in the evening the kids sang our God is a great big God! Which is my favorite song ever! So I was very happy. Later that evening Claire and I went to the Expo which is a big agricultural show that happens each year. I really wanted to buy a tractor. We didn't see many animals, although we saw some chickens, ducks and turkeys. Claire suggested we bought one to have for christmas dinner, I firmly objected on the grounds that by christmas I would be far too attached to the thing to eat it. Then we saw a load of little chicks which were just gorgeous! Claire said I should buy one as a pet, as Jes had bought one at the show last year, but I didn't because it would make me sad not to be able to take it home with me (If it was still alive of course). Anyway, so there were loads of stalls selling stuff, like local crafts, and then stuff you normally get at these shows like toys, sunglasses, food etc. They had games and rides, we went on a very slow and slightly boring ferris wheel which was, well, slightly boring. Claire bought a big cup of fresh orange juice and when she asked how much they said 8000, and in my head I went "That's a bit steep for juice..." before remembering that that's like 80p! Turns out it was actually only 4000, so 40p. So I was right, it was steep for juice.
Saturday there was another kids club, which was just like all the others. During the afternoon Claire and I went shopping for food and stuff. Then in the evening there's this thing called 'El Puente' which is just like a youth hang out type thing which I went to. Ended up spending most of my time drawing with Jes who is the cutest little 5 year old girl who lives next door to me. Also had my first try of Terere which is basically like cold tea that you drink through a special straw that stops you sucking up any of the leaves that are floating around in it. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I didn't stay there long as I was just so very tired. Oh and before going to El Puente I played chess with Yvette who is another adorable 5 year old who totally didn't get the rules, and I had great difficulty trying to explain them in spanish! haha That girl is adorable, I think she's going to grow up to be an actress, she just has the most amazing facial expressions!
Sunday morning was church. As I was leaving the house Suni had a bucket of water that she wanted to empty so she chucked it over the floor, but she managed to do it just as Yvette was running past so she got soaked, it was very funny. Anyway, there weren't very many people at church, Claire reckoned it was because of the expo. We sang 'Come, now is the time to worship' in spanish. I went out to 'help' in sunday school, which mostly just consisted of being strangled as Rut and Rebecca faught over who would get to sit on my lap. I couldn't work out how to say "If you keep fighting neither of you can sit on my lap!" in spanish. After lunch I met this little girl called Romina who is 3 and a half, but looking at her you'd think she was about 4 months old. She can't hold her head up, or move her arms or legs, or speak. She's so so tiny and no one knows what's wrong. It's so sad, her mum just basically abandoned her so someone from the church is looking after her. It's so sad, she's so cute and just looks so fragile and delicate. Lots of the kids who I've met their mum's are in Spain or Argentina, suposedly to get work, but apparantly they had jobs here, they just wanted to get away from the responsabilities of a family. It's really sad. Anyway, that afternoon we did another kids club, then after that there was another one but I didn't go, I got dropped off at home, went in to my room planning to do something but ended up falling asleep without realising it. I woke up at about 6.20 and was so incredibly confused because it was dark and I didn't realise I had gone to sleep. I got up and felt really sick. So that wasn't a good afternoon. I was going to go to the youth service at church that evening but where I felt sick I decided not to. At about 11pm Claire had to leave to go to the capital, Asuncion, to take Romina to see the doctors, so that hopefully someone will finally be able to tell them what's wrong and therefore if there's anything that can be done to help. Monday is our 'day off' so I just ended up staying in the house while Claire was in Asuncion. I did some clothes washing (in a bucket. Lovely.), watched Love Actually, read a bit. A relaxing but boring day. Also the day marking a week since I left home. Which is just... Weird. Claire keeps asking like what I think of it all and how I feel, and I honestly can't answer. It's all so different and it all just feels so surreal, like it's all a big a dream and I'm going to wake up at some point at home.
At the moment I'm finding the Spanish really difficult because they have such different accents to what I'm used to. I feel really bad because Claire keeps having to explain things to me that I really should be able to understand. Hopefully after a little while I'll get used to it, I'll have to as only Claire speaks English. So it's really important that I get used to the accent as it'll be hard to build relationships with everyone if I can't understand what they're saying. I'm also finding that at the moment I don't really have enough confidence to say much. But I was like that at the beginning of Brazil and after a little while I managed to get over it and talk to everyone. Although Suni's been forcing me to talk to her, which is helping. And I'm talking to the kids more than the adults at the moment, because they don't care so much if I get it wrong, they just like to talk.
I can't believe I've been here for a week! It feels like I've been here 5 secconds. Crazyness. I have the most mahoosive mosquito bites. It's not fun, and makes shaving my legs difficult as I don't want to go over the bites.
Okay I should probably stop now, as this blog entry is becoming as epic as my journey out here! Although hopefully it didn't take you 24 hours to read it! So to close, I'd just like to let you know that I love and miss all of you, and anyone who wants to (and can afford to, and more importantly isn't put off by the epic 24 hour journey) is welcome to come out and visit!
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Miss Webster
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Well all miss you too, my dear. And bloody hell am I jealous that it's so hot. I've been sat in a classroom all day in a jumper praying that it doesn't rain on a book I (stupidly) left outside. xxxx